Nose in a Book

White Cat by Holly Black

Cassel Sharpe’s is the only member of his family that isn’t a curse worker. And he’s trying his hardest to be normal when he finds himself sleepwalking, trying to catch a white cat. After he’s kicked out of his boarding school for nearly falling off the roof of his dorm om his sleep he begins to realize that things with his family and his history aren’t actually what he thought they were. I can’t tell more than that without giving away major plot points.

I really enjoyed this book. It was something completely new in the whole supernatural powers genre. The story was well written and captivating. I recently read Tithe by the same author (her first novel, I believe) and while I really enjoyed the story, the plot was really jumpy but she seems to have improved – a lot!

If you are at all interested in this genre, this series is a must read.

Red Glove by Holly Black

*This may contain spoilers if you haven’t read White Cat.*

Cassel is just beginning the year at school when he is taken in by the FBI, informed that his brother has been killed and they suspect the murderer has also killed at least another five people. They blackmail Cassel into helping them find the killer. The only problem? Cassel soon suspects that he actually killed most of those people, but he knows he didn’t kill his brother. He also knows that if he cooperates with the FBI he could have bigger problems than being a murder suspect. He also has to deal with the fact that Lila has been worked to love him and the curse doesn’t seem to be wearing off.

I liked this book even better than the first one. Cassel has this way of working a con and getting himself out of the most difficult situations that makes for very entertaining reading. And although the books aren’t meant to be comedic, some of the characters are pretty witty and I laughed out loud several times. I also really liked the characters, Cassel especially. He has a lot of depth. Sometimes you read a book and the hero is just so good and perfect it’s kind of annoying but Cassel is real. He’s been raised in the world of the con and the mob so you’d expect that he’d be comfortable with a little bit of lying and deceiving and he is. But he’s not evil either. He’s uncomfortable with the fact that he’s killed people and even tries to reverse it. The other characters are real and believable too. Some are likeable and some aren’t, but I think that’s the point.

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy these two books as much as I did and I can’t wait for whatever happens next in this series!

Firewing by Kenneth Oppel

Griffin Silverwing has heard all the stories about his famous father’s adventures and feels he will never match up to him. So when his friends dare him to steal fire he does it. Unfortunately, it results in one of his friends dying and Griffin being sucked into the underworld during an earthquake. When his father, Shade, finds out what has happened he follows Griffin into the underworld where they must make a pilgrimage in order to return home. And of course, Goth is back causing all kinds of mischief.

I enjoyed this book just as much as the first two, if not more. This one was definitely darker and was written with older audiences in mind. I don’t know if this was intentional but there seemed to be a lot of religious symbolism which added some depth to the novel.

As with the previous two stories, the novel was full of adventure and although it followed a well established pattern for adventure stories, it was completely unique because of the nature of the adventures. I don’t want to say too much more because to do so would give away the story but trust me when I say that the adventure never stops and it’s really quite a captivating novel.

Once again, I can’t find enough good to say about Oppel as an author.  Not only does he tell a fascinating story but he writes it beautifully as well. I’ve found that reading books aloud to my son (as I did this one) has given me a greater appreciation for they way a novel is written. Some books are much harder to read aloud than others but never Oppel’s. His words just flow off the page and are a great pleasure to read out loud.

My son and I both enjoyed this book. Here’s what he had to say about it:

“I liked that the book was about bats. I liked everything about the book. Griffin was my favourite character because he was brave and he saved his friends. I would give this book a 10/10.”

Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel

Read for: Canadian Books Challenge

Oh, how I love Kenneth Oppel.  I was unsure about this one to start, but I should not have doubted!

Ben’s dad, a behavioural psychologist, has just transfered from the University of Toronto to Victoria to start a new, exciting research project.  The plan is to raise a chimp as part of the family and see if they can teach him ASL.  At first, Ben wasn’t too thrilled about having a new little brother or being that weird family with the chimp.  But very quickly, Zan (the baby chimp) became very important to him and he to Zan.  (I feel like this is a bit of a spoiler but it’s right there on the book jacket so here goes…)  Eventually, Ben’s dad decides that the project isn’t going as well as he had hoped and he decides to shut it down.  Of course, the question now becomes, what will happen to Zan?

I loved pretty much everything about this book.  First, I loved the characters – they were so real.  I’ve never been a teenage boy so I can’t say for sure, but Ben seemed pretty typical to me.  There were parallels between Zan and Ben that were so fun and at times funny to read about.  With Ben starting at a new school he decides that in order to survive, he’ll have to become the alpha male.  And it actually seems to work for him.

Ben’s dad was also a strong character.  For the most part, he was pretty unlikeable but that was the point.  He had a hard time relating to his son and that was made even harder by the fact that after telling Ben that Zan was going to be a member of the family, he proceeded to treat him as nothing more than an experiment while Ben was busily bonding with him.  When they shut down the project, for reasons that Ben couldn’t understand, he was extremely unsympathetic to Ben’s protests and alienated him even more.  I can’t say whether or not they worked that out without any spoilers but I’ll just say that it was real.

This story was about so much more than just a chimp living with a human family (which, really, could be a pretty interesting story right there).  It’s about relationships, Ben’s relationship with his parents, his friends, Zan.  It’s a coming of age for Ben and for Zan.  It’s about the issue of animal testing and where to draw the line.

I just have to address one more issue.  The book takes place in 1973 and I read a review in the Globe and Mail that stated that the book may be inaccessible to teens because of the absence of cell phones and facebook.  First off, I don’t think that gives teens enough credit.  It’s pretty lame to say that they might not be interested in the book because there are no cell phones in it.  But more importantly, I hardly noticed.  The time period really wasn’t all that important to the story.  There was only once that I thought “Why don’t they just use their cell phones?”  and then remembered that they didn’t have cell phones in the seventies.

Overall, this was a great read, of the quality I’ve come to expect from Kenneth Oppel.

Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

This is the first e-book I’ve ever read but I don’t have any specific device for reading e-books so I just read this one on my computer.  Obviously, that’s not an ideal way to read a book but the ease of getting the book from the library and not having to remember to return it was pretty nice.  I’ve definitely been an anti-e-book kind of girl and I’m still not planning on buying a dedicated device but I’m starting to see the appeal.

Anyway, Auden, whose divorced parents are both a little self-involved, decides to spend the summer before heading off to university, with her father and his new wife and infant child.  When she arrives, she’s surprised to find her normally put-together step-mother, on the couch looking like she hasn’t slept or showered in a few days and not so surprised to find her father completely oblivious to the stress his wife is feeling.  As Auden tries to come to terms with what’s going on a home, she begins to form friendships with some of the locals who have issues all their own.

I loved this book.  There is something so comforting about Sarah Dessen’s novels.  She’s so good at telling basically the same story over and over but still making it a completely new and different story (if you know what I mean).  Her main characters are always individuals, they never feel like the same character from book to book (which a lot of authors that are a prolific as her tend to do).  And the story is always unique.  And her writing is just so easy to read.  It just flows.  I can read through her books so quickly and not even realize how much I’ve just read because it’s just so effortless.  Someday I’m going to run out of Sarah Dessen books to read and that’s going to be a very sad day for me!

Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay

Read for: CBC 4

15-year-old Ned is in Provence, missing the last two months of school, while his father, a super famous photographer shoots photos for a new book.  The first morning he is wandering around an old cathedral, while his dad shoots outside.  While in the church he meets Kate, a young exchange student from New York.  As she is showing him around the church they catch a man climbing out of a tunnel he shouldn’t be in.  Over the next few days, Ned runs into the mysterious man several more times.  But it is on the evening of Beltaine when Ned and Kate are in a place they shouldn’t be, when the story truly begins.  Ned calls his father’s assistant, Melanie, for help and when she arrives she is swept into an ancient story that has been replaying itself over and over for 2500 years.  Ned and Kate and a few others must enter the world of the mysterious man to rescue Melanie before she’s lost forever.

I had a hard time getting into the book.  At times I really liked it and would be totally absorbed but as soon as I put it down that all went away.  I never had that feeling of the book calling me, needing to be read.  Because of that I had a hard time finishing it.  It also seemed to move really slowly.  I actually didn’t really like this book that much.  The only reason I ended up finishing it and not abandoning it is because I wanted to review it for the Canadian Book Challenge.  I honestly can’t say why I didn’t like this book.  The writing was good, the story was interesting, the characters were likable and well developed – there’s isn’t any one specific thing I can pinpoint that made me dislike this novel.  I think perhaps it was mostly a timing thing.  Maybe if I’d had more time to devote to reading it I would have been more caught up in the story and enjoyed it more?  Who knows.

The one thing I can pick out that I really liked was the dialogue.  The characters were comfortable with each other and had a witty dialogue going on that had me laughing out loud several times.  Although I didn’t love this book, I will definitely be giving Guy Gavriel Kay another chance.  I’ve heard plenty about him and it’s all been good.

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

This was another book I picked up because it was part of the library’s summer teen survivor contest.  This one I enjoyed a lot more than the other one.

Going Bovine is about 16-year-old Cameron who is pretty disappointed in life and his family when he starts seeing weird stuff.  At first he just ignores it or attributes it to some bad pot, but eventually it gets to be too big to be ignored.  The doctors diagnose him with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, otherwise known as mad cow disease.  The rest of the book is one giant hallucination (or is it?).  He sees an angel who sends him on a mission to find Dr. X who can cure him.  The mission takes him all over the southern United States and teaches him a lot about himself and his family.  It helps him to come to terms with his disease and his coming death.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about this book until the very end.  It was a little wacky.  (But maybe that was the point?)  But as strange as everything that happened was, there was a still an element of the real about it that kept you wondering if it was all in Cameron’s head or if only part of it was.  It also had some pretty good lines – my favourite:

‘Yes. Putopia. It stands for Parallel Universe Travel Office…pia.’ Dr. O. breaks in. ‘We haven’t figured out the whole acronym yet, but we wanted to secure the domain name before anyone else did.’

Also, Cameron was reading Don Quixote in his English class at school just before he was diagnosed and I suspect there are many parallels between the two novels but I haven’t read Don Quixote myself so I can’t say for sure.  (Can anyone help me out with that?)

The book was well written, funny, poignant and enjoyable.  The only complaint I have is that sometimes there was so much crazy going on I found it a little hard to follow.  I also suspect there was a ton of symbolism and such that I missed out on.  I bet this would be a great one to discuss in a high school English class though…

Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

I picked up this book at the library because it won the Teen Survivor contest (the local library picks a few books each year and then they vote off a new book each week) this summer.  It beat out Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, which I loved.  I figured it had to be good.  Well, I was disappointed – very disappointed.

Stephanie’s rich uncle has just died, leaving most of his money and property to her.  When she is staying at his (her) house one night she is attacked by a strange man demanding a key.  Just before he kills her Skulduggery Pleasant (a strange man she met at the funeral) bursts onto the scene and saves her life.  He then introduces her to a world where magic exists and the bad guy, Serpine, is searching for the ultimate weapon which apparently belonged to her uncle.

First off, I’m pretty sure I went into this book with unfair expectations.  Because it won the contest, I was hoping for something GREAT and it wasn’t.  But if I had just picked it up without those expectations, I might have enjoyed it more.

It actually wasn’t a bad story and the writing was pretty good.  I just found that the story jumped around a lot.  I felt like the author was trying to build excitement and suspense but it just came off as a little hyperactive.  It just didn’t seem to flow very well.

What I liked about the book though was the dialogue.  Stephanie and Skulduggery had these funny little conversations which I found very entertaining.  I don’t plan on reading any more Skulduggery books but I’m sure that lots of people will enjoy this book.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

Read for: This review

I loved this book!  I have to admit, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it.  For some reason I seem to have some kind of mind block about books that are written by more than one person.  I don’t know why.  Probably because a really long time ago I read a collaborative book and it sucked and somehow I just attributed the suckiness to the fact that two people worked on the book, when in reality it was probably something else entirely!

Anyway, this one was about two teenage boys named Will Grayson who both live in the Chicago area but have never met.  One night, through a set of funny and sad circumstances, they come into each other’s lives.  Even though they don’t really become friends, they each eventually gain something from each other.

The characters in the book were so real and likable.  Especially Tiny Cooper, the first Will Grayson’s best friend.  I think he was my favourite character.  As I read the book, the way I felt about each character changed.  Sometimes I liked them and other times I was annoyed by them.  I think this is why they felt so real to me, because this is how we feel about the real people in our life.  Sometimes they are awesome and other times we get ticked at them.

I also love John Green’s writing.  I’ve never read anything by David Levithan before but I think the two writing styles worked well together. (They wrote alternating chapters for each of the Wills.)  They styles were different enough that each character had his own voice but similar enough that book book flowed well.  And I loved the ending.  I had no idea where the story was taking me, but I really liked where it ended up.

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

Seventeen-year-old Ruby has been living alone ever since her negligent mother disappeared.  She’s been doing just fine, thank you very much (or so she thinks).  Eventually, the authorities discover her and she’s forced to move in with her older sister who she hasn’t seen or heard from in ten years.  Ruby’s sister Cora is married and rich.  Suddenly Ruby is attending an exclusive private school and living in a giant house.  But her mother has always taught her to be independent and not let anyone too close.  The novel is about how she comes to realize that it’s okay to let people in and let them care for you.

This was my favourite Dessen book so far.  I loved the characters and the story.  This story really had the potential to be lame and super cheesy but it wasn’t at all.  I really liked how she told this story.  I’m not sure if I can explain it without giving too much away, but basically everything didn’t magically get better just because she had money all of a sudden.  And everyone has problems, not just poor people.

I also really like this cover.  The pink part is the dust jacket and the blue part is on the cover of the actual book.  It’s pretty cool, right?

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

Colin, newly graduated from high school, has just been dumped for the 19th time by a Katherine.  He’s never dated a girl that wasn’t named Katherine, not Kathy, not Catherine, just Katherine.  After the 19th dumping, he’s a little depressed so his best friend, Hassan, takes him on a road trip.  Somewhere in Tennessee, they are lured off the road by a sign promising a view of Archduke Ferdinand’s final resting place. Once there, they are offered jobs and decide to stay for a while.  Colin, a child prodigy, spends his time working on a mathematical formula that will describe his relationships with the Katherines.

When I reviewed Looking for Alaska, I complained that the characters were too similar to the ones in Green’s other book, Paper Towns.  Well, I didn’t have that problem here.  This book was my favourite of the three.  The characters were more real and more likable.  Colin was endearingly neurotic and Hassan was funny and cute.  And of course the girl, Lindsey, wasn’t actually anything special – which I liked.  She was just a normal girl.  I think that’s why I didn’t like the female characters from Green’s other two books, they were just too out-there.

The thing I love about John Green’s novels is the wit he brings to the story.  If you were to tell the same story without it, it would still be an interesting story, but it just wouldn’t be as fun to read.  I also like the way he tells a story – his writing style.  He doesn’t have any fluff in there.  It’s just a nice simple, flowing style.   I can’t wait to read Will Grayson, Will Grayson.

Also, I just love the cover.