Review of Mission, by A. M. Cormier

Adventure, Fiction Review, General, Romance, Suspense 0

Mission

by A. M. Cormier

Xulon Press, 2009. 483 pages.

Physician’s assistant Parry St. Amand was surprised when the brilliant, if socially challenged, Dr. Rand Szabo asks to have lunch with her. Then he surprises her even more by asking her to go with his team on a medical mission trip to a poor former Soviet satellite country. A doctor backed out at the last minute, and if Parry can’t go, they will have to call off the trip.

The particular country involved has been having political unrest, and Parry’s friends and family think she’s crazy. But she doesn’t want to be the one to keep the team from helping where they are badly needed. She decides to go.

There are nine people on the team, including two other women, most of whom Parry knows from the hospital. However, three of the men are engineers, to help set up equipment and do repairs. One of those, Jake Spengler, is a former Ranger, who happens to be handsome and single. He has some tips about how to stay inconspicuous when traveling in a politically volatile area.

The team arrives at their destination and bunk in an orphanage run by wonderful, caring people. They have a busy surgery schedule, putting in long days. Then the unthinkable happens. The country has a military coup and the new dictator has put a price on the heads of Americans.

The team plans to smuggle out six people in vehicles, but the remaining three need to hike out, through rough terrain and the fresh snow of an early winter. Rand and Jake are natural choices, but Parry insists that she is the most fit of those who are left. So the three of them set out on the grueling trip overland, trying to stay unnoticed, but also to stay alive.

Once I got to that part, the story gripped me and wouldn’t let go. I read into the early hours of the morning on a night when I really needed to get some sleep. I expected narrow escapes, physical challenges and plenty of danger, but A. M. Cormier gave them to me with details I didn’t expect at all.

I need to admit up front that the author is a friend of mine, and I’m reviewing the book because I want it to do well, for her sake.

For the sake of my readers, I will admit that I wish my friend had not decided to self-publish. Mission seems to me to be just a professional edit away from being a truly magnificent book. There are some flaws — some scattered misspellings and some gratuitous political rants that have little to do with the plot. Most challenging is the slow start — you could completely skip the first chapter without missing it — but I’m here to tell you that if you persevere, the book will be worth it.

If anything, the author goes too far with the old adage, “show, don’t tell.” There are a few places where she gives us a scene or a flashback scene when all we needed was to be told what happened. We don’t need a flashback to understand that her family is pressuring her to get married. And more interesting than a flashback of her former romance would be to hear her explaining it to her new love. Those are nice scenes, but they do interrupt the flow of the book.

Yes, there is a new love in Parry’s life by the end of the book, and I love the way the romance is handled. This, too, had some nice surprises, and I found it beautiful and satisfying.

Another strength of the book is the author’s facility with medical terms and procedures. You can tell she’s worked in medicine, and her descriptions of medical situations the team faces all ring true.

I should also say that as a reviewer I have a strong prejudice against self-published books. This is based on how many I’ve seen that are truly awful.

However, I honestly believe that Mission is an exception. I admit that fondness for my friend kept me going through the slow start, but it was not friendship that kept me reading until early morning! It was the suspense of wondering how these characters I’d come to care about were going to survive.

I feel risky calling the book “wholesome.” I don’t want to make it sound boring, because it’s far from being that. But it’s refreshing to have a main character with morals, who thinks about how she can honor God and serve others. Unlike the political views mentioned, the talk about God doesn’t come off as preachy at all — just a matter-of-fact part of Parry’s life.

So if you’d like to read a story about people trying to do something good and then getting caught in a dangerous situation, with good, old-fashioned suspense and a dash of romance, give Mission a try.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/mission.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Striking Out with the Battle of the (Kids’) Books

Events, General 0

Last week, I posted my predictions for School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books. Well, the first half of the first round is over, and if you want to know who won — it was every book I did NOT predict!

My strategy was to guess that the celebrity author judges would pick the book most like the ones that they themselves write. However, I’m beginning to suspect that it’s easier for them to see flaws in books similar to their own.

Do check the Battle website. The rationales the judges gave for their choices are interesting and entertaining and will make you want to read both books. All the judges — with the notable exception of the one who shot down my favorite — spoke in high praise of the book they did not pick, as well as the book they did pick.

Now that we know which books have advanced to the first half of the second round, I’ll make predictions about those matches. Honestly, I’m tempted to predict the ones I do NOT want to win — that way they won’t win! Actually, I don’t really care about these two matches, now that my favorites are knocked out. Now I hope that Marcelo wins it all — unless Fire comes back from the dead to challenge him.

So, second round first half predictions:

Round Two, Match One:
Charles and Emma
vs.
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
Judge: M. T. Anderson

M. T. Anderson doesn’t seem like someone who would fall so much for a girls’ book. (But I’ve definitely been wrong before!) I’m going to predict that Charles and Emma will win.

Round Two, Match Two:
The Last Olympian
vs.
The Lost Conspiracy
Judge: Angela Johnson

I’m going to predict The Lost Conspiracy, since I’ve read it and it is an exceptional work of imagination. With this one, I’m not emotionally invested in my choice, though — since I thought The Lost Conspiracy was an awfully dark book, and it won my imagination, but not my heart.

Perhaps I should be hoping that the weakest books win, to give the winner of the second half (I like almost all those books better than these!) a better chance!

But we shall see….

I am enjoying, despite my disappointment in the choices so far, that there is no criteria given to the judges. It points out that different people like different types of books, and how rather random this whole thing is anyway. It’s a fun way to highlight sixteen exceptional books, with everyone realizing that this is by no means an objective contest.

Caught Up!

General 0

Woo-hoo! I’ve finally got all of the reviews on this blog posted on the main site, www.sonderbooks.com!

Back in December, I had a huge stack of books I’d read and wanted to review in time to make the choices for my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. I decided that in order to get the reviews written, I’d just write them on the blog, and wait to post them after I’d gotten them all written.

Maybe I should just give in and make my site only a blog — but I really enjoy having a website as a resource for book reviews, with the reviews organized by category and linked together.

Anyway, since that decision, I wrote at least 50 reviews, and I’ve slowly been catching up with posting them. Yesterday, I posted eight fiction reviews, and with that I finished up! Now everything that I’ve reviewed is posted. Since I’d been trying to get that done since December, it feels very good to get it done.

Of course now again I have a few books waiting to be reviewed. But now I can write the review and post it all in the same day, since I’m not trying to get 50 done.

If you’ve only looked at the blog, take a look at Sonderbooks.com. I’m trying to make it a resource where you can find good books to read, depending on the type of book you’re in the mood for.

Enjoy!

Battle of the Books Is About to Begin!

Award Winners, Events, General 0

It’s that time of year! School Library Journal is hosting the second annual Battle of the Kids’ Books!

Here’s how it works. The moderators have chosen sixteen highly acclaimed children’s books published in 2009. They match them up in tournament-style brackets (in alphabetical order). At each “match,” a distinguished children’s author will judge between the two books.

Last year, I followed this, but hadn’t read many of the books. It was the Battle of the Kids’ Books that got me to finally read The Hunger Games. But enjoying the Battle of the Books got me interested in other School Library Journal blogs, so I followed the Heavy Medal blog, a Mock Newbery blog, and have read a good proportion of these top 2009 titles.

I’ll list the first round and give my favorites. Here’s where I’d like comments. Which books would you choose in these match-ups?

Oh, I forgot a fun twist they’re adding to this year’s tournament: The Undead Poll. Before the battle begins, they are taking a poll of your favorite contender. In the final round, the book with the most votes that has been previously knocked out of the running will be brought back from the dead. So the final round, judged by our new Ambassador for Children’s Literature, Katharine Paterson, will be between three books instead of just two. The vote closes on Sunday, March 14, so choose your favorite and vote now!

Okay, here are the first round matches, with my own comments:

Match One:
Charles and Emma, by Deborah Heiligman
vs.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by Philip Hoose
Judge: Jim Murphy, a distinguished author of nonfiction

This one, I am neutral about the winner. I have read Claudette Colvin and not Charles and Emma, but I did check out Charles and Emma and look it over, but simply didn’t get around to reading it. I liked the look of it, though — biography told as the story of a relationship. As for Claudette Colvin, you can read my review of that book, and it ended up, like many of these on my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. I will be interested to see which book Jim Murphy chooses. For the sake of making a prediction, I’ll guess Claudette Colvin.

Match Two:
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly
vs.
Fire, by Kristin Cashore
Judge: Nancy Farmer

There’s no question in my mind which book I want to win this round. I read about half of Calpurnia Tate before I got tired of it and decided to read some of the other books clamoring for my attention. There are those who adore that book, but it’s not really my style. On the other hand, I was crazy about Fire, and named it my Teen Fantasy #2 on the 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, which actually puts it higher in my favor than the #1 pick in most other categories.

Since Nancy Farmer writes fantasy, I’m hoping she will also favor Fire. But just in case she or a future judge doesn’t, that book was my pick for the Undead Poll, my favorite of all the contenders.

Match Three:
The Frog Scientist, by Pamela S. Turner
vs.
The Last Olympian, by Rick Riordan
Judge: Candace Fleming

This one’s a tough call, because the books are so different. I just tonight read and reviewed The Frog Scientist, because I’d had it sitting in my house ready to read for some time. The Battle of the Books motivated me to finally do it! I haven’t read The Last Olympian, but I read and enjoyed the first Percy Jackson book, so I think I have the idea.

The Frog Scientist is nicely presented nonfiction, with beautiful photographs and clear explanations of the science involved. The Last Olympian is wildly popular fiction. If I were judging between The Frog Scientist and the first Percy Jackson book, The Lightning Thief, I would probably pick The Frog Scientist, though that might be because it’s fresh in my mind. The Frog Scientist is an outstanding example of what it’s trying to do — present information. The Lightning Thief, while very good, didn’t stand out in my mind among other fantasy fiction titles.

But who knows what Candace Fleming will pick? For my prediction, I’m going to say The Frog Scientist, swayed by the fact that Candace Fleming writes excellent nonfiction herself, and this is similar with excellent accompanying photographs and excellent details.

Match Four:
Lips Touch: Three Times, by Laini Taylor
vs.
The Lost Conspiracy, by Frances Hardinge
Judge: Helen Frost

I’ve read both of these two, and though both were good, I definitely liked Lips Touch much better, so I’m rooting for it in this round.

Match Five (Second Half of the Brackets):
Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Storck
vs.
Marching for Freedom, by Elizabeth Partridge
Judge: Gary Schmidt

It’s probably not fair for me to have an opinion on this one, since I haven’t read Marching for Freedom (though I did look through it), but I loved Marcelo too much to want any book to beat it — except for Fire in the very final round! And even then, I won’t feel too bad if it is Marcelo that beats Fire.

Have I mentioned that half the fun of the Battle of the Books is hearing what the judges have to say about the contenders? Gary Schmidt has written the wonderful Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and The Wednesday Wars, and I’m very interested in what he has to say about Marcelo in the Real World.

Match Six:
Peace, Locomotion, by Jacqueline Woodson
vs.
A Season of Gifts, by Richard Peck
Judge: Cynthia Kadohata

I haven’t read either of these books, though I have heard about them. I have read some other Jacqueline Woodson books and enjoyed them, so I’m going to go with a prediction of Peace, Locomotion, winning this round.

Match Seven:
The Storm in the Barn, by Matt Phelan
vs.
Sweethearts of Rhythm, by Marilyn Nelson
Judge: Anita Silvey

I’m afraid this is another case where I liked The Storm in the Barn too much to want a book I haven’t read to beat it. The Storm in the Barn presents history, but with a touch of fantasy and a lot of emotion — all in graphic novel format. No matter how good nonfiction Sweethearts of Rhythm may be, Storm in the Barn will be hard to beat.

Match Eight:
Tales from Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan
vs.
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
Judge: Julius Lester

This one’s a tough choice. I’ve read both books and thought both were outstanding. Both deserve to go to the final round, and both have a bit of the bizarre in the plot. In the end, though, I would have to pick When You Reach Me, because it did win my heart more than Tales from Outer Suburbia, which definitely won my mind.

The commentary from the judge on this match will be extremely interesting. I’ll go ahead and predict that Julius Lester will pick When You Reach Me, but I may not be as surprised as some if he picks Tales from Outer Suburbia instead.

So — there you have it! On March 15, the Battle of the Kids’ Books will begin. Now I’d like to hear from you. Which of these books is your favorite? (Hurry and vote for it in the Undead Poll before the 14th!)

Do you disagree with me on some of these match-ups? Have you read some of the books I haven’t read and have more insight? Have I slighted one of your favorites?

If you haven’t read any or many (like me last year), I can assure you you’ll add some books to your to-be-read list if you follow the battle.

Let me know what you think! And enjoy the arena seats!

Catching Up

General 1

I started Sonderbooks back in 2001, before I’d heard of a “blog”. It started as an e-mail newsletter, which before long I turned into a website. I was regular about posting until 2005-2007, when my marriage fell apart, I moved from Germany back to the States, and studied for and got a Master’s in Library Science. Along the way, I learned more about XML and website design, so I upgraded the look of the website, but didn’t transfer the more than a thousand reviews I’d already written.

Eventually, I added a blog, because the more I learned about them, the more I realized they were perfect for what I was doing — reviewing books as I read them. However, I wanted to keep the website going, since a book is still good even years after I’ve written the review. Besides, I didn’t want to lose all the reviews I’d already written before I started the blog.

I love writing Sonderbooks! I began it as a way to share all the great books I was reading with my friends. It has become a way that I’ve met new friends and helped people find good books to read. It’s also a way to keep track of all the great books I’ve read.

Back in December, I wanted to get through the pile of books that I’d read but hadn’t reviewed. I decided to just focus on writing the reviews and not worry yet about posting them to the main site. Well, I did it! I caught up and got rid of my big pile of books and posted my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs.

Now I’m trying to get all those reviews on my blog posted to the main site. I’m trying to read slowly while I’m doing that! The easiest way is to post all the books from one genre at a time. So far, I’ve posted the Teen Fiction, Picture Books, and Children’s Fiction reviews. I still need to post Fiction, Nonfiction, and Children’s Nonfiction. Once I’ve done that, I will feel happily caught up.

But that’s what’s going on, and why my new reviews are coming a little less frequently for awhile.

Caught Up!

General 0

Hooray! I’ve now written reviews of all the books I have read and was meaning to review! I’m caught up!

Well, almost…. I still need to post all the reviews on my main site, starting with a page for the Sonderbooks Stand-outs 2010. I will update the site by genre, since it’s easier to post all the books on one page at a time. For example, the teen books, then the picture books, and so on. Though I may start with the category with the least to add. Or maybe whichever category the next book I finish reading is in.

Anyway, for tonight, I’m happy to have finished writing the reviews. I wasn’t quite sure I would ever catch up! But I did! Hooray! Now I will get them posted, and then it should be easier to stay caught up, right?

January Stats

General 0

So, after NaNoWriMo in November, I’m now keeping track of how I do at writing and blogging. I get a kick out of numbers, so here are my stats for January.

I succeeded in spending 30 minutes per day on my book! It is still a ways from being ready to submit again, but I am making progress. I added a net change of 1,531 words and wrote 2,363 words in my “planning” brainstorming file.

On my blogs I wrote 19,872 words, for a grand total of 27,660 words. That’s a lot less than the NaNoWriMo goal, but it’s still a lot of words. And to be fair, when revising a book, you do a lot of deleting words, too!

I wrote 43 book reviews, and I DID finish reviewing all the books I read in 2009! I still have 7 books to review that I read in 2010, and I still want to post all the reviews to my main site. But getting them written was a great accomplishment.

For the Comment Challenge, I didn’t meet the stated goal, but I did leave 44 comments and I did discover some new kidlit blogs I hadn’t read before. I’m going to see if I can increase that amount in February.

Also this month, I applied for a job which would enable me to stay in the public library even if the budget cuts go through. So here’s hoping!

A Good Library Day

General 1

Today was a day to make me very happy I work in a library. Unfortunately, it also makes me sad that I will probably lose my job in a few months due to budget cuts. But back to the happy stuff!

The day started with a baby program, Mother Goose Time. It went great! Lots of toddlers, and the parents and babies were into it and singing along wonderfully. There’s nothing quite like having those sweet babies smile at you to make your day!

Later in the day, I got quite a few readers’ advisory questions for kids. And the kids and parents seemed to like my suggestions. I really enjoy doing that! And there were more questions than usual.

Then, to top it off, a boy asked me, “Are you the one who gave me The Hunger Games?” Indeed I was. He said that he finished it and liked it a lot, and now he has the sequel, Catching Fire, to read. It’s doubly cool when someone to whom you recommended a book comes back and says they liked it! I feel like I’m beginning to be known with some of our customers as a source of book recommendations, and that feels great! But I admit I like it best when it is kids who are asking.

I have done my Comment Challenge today, too. I am up to 15 Comments left after 3 days of doing it. Yay! And my 30 minutes of writing on my book. Then, however, I again spent lots of time looking at job websites. I did find a local company that maybe maybe would hire me based on my Master’s in Math. It would be fun to do some real math-related work. Now I need to get my resume written….

Bloggiesta Finish

General 1

I don’t feel like I did much with Bloggiesta, but I only found out about it last night. And I already had a busy weekend planned. Tonight, silly me, got sidetracked looking at job posting sites. This would be more productive if I was actually ready to apply, which I probably should do, but am procrastinating just a little longer at this point. It’s amazing how long you can spend messing around on those sites.

My job is almost certain to be cut if budget cuts go through that the County Executive has asked for. I have both a Master’s in Math and a Master’s in Library Science, so I’m looking at jobs in both categories, browsing around, figuring out what’s out there.

Anyway, my grand total of time spent on Bloggiesta was 3 hours. I did Mother Reader’s Mini-Challenge and posted comments on 10 blogs new to me, which was a whole lot of fun.

I got my comments to work better and got 2 comments already! Yay!

I wrote 2 reviews. I think I have 30 to go to finish the books I read in 2009. I may have to decide to just skip some of them…!

Now, one fun thing I’m doing since NaNoWriMo is tracking my writing progress in a big spreadsheet. I haven’t been counting comment words, but maybe I should. Last year, my goal was to write 15 minutes per day, on my books, and I only missed about 10 days. This year, I’ve increased the goal to 30 minutes per day, and have hit the first 10 days! My spreadsheet says that in January, for books and blogging, I’ve written 7,035 words. I’ve done 15 blog posts, including 11 reviews. Now I’ve got a column for Comments, too.

Like I said, I started this spreadsheet after NaNoWriMo, because it was fun keeping track of words written. It feels good to keep track of what I’ve accomplished, and what can I say? I like numbers!