Review of The Assassin’s Blade, by Sarah J. Maas

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Assassin’s Blade

by Sarah J. Maas
read by Elizabeth Evans

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. 12 hours, 52 minutes.
Review written April 25, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

I select youth and children’s materials for a large public library system, and by far the most popular author of all the books I purchase is Sarah J. Maas. All of her books consistently have long waiting lists. Since I love fantasy novels, I decided to see what the fuss was about. Now, it’s not clear that I picked the correct order. It turns out that this book I picked up was written as a prequel – so the events happen before the first book written. Anyway, Overdrive had it listed as number one in the series, so this is the one I’ve started with.

It turns out that The Assassin’s Blade is a collection of five novellas, all of them about Celaena Sardothien, at sixteen years old her kingdom’s most notorious assassin. I enjoyed the fact that each part was a contained story. Each novella had a sort of heist scene. Each novella has a complete storyline and a satisfying resolution (or, well, at least a resolution). Each novella happened directly after the one before, but I liked the way the action moved into each story as its own entity.

And the stories were compelling. Each one had a big challenge for Celaena. I definitely did not like the way it all ended, though I’m sure if I had read the books in publication order, I would have known where Celaena would end up. She’s a character worth following – forced to train as an assassin, she became the best. But when the king of the assassins wants her to facilitate a deal with pirates to get into the slave trade, she decides to free the slaves.

I got the flavor of a brutal world, with a ruthless king who has banished magic from the kingdom, but assassins and pirates and crime lords all doing their own thing. Celaena finds love in these stories and dreams of leaving the assassin’s guild and the continent altogether. The fantasy world where she lives is dark and sinister – but I enjoyed Celaena’s character, learning to shine in a difficult world.

I wasn’t completely hooked on this world, but I was hooked enough to put the next (first?) book on hold.

sarahjmaas.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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Review of A Tempest of Tea, by Hafsah Faizal, read by Maya Saroya

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Tempest of Tea

by Hafsah Faizal
read by Maya Saroya

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2024. 11 hours, 2 minutes.
Review written May 8, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

I put this audiobook on hold because it’s wildly popular with our own public library customers. A Tempest of Tea is a heist novel with vampires.

By day, Arthie Casimir runs an upscale teahouse in the bad part of the capital city. By night, secret panels come open, and it transforms into a bloodhouse serving vampires, so they can sate their thirst with folks willing to be paid for the privilege, or with special coconut-mixed blood drinks. The bloodhouse is illegal, but Arthie has paid informants to warn her before raids so she can put the bloodhouse gear back into hiding.

Arthie’s an immigrant to the kingdom. When she was a child, colonizers killed her parents and took their land. Later on, she teamed up with another young orphan named Jin, and she figured out how to pull a magical pistol from stone and win the respect of the city. (Between her name and pulling the weapon from stone, I expected Arthurian overtones, but didn’t really find any more than that.) Together, she and Jin built up their teahouse and peddle tea and secrets.

But as the story opens, Arthie learns that the future of her teahouse is threatened. A mysterious figure comes and tells her she can save it if she will help him steal some compromising material about the king of the empire — housed in a citadel kept by elite vampires that is opened once a year for an exclusive charity auction.

So that’s the heist novel part. Arthie and Jin assemble a team and lay plans to pull off the heist. Of course things don’t go completely according to plan….

I wasn’t the best audience for this book, because although I do enjoy heist novels, I’m not a big vampire novel fan, and am also not a big fan of blackmailers and others consistently slipping under the law. They gave Arthie strong reasons for her contempt of people in authority, and I was won over to be on her side. My other problem, though, was that the plot was fairly complex and there was a pretty big cast of characters with the perspective switching frequently. I listen to audiobooks while I’m doing other things (makes housework so much more pleasant!), but I think maybe I missed some crucial details and wasn’t following along all that well in the middle. All the same, I wasn’t going to stop listening. And there is an annoying cliffhanger ending, and I think I will be compelled to find out how things turn out. (It’s said to be a duology, so yay, this is the only suspense required.) One of the most delightful things about this audiobook was at the end, they give us a conversation between the author and her husband about the book, which is truly delightful.

If you do like vampire novels or heist novels, and don’t mind a little not-quite-legal dealings from characters who have good reason to be upset with the authorities – then give this book a try!

hafsahfaizal.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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Review of Paradise Sands, by Levi Pinfold

Fantasy, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Paradise Sands

A Story of Enchantment

by Levi Pinfold

Candlewick Studio, 2022. 40 pages.
Review written January 31, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review

This picture book beautifully continues in the tradition of Chris Van Allsburg, eerie and beautiful and full of magic. It’s not a book for preschoolers, but elementary school students will love the creepy innuendos.

A girl and her three brothers drive off into a desert, singing a nonsense rhyme their mother used to sing for them. Or is it nonsense? The girl notices that they’re doing the things mentioned in the song.

When they find a grand palace, she doesn’t “sip from the chalice” like her brothers do.

And it ends up being up to her to save her brothers.

The art in this book is magnificent and eerie and is perfect for this unsettling adventure.

candlewickstudio.com

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Review of Threads That Bind, by Kika Hatzopoulou

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Threads That Bind

by Kika Hatzopoulou
read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw

Listening Library, 2023. 12 hours.
Review written February 20, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 CYBILS Award Winner, Young Adult Speculative Fiction

This year I was Category Chair for the CYBILS Awards Young Adult Speculative Fiction category, but because I was reading for the Morris Award, I didn’t get to take part as a judge or panelist. So I’m making up for lost time and reading the great books they picked.

Threads That Bind is a distinctive fantasy. It’s set in a world after an apocalypse with separate city-states divided by barren wastelands in between. In the city of Silts, where tides regularly flood, Io has grown up with her two sisters, all of them descendants of the Fates, the Mira. Like all Otherborn, the Miraborn have inherited powers. All three can see people’s life threads, the connections between people and the things or people they love, including life itself. The oldest can weave the threads, the next can draw the threads, and the third, Io in this family, can cut the threads.

As the book opens, Io is doing work as a private investigator, afraid she’ll have to report that her client’s husband is indeed having an affair, and she can see by the strong thread between him and his lover that they are in love. But then a person shows up and attacks and kills him. This person is alive, but shouldn’t be alive — because she has only one thread, her life thread, and it’s been cut.

But someone shows up at the crime scene — and it’s the person Io’s been avoiding — the boy she shares a Fate thread with, before she’d even met him. His name’s Edei, and he works for the Mob Queen who rules their city. The Mob Queen orders Io to investigate this wraith, because it’s not the first one to show up in the Silts. Who is making this happen, and how are they choosing their victims, while talking about justice?

What follows is a long and somewhat convoluted investigation, trying to find out who’s behind it all and what they are plotting. Io must talk with many different Otherborn and dig around lots of people with power — including the new mayoral candidate — and her oldest sister, who abandoned them years before.

Like I said, the plot seemed a little convoluted to me — but the problem may have been that I didn’t listen closely enough. The magic system is intriguing, but I had to not look at the details too closely. (If Miraborn always come in sets of three, why are they not triplets? What happens if the third is never born? And why are all the threads not hopelessly tangled up?) I also didn’t completely understand all the motivations revealed at the end, having to do with the Gang War many years ago.

But all the same, it’s a great story also looking at questions of emotional abuse, justice, and violence. Although the book does solve the mysteries presented, there’s an overarching story that isn’t finished yet. I just checked and see that Book Two, Hearts That Cut, is coming out in June, and I’ve already ordered copies for the library.

kikahatzopoulou.com
penguinteen.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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Review of Dragonfruit, by Makiia Lucier

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Version 1.0.0
Dragonfruit

by Makiia Lucier
read by Mapuana Makia

Clarion Books, 2024. 8 hours, 12 minutes.
Review written April 29, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Makiia Lucier is a relatively new fantasy author I’m watching closely. I read her second book when I was on the Newbery committee, but it was for young adults, so I took note but I had to keep quiet about books I was reading at that time. Then later her book Year of the Reaper was a Cybils Finalist, and I was impressed with the way it handled a population traumatized by plague and war. I snapped up this new book, and got something completely different – a fantasy set in a tropical island world.

This story features 18-year-old Hanalei, whose father fled with her from the island of Tamarind ten years ago, and 19-year-old Samahtitamahenele, Sam, the prince of Tamarind. But the crown passes only to women, Sam’s grandmother is getting old, and his mother has been in a coma for ten years. So Sam needs to find a wife. But more than that, Sam is searching for Dragonfruit – the eggs of a sea dragon. The eggs of a sea dragon, dragonfruit, are said to have the power to undo a person’s greatest sorrow. But with that hope comes a warning: Every wish demands a price.

Ten years ago, Hanalei had been a page at court, and she had eaten the same poison that still keeps Sam’s mother asleep. When dragonfruit was found, her father stole it and fed it to Hana instead of leaving it for the princess. And then fled the queendom with Hana. Hana did recover, but a few days later, her father died. She’s had a hard life since then, working in the factories that process the valuable body parts of sea dragons until she was fourteen, when her hands got too big. Since that time, Hana has been studying sea dragons, sending information to the academy on the largest island.

But as the book opens, Hana warns a set of dragons so they can escape the dragoners ready to kill them. Two of the dragons escape, but Hanalei doesn’t. However, they all see by the color of the frill that this dragon is pregnant, soon to lay eggs.

Further adventures bring her back to Tamaraind. Now Sam, too, is looking for the Dragonfruit, to at last wake his mother. But so is the ruthless dragoner. And what will the price of the wish be?

The setting of this book is delightful. Some additional magic of their island is many of the teens on the island develop magical tattoos of an animal. That animal can move around on their skin and even materialize off their skin in the real world, a companion who communicates with them and is always close at hand.

There’s a gentle romance in this book – indeed, I expected more drama than I got – and no sex at all, so it feels completely appropriate for younger teens, too. Hana and Sam are almost adults and it is a coming of age book, so older teens are the main audience. The book ended at a good place, but I can’t help hoping more stories are coming about this lovely island world, the sea dragons, and these two characters coming into their own.

makiialucier.com
EpicReads.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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Review of When You Trap a Tiger, by Tae Keller

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

When You Trap a Tiger

by Tae Keller

Random House, 2020. 297 pages.
Review written July 17, 2020, from a library book
2020 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor
2021 Newbery Medal Winner

As the book opens, Lily and her big sister Sam are being taken by their mother to move to the Pacific Northwest to live with their Halmoni, their Korean grandmother. Lily and Sam aren’t thrilled about this sudden move, which changes all their summer plans. As they get near Halmoni’s house, Lily sees a giant tiger in the road, a tiger that looks just like the one that appeared in the tales Halmoni used to tell. Her mother and Sam don’t even see the tiger, and nothing happens when they drive through that part.

It isn’t too long living there before Lily learns Halmoni is very sick. And it turns out the tiger is willing to make a deal with Lily, in exchange for some stories Halmoni stole long ago. But Halmoni has taught Lily never to trust a tiger.

At the same time, Lily is trying to make friends in the new community, and Sami is sometimes nice, sometimes harsh, and she’s so worried about Halmoni.

I wasn’t crazy about the way the fantasy in this book was handled, because I could find logical holes. However, it does nicely leave you wondering what’s real and what’s Lily’s imagination. The overtones from Korean mythology, along with thoughts about the importance of stories, add richness to this book.

taekeller.com
rhcbooks.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom, by Louis Sachar

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom

by Louis Sachar
illustrated by Tim Heitz

Harper, 2020. 182 pages.
Review written March 21, 2020, from a library book

This book is high class silliness. It’s been 40 years since Louis Sachar wrote a book about Wayside School. Side note: It’s interesting to me that they list three Wayside School books in the front and Louis Sachar acknowledges three in the Intro, but my absolute favorite, and, okay, probably the only one I was really interested in enough to read, is not mentioned — Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School. That one’s essentially a puzzle book, but still, it’s my favorite! Must it be completely forgotten?

My kids loved the Wayside School books back in the day. Now they are 32 and 25 years old. To be honest, I enjoyed hearing my kids tell me about them, and bought them copies, but aside from Sideways Arithmetic, I was never interested enough to read an entire book. Until now. (And to be fair, then I wasn’t yet a children’s librarian.)

This is not a book for people who look for logical consistencies or think about actual consequences of proposed magical happenings. It isn’t a book for people who will point out that you couldn’t possibly collect a million toenail and fingernail clippings in a few months. That describes me, so I’m simply not the true audience for these books. However, I managed to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy this and have fun. The stuff that happens is silly, but it’s silly in a light-hearted and clever way.

We’re back in Mrs. Jewls’ class on the thirtieth floor. Wayside School is still built sideways, with one room on each floor. I don’t know if any of the students have reappeared from earlier books or if we’ve got a new crop. I’m pretty sure that order doesn’t matter in this series. In this book, a Cloud of Doom settles over the school and disrupts things.

But along the way, you have things like a cure for Oppositosis, hoarding paper clips, a face that gets “stuck like that,” and a kid trying to read the longest book ever. I do like the way sillinesses from one chapter come back in others.

My favorite part, though, is the description of the librarian:

Mrs. Surlaw smiled when she heard that. The only thing she loved more than books were children who loved books. She may have seemed severe on the outside, but inside, her heart was soft as a pillow.

I’m excited that a new generation of kids is going to discover Wayside School. These books explore what might happen if your school were a very silly and strange place. And what kid can resist thinking about that?

harpercollinschildrens.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Snapdragon, by Kat Leyh

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Starred Review 0

Snapdragon

by Kat Leyh

First Second, 2020. 224 pages.
Review written July 17, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Snapdragon is a girl who all the kids at school think is weird. She lives with her mom and her dog, Good Boy. When Good Boy goes missing, she looks at the house of the old witch, who’s rumored to eat pets. She does find Good Boy, and he’s been patched up after a car hit him.

The next day some boys are playing with the body of a dead possum and trying to gross out Snapdragon. But she finds the possum’s babies and goes to the witch’s house to get help taking care of them. It turns out the witch is a lady named Jacks who harvests roadkill and ends up selling their reticulated skeletons on the internet.

Snapdragon is fascinated by that and keeps coming for help with the possum babies and learning about the skeletons, and then it turns out that Jacks really is a witch. So now it’s time to learn about magic.

That summary doesn’t begin to convey the richness of the characters in this graphic novel. Jacks is not at all a stereotypical witch anymore than Snapdragon is a stereotypical outsider kid. Challenges come up, and even though magic comes into play, it feels like the challenges are dealt with realistically.

As a graphic novel, the book is short, but I enjoyed every minute I spent reading it.

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

Review of The Faithless Hawk, by Margaret Owen

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Faithless Hawk

by Margaret Owen
read by Amy Landon

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2020. 12 hours, 29 minutes.
Review written January 21, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

The Faithless Hawk concludes the duology begun in The Merciful Crow, and although the first gives a satisfying story on its own, you won’t want to read the second without it. And if you’ve read the first, you’ll want to read on — so I count myself lucky that I didn’t discover this author until this duology was finished, so I could read them only a couple weeks apart.

I was nervous about the title. Because our hero Fie from the Crow caste is in love with a boy from the Hawk caste. They have to go separate ways at the end of the first book, and the title worried me.

And yes, in the first book, Fie has to attempt to get Prince Jasimir and his cousin and body double to their allies. In this book, they need to get ready to take on the evil queen herself. And when they hear the king has died of the plague, they know she will be making her move.

Well, the queen is more powerful than they ever imagined, and it looks like they’re doomed. It’s going to take desperate measures to defeat her — and it looks like the one Fie loves has made a bad choice.

This book goes much deeper into this world and the castes and the dead gods reborn and the ways the magic works. There are twelve castes, each with their own birthright. Except the crows, who seem to have none, but can commndeer any other caste’s birthright if they have a tooth from someone of that caste. But one thing leads to another, and Fie is told that their birthright was stolen, and if she keeps an ages-old covenant, she can get it back.

It’s all wonderfully done, with several places where I thought I was just going to have to accept a terrible ending and other places where information I’d been given before produced a moment of recognition where I realized how something would work. And okay, there were some other places where I was completely surprised by the turn things took.

But it all adds up to another wonderful book by one of my new favorite authors — and deep sadness that now I’ve read all of her books and the next one doesn’t come out until 2025. (Here’s hoping Amazon got that wrong and really it’s sooner.)

margaret-owen.com

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Review of Over the Moon, by Natalie Lloyd

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Over the Moon

by Natalie Lloyd

Scholastic Press, 2019. 291 pages.
Starred Review
Review written December 5, 2019, from a library book

Here’s a delightful fantasy tale of a girl named Mallie Ramble who lives in a village on the mountain with her parents and her little brother. Her father has gone blind and mute from working in the mines, and so Mallie needs to go down the mountain and work as a maid in the valley. Even so, she can’t earn enough to keep the family out of debt. The Guardians say that her little brother Denver is going to have to work in the mines even though he’s only seven.

Older people in her village tell of a time before the Dust came when people of the village rode winged horses, Starbirds, and gathered starlight to weave into beautiful garments. But that was before Mallie was born. Now the Dust is thick over the village, bringing with it despair and anger and sadness.

When Mallie sees a brochure for brave and wiry young boys to volunteer for a dangerous task that will bring them riches – she thinks she’s found a way to pay her family’s debts and save Denver from having to work in the mines. Will it matter that she’s a girl and that one of her arms is shorter than the other?

This, in fact, leads to adventures beyond Mallie’s wildest dreams – but also requires great bravery.

This uplifting tale will help anyone rise above despair. The world-building is imaginative, the obstacles are big, and the triumphant finish is earned.

scholastic.com

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!