Blood Red Road

Summary: Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That's fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives, along with four cloaked horsemen, Saba's world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on an epic quest to get him back.

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she's a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.

Blood Red Road has a searing pace, a poetically minimal writing style, violent action, and an epic love story. Moira Young is one of the most promising and startling new voices in teen fiction.

Wohoo! Move over all my recent favorite books. This one has just taken the top spot. And if it's not blasphemous to say it, I think I might just add that I liked it even more than I liked The Hunger Games.

Seriously.

It's that good.

One of the first things you'll notice when you read any review of this book is that either people hated the fact that the entire book is written in Saba's uneducated dialect (horrible spelling/grammar, no quotation marks) or they loved it. I loved it. This may come as a shock to those of you who know what a grammar stickler I am. It took me a couple pages to get into it, but after that, I don't think I even noticed it any more. If anything, it sucked me into the book more fully than it would have without the dialect. It felt very realistic to me too. How would language on our planet change if the events in Saba's world actually took place? I can see how it would become like this, and that idea fascinates me.

I loved the characters. I loved Saba. Loved Jack. Loved that the story was about more than just a love story, but was so much about family ties and trust and friends and so many other good things. The action was amazingly well-written and I loved that this book ended without a cliffhanger so I don't feel like I'm being manipulated into the reading the second book. Which I will be reading as soon as it comes out because I can't wait to see what more Moira Young has in store for me.

Katherine

Summary: This classic romance novel tells the true story of the love affair that changed history-that of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the ancestors of most of the British royal family. Set in the vibrant 14th century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets-Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II-who ruled despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. Within this era of danger and romance, John of Gaunt, the king's son, falls passionately in love with the already married Katherine. Their well-documented affair and love persist through decades of war, adultery, murder, loneliness, and redemption. This epic novel of conflict, cruelty, and untamable love has become a classic since its first publication in 1954.

I enjoyed this so much! It came recommended by a friend (thanks Cretia!) and was worth every word. This book took me a little longer to read, but it's fascinating. Aside from the brilliant and compelling love story, what really sucked me into this book is the history. This is technically historical fiction, but the setting and most of the characters are as accurately portrayed as research allows. I loved the politics and the social struggles going on. Characters like Chaucer and John Wyclif make big cameos and I thought all the info in the changing religious scene was incredibly well done. Also, I loved the details on pilgrimages and the effects of the plague. Wow! This book is just sooo interesting! Plus, it's emotional. The characters are so real and their suffering is so compelling. I totally teared up at the end (I won't tell you what happens, even though it's widely-known history - just in case you don't know). Boy, am I ever glad that I wasn't born in medieval times.


The only disclaimer I have to make about this book is that, being medieval, there were some rather bawdy and lewd bits of humor. Aside from that, the whole fact that Katherine was John deGaunt's mistress is actually treated very tastefully - if you can believe it. Anyway, I recommend Katherine to all fans of historical fiction.

Jane Austen Ruined My Life

Summary: English professor Emma Grant has always done everything just the way her minister father told her she should -- a respectable marriage, a teaching job at a good college, and plans for the requisite two children. Life was prodigiously good, as her favorite author Jane Austen might say, until the day Emma finds her husband in bed with another woman. Suddenly, all her romantic notions a la Austen are exposed for the foolish dreams they are.

Denied tenure in the wake of the scandal and left penniless by the ensuing divorce, Emma packs up what few worldly possessions she has left and heads to England on a quest to find the missing letters of Jane Austen. Locating the elusive letters, however, isn't as straightforward as Emma hoped. The owner of the letters proves coy about her prize possessions, sending Emma on a series of Austen-related tasks that bring her closer and closer to the truth, but the sudden reappearance of Emma's first love makes everything more complicated.

In the end, Emma learns that doing the right thing has very little to do with other people's expectations and everything to do with her own beliefs. Laced with fictional excerpts from the missing letters, Jane Austen Ruined My Life is the story of a woman betrayed who uncovers the deeper meaning of loyalty.

I don't read a lot of Austen sequels or Austen based books, but I'm beginning to wonder why not, because every one that I've tried I've enjoyed. This book surprised me! It looks like a light bit of chick lit, but I found the emotions very real and relatable. That, and I just loved the whole subplot about the missing Austen letters. And while Pattilo takes some artistic license with Austen's life, she creates a story so real and so convincing that it makes perfect sense of the missing puzzle pieces in Austen's life. Frankly - loved it! That and a not perfectly wrapped happy ending made me respect this book more than I expected to. There's a moral and a message, but it's not hitting you over the head with it. I like that.

Oh, and my favorite part? The setting. Hands down. Emma, our main character, visits every important Austen site in England and I felt like I was able to visit them too - which I plan on doing someday in real life. In fact, I have my England trip all planned, and it includes tons of literary sites - particularly the Austen ones. It'll happen someday! But until then, I can reread Jane Austen Ruined My Life.

(And since this is adult romance chick lit, I just want to reassure those of you who might be wondering that this book is perfectly clean. Maybe one kiss. Nice of Pattillo, isn't it?)

The Tiger Rising

Summary: From the best-selling author of Because of Winn-Dixie comes the moving story of an eleven-year-old-boy, Rob Horton, who finds a caged tiger in the woods behind the hotel where he lives with his father. With the help of his new friend, Sistine Bailey, Rob must decide what to do with his discovery and at the same time come to terms with his past.

This is just a little bite of a read. It only took me half an hour on the treadmill to complete. Despite its length, though, I don't feel like this is a good children's book. Scratch that - I think it's a wonderful children's book, but I don't know if kids would like it. It's very heavy emotionally and while I admire Kate DiCamillo for not avoiding serious subjects I still don't feel like this is as enjoyable or uplifting as The Tale of Despereaux (which I absolute adored). As an adult, I didn't feel like it was long enough or fleshed out enough to be really enjoyable to me and I don't think kids will love it and treasure it like DiCamillo's other books, so I guess my response to The Tiger Rising is just somewhere in the middle. Neutral. Beautifully written, but not handsome enough to tempt me. :D 

But bittersweet and emotionally deep all the same. I don't know. I guess I'm just conflicted over this one!

Esperanza Rising

Summary: Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl could want: fancy dresses; a beautiful home filled with servants in the bountiful region of Aguascalientes, Mexico; and the promise of one day rising to Mama’s position and presiding over all of El Rancho de las Rosas. 

But a sudden tragedy shatters that dream, forcing Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. There they confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression.  When Mama falls ill from Valley Fever and a strike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must relinquish her hold on the past and learn to embrace a future ripe with the riches of family and community.

I thought this was a beautiful book! It's a sweet story about accepting what life throws at you without complaining and I loved all the historical elements. This is also based on the true story of the author's own grandmother. I thought the characters were all well-drawn, which made the story even more compelling. I wish it had been longer, actually, because I really enjoyed the whole reading experience. It's gone on my to-buy list (which, *sigh* is getting so long I've begun filling up an entire notebook with it, organized by genre).

Hex Hall

Summary: Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie's estranged father--an elusive European warlock--only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire student on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.

As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

I think the reason this book is successful and has such good reviews on amazon and goodreads and such is because it's much more complicated than the blurb up there would lead you to believe. It sounds like just a teenage story - with a little magic thrown in - but the plot ended up having some very interesting and subtle layers. I enjoyed peeling them back bit by bit and found myself completely engrossed in this book. I liked the characters, particularly Sophie. And HOLY COW!!! There is a twist that really threw me. Completely unexpected. Such a shock. I'm an expert at predicting books, so when this happens I really love the feeling.

This book is also very clean, but I have to add the disclaimer that one of the main characters is gay. I was really disappointed in that, because being a Disney-Hyperion book, I thought it would be perfectly clean. It bothered me a bit, but it wasn't a huge part of the book. I plan on reading the sequel because, really, the story is so interesting!

Starcrossed

From Goodreads:
How do you defy destiny?

Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it's getting harder. Nightmares of a desperate desert journey have Helen waking parched, only to find her sheets damaged by dirt and dust. At school she's haunted by hallucinations of three women weeping tears of blood . . . and when Helen first crosses paths with Lucas Delos, she has no way of knowing they're destined to play the leading roles in a tragedy the Fates insist on repeating throughout history.

As Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend. But even demigod powers might not be enough to defy the forces that are both drawing her and Lucas together—and trying to tear them apart.
 
 Loved this book! It's original (nobody else has done a YA retelling of the Iliad - at least that I've heard of) and so well-written. Josephine Angelini was able to strike a good balance between giving me enough information to stay invested in the mythology and the story and allowing me to figure things out along with Helen. Helen is a fantastic character - I loved her from the start. I connect with shy people because I've always been one. Also, this is no cliche love at first sight story. Helen and Lucas hate each other for a good portion of the book and try to kill each other, actually. This changes gradually, based on friendship and other cool plot elements I can't mention because I'm anti-spoiler and I ended up loving their relationship.

The other thing I loved about this book is that there is sooo much more to this story than romance. I was completely into the plot and the mythology and the twists and turns. The secondary characters were all awesome and I felt like I got to know them well, which really added to my enjoyment of this book. I can definitely say I recommend this book. Check it out this summer if you get a chance!

The Goddess Test

From Goodreads: 
It's always been just Kate and her mom—and her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate's going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear her mother won't live past the fall.

Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. And mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld—and if she accepts his bargain, he'll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests.

Kate is sure he's crazy—until she sees him bring a girl back from the dead. Now saving her mother seems crazily possible. If she succeeds, she'll become Henry's future bride, and a goddess.


Another Persephone myth retelling (what can I say, I can't resist them!), although this was plenty different enough from Meg Cabot's Abandon to not feel like just a repeat. I have mixed feelings on this. Despite loving the subject matter, the execution just wasn't what I wanted it to be. I'm not saying this isn't a good book or that other people won't enjoy it, but it didn't quite work for me (until the very end - which I'll explain later). First off, I did like Kate. I liked her determination to save her mother and she had an obvious inner goodness that made her likable. Henry was boring. There's really no other word for it. Sheesh, I have never met a more insipid Lord of the Underworld. I didn't think it was possibly to make Hades so tame and dull and bland. Also, the tests were not what I was expecting. I can't say any more than that, but they were a disappointment. 


I judge books like these on how easy it is for me to suspend my disbelief and dive right in. Constantly throughout the first 3/4 of this book I felt myself on the outburst of crying out "That would never happen!" "This is soooo not Greek mythology" etc... Unexpectedly, there was a huge twist at the end that solved most of my disbelief problems. It was so cool that it makes this book weigh in closer to the 'good book' side of my scale than the 'bad book' side. I'm thinking that if the sequel, Goddess Interrupted, can do anything to make Henry more interesting it will be fabulous. We'll see. I don't think I'll have the willpower to stay away from it, even if I hear that it's bad. I think it's safe to say that I have an addition to greek mythology based fiction. :D

1984

In a word - terrifying. Ok, two words: disturbing.

I've been on a dystopian kick lately, and I figured that I ought to at least read the original dystopian novel. I'm so glad I did, but I can't deny that it's given me nightmares. I think the thing that's most interesting about this novel is that, though it was written in 1948, it manages to still be relevant. And prophetic. The really disturbing part is how prophetic it is (scratch that - the most disturbing thing is the ending, but the prophetic stuff is pretty freaky too). It makes me want to question the world around me a bit more. Is history really as accurate as I think? What about current news media? How much information about me does the government know? I tell ya, this novel is enough to make a person permanently paranoid. I think it's good and important to question the world around us, though.

This novel will speak to different people in different ways and I'm curious: have you read it? What did you make of it? For me it felt like less of a novel and more of an essay sometimes (especially when part of the book was Winston reading pages and pages of a novel written by a rebel leader). That doesn't mean I don't think this is an incredible novel, but it certainly didn't read like I was expecting it to.

One warning - there is some sexual content in 1984. Nothing horribly explicit or drawn out, but in case you start reading it on my recommendation and find yourself shocked - you've been warned.

Oh, and I find myself just needing to say this because I can:

2 + 2 = 4.

Not 5.

The Hero With a Thousand Faces

From the inside jacket:
Since its release in 1949, The Hero With a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insightsof modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In these pages, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.

As relevant today as when it was first published, The Hero With a Thousand Faces continues to find new audiences in fields ranging from religion and anthropology to literature and film studies. The book has also profoundly influenced creative artists - including authors, songwriters, game designers, and filmmakers - and continues to inspire all those interested in the inherent human need to tell stories.

I have been reading this book for probably three months now and I finally finished it because I couldn't renew it from the library any more times and I figured it would be ridiculous for me to check it in, only to check it right back out. Just because it took me forever, though, doesn't mean that this isn't an awesome book. It is. I loved it so much. I started reading it because I took a class last semester that examined the Hero's Journey (in art, film, music, and literature) and I have been fascinated with the subject ever since. I love the idea of the monomyth (that there's just one universal story and that all myths, tales, and adventures fit into it) and I love all the psychology I learned about in this book. I thought Campbell gave Freud a bit too much credit sometimes, but it was still interesting to read. I personally love Jung and archetypes and the fact that certain stories and elements will always ring true in the human soul because they are part of us and part of what we all go through on our own heroic journeys.

Joseph Campbell is a genius. He compares myths from all different cultures in this book to show how they all fit into the monomyth. I love that he didn't just use greek and egyptian myths; this book is full of stories from native american tales, religious texts (of all different religions), medieval european stories, indigenous folk tales, chinese stories, african, south american, Indian, and on and on. I think this book is an incredible resource and I plan on buying it. I think it works better as a resource than a for-fun read. I really did have a hard time reading this straight through.

The reason for that is that Joseph Campbell speaks with a pretty heavy academic dialog. He throws out massive words like the people reading them should be walking dictionaries (things like "obfuscation" and I can't remember what else but I do remember having to look that one up). I have a good vocab, but it can be hard to cut through this kind of book - like whacking bush to get through the jungle. Anyway. The other thing is that Joseph Campbell is too smart. Have you ever had a college professor who you could tell got their job because they were super smart and not because they had amazing teaching skills? That's what reading this book is like. Genius brains like that tend to jump from subject to subject, without regard for the fact that people of lesser intelligence are scrambling to keep up. I found myself wishing that this book could have been edited a bit better; I didn't think it flowed very well. Like I said, it makes an awesome resource, but it's not so easy to just sit down and read it cover to cover.

I discovered so many things while reading this book. I love archetypes. I love mythology. I can tell why so many people have been influenced by this book, particularly storytellers (George Lucas cites this novel as a MAJOR influence for Star Wars). Disney has also admitted to relying on Hero With a Thousand Faces while writing scripts for several movies: Aladdin, The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast. I think this book is genius. Fascinating. Revelatory. If you can make it through, it's well worth it.