If You're Reading This, It's Too Late by Pseudonymous Bosch

Book Jacket

Beware: Dangerous secrets lie between the pages of this book.

Ok, I warned you.  But if you think I'll give anything away, or tell you that this is the sequel to my first literary endeavor, The Name of This Book Is Secret, you're wrong.

I'm not going to remind you of our heroes, Cass and Max-Ernest, or the ongoing fight against Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais.  I certainly won't be telling you about the nefarious Lord Pharaoh, or how the kids stumble upon the Museum of Magic, where the finally meet the amazing Pietro!

Oh, blast!  I've done it again.  I really can't help myself, now can I?  Let's face it--if you're reading this, it's too late.

Review

I think this series might be a bit like candy--the first few bites are delicious, but after awhile, the sweetness doesn't sit right..

I still enjoyed Bosch's kooky world of secrets and hesitant narrators.  But the spark wasn't there like it was in the first book.  Partly, I didn't like the plot as much.  There was less of the ominous Midnight Sun, and more homunculous.  That whole story seemed a bit far-fetched.  I guess this whole second book felt a bit more outside-the-realms of possibility than before.  And I know it's meant to be fantastical, but in my head, there's a difference between becoming impossibly old and creating a creature in a bottle.

However.  I loved seeing more of Owen and Pietro.  I hope to see more of Lily.  And I loved the third member of Cass and Max-Ernest's logica survivalist team--Yo-Yogi.  The story was fun and it was a quick read, but I never got as excited as I did while reading The Name of This Book Is Secret.  I'll probably give the third book a try, though.  In all fairness, I read this write after rereading the Hunger Games series.  It never had a fair chance.

Three out of five Cabbage Faces.

Release Date: October 2008
Reading Level: Grade 3+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection: J BOS

A Bride's Story by Kaoru Mori

Book Jacket

Acclaimed creator Kaoru Mori (Emma, Shirley) brings the nineteenth-century Silk Road to lavish life, chronicling the story of Amir Halgal, a young woman from a nomadic tribe betrothed to a twelve-year-old boy eight years her junior.  Coping with cultural differences, blossoming feelings for her new husband, and expectations from both her adoptive and birth families, Amir strives to find her role as she settles into a new life and a new home in a society quick to define that role for her.

Crafted in painstaking detail, Ms. Mori's pen breathes life into the scenery and architecture of the period in this heartwarming slice of life tale that is at once both wholly exotic, yet familiar and accessible through the everyday lives of the rich characters she has created.

Review

This is technically set in nineteenth-century Turkey, but it might as well be modern Mongolia.  That's why I read it, really.  Reading a manga with yurts and lavish clothes and fermented mare's milk!  I am reliving my trip last summer!

Anyway, it was very interesting in it's own right.  The most obviously unusual part of the story is 20-year-old Amir's marriage to 12-year-old Karluk.  And...they both seem pretty okay with it?  I'm not against women marrying younger men, but the way their affection for each other alternated between romantic and mother/son felt a little squicky to me.  But most of the time, they were actually super cute.

My favorite part was the day-to-day life of Karluk's large family, all living together.  Little Rostum is maybe the cutest boy I've ever seen drawn, and his story of watching a wood carver felt very true and very funny.

I feel obligated to say that there was a page of nudity--non-sexual, but still--which was unfortunate, because it wasn't necessary.  Otherwise, I would happily add this book to my library's collection.  As it is, I think I'll just keep reading them on my own.

Four out of five lost lambs.

Release Date:  May 2011
Reading Level: Grade 9+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection: Not currently part of Dunlap's collection.

Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz

Book Jacket

They're baaaaack.

Their first caper, The Spellman Files, was a New York Times bestseller and earned comparisons to the books of Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich.  Now the Spellmans, a highly functioning yet supremely dysfunctional family of private investigators, return in a sidesplittingly funny story of suspicion, surveillance, and surprise.

When Izzy Spellman, PI, is arrested for the fourth time in three months, she writes it off as a job hazard.  She's been (obsessively) keeping surveillance on a suspicious next door neighbor (suspect's name: John Brown), convinced he's up to no good--even if her parents (the management at Spellman Investigations) are not.

When the (displeased) management refuses to bail Izzy out, it is Morty, Izzy's octogenarian lawyer, who comes to her rescue.  But before he can build a defense, he has to know the facts.  Over weak coffee and diner sandwiches, Izzy unveils the whole truth and nothing but the truth--as only she, a thirty-year-old licensed professional, can.

When not compiling Suspicious Behavior Reports on all her family members, staking out her neighbor, or trying to keep her sister, Rae, from stalking her "best friend," Inspector Henry Stone, Izzy has been attempting to apprehend the copycat vandal whose attacks on Mrs. Chandler's holiday lawn tableaux perfectly and eerily match a series of crimes from 1991-92, when Izzy and her best friend, Petra, happened to be at their most rebellious and delinquent.  As Curse of the Spellmans unfolds, it's clear that Morty may be on retainer, but Izzy is still very much on the case...er, cases--her own and that of every other Spellman family member.

(Re)meet the Spellmans, a family in which eavesdropping is a mandatory skill, locks are meant to be picked, past missteps are never forgotten, and blackmail is the preferred form of negotiation--all in the name of unconditional love.

Review

I rarely delve into adult fiction, so whenever I find one I like, I view it as some fantastical gem.  Such is Lutz's Spellman series.  Although now that I think of it, even though the heroine is thirty, there is much in these books that is remniscent of YA books--a focus on family, through all their ups and downs, and there's even a teenage protagonist.  Rae Spellman, newly best friends with Inspector Stone, is one of my favorite parts of this series.

As is Inspector Stone!  His dedication to law and order (in every facet of life) makes for a very entertaining mirror of the Spellman's chaos.  And of course I was helpless to fall in love with him once it was made known that he was addicted to Doctor Who.  A man after my own heart.

Izzy remains incredibly smart and surprisingly dumb.  The best part of her idiotic moments are that they are usually because she is so smart.  As for the rest of the family, it was nice to see perfect-brother David acting like a schlub, and the horrible vacations of Mr. and Mrs. Spellman made for entertaining side stories. 

Mostly I love this book because of the surreal truth to it all.  Izzy hates it when her parents tail her or don't trust her answers.  But when they start acting suspicious?  She tails them and won't listen to a word they say.  If only my own neuroses were as entertaining as the Spellmans'.

Five out of five ladder escapes.

Release Date:  March 2008
Reading Level: Grade 9+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection: Not currently part of Dunlap's collection.

Black Radishes by Susan Lynn Meyer

Book Jacket

Gustave doesn't want to move from the exciting city to the boring countryside, far from his cousin Jean-Paul and his best friend, the mischievous Marcel.  But he has no choice.  It is March of 1940, and Paris is not a safe place for Jews.

When Paris is captured by the Nazis, Gustave knows that Marcel, Jean-Paul, and their families must make it out of the occupied zone.  And when he learns that his new friend Nicole works for the French Resistance, he comes up with a plan that just might work. 

But going into Occupied France is a risky thing to do when you are Jewish.  And coming back alive?  That is nearly impossible.

Review

This book was excellent!  It is another facet of World War II, one that I knew little about before reading Gustave's story (which is largely based on the true events of the author's father's experience growing up). 

I tend to avoid Holocaust stories, one because they are so incredibly sad, and two, because sometimes the horror is sensationalized.  I much preferred Black Radishes.  The slow discrimination, both by Nazis and by some Frenchmen, felt just as horrible and more applicable to modern times.  Gustave and his parents are stripped of everything--their home, their jobs, their freedom.  Yet they are the lucky ones, because Gustave's father was born in Switzerland and knows German.  Meyer skillfully hints that if life was so bad for them, the rest of the Jews in occupied France, and espeically the rest of the Nazi empire, had it far worse.

This is a coming-of-age story, an adventure story, a spy story, and a heartfelt story.

Five out of five stuffed monkeys.

Release Date: November 2010
Reading Level: Grade 4+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection: CAUDILL

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Book Jacket

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plains - except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay - no matter what the personal cost.

Review

How have I not already reviewed this!?  While writing my Hunger Games week post, I meant to link to each of my reviews to the trilogy.  But...no Mockingjay!  Thankfully I just finished rereading the series after watching movie, so thoughts are fresh!

And those thoughts are:  I HATE this book.  And I LOVE it because I hate it.  Here's what I mean: this book is painful to read.  Every character that I have doubted, loved, worried for--they all suffer, whether from mental collapses, torture, death, or manipulation.  Collins puts her characters through the most horrible things, and while I hate seeing them in pain.....I love that there are consequences.

Collins has masterfully written a series about war.  Not a glamorized war full of pure-hearted heroes and straight up evil villains.  Real people populate these books, with cloudy motivations, inherited worldviews, and real doubts as to what is right or wrong.  My heart is pretty much a twisted rag after reading about Katniss's inner turmoil.  She was unwillingly made into an icon of the rebellion.  She knows the Capitol is abusive and should be overthrown, but every move she makes toward freeing the Districts only results in more dead bodies. 

I just found this quote from Collins that pretty much sums upthe necessity of the horror and the complexity in her series, and especially this last installment:  "One of the reasons it's important for me to write about war is I really think that the concept of war, the specifics of war, the nature of war, the ethical ambiguities of war are introduced too late to children. I think they can hear them, understand them, know about them, at a much younger age without being scared to death by the stories. It's not comfortable for us to talk about, so we generally don't talk about these issues with our kids. But I feel that if the whole concept of war were introduced to kids at an earlier age, we would have better dialogues going on about it, and we would have a fuller understanding."

Despite all this darkness, there are some truly funny moments.  In fact, they are probably extra funny because of the sadness all around.  I laughed out loud at Finnick tossing off his hospital gown with a flourish, and later a guard commenting, "We can't be too impressed...we just saw Finnick in his underwear."  Then I laughed again when I described the scene to a friend.

With all the ways Katniss' life spirals into deeper levels of depression, it's amazing that Collins manages to give a happy ending at all.  But it's an ending I adore:  two broken people helping each other cope, survive, and grow together. 

Five out of five dandelions.

Release Date: August 2010
Reading Level: Grade 7+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection:  YPL COL

It's Been a Hunger Games Week

There has been little on my mind this past week besides Katniss, Peeta, President Snow, and the horrors of Panem.  Why?  Because The Hunger Games has taken over the world!

Like a huge portion of the USA, I went to see the new Hunger Games movie opening weekend.  I loved it!  It's right up there with Lord of the Rings as best book-to-movie adaptation (way above Harry Potter and especially Percy Jackson).  I could rave about it for hundreds of paragraphs, but I think its success is best summed up this way:

Usually, when I see a movie based on a book, the first thing I want to do when leaving the theater is reread that book, both to relive the awesomeness and to cleanse my mental palate of the errors made by the movie.  When I left Hunger Games?  I immediately wanted to reread Catching Fire and Mockingjay.  The movie had done such a good job at telling Katniss' story that I didn't need to read about it again--I wanted to continue with her ever-increasing horror story.

Books and movies aren't all, though.  I've been planning a Hunger Games party for the library, and last Friday, it happened!  41 middle schoolers/tributes showed up to live their own (less violent) Hunger Games.

I had some lovely librarian assistants (that's me dressed up as Effie, which worked well since I mostly ran around making sure things were staying on schedule).

This was not the end of the party!  Click the link to find out what happened next!

39 Clues: The Viper's Nest by Peter Lerangis

Book Jacket

The hunt for 39 hidden Clues that lead to an unimaginable power have taken a heavy toll on fourteen-year-old Amy Cahill and her younger brother, Dan.  They've just seen a woman die.  They're wanted by the Indonesian police.  They're trapped on an island with a man who knows too much about the death of their parents.  And a tropical storm is rolling in.  Just when they think it can't get any worse, it does.  Because the Cahills have one more rattling skeleton for Amy and Dan to discover...the terrible truth about their family branch.

Review

South Africa this time!  I don't know much about the country, so it was nice to learn some history with a big side of adventure.

Now that there has been death in the hunt for the 39 Clues, the story feels quite a bit darker.  Amy and Dan are realizing that some people they thought were bad might be good, and more alarmingly, people they thought were good might not be trust-worthy at all.  Normally I'd like a good dose of darkness, but this time I'm undecided.  So much of what is fun about this series is the romping, madcap adventures that have no real consequences.  It just feels strange to watch our pure-hearted heroes get a bit dirty.

As for the side characters: Nelly is still my favorite, and I look forward to learning more of her secrets.  I am losing patience with Ian.  I'm okay with one, maybe two, instances of "Um, parental figure, I have a feeling what you are doing is evil, but I'll go along with it..."  But eventually Ian needs to step up and claim some moral ground, because I'm getting bored with him.  On the other hand, Hamilton Holt is quite the surprise!  He's been saving the day quite a bit lately, in both physical and intellectual ways.  Interesting.  Good to know all the Tomas clan aren't brutish and stupid.

Four out of five aloe plants.

Release Date: February 2010
Reading Level: Grade 3+
Where In Dunlap Public Library's Collection: J39C