Review of The Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi

Adventure, Science Fiction, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Drowned Cities

by Paolo Bacigalupi

Little, Brown and Company, 2012. 437 pages.

The Drowned Cities is set in the same world as Ship Breaker, but you definitely don’t need to read Ship Breaker first. The Drowned Cities is an even bleaker vision of the future than the first book. There’s still action and survival, but no love story and few glimpses that anyone in the world has it better than the characters in our story — so can they really hope for escape?

It took me awhile to realize that “The Drowned Cities” got their name as a new meaning for the initials “DC.” This book is set in a future world where global warming has raised sea level and turned the DC suburbs, now that things don’t freeze in the winter, into kudzu-covered jungle and swampland.

Mahlia and her friend mouse live with Doctor Mahfouz in a village in the jungle. It’s also a war zone, fought over by various warlords’ factions.

Doctor Mahfouz liked to say that everyone wanted to be good. They just sometimes needed help finding their way to it. That was when he’d first taken her and Mouse in. He’d said it even as he was sprinkling sulfa powder over Mahlia’s bloody stump of a hand, like he couldn’t see what was happening right in front of him. The Drowned Cities were busy tearing themselves apart once again, but here the doctor was still talking about how people wanted to be kind and good.

Mahlia and Mouse had just looked at each other, and didn’t say anything. If the doctor was fool enough to let them stay, he could babble whatever crazy talk he wanted.

In a nice touch of irony, the author has made Mahlia a daughter of a Chinese peacekeeper and a local woman. And Mahlia and her mother were left behind when the peacekeepers left.

These days, their hospital was wherever Doctor Mahfouz set his medical bag, all that was left of the wonderful hospital that the Chinese had donated, except for a few rehydration packets still stamped with the words WITH WISHES FOR PEACE AND WELL-BEING FROM THE PEOPLE OF BEIJING.

Mahlia could imagine all those Chinese people in their far-off country donating to the war victims of the Drowned Cities. All of them rich enough to send things like rice and clothes and rehydration packets all the way over the pole on fast-sailing clipper ships. All of them rich enough to meddle where they didn’t belong.

Mahlia and Mouse find a genetically engineered half-man out in the swamp who just wrestled an alligator and survived. First, Mahlia’s bargaining with him — Mouse’s life for medical supplies, and then she’s dealing with the war band that is on his trail. In a clever twist, Mahlia manages to get away from them, but her whole village pays the price. And when Mouse gets conscripted, Mahlia will do anything to save him — even if it means relying on the half-man. But even with his help, is there any escape from the Drowned Cities?

This book is far grittier than I usually read for pleasure. It’s a horribly bleak vision of the future, though from his Printz speech, I think Paolo Bacigalupi writes it as a warning. And several things are all too plausible. The factions include the Army of God and the United Patriotic Front and other groups that are like present-day groups taken to the extreme.

I think the fact that I live where the book is set (though many years before) makes it seem all the more real. I have to admit that the day I finished the book, I was driving home from work on the freeway, and thought it’s all way too built up and there’s too much concrete to become jungle for at least a thousand years. However, the following Sunday, I drove the opposite direction to church, and just that much further out in the suburbs, it’s actually easy to imagine jungle taking over. And Paolo Bacigalupi never does say how far out from the Capital they are. It takes awhile to travel to the city, and after all, they’re called “The Drowned Cities,” not “The Drowned City,” so I’m thinking the villages in the jungle may be further out from the Beltway than where I live.

The book does have some redeeming themes. There’s no romantic love, as in Ship Breaker, but there’s strong love and loyalty between Mahlia and Mouse, and they get help from the half-man, Tool, for reasons of his own. It does manage to give a hopeful ending, at least for those who survive to the end. And if you want reasons to think war is not a good thing and it’s better not to vilify other groups, because look where it could end up — This book has plenty of that.

This book might be good for those who love The Hunger Games and don’t mind some grit and gore in their adventure stories, and also don’t mind if there’s no romance. Definitely well-written, but also definitely not pleasant.

www.lb-teens.com

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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.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Grave Mercy, by Robin LaFevers

Fantasy, Historical, Paranormal, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 2

Grave Mercy

His Fair Assassin, Book I

by Robin LaFevers

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2012. 509 pages.
Starred Review

Wow. This book reminded me of The Canterbury Papers, full of medieval palace intrigue, but this had supernatural powers thrown in.

The book is set in Brittany, beginning in 1485. Ismae has been told from birth that the scar she was born with, from the midwife’s poison failing, marks her as the daughter of Death himself, an ancient Breton god now called St. Mortain. When the man her father sold her to sees the scar, he is going to have her burned, but she is rescued by strangers and sent to the convent of St. Mortain.

At the convent, Ismae learns the special powers she has as the daughter of St. Mortain. She can see a mark on a person who is going to die. Poison does not harm her. She can see a person’s soul when it leaves his body. Also at the convent, they train her to be an assassin.

“If you choose to stay, you will be trained in His arts. You will learn more ways to kill a man than you imagined possible. We will train you in stealth and cunning and all manner of skills that will ensure no man is ever again a threat to you.”

Three years later, Ismae is ready for her first assignments. But now there is political trouble, and Brittany is in danger of being swallowed up by France. Ismae is sent to the court of the duchess herself, ordered to pose as the mistress of Duval, the duchess’s half-brother.

But at court, things don’t turn out as Ismae has been led to believe they will. Those she was told to be suspicious of seem kind and seem to have the Duchess’s best interests at heart. Those she is supposed to trust seem suspicious. What is right?

Meanwhile, there’s plenty of action and adventure. There are surprise attacks and deaths that Ismae had nothing to do with. And the duchess must marry soon, preferably to someone who can bring an army to her cause. Along the way, slowly and exquisitely, we see Ismae’s heart being won by a good man.

Here’s the situation as it’s laid out before Ismae leaves the convent:

Crunard spreads his hands. “Then you know it is true. The circling vultures grow bold. The regent of France has forbidden that Anne be crowned duchess. It is our enemies’ wish to make her France’s ward so that they may claim Brittany for their own. They also claim the right to determine who she will marry.”

Duval begins pacing. “Spies are everywhere. We can scarce keep track of them all. The French have set up a permanent entourage within our court, which has made some of the border nations uneasy.”

Crunard adds, “Not to mention that their presence makes it impossible to see Anne anointed as our duchess without their knowledge. But until we place that coronet upon her head before her people and the Church, we are vulnerable.”

I cannot help but feel sympathy for our poor duchess. “Surely there is some way out of this mess?”

I have addressed my question to the abbess, but it is Duval who answers. “I will forge one with my bare hands, if need be,” he says. “I vow that I will see her duchess, and I will see her safely wed. But I need information against our enemies if I am to accomplish this.”

The room falls so silent that I fear they will hear the pounding of my heart. Duval’s vow has moved me, and that he has made it on sacred ground proves he is either very brave or very foolish.

This is one book I was very happy to see called Book One. The story in this book does come to a satisfying conclusion, but I want to come back to this world. This book would be excellent if it only had the medieval intrigue and romance, but with the paranormal elements added in, there’s extra satisfaction seeing Ismae’s power far beyond what you’d normally expect of a woman in the fifteenth century.

robinlafevers.com
hmhbooks.com

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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.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at an ALA conference and checked against a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Finnikin of the Rock, by Melina Marchetta

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Finnikin of the Rock

by Melina Marchetta

Candlewick Press, 2010. First published in Australia in 2008. 399 pages.
Starred Review

I didn’t read Finnikin of the Rock when it came out, though I had fully intended to. I loved Melina Marchetta’s earlier book, Looking for Alibrandi, and now she was writing fantasy, my favorite genre? Of course I had to read it! I’m not quite sure why I didn’t get around to it, but now that some of my fellow bloggers are excited about the sequel to Finnikin of the Rock, I decided I would have to remedy that situation.

Finnikin of the Rock is a complex, richly woven fantasy tale. And Melina Marchetta pulls this off. I usually prefer simpler, fairytale-like stories, which is one reason I tend to prefer young adult fantasy books over fantasy books written for adults. But again, Melina Marchetta writes in such a way that overcomes this prejudice.

The situation is complicated, and full of pain for the participants. Ten years ago, after a horrible conquest by the cousin of the king, the land of Lumaterre was cursed. No one could get into or out of Lumaterre.

As it says in the Prologue:

This is the story, as told to those not born to see such days, recorded in The Book of Lumaterre so they will never forget.

The story of those trapped inside the kingdom, never to be heard from again, and those who escaped but were forced to walk the land in a diaspora of misery.

Until ten years later, when Finnikin of Lumatere climbed another rock. . .

Finnikin is the son of the man who was the king’s general, who is now imprisoned. Finnikin was a friend of the children of the royal family, who were killed in the slaughter before the curse struck. Or at least most think they were killed. Rumor has it that Balthazar, the king’s son, escaped.

Now Finnikin, who travels with the king’s First Man, has heard that a novice in the shrine to Sagami claims to walk through the sleep of the people trapped inside Lumatere, and, more importantly, through the sleep of Balthazar, the heir. They collect her and travel with her, in hopes of finding Balthazar and breaking the curse.

Their journey has many twists and turns and many surprises. There are lies and double-crosses as well as surprising loyalties. They travel through many different dangerous lands before they can tackle the curse. And we learn more and more about the horrible things that have happened outside and inside Lumatere in the last ten years.

Finnikin of the Rock does stand alone well, but it also leaves the reader wanting more. How can they possibly hope to heal so many wrongs done? In some ways, I’m glad I waited to read this book, because I can start right in on Froi of the Exiles.

Although this is fantasy, there’s not a lot of magic floating around. There are two goddesses worshiped by the Lumaterans, Lagrami and Sagrami, aspects of one goddess. A priestess of Sagrami is the one who cursed the kingdom with a blood curse when she was burned at the stake. Now the novice, Evanjalin, claims a gift from the goddess is what enables her to walk the sleep.

But mostly, this separate world enables the author to talk about people without a homeland and how they are treated without encountering any prejudice as might happen if she used people from our world. The truths are universal, and the people are flawed in places but also shining brightly in places, just like people in our world today.

This is an epic tale with many nuances and food for thought. As I write this, I have begun Froi of the Exiles, and this is the sort of book where reading the next one increases your appreciation for the first. The groundwork has been laid well, when I didn’t even realize how much groundwork was being laid. I’m definitely glad I’m taking on this saga.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/finnikin_of_the_rock.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.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Goliath, by Scott Westerfeld

Adventure, Alternate History, Audiobooks, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 3

Goliath

by Scott Westerfeld
read by Alan Cumming

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2011. 9 CDs, 10 hours, 30 minutes.
Starred Review

I finally read, that is, listened to, the concluding volume of the Leviathan trilogy. Although each book does have a reason to be an individual book and the separate episodes are distinct, this is not a trilogy where you’d want to start anywhere but the beginning. So go back and read Leviathan and then Behemoth!

The narration is well done, and I recognized the voices back from when I listened to the first book. There were times when I did get tired of the breathless pace, but I think that was more a function of the writing and it fitting the style of WWI adventure novels. I’d just take a breather between CDs and then be willing to listen again. And to be fair, once I got more than halfway, I couldn’t wait at all between CDs, but was eagerly popping the next one in immediately.

This trilogy provides an alternate steampunk history of World War I, where the Darwinists, who use genetically modified creatures, are pitted against the Clankers, who use fantastical steam-powered creations. Alek, the Prince in exile of Austria-Hungary, is back aboard the Leviathan, the giant British air beast where Deryn Sharp is serving as a midshipman, disguised as a boy, because she loves to fly.

Each book involves a progressively bigger weapon. The first book, Leviathan, was about the giant air beast itself. Then there was a water weapon called Behemoth. In this book, they pick up Nikolai Tesla in Russia. He claims to have leveled miles of Siberian forest with the power of his electrical weapon, Goliath. With it, he hopes to stop the war.

Alek believes Mr. Tesla, and wants nothing more than to stop the war, too. Deryn is not so sure. But either way, the Leviathan is bound across the Pacific and then across the continent on its way to take Tesla back to his laboratory in New York City. The United States is neutral, so they have to go through Mexico, where they are not completely successful getting past revolutionary generals.

Another thing I like about this series is they way they cover the whole world. Leviathan started in Great Britain and Austria. In Behemoth, they spent most of their time in Istanbul. In Goliath they head through Russia to Siberia and then go on to Tokyo. Then it’s across the Pacific, landing in California, flying across Mexico and then up to New York. So we get to see how all the countries are aligned in this steampunk alternate world Scott Westerfeld has created.

There’s plenty of intrigue, peril, and real historical characters put into somewhat different situations than they actually faced. Of course, best of all is the resolution of the story about Alek and Deryn. They can’t possibly have a future together. Or can they?

scottwesterfeld.com
audio.simonandschuster.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/goliath.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.

Source: This review is based on a library audiobook from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Last Dragonslayer, by Jasper Fforde

Delightfully Silly, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Last Dragonslayer

by Jasper Fforde

Harcourt, Boston, 2012. 287 pages.
Starred Review

Hooray! Jasper Fforde has taken his silliness, his clever quirkiness, and written a fantasy novel for young adults. The world seems fairly similar to ours — only with magic and dragons. And strange, quirky details, like marzipan mines and the poor and downtrodden marzipan addicts.

The front page of the book — right before Chapter One — tells exactly what happens:

Once, I was famous. My face was seen on T-shirts, badges, commemorative mugs, and posters. I made front-page news, appeared on TV, and was even a special guest on The Yogi Baird Daytime TV Show. The Daily Clam called me “the year’s most influential teenager,” and I was the Mollusc on Sunday‘s Woman of the Year. Two people tried to kill me, I was threatened with jail, had fifty-eight offers of marriage, and was outlawed by King Snodd IV. All that and more besides, and in less than a week.

My name is Jennifer Strange.

Jennifer Strange starts out the book managing a house full of magicians. She’s almost sixteen, a foundling, and an indentured servant, and she doesn’t have any magic herself, but their founder has disappeared, and she’s far more practical than any magic-user, so the post has fallen to her.

When a premonition comes up that the Last Dragon is about to die, the whole country (and others besides) is in uproar. Because when a dragon dies, his lands can be divided up, on a first-come, first-served basis. When it turns out to have been foreseen that Jennifer is the Last Dragonslayer, she finds herself in the very center of earth-shaking events.

This paragraph about those who work for Kazam Mystical Arts Management will give you an idea of the style:

Of the forty-five sorcerers, movers, soothsayers, shifters, weather-mongers, carpeteers, and other assorted mystical artisans at Kazam, most were fully retired due to infirmity, insanity, or damage to the vital index fingers, either through accident or rheumatoid arthritis. Of these forty-five, thirteen were potentially capable of working, but only nine had current licenses — two carpeteers, a pair of pre-cogs, and most important, five sorcerers legally empowered to carry out Acts of Enchantment. Lady Mawgon was certainly the crabbiest and probably the most skilled. As with everyone else at Kazam, her powers had faded dramatically over the past three decades or so, but unlike everyone else, she’d not really come to terms with it. In her defense, she’d had farther to fall than the rest of them, but this wasn’t really an excuse. The Sisters Karamazov could also claim once-royal patronage, and they were nice as apricot pie. Mad as a knapsack of onions, but pleasant nonetheless.

When I finished this book, I actually laughed happily. It is highly possible that you have to have a similar sense of humor to truly enjoy Jasper Fforde’s work, but I certainly do. This book definitely stands alone just fine, and the story is complete in itself. All the same, I’m very happy to see “The Chronicles of Kazam, Book One” on the title page, because it will definitely be fun to visit this world again.

I suspect that fans of Jasper Fforde’s books for adults will enjoy this one as well. The quirkiness and esoteric references are toned down a tiny bit, the book is shorter and the protagonist younger, but the flavor is the same. And I do hope that it will capture some fans for him much younger than before. Who says high fantasy has to be deadly serious? This is a book that will make nerdy teens laugh, and I say that with utmost respect.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/last_dragonslayer.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.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Girl of Fire and Thorns, by Rae Carson

Award Winners, Fantasy, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 4

The Girl of Fire and Thorns

by Rae Carson

Greenwillow Books, 2011. 423 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Morris Award Finalist

This is an impressive debut fantasy novel. The author builds a complex, realistic world, and stands a few fantasy conventions on their heads.

For example, where usually you have the heroine not wanting an arranged marriage because the intended is old and ugly, here’s how this book opens:

“Prayer candles flicker in my bedroom. The Scriptura Sancta lies discarded, pages crumpled, on my bed. Bruises mark my knees from kneeling on the tiles, and the Godstone in my navel throbs. I have been praying — no, begging — that King Alejandro de Vega, my future husband, will be ugly and old and fat.

“Today is the day of my wedding. It is also my sixteenth birthday.”

Elisa is the Chosen One. The whole world knows because of the Godstone in her navel. And her god communicates with her through the Godstone. There are prophecies about her.

One thing I like about this is that no one agrees on what the prophecies actually mean. That seems completely realistic, after all. If there were a prophecy, isn’t it likely that whole factions would have different beliefs about what that prophecy means, about what the Chosen One can do for them?

Elisa’s an unlikely heroine, too. She loves to eat, and is overweight and lazy, at least until circumstances force her to change. This book involves war, state politics, danger, adventure, romance, and even religion.

The biggest thing I didn’t like about this book involved my personal prejudice against present tense novels. Most of the time, the story was able to overcome that so I didn’t notice, but not all the time.

Still, Rae Carson built a fascinating world with this book, and the story is clearly not finished. I will definitely want to read this book again when the sequel comes out and spend more time with these characters.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/girl_of_fire_and_thorns.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.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Liar’s Moon, by Elizabeth C. Bunce

Fantasy, Mystery, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Liar’s Moon

by Elizabeth C. Bunce

Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic, 2011. 356 pages.
Starred Review

This book is a sequel to Star Crossed, and I liked Elizabeth Bunce’s first book, A Curse Dark as Gold so much, I bought my own copy of StarCrossed and Liar’s Moon. I did get a chance to reread StarCrossed before I took up Liar’s Moon.

I did enjoy Liar’s Moon, and there’s absolutely no question in my mind that I will snap up the next book. Some details are left very badly hanging, so it’s clear this is intended as at least a trilogy.

This is not your typical second-book-of-a-trilogy, though. After narrowly escaping from her home in the city of Gerse in the first book, Digger is back, trying to survive in the underbelly of the city. Right from the start, she’s captured and thrown into prison — in a cell with Durrell Decath, whom we met at the very start of StarCrossed, but then didn’t see much of.

It turns out that Digger’s in prison just to talk with Durrell. He says he’s been falsely accused of murder. But if he didn’t murder his elderly wife, who did?

If you’re expecting a book very similar to StarCrossed (like I was), then you’re going to be disappointed. But if you take it for what it is — a murder mystery set in a fantastical world, with our heroine scouring the underworld for clues — then there’s lots to enjoy here.

In all her books, Elizabeth Bunce is skilled at making another world seem completely down-to-earth and real.

Now, there’s a huge plot development at the very end, so I think I need to reserve judgment on this trilogy until it finishes up and the story is complete. So far, I enjoyed the first book more, but I definitely liked this one enough to want to reread it when the third book comes out. I definitely want to see more of Digger’s friends, fighting in the war, and find out how that battle turns out. I don’t really understand Digger’s relationship with her brother, and that will probably become more clear with time, too.

But meanwhile I highly recommend this series. The first book gave you conflicting loyalties and magic and secrets. This one gives you a murder mystery set in an alien world. Who knows what will be next?

elizabethcbunce.com
thisisteen.com/liarsmoon
scholastic.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/liars_moon.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.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

There’s a lot we could discuss about the ending, so please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The FitzOsbornes in Exile, by Michelle Cooper

Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

The FitzOsbornes in Exile

by Michelle Cooper

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2011. 457 pages.

The FitzOsbornes in Exile is a sequel to the wonderful book A Brief History of Montmaray. In this second book, the FitzOsbornes are living in England after their island kingdom was attacked by German bombers. This is before England has joined World War II. Politics in England involve pacifists and Communists, and meanwhile their aunt just wants to marry off Princess Veronica and Princess Sophia (whose journal this book is taken from) and have them move in the best society.

This is excellent historical fiction and feels like an authentic taste of what life must have been like in England at that time. I enjoyed that after reading this I listened to Historic Conversations with Jacqueline Kennedy and learned that John Kennedy really was in England at that time. (The girls meet him and become friends with his sister.)

There is some plot. Veronica’s in love with a Communist, and the whole family is trying to get some attention to the attack on their island.

But overall, this book isn’t nearly as thrilling as the first book, which had plenty of death and destruction and danger. It’s well done for what it is, and I definitely enjoyed spending time with these characters again, but be aware that this time you’re getting more of a historical novel of manners. A good one, but not the thriller that A Brief History of Montmaray turned out to be.

I’m still hooked though, and definitely want to read about what happens to Sophia and her family when war does break out. I hope the next book is coming soon.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/fitzosbornes_in_exile.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.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 2

Seraphina

by Rachel Hartman

Random House, New York, 2012. 465 pages.
Starred Review

Seraphina has a secret. She tries not to be noticed. If people found out the truth about her, the chances are good that she would be murdered horribly. So she didn’t plan to play her flute at Prince Rufus’s funeral. But when the soloist and backup soloist suddenly aren’t available, what else can the assistant to the court composer do? Perhaps she shouldn’t have played quite so beautifully if she really didn’t want to be noticed.

The funeral was coming at a bad time.

Rufus had been murdered while hunting, and the Queen’s Guard had found no clues as to who’d done it. The missing head would suggest dragons, to some. I imagined the saarantrai who attended the funeral were only too aware of this. We had only ten days before the Ardmagar arrived, and fourteen days until the anniversary of the treaty. If a dragon had killed Prince Rufus, that was some spectacularly unfortunate timing. Our citizens were jumpy enough about dragonkind already.

The treaty with dragons has been in effect for forty years, but not everyone — human or dragon — is happy about the treaty. On top of preparing the music for the New Year’s celebration, Seraphina gets pulled into the investigation of Prince Rufus’s death. Meanwhile, the strange visions she’s been having are acting up, her uncle is in trouble, and she has to lie to someone she cares about to try to keep her own secret.

This is one of those fantasy stories with an intricate, highly detailed world. In this case, it’s a world like Renaissance Europe, but with dragons in human form, and an elaborate religion with saints, some of which are particularly hostile to dragons. The world here is skilfully built. There’s a large cast of characters. After her prominence at the funeral, Seraphina gets to know more of the members of the court and gets pulled in to the investigation of the murder. Can the treaty continue? And can she keep her secret?

Honestly, my personal favorite fantasy novels are simpler than this, and more fairy-tale like. With all the detail, it reminded me of the Finnikin of the Rock series. Wonderful books — Just not my absolute favorite, out of a simple personal preference. If you like elaborate detail, this book does it well, and builds a completely credible world where dragons walk among humans.

I’m also not crazy about stories with lots of bigoted religious people, even if it is a made-up religion, but they did provide a realistic threat to Seraphina. The romance is a highlight of the book, built realistically as a friendship with misunderstandings along the way. I was extremely invested in the characters once I got about a third of the way through the book. The story is complete with the solving of the murder, but there are definitely some big things left unresolved and the possibility of war looming. I will definitely want to read the next book the moment I can get my hands on it.

I like that the dragons are extra good at Math. Math is like a religion to them. The book is full of fun details like that. For example, Seraphina’s performance fell short of technical perfection, and her teacher comments, “Had you played perfectly — like a saar might have — you would not have affected your listeners so. People wept, and not because you sometimes hum while you play.”

Hmm. Rachel Hartman gets very close to technical perfection in this book. Is that perhaps why it didn’t quite affect me deeply? But I am tremendously eager to read on, and I’m curious what other people think. Meanwhile, I highly recommend this book about dragons like you’ve never seen them before.

RachelHartmanBooks.com
randomhouse.com/teens

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/seraphina.html

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of For Darkness Shows the Stars, by Diana Peterfreund

Austenalia, Romance, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

For Darkness Shows the Stars

by Diana Peterfreund

Balzer + Bray, 2012. 407 pages.
Starred Review

Wow. I’ve always loved Jane Austen’s Persuasion. The poignancy runs extra deep since Anne Elliot allowed herself to be persuaded to reject Captain Wentworth’s suit years ago. When he returns, successful and sought after, what can she do?

For Darkness Shows the Stars is a retelling of Persuasion in a science fiction setting. Diana Peterfreund keeps all the poignancy of the romantic situation, but adds layers of complexity involving technology and responsibility.

The story takes place on unknown islands of a post-apocalyptic Earth. Our descendants played with genetic engineering until they met with disaster. The survivors hid for years in caves. They proudly name themselves the Luddites. They did not use technology to play God, and so God allowed them to survive. Now their descendants are the rulers and estate owners. The descendants of the Lost were Reduced — mentally deficient, barely able to speak two words. The Reduced work the land, and the Luddite lords have a responsibility to care for them well.

Eighteen years ago, three babies were born on the same day on the North estate. Elliot North will grow to manage her father’s estate. Ro is Reduced, and loves Elliot and loves color and beauty, but her mental powers are not strong. Then there’s Kai. He’s Post-Reduction. He has full mental powers. But because his grandparents were Reduced, he doesn’t have the rights of the Luddite lords. He works on the estate and becomes friends with Elliot. But he can never be her equal.

Four years ago, Kai left the estate and asked Elliot to join him. But she can’t leave her responsibilities. Her mother died, and her father and sister were only interested in horses and status, not in running the estate and doing what’s best for all the people who live there.

Now Kai has returned. The North family has been forced to rent her grandfather’s boatyard to a prosperous group of Posts who are making a fleet of ships to explore the seas around the islands. They have already met with much success. The group has rejected their background on estates and chosen multisyllabic names for themselves. Admiral Innovation and his wife bring along a promising young captain, Malakai Wentforth. Elliot’s father and sister don’t even recognize that he is Kai returned. But she is all too aware. Kai is back, and he’s angry for being rejected.

Diana Peterfreund did a marvelous job paralleling the plot of Persuasion. And so doing, she keeps all the poignancy of the original, all of Elliot’s pain that she was the one who did the rejecting. And now Captain Wentforth has succeeded beyond her wildest dreams, and she’s the one in difficult straits. He is far more interested in the daughter of the neighboring estate. And why shouldn’t he be?

She also adds complexity. The Luddites have strict protocols against overusing technology. But Elliot has been experimenting with better strains of wheat in order to feed the people on her estate. What is right? And then what about the Posts who come stretching the limits of what is acceptable? Are they inviting another apocalypse?

In this book, the somewhat silly accident in the middle of Persuasion takes on whole new significance when it leads to a revelation about the Posts.

Knowing the outline of what was going to happen made the story that much more compelling, and I was all the more surprised by some of the twists the author inserted. They didn’t change the romance, but they did add to the story.

To some Luddites, the Reduced were children, fallen and helpless, but still human. To others, they were beasts of burden, mostly mute and incapable of rational thought. Elliot’s mother had taught her that they were her duty, as they were the duty of all Luddites. Cut off as the population of these two islands had been since the Wars of the Lost, they might be the only people left on the planet. The Luddites, who had kept themselves pure of the taint of Reduction, therefore had the responsibility to be the caretakers not only of all of human history and culture but of humanity itself.

It had been generations since any Luddites had tried to rehabilitate the Reduced. Mere survival had taken precedence. But Ro was more than Elliot’s duty. She’d become Elliot’s friend, and sometimes Elliot even dared wonder what Ro could be — what any Reduced could be — if the Luddites had the resources to try.

The strength of Persuasion lies in the history between the two characters. In For Darkness Shows the Stars, the author plays on the history by inserting letters Elliot and Kai exchanged through the years as children growing up together. Their friendship was never sanctioned, so they placed letters in a knothole in the barn, a knothole Elliot can’t stop checking, even now.

This is a magnificent retelling of a classic romance. A story of lost love and regret and redemption mixed with genetic engineering and tampering with technology and divine right and responsibility to rule. Not a book I could stop reading before I’d finished.

dianapeterfreund.com
epicreads.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/for_darkness_shows_the_stars.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.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.