Purity

by Jackson Pearce
ages: 15+
First sentence: "When I said it, I didn't mean it."
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Two things first: I still really like Jackson Pearce's writing. And I'm completely the wrong audience for this.

Because from the get-go, the premise -- a girl, who has made promises to her mom on her death bed, doesn't want to make a promise of "purity" to her father (at a Princess Ball) and so sets out to have sex in the five weeks before the dance in order to create a loophole -- screamed idiotic to me. SCREAMED it.

I kept wanting to shake Shelby: talk. to. your. dad. Okay, sure, I know that most teenagers don't actually talk to their parents, unlike mine, but really: communication is so underrated. I know the whole point of the book was so that Shelby would learn to Love, and to Understand her father, and there was bumbling and missteps along the way. In no way does this book make sex out to be all that (and then some), but even that didn't save the book for me.

Because, in so many ways, I felt this was Done. Do we really need another book like this? I wanted Pearce to do something new, something fresh, and I feel like we got a Cliff Notes version of a Sarah Dessen book, which really disappointed me.

That's not to say people won't like this one. It's just not my cup o' tea.

Insurgent

by Veronica Roth
ages: 14+
First sentence: "I wake with his name in my mouth."
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Others in the series: Divergent

(Warning: if you haven't read Divergent, go do that now. There will, obviously, be spoilers for Divergent in this review.)

Tris, Tobias and their friends are on the run. After successfully -- sort of -- stopping the Eurdite faction and their plan to exterminate the Abnegation faction, and the city government, they're hiding out, regrouping. Their faction, Dauntless, has all but dissolved: half have defected to Eurdite, basically becoming their thugs, the other half is hiding out in the Candor faction. Then there's the "factionless": those without a place to belong. In this fight which pits Knowledge and Brawn against Truth and Selflessness, it seems those whom everyone has been ignoring are suddenly quite important.  But the important thing is this: Tris and Tobias (and their friends) make their way through most of the factions, assessing and trying desperately to figure out what Jeanine (the leader of Eurdiate) wants so badly with the Divergent, so badly that she will kill for.

The action picks up immediately where Divergent leaves off which is both a strength and a weakness. A strength because for this story, there isn't a need for months in between plot lines. The action is too intense, too immediate for that. And Roth finds a way to build on the ideas of Divergent, taking the plot lines in intriguing directions. The weakness comes if you, like me, haven't read Divergent immediately proceeding. Roth wastes no time on exposition, no time on explanations: if you don't know what's going on, tough luck.

That said, she does weave bits of information into the chapters, enough so that I was able to remember the basic story of Divergent by the time I was half way through. (It's just getting to that point!) But, eventually, this story kicked in, and I no longer needed past information -- admittedly, I did get tired of Tris and Tobias's clandestine smooching, which lacked both intensity and passion -- to carry my interest. The story is very much a middle-of-a-trilogy: things need to happen, pieces need to move, revelations need to come out (though, honestly: I felt the Big Reveal was a bit forced), in order for the story to move forward. There's a lot of running around from faction to faction (on the plus side: you get to see the insides of all the factions), recruiting people, trying to understand what the Ultimate Purpose is here. Much like Katniss, Tris spends the book trying to recover from Bad Deeds She Did, though she's a much more pro-active character than Katniss is. However, everything seems too cut-and-dried, too much like jumping through hoops. I wanted there to be more surprises. (There were a few; Roth, I think, revels in making characters who will do both "good" and "bad" things, within the space of a few chapters.)

I'm not sure it's as good as Divergent was, but since it left us on a bit of a cliff-hanger (Roth does know how to write an ending!), I'll have to leave my ultimate judgement until the next book comes out.

Fables: The Deluxe Edition, Book One

by Bill Willingham
ages: adult
First sentence: "Once Upon a Time..."
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The fairy tale characters we all know and love -- from Snow White and Price Charming down to Jack (of Beanstalk fame) -- have been exiled from their country, driven out by "The Adversary." They've been living in New York City (well, the ones who can pass for human, anyway; the rest are exiled to a farm in upstate New York) for centuries, trying to be happy with their living.

In the first of two books in this deluxe edition, "Legends in Exile," it seems Rose Red (Snow White's sister, if you didn't remember) has been murdered. Her boyfriend, Jack, finds the scene and races to tell Bigby Wolf (the Big Bad Wolf, of course, who turns out to be a bit of a shapeshifter), who takes on the investigation. Snow gets involved, not only because Rose is her sister, but because she's the mayor's (King Cole) deputy, and as a result, really runs the community.

It's an intriguing premise, this. It's a halfway decent murder mystery (I didn't figure it out; I wasn't paying enough attention to the details), and what Willingham (and his team) have done with the characters is interesting. But what I really liked was the world-building here. There's a lot of conflict just within the community, and the fact that they're in hiding just intensifies those conflicts. It was fascinating. But what I really liked was the second book, "Animal Farm."

In that, we get to see the non-human characters (the three pigs, the three bears, some dragons and other assorted woodland creatures). They're sick of being forced into their farm prison for the sake of the community's security, and want to not only overrun Snow and their government, but want to go back and take their homeland back from The Adversary. The revolution is run by Goldilocks, who is quite ruthless in her vision and execution. It's fun, it's fascinating, and it hooked me on the series.

Except: my library is missing all the books between this one and Arabian Nights, so I'm quite at a loss where to get the next installment. I'll have to do some research...

Amulet: The Last Council

Amulet, vol. 4
by Kazu Kibuishi
ages: 9+
First sentence: "Who are you playing against?"
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Others in this series: The Stonekeeper, The Stonekeeper's Curse, The Cloud Searchers

Emily and her friends and family are on a quest: one to figure out what the stone Emily wears around her neck really means, one to help overthrow the elf king. They've found the cloud city, Cielis, where they thought they would find answers. But, instead, there are only more questions. Emily's friends and family are separated and imprisoned (although the robots, Miskit and Cogsley, find an old, exiled stonekeeper to give us some much-needed backstory) while Emily is taken by the council, and subjected to "testing": a virtual game in which if you die, you don't come back.

Things aren't good in Cielis, and the answers Emily is seeking for aren't going to be found. Instead, there are just more questions.

I said, after I finished the third book, that I really needed to stop reading this. And yet, when I saw that the fourth one had come out, I went, "OOOOH, AMULET!" and picked it up. And, when I finished this one, I had the same reaction: Kibuishi just isn't writing/drawing these as fast as I want him to. I want answers! I want to know the rest of the story! I want to know where this is all going! (I couldn't remember what had happened!) It's so engrossing, so well-done, amazingly drawn, that I could just get caught up in it, reading until the story is done. Except it's not there yet.

*sigh* Waiting until the next book comes out.

Searching for Dragons

by Patricia C. Wrede
ages 9+
First sentence: "The King of the Enchanted Forest was twenty years old and lived in a rambling, scrambling, mixed-up castle somewhere near the center of his domain."
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Others in the series: Dealing with Dragons

The King of the Enchanted Forest, Mendenbar, doesn't really appreciate messes. (Especially ones made by wizards.) So, when he finds a patch of his forest dead -- completely void of magic and life -- he's not only annoyed, but also a bit curious. How on earth did that happen? Especially since there's dragon scales lying around the area. That sends him off to see the King of the Dragons, Kazul, but only finds her princess, Cimorene, setting off to find Kazul, who has been missing for several days.

From there, Mendenbar and Cimorene set off on an adventure to find Kazul (and stop those pesky wizards), that will take them all over the Mountains of Morning, meeting giants, dwarves, and a theoretical magician before they will figure it all out (and rescue Kazul) in the end.

I remember listening to this one on audio years and years ago (I didn't write a review), and I remember thoroughly enjoying it then. That hasn't changed. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it aloud to A. Mendenbar and Cimorene are such engaging, fun, witty characters, and Wrede does a fantastic job weaving in fairy tales throughout her original story. It was a lot of fun to read for both A and me.

On to the next book!