Heroes Adrift by Moira J. Moore

From the author's website:  "Shield Dunleavy Mallorough and Source Shintaro Karish are summoned by the Empress and charged with the task of finding the descendents of her exiled sister. Lee and Taro recognize they are ill-suited to the task, but they are in no position to refuse. So, in search of lost royalty, they travel to the Southern Islands, where the heat is unbearable, the clothing is just short of optional, and the less-than-friendly locals couldn’t care less that Lee and Taro are working for the Empress."

Before I go anywhere with this review, I'd like to give Moore a shout out for creating a genuinely gender blind world when it comes to power and relationships.  In the Lee and Taro books, homosexual and heterosexual relations are both norms and Lee never knows off hand what a person's sexual orientation is.  Additionally, people in power are as likely to be women as men and being a heir is all about birth order and family rather than gender, but it's never pointed out. It just is.  I realized after I read the first book and appreciated that fact, that I've never read a book like that before.

Whew, what a lot changes in this book for the characters.  The Empress ships Lee and Karish off to the Southern Islands and every thing changes, and that is really for the good.  The series needed a bit of a shake up and this did it splendidly.  As it turns out, in my last review of the series, I was terribly incorrect.  Lee and Karish do become romantically involved in this book and, oddly, it doesn't seem to be a major plot point, which is nice, because these two have a lot of other issues to worry about.
 
I was quite taken with the description of the culture in the Southern Islands as well as what Lee and Karish do when they realize that they have literally no money and no method to make money.  While this does seem false that the Empress would fail to give them some money or at least make them aware of what would occur (did she really not know), it provided an entertaining reason for Lee to join a traveling circus as a performer.  Her bench dancing skills really do allow for a lot of story telling in this series, and rightly so.  Honestly, I wish they had more about bench dancing most books since it's one of the more original world building ideas that Moore describes.

The circus and the Islands provide change to the heroes since in this new world, Lee is the attractive and talented one and Karish is not.  This rightly causes Karish to doubt himself quite a bit after the adulation he's received in the empire while Lee gains a bit of confidence in herself and, in many ways, realizes that she has the upper hand in their relationship.  While this has been true for awhile, it's only on the Southern Islands that she accepts this and does something with it.  This clearly thrills Karish, but Lee is still left doubting and one gets the feeling that it will not be smooth sailing for their working or personal relationship when they return to High Scape.

The search for the missing heir, while interesting, takes second place to the more interesting story of Lee becoming accustomed to the islands.  While it is interesting, most of the time, I'm still left wishing they'd go back to the story of the circus.  I think with Moore, I prefer her characterization and world building to her mystery plots.
 
As an aside, I will point out once again that this series is staying pretty damned interesting to me.  Of course, book three is usually when I love a book series the most and everything after it all comes apart, so maybe it is good that my library doesn't have the next few books in the series?  No, it's not.  I'm requesting that they purchase!

Cannot wait to read the next book.  I think I know what I'm loading onto my nook for my travels to Seattle!

Verdict:  8.  I think the move away from High Scape and the normal parts of the Empire revitalized the series some what and changed up Lee and Karish, making it a stronger book than the immediate prequel.

Thoughts:  I'm kind of sad that had to leave the Southern Islands!  Also, my favorite cover so far even if I can't picture Lee wearing anything so revealing.

Lee and Taro books

1. Resenting the Hero
2. The Hero Strikes Back
3. Heroes Adrift

Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace

From Amazon: "There are lots of children on Hill Street, but no little girls Betsy's age. So when a new family moves into the house across the street, Betsy hopes they will have a little girl she can play with. Sure enough, they do—a little girl named Tacy. And from the moment they meet at Betsy's fifth birthday party, Betsy and Tacy becoms such good friends that everyone starts to think of them as one person—Betsy-Tacy.

Betsy and Tacy have lots of fun together. They make a playhouse from a piano box, have a sand store, and dress up and go calling. And one day, they come home to a wonderful surprise—a new friend named Tib."

I  love classic children's stories, especially those about young girls, such as Heidi, Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, and Little Women.  I'm always pleasantly surprised when I find a new series (as I recently did with Little House In The Big Woods) but these discoveries get rarer and rarer over time.  One day while cruising the Classics section, I came across an intriguing book titled Betsy Was a Junior and I excitedly almost picked it up before noting it was part of a series.  When I got home, I did some research and discovered the Betsy Tacy series, which starts with a children's book about two five year old girls!

I was thrilled.  The series seemed to have a following and it was based on a friendship.  After getting it from the library, I read it in minutes and then went to add Betsy-Tacy and Tib which is the next book to my library queue.

This is one of those rare, sweet stories that is aimed at children but pleasant to read as an adult.  The topics it touches on such as friendship, growing up, death, imagination, and going to school could be enjoyed by a very young girl AND a slightly older woman.  A friend mentioned that she planned to read these with her baby girl when she was old enough and I envied her.  This is exactly the type of book I'd love to share with a daughter.

It's full of the every day lives of a couple of girls from the turn of the century and it easily shows that imagination is timeless.  Betsy's ability to tell a story that creates a way to play for her and Tacy is fun and their little serious conversations on topics such as the death of a loved one are both heartwarming and amusing.

Verdict:  8.  I'm pleasantly surprised at how well it stood up for my reading.

Thoughts:  I have already started to continue with the series, but I'm quite excited for the later books in which Betsy is slightly more grown up and the story is less childish.

Betsy-Tacy Books 

1. Betsy-Tacy
2. Betsy-Tacy and Tib

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

From the author's website: "Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy. 

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place—and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side. 

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make—between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny? 

Unearthly is a moving tale of love and fate, and the struggle between following the rules and following your heart."

How's this for an admission?  I went into this novel expecting the worst.  I have had no luck with the big name young adult angel novels, and this one had gotten so little press and reviews on my favorite blogs that I just assumed it was kind of not great.  And to prove my point of "Go into something with low expectations and you're sure to be pleasantly surprised", I loved this novel.  In fact, I immediately did a search on Amazon and Goodreads to see if I was going crazy and I found I wasn't alone.  The ratings for this novel were almost all good.

The story starts with a vision from Clara which leads her family to move in an attempt to make the vision come true since Clara's mother (an angelblood herself) declares that this is Clara's purpose in life.  To fulfill this vision.  Clara does not doubt her mother, so move they do.  There Clara meets several others who will either help or hinder her in her purpose and she learns more about what it means to have a purpose and to have the blood of an angel.

Clara's story is an intriguing one which explores the concepts of duty versus love, destiny versus choices, and friendship versus family.  The real winning conflict, to me, is destiny versus choices.  This is an especially fitting conflict to be explored in a novel of angels and devils since God created angels without free will.  How much do I love the author for explaining that in this novel and addressing how an angel would fall without God's express permission and orders?

I honestly never knew if Clara was making the right decisions, but it wasn't because I felt she was being dumb or vapid.  Like Clara, we are given certain input and data, and based on that, we have to guess -- is Clara making the right decision?  Does it matter if her soul gets slightly tarnished if we feel she's morally right?  Or are her decisions ones which will have longer consequences than we can guess at?

I'm very excited for the next novel now.  I want to know more about Clara's family members especially.  Why is her mother so secretive and what is the deal with her brother?  And, again, I'm so happy that I want to continue to read not based on the romance but based on the strength of the plot.

Verdict: 8.  I was surprised by how much I liked this novel, and I'll happily get the next book in the series.  It's not the best book I've ever read, but it's a quick and entertaining read.

Thoughts: Seriously, why is it so hard to find good novels about angels?  Hush, Hush was hysterically bad.  Fallen had so many problems and its sequel was worse.  I haven't heard good reviews for any other big name angel books.  Good on you, Cynthia Hand!

Also, contrary to what it might seem from the copy, Tucker is no supernatural creature.  He's human.  His sister is human.  There are humans in this story and they don't suck and they aren't unimportant side characters, which is a nice change from just about every paranormal novel I've ever read.  Sure, there aren't many, but it matters.

Breaking Up by Aimee Friedman

(A really short description of the book) From the author's website:  "What happens when your best friends hate your boyfriend?"

Since that doesn't do it justice, I'd like to add that this is an exploration of the junior year of high school for Chloe, the main character.  It explores the topics of friendship, romance, and popularity like most books aimed at teens.



I've had this book on my Amazon wish list for years, but I was recently shocked to find that my library had gotten a copy and I immediately reserved it.  I got home, and read it immediately (and quickly), and decided I had to promptly tell you that I really liked this graphic novel.

Then, I began to ponder how to describe it and it all seemed so generic.  It's about romance, and popularity, and friendship, and getting to know yourself.  Can't that describe almost any work aimed at young adults?  But, it transcends that simplistic description by being realistic, a word I find is often hard to use when it comes to describing characters in young adult novels.

Chloe, the main character, is flawed.  At times, she's cruel to Adam, though never intentionally.  She's a touch triumphant at another character's pain near the end.  She makes stupid decisions.  The thing about her is that she's also likable and human and the choices she makes are understandable.  She's a teenager and she's learning from the mistakes she makes, as well.  I never wondered where her actions came from, they all seemed so natural.

Her three closest friends also all seem very real, even Mackenzie, who quickly emerges as an antagonist to Chloe.  Mackenzie never seems to be acting maliciously just to be malicious.  She has clear reasons for the way she acts, even if those reasons might not seem good enough to a person reading from Chloe's viewpoint.

I was cheered that the ending, while happy, wasn't saccharinely so.  I can't use the word real any more in this review, so I'll simply say that it felt less like an ending and more like a simple step to the next point in Chloe's life.  By the end, Chloe seemed to better know who she was and what she had to do to make herself happy with regards to both friendship and romance.  I can't imagine a better ending than that!

Since this is a graphic novel, I feel that I must point out that the art is very good.  It's easy to separate the characters just from a glance, and every page looks polished.  It was rather neat to see the way Adam's looks evolve over the course of the book as Chloe's opinion of Adam evolves.  I'd love to check out more work by Christine Norrie, the illustrator.

Verdict:  8.  I think it's time to re-add this to my 'for keeps' wish list.

Thoughts:  Why did this never get more reviews?  It only has six reviews on Amazon!  I'm so happy that Comics Worth Reading mentioned this work years ago!  Also, it's kind of odd it is set in an artsy school, but didn't seem to capitalize on that fact.

Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund

"With a past too terrible to speak of, and a bleak, lonely future ahead of her, Aerin Renning is shocked to find she has earned a place at the most exclusive school in the universe. Aerin excels at Academy 7 in all but debate, where Dane Madousin - son of one of the most powerful men in the Alliance - consistently outtalks her. Fortunately Aerin consistently outwits him at sparring. They are at the top of their class until Dane jeopardizes everything and Aerin is unintentionally dragged down with him. When the pair is given a joint punishment, an unexpected friendship - and romance - begins to form. But Dane and Aerin both harbor dangerous secrets, and the two are linked in ways neither of them could ever have imagined. . . ." 

I'm going to seem like such a jerk here, because I just mocked the use of private schools within young adult novels in my last review, but here I am about to say how much I enjoyed this novel about two teenagers in a private academy.

Interestingly, I came to this novel with no preconceived notions about how good it would be, nor what it would be about. I usually read so many reviews or hear so much about a novel prior to reading it, that I've already settled in my mind whether I'm going to like it or not and how it's going to play out. I'm usually wrong, but I still go into a novel having some information about it. With Academy 7, I literally saw the cover and copy and decided to give it a try.

To me, this book was the story of Aerin and Dane and their friendship. Yes, there are dark secrets that both are hiding, and there are hidden facts they've got to find, and challenges they must overcome, but the heart of the book and the part that made me enjoy it the most and rip through it like some sort of crazy person is the friendship. Aerin and Dane both start the book in (separate) space ships, which I'm sure you probably don't expect from the cover. However, within three chapters, they're in the same school and we quickly get to the meat of the story.

You quickly learn why both students are extraordinary and why they interest each other. This first third to half of the novel is beautiful. It's easy to see why they are interested in each other since I'm interested in both of them. It's fun to see them interact. It's great to see Aerin beat the pants off of Dane in combat. By the time the 'bigger' stuff in the story starts to happen, such as exploring the secrets both characters have, I was fully invested in them and wanted them to achieve their goals.

I'm definitely happy that my whims led me to read this book and I really hope that the author gets to write the sequel that she mentions on her site.  Dane and Aerin were two of my favorite young adult characters from this year.

Verdict: 8. It was fun in a pure mind candy type of way, but I enjoyed it and wanted more and looked for more immediately.

Thoughts: Was the publisher trying to hide the fact that this book is set in space and has science fiction overtones to it? The cover, which is gorgeous, certainly does not indicate that the book is going to have space travel nor planet alliances in it. The copy reads as slightly paranormalish to me, but that's because so many young adult novels nowadays are paranormalish. When I opened the first page and got space ship talk, I made a mental sound much like "bwah?" and checked the copy once again. I guess sci fi doesn't sell to teens.

Read an excerpt from the author's site.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

From the author's website:  "Graceling, my debut novel, is the story of Katsa, who has been able to kill people with her bare hands since she was eight. Katsa lives in the seven kingdoms, where very occasionally, a person is born with an extreme skill called a Grace. Gracelings are feared and exploited in the seven kingdoms, and none moreso than Katsa, who's expected to do the dirty work of torture and punishment for her uncle, King Randa. But then she meets a mysterious stranger named Po, who is also a Graced fighter and the first person ever to challenge her in a fight. The two form a bond, and each discovers truths they never imagined about themselves, each other, and a terrible danger that is spreading slowly through the seven kingdoms."

This is a hard review for me to write. Instinctively, I loved this book, but after I spent several days thinking about it occasionally, I was able to see that it had many flaws that ruined its perfection for me. And this book did come so close to perfection for me. This is, in fact, a good example of how I can be 'intense' in my love for something. Because it is so good, I pull it apart more than I would a mediocre book.

A Graceling is a human with a special skill or 'grace' that is superhuman. In the world that author builds, Gracelings are feared and respected servants to those in power, and world changing humans in their own rights. I felt that beyond the concept of gracelings, the world building in this book was rather poor. The author has little skill with naming people or places, and does not manage to convey how far each country is from those around it, nor does she explain how Gracelings are kept in check by those they serve. However, I barely noticed this on my first read through due to the author's skillful writing, her deft characterizations, and the strength of the initial graceling concept, which is almost like taking the idea of a superhero and inserting it into a fantasy world.

Katsa, the main character of the book, is very skillfully written. I often dislike the saintly characters that some fantasy heroines can be, and Katsa is not that. She is a confused girl, often sure of her own stupidity or ugliness. She has realistic fears, and realistic confidence in herself. It is a shame that such a well-written character has to deal with Po. Po is, unfortunately, more of a Mary Sue. He's good, thoughtful, loving, accepting, and he believes in the greater good. His grace is amazing and it can defy the ultimate evil. He loves Katsa through and through and only forgives her when she hits him! The only conflict on his part comes much later in the story and felt tacked on. I didn't notice this weakness of character on Po's part until after much thought about the book, which says something of the story.

There are a number of themes that run through this book, including Katsa's genuine dislike of marriage and motherhood (inspired by a society in which men are the kings of the castle literally and figuratively), her rejection of evil authority, the inability to fight against those who are harming that which we love, and her discovery and need to fix the fact that other girls and women are unable to cope with life as she can due to their lack of her 'grace'. And these themes worked for me, so much so that I was literally offended by reviews I saw on Amazon that warned parents that this book advocates against marriage and parenthood. This book does not advocate against marriage. It advocates against a society where women are powerless in marriage. These are greatly different arguments to make. Katsa's disdain of marriage and motherhood do not come without cost to her, and are well realized. When her lover asks about marriage and promises her every freedom within that marriage, she quickly points out that she would always know that she had been given that freedom. It's a beautiful scene due to the fact that she loves the person who has proposed, but cannot give in.

Unfortunately, for all that this theme exists, Po is the catalyst to most of Katsa's actions. Why does Katsa do what she does? Because of Po. He asks her the right questions or springs to mind at all the right times so that Katsa can do good. At one critical scene, Katsa knows that to save the world, she must leave Po, and she literally cannot do it until he forces her to. And once she does, she is always reminding herself that she left him and now she cannot fail him. This seems to weaken the themes I felt the author was trying to promote.

Ultimately, however, I still loved this book. It's an excellent young adult fantasy, and an outstanding debut. Katsa stands head and shoulders above most heroines, and, in the end, she makes a choice I respect. I can't wait to read more books by this author.

Verdict: 8. I added it to my "for keeps" wishlist right after reading the library book I got.

Thoughts: Seriously, the country and character names... they lack a certain something. Po? Bitterblue? West? East?