Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody

200 followers! Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! All of you are awesome and perfect and-- -devolves into screaming/jumping up and down- It's taken me almost two years to get to this point, but I don't care because I'm just glad you're here and care what I have to say. Thank you!

Title: Obernewtyn
Author: Isobelle Carmody
Publisher: Random House Children's Book
Release Date: December 9, 2008
Pages: 244 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

In a world struggling back from the brink of apocalypse, life is harsh. And for Elspeth Gordie, it is also dangerous. That's because Elspeth has a secret: she is a Misfit, born with mysterious mental abilities that she must keep hidden under threat of death. And her worries only multiply when she is exiled to the mountain compound known as Obernewtyn, where—for all her talents—Elspeth may finally and truly be out of her depth. Then she learns she’s not the only one concealing secrets at Obernewtyn.

Review:

Isobelle Carmody's standalone novel Alyzon Whitestarr was one of the first books I reviewed when I started this blog nearly two years ago (almost two years now!) and since then, I've been interested in the series that made her so famous in Australia: the Obernewtyn Chronicles. This post-apocalyptic fantasy novel is a serious departure from what I'm used to and I enjoyed it, though the novel has its share of problems. It's difficult to put my problems into words for this one, but I'll try.

The novel's vivid worldbuilding kept me reading when I needed to pack and do other things, though I admittedly started skimming at the boring points. Elspeth came across as a relatable character to me and what she went through in various orphanages a a child believably shaped who she is in this novel. I got quite a bit of heart from the supporting characters as well, but I did expect a little more from them. It's understandable we didn't get to know them better, in a way; the iron fist of Obernewtyn's Master(s) kept them from being more open and letting both Elspeth and readers in. They're likely to get more characterization in future books.

Carmody began the novel when she was fourteen and it was first published in 1987, when she was in her late twenties, but there are places where stilted writing/dialogue and rough pacing give away how young she was when she began. As I said previously, I started skimming when things got boring and during some of the descriptions. Obernewtyn is short and that's exactly why I read this next over something else, but that also gives it two choices: cram a lot into a little book or allow a proportionately small amount of material into said little book. It went with the latter.

I have a feeling Carmody's Obernewtyn Chronicles is a series that is better when considered as a whole rather than as individual books, much like LJ Smith's books. I think I'll continue on with this series to see how the author improves and how the more subtle elements and forgotten plot threads of Obernewtyn will come back later (research on this series has taught me that everything is important and can come back books later to save the day), but I can't do it right now. Maybe one day.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

The False Princess by Eilis O'Neal

Title: The False Princess
Author: Eilis O'Neal
Publisher: Egmont USA
Release Date: January 25, 2011
Pages: 319 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Borrowed it from my best friend.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: audiobook clip | author website

Princess and heir to the throne of Thorvaldor, Nalia's led a privileged life at court.  But everything changes when it's revealed, just after her sixteenth birthday, that she is a false princess, a stand-in for the real Nalia, who has been hidden away for her protection.  Cast out with little more than the clothes on her back, the girl now called Sinda must leave behind the city of Vivaskari, her best friend, Keirnan, and the only life she's ever known.

Sinda is sent to live with her only surviving relative, an aunt who is a dyer in a distant village. She is a cold, scornful woman with little patience for her newfound niece, and Sinda proves inept at even the simplest tasks.  But when Sinda discovers that magic runs through her veins - long-suppressed, dangerous magic that she must learn to control - she realizes that she can never learn to be a simple village girl.

Returning to Vivaskari for answers, Sinda finds her purpose as a wizard scribe, rediscovers the boy who saw her all along, and uncovers a secret that could change the course of Thorvaldor's history, forever.

A dazzling first novel, The False Princess is an engrossing fantasy full of mystery, action, and romance.

Review:

Imagine living for sixteen years thinking you're one person and then discovering that you're not. You were just their stand-in to make sure they stayed alive, and then you were cast out into the world with little help from the people who raised you. This is the scenario of The False Princess, a novel I've had my eye on for well over a year. It took snagging my best friend's copy for me to finally read it and I'm glad I did. The only thing that kept me from finishing this novel faster was real life concerns and some trouble that started last Wednesday night.

Thrown from her former life as quickly as she was, I felt so sad for Sinda. It often bugged me that she was so passive and hung up on her old life, but those flaws made her the believable character I wanted to see and greatly enjoyed reading about. The struggle she had with her newfound magical powers worked well and I loved reading about it. I'd rather read about a passive girl struggling to get a hold on her powers and working hard for what she got than someone who got everything handed to her and never had any truly pressing problems.

It often frustrated me that Sinda wouldn't tell anyone anything about what she suspects is a plot against the crown and even potentially alienated her best friend so she could keep what was going on a secret (how he forgave her so easily got to me a bit), but I did understand why she did it: because she was the false princess. She received so little gold because the royals didn't want to give her the opportunity to fund a rebellion in case Sinda were bitter about losing the throne and decided she wanted it back. Almost anyone she told about such a plot would dismiss it as the former princess's attempt to get back to her old life.

The mystery element of the novel is very straightforward but not overtly obvious. I love being able to figure out something before someone else can, whether it's what someone is going to say or whodunnit. I blame that on how I was raised on the utterly fantastic Detective Conan/Case Closed, but that's not the point. As hard as I tried to come to the conclusion of who did it before Sinda and Kiernan could, I was often as clueless as they were and got it only shortly (like, a page or two) before they did. Bravo, novel! You have bested me.

And the romance. Aw, Kiernan and Sinda were so sweet that I could have cuddled them like stuffed animals! I loved each and everyone one of their scenes, even when their scenes had them hurting one another. With the kind of dynamic and chemistry they had, it was hard not to coo at them out loud (and I'm kind of glad I didn't; I don't like it when people look at me like "WTF are you doing?" while I'm reading. It's too distracting.)

O'Neal seems like she's got it going on and I'll be keeping an eye out for her next novel. I'm sure it will be just as thoroughly thought out and difficult to put down as The False Princess proved to be.

4 stars!

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The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

Title: The Girl of Fire and Thorns
Author: Rae Carson
Publisher: HarperCollins/Greenwillow
Release Date: September 20, 2011
Pages: 424 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.

Elisa is the chosen one.

But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can't see how she ever will.

Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.

And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people's savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.

Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.

Most of the chosen do.

Review:

Getting married at the age of sixteen to a handsome yet indecisive king is not something Elisa wants, but it is her duty as a princess and possibly something she must do to perform her act of service. As the bearer of the Godstone, a person chosen only once every century, she is expected to do something great for her people, but Elisa only sees herself as a failure of a woman. Then as soon as her husband finally begins to accept her, she is kidnapped and taken to the far reaches of her new country. The people there believe she is the savior they need, and she is ready to step up to the plate and do what is needed of her. Unless she dies young the way most bearers do, of course.

Well-paced and well-plotted, The Girl of Fire and Thorns was rarely a dull read. If I had to pick a favorite scene, it would likely be the scene in which Elisa's guardian Ximena kills a main with a hairpin. A hairpin. That is straight up awesome and I would like to learn how to do that, please. Readers who like or loathe their fantasy with religious influence will find it here and it plays into the story well without being overbearing or preachy to the reader. The idea of everyone, even the "evil" side, feeling it is God's will they do what they do was nothing new, but it did give me some food for thought.

Elisa is one of the more unique heroines I've seen in recent memory not only because she's overweight (for about 1/3 of the book) and a POC character, but also because she has so many layers to her. The kind of pressure she faces is immense and it gets to her a few times, but she learns to handle it well even when it caused her some pain (and turned her into a little bit of a Mary Sue, but whatever). For a princess in a fictional fantasy world, she feels real, especially when she engages in as familiar a behavior as overeating.  I can come up with a few psychological explanations for why she eats the way she does, but she never dwells on the reasons or explicitly states why she does it.

I was surprised more than a few times over the course of the book. There's a certain sense of complacency I've developed with YA fiction; there are certain tricks and events I feel sure authors won't include in their books because the truth is that 99.9999999% of them wouldn't do it. Apparently, it's too risky. This is one of the minuscule percentage of books that would did it without worrying about how it might anger the fans or be too risky. This attempt to go against the grain and stand out worked well because I won't be forgetting about it anytime soon.

Still, if I had to come up with something to compare this book to, it would be bubble gum. I very rarely buy or chew bubble gum, but I devour it monstrously when I do. The only way I'll stop shoving more into my mouth is if someone stops me or I run out of gum. Once I've stopped chewing gum, I have no motivation to get more and start all over. A while later, I'll see more gum and think, "Oh, why not? Let's get some." Lather, rinse, repeat. This method of cramming a lot in when I have it but feeling no motivation to get back to it once I've stopped is exactly what happened with TGoFaT.

The book flaunts a few rookie weaknesses. It tended to tell me what a character was like instead of showing me so I could reach that conclusion on my own. The placement of Elisa's grand character growth after her dramatic weight loss carries a few unfortunate implications. Then at one point early in the novel, Elisa is given three Godstones that are obvious plot points for later in the novel. I found the way the book brought them up, literally buried them, and brought them back when it was time to use them to be a little lazy.

TGoFaT could have been stronger is numerous areas, but I am certain it can and will improve on those weaknesses. With the way it ended, closing one major character arc of Elisa's and hinting at more to come, I am hooked for the sequel Crown of Thorns when it comes out in September 2012. None of my friends can reach a general consensus about this book (our thoughts fall all across the spectrum), so my only advice it to take a leap of faith and try it out. This book would have four stars if the weaknesses didn't distract me so.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

The Raie'Chaelia by Melissa Douthit

Title: The Raie'Chaelia
Author: Melissa Douthit
Publisher: Lucky Bat Books
Release Date: May 27, 2011
Pages: 365 pages (Amazon estimate)
How I Got the Book: Downloaded it for free from Amazon

When Chalice sets off for Branbury in the middle of the night with her grandfather's instructions, she has no idea of the dangers that await her. The King's men have destroyed her home village of Canton and she is suddenly thrown into a Terravailian world that she does not know. Lost and alone, she is hard pressed to evade the iron grasp of the madman who rules the land. With the help of a friendly Chinuk, an old man, and a book that she discovers along the way, not only does she find true friends and true love, but she also finds her true self and what it means to be the Raie'Chaelia.

Review:

I normally start my reviews with a summary of the novel in my own words, but I remember so little of what this novel was about that I can't come up with my own summary. I finished reading it just ten minutes ago from the time I write this opening paragraph, mind you. I'll just jump right in to the critical portion of this review.

Chalice is yet another one of those beautiful, perfect(ly boring) heroines everyone in the story loves. She never has to put in any effort for a situation to work out in her favor, everything comes to her naturally, and she is void of all personality or interesting traits. Where is the struggle? I like to read about heroines who have to work hard to get what they want and have to overcome strong personal conflicts. I don't see why I am supposed to care about her and cheer her on when she is basically a void personified and I know it's all going to work for her out in the end. The supporting cast was nothing but cardboard stock characters.

I skimmed large portions of the novel because of the endless minutiae of everything that doesn't need description. A kitchen and its contents took up an entire page of description and I said I would eat my ring if anything in there came back to be important and my ring remains uneaten. The effect the overdescription has on the book is equivalent to strapping pairs of 500 lb. weights to a baby squirrel. Dropping unneeded commas in the middle of sentences bogged it down further.

To get more specific about the writing quality, calling it a nightmare would be an insult to the truly terrifying nightmares I've had. I have so many highlights on my Kindle of examples of this that looking at it scares me. Usually when centered on Chalice, the prose became so purple that I feared it was in danger of being eliminated from the color spectrum (but according to who you ask, purple is but a pigment of our imaginations in the first place). Multiple sentences end in multiple punctuation marks (??? and !! and ??) and that is best left to the Internet, not a published book.

Here are a few prime quotes:

Passing the hearth, she noticed two doorways, one on each side of the sitting room, and a double doorway in front of her, consisting of crystal squares framed in carved cedar, that revealed a terrace behind it, overlooking the ocean. (The Raie'Chaelia, 4%) (As Reasoning with Vampires taught me, sentences are not minivans.)

"What is it, boy?" she said as she jumped to her feet, spilling her tea, which had lost its heat, and stroked his blond neck to calm him. (5%)

Really, she had known since Branbury. She had to choose. It was a choice between the love of her life and her duty to the people. How heartbreaking life could be! It was almost a cruel joke. She stared at the floor in deep thought. (45%)

She looked down and saw that her cut was angry, red, and full of puss and was still bleeding profusely. (72%) (Ah, what a difference a single letter can make. Puss is either a cat or a girl/woman and I don't think either of those are in her cut. Pus, however, might be.)

"The firestone," Vlaad said darkly, as he looked into the Fierain's eyes and saw a red glint flare up in the burning inferno of insanity that flourished within. (98%)

The point of view tended to jump from Chalice to someone else in the middle of a paragraph for as little as two sentences, but it was usually for a paragraph or two. I like narrative consistency and smooth changes in narrative if it must move to someone else. This novel had neither. The changes in narrative were never of importance either; almost every time, their only purpose was to talk about Chalice and how wonderful she was.

And oh, how predictable the novel was! I don't read fantasy very often (in three years, I've read about three hundred books and maybe seven were high fantasy), but I'm familiar with the cliche tropes. This book has them all in spades. Each twist was called a good while ahead of time and the narrative would often take a time-out to say something like "but they had no idea that someone was watching them and saw it all!" And a woman named Jezebelle being evil? No! That specific choice was sheer laziness.

Dialogue tags are often found with adverbs attached. Personally, I loathe relying too much on adverbs in fiction; using too many shows an inability to master tone and lends to the problem of telling instead of showing. The Raie'Chaelia suffers from an abundance of adverbs and interrobangs both normal (?!) and mutilated (?!?), which contributes to the problem that the novel is told every step of the way instead of shown. Tone is about describing the right subjects the right way, not describing every last piece of a scene and throwing around adverbs like water balloons at a summer camp.

How bad was it? A few more quotes for you:

"Really?!?" said Jeremiah wryly. "What gave you that impression?" (8%)

"Uh ... yeah ... right. Whatever you say, Jeremiah. I'll take your word for it. Fascinating stuff," she said sarcastically. (11%)

"Yeah, thanks!" she replied gratefully. (13%)

"You're not telling me. Alright, well, whatever. Good night," she replied sassily. (22%)

"Hmmm, I have a feeling he knows where you are," Naelli responded knowingly. (28%)

Taking Chalice' [sic] face in her hands, Kirna said strongly: "You brave woman!" (46%) (The typo of "Chalice's" appears more often than it is spelled correctly.)

Can you not get the impression of how the words are said by what is said? Apparently, we are not smart enough to figure it out that way and must be told.

There are two ways the plot of The Raie'Chaelia gets moved: by infodump or by contrivance, and the former is more heavily relied on than the latter. I mentioned earlier I was already skimming large pieces of the book, but I began to skim even more quickly once pages upon pages were spent infodumping. When moved by contrivance, someone burst in with exactly what they needed so Chalice and her love interest Jeremiah would have to actually work for the knowledge or a plot point jumped on top of them. Then it devolved back into infodumps so long I forgot what was going on before.

The Raie'Chaelia seems to have an identity crisis. Its setting is easily defined as high fantasy with just a hint of its sibling subgenre sword and sorcery. Through various infodumps, it is made known the book is also post-apocalyptic, but all this detail seems to do is create an excuse for the underground cities to exist. The merging of two subgenres so distant from one another seems like a great idea and I liked it when it was first introduced, but it was done so badly that it would have been better if it weren't done at all.

At the beginning of the novel was a preface that came off as more than a little condescending to me. Why I didn't turn tail and run away from this book after that point is a mystery to me. More helpful would have been a pronunciation guide so I could figure out how to pronounce Naeo'Gaea, Dar'Maalda, Naie'Ielian, and Bunejab. I could not recommend this book to anyone and have a clear conscience about it.

1 star!

What am I reading next?: Shadows on the Moon by Zoe Marriott

Eona by Alison Goodman

Title: Eona
Author: Alison Goodman
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Release Date: April 19th, 2011
Pages: 637 pages (hardback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.

Once she was Eon, a girl disguised as a boy, risking her life for the chance to become a Dragoneye apprentice.Now she is Eona, the Mirror Dragoneye, her country's savior--but she has an even more dangerous secret.

She cannot control her power.

Each time she tries to bond with her Mirror Dragon,she becomes a conduit for the ten spirit dragons whose Dragoneyes were murdered by Lord Ido. Their anguish floods through her, twisting her ability into a force that destroys the land and its people.

And another force of destruction is on her trail.

Along with Ryko and Lady Dela, Eona is on the run from High Lord Sethon's army. Sethon has declared himself Emperor. In order to stop him,the renegades must find Kygo, the young Peal Emperor, who needs Eona's power if he is to wrest back his throne.

Eona, with its pulse-pounding drama, thrilling fight scenes, sizzling tension--and many surprises--brings to a close an epic story.

Review:

High Lord Sethon has declared himself Emperor after a coup, though the true Pearl Emperor Kygo has escaped. Eona, her identity as a woman revealed, Lady Dela, and islander rebel Ryko have also escaped and must find Kygo. He'll need Eona's power to take back his throne, but Eona can't control her power. Every time she tries to connect with her dragon, the ten dragons of the murdered Dragoneyes attack her. In need of training if Sethon is to be defeated, Eona and the resistance are forced to rescue Lord Ido, the murderous Rat Dragoneye and a power-hungry man. Torn in a million different directions by truth, power, loyalty, and more, Eona will have to make decisions that could save the empire or bring it to ruins.

Finding the words to describe this book is difficult, so I apologize if I ever seem muddled or nonsensical.

The mythos of the world Eona takes place in was carefully constructed and laid out in Eon--the twelve dragons and their relationships to the Dragoneyes, the purpose of the Imperial Pearl, and what the Dragoneyes can do with their power. In Eona, almost everything the reader knew is turned upside-down because nothing was what it seemed to be in the first book. All these reversals, especially in the relationships between the dragons and their Dragoneyes, make perfect sense in their execution and make the stakes even higher.

It takes a good while for the story to get to its climax, but intense battles are throughout and don't make it feel like there's a long wait. In the meantime, Eona and the other characters get some development. Some of the decisions Eona made in the book and the sheer amount of lying/secret-keeping she does boggled my poor mind. Seeing what could have been if Eona had a moral compass like Lord Ido's basically nonexistent one is very easy and she does some seriously bad things without thinking much on it. Considering her situation, where she's come from, and the problems she could cause herself by dwelling on it, I'm tenuously okay with that.

Romance takes a huge step up in this book, and it almost feels too sudden, like it's happening just because Eona is now known to be a woman. Eona's relationships with Kygo and Lord Ido are both refreshingly, wonderfully complex; while one is based on romantic feelings and troubled by trust issues, the other is mainly driven by attraction and power and is nowhere near healthy. For the first time in more than a few months, reading about love/lust-driven relationships sent a thrill through my system. I didn't even mind that there was a love triangle! I wish I could have seen more of Lady Dela and Ryko's relationship, though the latter put some serious effort into pushing Lady Dela away.

This book had me so enraptured that I had my head in it for four out of six classes for three days straight, unable to put it away because Eona and her sometimes-slow, sometimes-rapidly-paced story wouldn't let me. (Don't worry about any neglected schoolwork; my grades will be fine.) I was so mentally exhausted in the very best way upon finishing the book that I put my head on my desk and sat like that for twenty minutes. For about an hour after that, I was all smiley and floating. I know you don't want to hear about any of that, but I'm detailing it for a reason: I've never a reaction like this to any book in my life. Sobbing like a baby? Yes. This? No.

A day later, everything about this book is still bouncing around in my head, from the characters to the decisions Eona made that weren't always very ethical and were never easy. I felt that the preceding book Eon had its flaws, but Eona more than made up for them. There's no doubt I'll be coming back to this book (and maybe a few specific scenes) for a reread at a later time and enjoy the severe mental exhaustion all over again. This is a must for any fantasy or dragon fans looking for something new.

5 stars!

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Flecks of Gold by Alicia Buck

Title: Flecks of Gold
Author: Alicia Buck
Publisher: Cedar Fort, Inc./Bonneville Books
Release Date: May 8th, 2010
Pages: 282 pages (paperback)

How I Got the Book: Christmas gift.

Mary's life has always been pretty normal--aside from the fact that her mom cycles through relationships like she's changing channels on the TV. But when one more bad break-up forces them to start over in another new town, Mary realizes that maybe this place won't be like all the others. There's something different about one of her new classmates, and it's not just the fact that he's incredibly cute.

What Mary doesn't know is that her attraction to Kelson isn't exactly... natural. And when Kelson suddenly kidnaps Mary's mom and takes her to his home world, Mary will have to rescue her by relying on something she never knew existed--magic.

Get lost in this spell-binding world where enchantments are commonplace and electricity unheard of. Flecks of Gold is a thrilling blend of fantasy, action, and romance that's a must-read for anyone who's ever believed in magic.

Review:

After a violent confrontation with her mother's boyfriend Joe, Mary and her mother flee to Arizona to get away from him. Immediately, a strange boy named Kelson locks onto her. Despite her attraction to him, she remembers every now and then that something might not be right here. Then he shows off some magic and kidnaps her mother. Without a second thought, she mimics the same kind of magic he did and goes from Earth to Esa, a land on an alternate plane of reality. With a newly-acquired teacher named Breeohan in tow, Mary sets out to get her mother back from Kelson.

Let's get this out of the way immediately: I hated this book. It was badly written, see-through like the clean windows of a house, and as dull as a monotone lecture on toe fungus. Solitary drops of water on a tabletop are deeper than this book ever was! The only nice thing I have to say about this story is that the idea of the magic lacings was a new one that was kind of interesting. Otherwise, Flecks of Gold was insulting to my intelligence, written without any life to it, and didn't bring anything new to the table. It was just a collection of fantasy cliches with pretty packaging.

Let's start with out heroine Mary. I wanted to cut off her head so no one would have the time to heal her with lacings. This girl was a perfect Mary Sue heroine and if you look through my reviews, you can see that I don't throw around the writing term "Mary Sue" lightly! She's supposed to be so mature because she handles all the bills for her mother and takes care of the money, but this girl is nothing but an immature little brat who gets everything handed to her. I mean it--everything is so damn convenient for her. She just happens to land in the chicken coop of a mage willing to help her learn magic. Then she runs into another mage who is willing to teach her magic. Despite how dangerous it is to experiment with lacings and how rare it is to see full lacings, Mary does both of these easily.

She doesn't have to work hard to do anything or makes sacrifices. It really is unusual for mages to see complete lacings, let alone experiment with lacings, but she does it all so easily. This isn't interesting to read about! I want to see the heroines struggle and work hard to become powerful because that is interesting and seeing them work so hard to get what they want makes me feel warm inside. When they do what Mary does and are just perfect at it despite knowing little about it at first, I don't want to read about it.

Another thing heroines should do is adapt when thrown into unfamiliar surroundings because it indicates strategic thought. Katniss of The Hunger Games fame did it and she survived. Chloe of The Summoning did it for her own benefit. Even Rose Hathaway of Vampire Academy had to adapt when she and Lissa escaped from their school to live in the human world and it worked for two years. Mary adapts when forced to and otherwise acts like she's back home. She's experienced for herself thanks to her special golden eyes that the abnormal is scorned. Then she spends all her time acting abnormal without any thought of how they might treat the abnormal in this obviously different world.

One of the biggest sources of "conflict" (this is in quotations because it was such a manufactured conflict that it doesn't count in my eyes) was her romantic troubles with her magic teacher Breeohan. She thinks he likes this one mean girl, and then he thinks she likes this friend of his they're traveling with. This "conflict" is kept up for two hundred pages, only kept going because they won't sit down and talk to each other for five minutes about it. This is not how you do romantic conflict, people. Give them a bigger problem than being too stupid and hard-headed to sit down and talk.

Speaking of Breeohan, he was about as see-through as a pane of glass. There was never a question of whether or not he liked Mary like there should have been; there was also never a question about whether or not she liked him. The entire cast was one-dimensional! I would call them two-dimensional, but that would be an insult to cardboard characters. These guys aren't even close to that. From Avana the rude noblewoman to Kelteon/Kelson the villain to our two main characters Mary and Breeohan, no one gets any depth whatsoever. We never find out why these people do the things they do or are the people they are.

And to finish, I will say that I have never been so insulted by a book in my life. Mary spends the entire book narrating with huge hints like "he looked at me intently" (which soon became a sign that there was way more to it) and "it was like (scenario here that later turns out to be true)." Fifty pages in, I called every single twist in the book (and I mean every twist; no exaggeration here) and how it was going to end because there was were these blinking-sign hints for all of the twists. It made me feel like the author was talking down to me, thinking me so stupid that I needed all these obvious hints to understand when I could figure it out just fine.

When applied to a book, the word "execution" often means how well an element of the story was written or pulled off. A book that had a well-written plot might have the sentence "The plot was executed well" said about it. Another definition of "execution" is one where it means someone dies, like a criminal is executed. This is one instance where I would say this book's idea was executed and mean the second definition. If written better, this idea could have gone places and made me fall in love. Instead, this high-potential idea was executed without mercy. Can someone else please read this to see if they find the same problems I did?

0 stars!

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Eon by Alison Goodman

Title: Eon
Author: Alison Goodman
Publisher: Firebird
Release Date: August 31st, 2010
Pages: 532 pages (trade paperback)
How I Got the Book: Christmas gift.

She has a powerful secret... with deadly consequences.

For years, Eon's life has been focused on magical study and sword-work, with one goal: that he be chosen as a Dragoneye, an apprentice to one of the twelve energy dragons of Good fortune.

But Eon has a dangerous secret. He is actually Eona, a sixteen-year-old girl who has been masquerading as a twelve-year-old boy. Females are forbidden to use Dragon Magic; the penalty is death.

When Eona's secret threatens to come to light, she and her allies are plunged into grave danger and a struggle for the Imperial throne. Eona must find the strength and inner power to battle those who want to take her magic... and her life.

Review:

After years of training, it is time for Eon to take the final test to see if the Rat Dragon chooses him as the new apprentice. Many hopes are riding on his success: Those of his master Brannon, who has used up much of his fortune sponsoring Eon and Eon's own hopes of escaping poverty for good and never having to worry about going back. All he has to do is be chosen and keep his greatest secret: he is truly a girl named Eona. When the day comes, she is chosen not by the Rat Dragon, but by the Mirror Dragon, the dragon that has been lost for five hundred years. Thrust into the workings of the court and forced to be a pawn in the battle for the Imperial throne, Eona must keep her gender secret to keep her life and fight against the machinations of Lord Ido, who has something terrible planned for the empire.

After some reviewers I trust pointed this book out to me through advertising its sequel Eona, I knew I had to read it. A beautiful cover, a good premise (which, when combined, usually does not bode well for a book anymore), lots of good reviews for it... How could I resist? A week of reading later, I'm begging for April to get here faster so I can read the sequel and learn the answers to all my burning questions.

Some novels jump right in at the start and others stumble. Eon? It had a really bad stumble due to a hole in the premise. Short version: dragons only take apprentices born in their year (Rat Dragon takes person born in the Year of the Rat). Eona is born in the year of the Mirror Dragon, but poses as being born in the Year of the Rat. People can be fooled, but not the dragons, who realize that she is a girl and know her real name, so they know her true age too. Everyone should have been smart enough to know it would not work. This was all a badly done set-up so that Eona would have a reason for being taught as a candidate and the mess shows through clearly. Oh, and I don't believe it is a good idea to start thinking about what people see when they look at you when you're in the middle of a battle in which your teacher is fighting dirty to try and injure you! You can do that after you've had your butt kicked, not before.

After we got past the first hundred pages where most of the bumps were, the novel really hit its stride as we settled into the court intrigue. The structure of the court and the traditions of it rang true, even if they were difficult to put together in my head sometimes. The prose is rather plain, but it is acceptable in this book. Certain elements of the story such as the Contraires (they said they had a male and female soul, but it kept getting implied the rest of the book that it was a woman's spirit in a man's body) were unclear to be, but were much clearer than they would have been in Goodman went for the fancy prose.

Lady Dela's story of being a Contraire and how she has suffered for it was, in my opinion, the most interesting part of the book, even if little time was spent on it. This is the first time I've seen a transgender person in any book and Lady Dela made a wonderful representation. The feminist element to this book, about how hard it is to live as a woman in such a patriarchal society, rang true in both Eona's struggles and Lady Dela's. The power of women had a huge part to play in this book and I'm looking forward to seeing the developments in the sequel.

And no romance at all! This will put certain readers (read: many girls my age) off a book, but not me. I prefer books to be romance-free, but I often pick up ones with romance in them anyways because it's near-impossible to escape and I won't let something like that keep me from reading a book that sounds interesting. Want a break from the lovey-dovey for a story that concentrates on the plot? Eon is something you should think about trying. There are the barest hints of a set-up for future romance, but some may pick up on them and some won't. They are so small that they may end up amounting to nothing at all.

The characterization left a lot to be desired. Eona felt like just a tool of the plot instead of a true character. If you asked me to describe her personality, I would not be able to come up with an answer. She is being thrown around by the plot in order to advance itself instead of her advancing the plot herself, and this is not something books should do. I asked multiple times in this book, "What was their motivation?" I wanted to see why Lord Ido was the way he was. Don't need a sob story, just some decent background info. The only people who felt halfway real were Lady Dela, our novel's transgender/crossdressing supporting character, and her bodyguard Ryko. Those two were the characters I cared about.

I really did like this book by the end of it and would have given it a better rating, but such a huge hole in the premise doesn't go unpunished in the rating. The sequel Eona comes out in April 2011 and I am so getting it. If you're looking for a descriptive, enjoyable novel that isn't afraid to take its time, this might be the book for you. Eon left off on a huge cliffhanger and I refuse to just leave it hanging and never know what happens.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

First Test by Tamora Pierce

Title: First Test
Author: Tamora Pierce
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: May 23, 2000
Pages: 206 pages (paperback)

In the medieval and fantastic realm of Tortall, Keladry of Mindelan (known as Kel) is the first girl to take advantage of the decree that permits females to train for knighthood. Up against the traditional hazing of pages and a grueling schedule, Kel faces only one real roadblock: Lord Wyldon, the training master of pages and squires. He is absolutely against girls becoming knights. So while he is forced to train her, Wyldon puts her on probation for one year. It is a trial period that no male page has ever had to endure and one that separates the good-natured Kel even more from her fellow trainees during the tough first year. But Kel is not a girl to underestimate, as everyone is about to find out...

Review:

It has been ten years since the decree was made that women could train to become knights in the realm of Tortall and one girl is finally taking advantage of that: Keladry of Mindelan, a ten-year-old girl with three other knights in her family. The chauvinistic Lord Wyldon, who is a fantastic teacher despite his attitude towards Kel's wish to train for knighthood, forces Kel to undergo a one year probationary period to determine whether or not she can keep up with the boys and go on with the rest of her training or go home.

I've heard many good things about Tamora Pierce both through the Internet and through friends that have read her books, but I haven't thought to pick up any of her books until now. I saw First Test in a used bookstore (that I've gotten a lot of my recently-reviewed books from) and curious, I bought it to see what the fuss was about. I see just what everyone was praising and I'm glad I got this book.

I love stories with feminist themes, in which a girl in a male-dominated world is able to become an equal to the men that have been "better than her" for most of her life. First Test and many of Tamora Pierce's other books (according to those good friends of mine and the Internet) has exactly the wonderful feminist themes I was hearing about and hoping for. Kel was a heroine I could relate to and Lord Wyldon was also an interesting character due to his bias towards women becoming knights and how he overcomes that.

I had no idea that this was the third quartet that takes place in Pierce's Tortall realm. I just saw this book, recognized the name, and picked it up. I came into this book with no information whatsoever on the mechanics of the world, but I wasn't confused even once about how it worked. This is certainly a testament to Pierce's talent. If someone can start where I did and not need to read the previous two quartets to understand what is going on, the author is doing something right.

This book is very short- only 206 pages- but it delivers a lot of good material in such a short time. This book is probably longer to others, but I'm so used books that are anywhere from 300 to 850 pages long that this is a quick, short read for me. Better yet, I got through so quickly because I didn't want to put it down to do something else. As the first book of a series, it does a fantastic job of setting up everything within such a short amount of time. She can do in 206 pages what it takes some authors 400 or 500 pages to do with a world that is decidedly less expansive than this one.

I had to stop reading at the beginning because of a scene in which an immortal spider-like monster called a spidren had a bag of kittens and ate two of them. None of you would know this (or do you? I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but my memory is terrible), but I love cats. I have five and I love them all very much. Once I'm able to buy my own cats, I will have as many as the law and decency will allow me to have. The visual imagery of the spidren eating those kittens upset me greatly because cats mean so much to me and I had to put it down for about ten minutes. Form there on, it was smooth sailing, but the image stuck with me and I still get a little queasy about it. This scene had significance--to give Kel another good motivation to become a knight, to make her want to be a "protector of the small" animals and people like kittens--so at least it wasn't gore for the sake of gore like some other authors might do.

I also felt that some of the characters fell a little bit flat. This was mostly applied to the more minor characters like the first-year pages Kel is taught with and the antagonist, Joren of Stone Mountain and his friends. Part of this is due to the short length of the book, leaving less time for development, and partly because they're just that minor. The mystery of who was sending Kel those gifts wasn't much of a mystery either. Before I peeked ahead to confirm my guess (yes, I do that sometimes), I was already sure I knew who it was and I was right.

Like I said, it did a wonderful job as the opening book, but a few parts fell flat. I'm going to seek out the next books and read those too at some point because if a book is this good in its first entry, the next few must be even better!

4 stars!

The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley

Title: The Door in the Hedge

Author: Robin McKinley
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Release Date: April 1, 1981

Pages: 216 pages (paperback)

Because this is a short story collection instead of a novel, I will be grading it in a different form than normal. There will be no summary because there pretty much is no summary on this book.

Review:

The Stolen Princess

In the last mortal kingdom bordering the lands of the faeries, children are stolen from the people on a regular basis. Baby boys and of-age girls are stolen away from their families and no one is safe- not even the royal family. First, the Princess Ellian was stolen at seventeen and her twin sister Alora barely recovered from that. Then Alora gave birth to her solitary heir Princess Linadel and on Linadel's seventeenth birthday, she too was stolen away by the faeries.

This story was 77 or so pages long and I didn't like it very much. It dragged on for too long and even for a fairy tale, the love-at-first-sight of Princess Linadel and Donathor wasn't very convincing. In the end, everything tied up in a pretty little bow so that the two could be together without one of them having to give up their own kingdom. I know it's a fairy tale, but this happy ending was just a teaspoon too sweet for my tastes. For one reason or another, the royal family seems to be having psychic dreams all over the place. Fantasy excuses that too, but it's still a little strange because there's no attempt at an explanation.

The Princess and the Frog

When Princess Rana receives a necklace from Prince Aliyander, she accidentally drops it in a special body of water near her palace and the malevolent magic that charmed it disappears. Knowing that she cannot return without the necklace, Rana enlists the help of a talking frog sitting by the lake. In return, the frog asks to live in the castle and because she knows that she must grant his request for helping her, she agrees.

This was a slightly darker retelling of the tale of the same title which most of us are familiar with, but instead of it being about a spoiled princess getting her ball back and learning a little bit of humility along the way, it's about a princess and a frog defeating an evil, magical prince. The loss of the great moral affects the story and while it's still enjoyable, it's not quite the same. At the end, Rana has the time to run all the way outside and get a "flagon" (whatever that is; I'm sorry, but I'm not quite educated enough to know that word) of water from the pond she dropped her necklace in, and pour it over Aliyander, which kills him. It's a stretch enough that she knew the pond water would defeat him, but the they hadn't moved at all when Rana got back. There's no way they would have paused to wait for her while she got the key to killing Aliyander.

The Haunting of the Hind

There is a horse running through the lands known as thee Golden Kind, one that is so beautiful that men will chase after it and if the come home, they are scarred and have lost their minds. When Princess Korah's beloved brother follows the Hind, he is one of the lucky ones and comes back with both his mind and his sanity, but he is slowly wasting away and dying. Willing to do anything to help the brother who has loved her unconditionally when so many people loved her half-heartedly, Korah sets out to find the Hind and save her brother's life.

I preferred this original story over "the Stolen Princess." It was shorter at about thirty pages or so, which meant it was more concise and concentrated on the present time instead of the history of the world. The beginningof it was good, but lost steam at the end. Princess Korah has to leave behind all of her feelings, face down the wizard that traps the hind- a horse who was originally a woman- and ask him to release the hind and her brother. Really? No tricks beyond that? You'd think a wizard would put up more of a fight than that, but he doesn't. The hind's brother- so unmemorable that I already forgot his name- got paired up with Korah at the last second. That was his entire purpose for existing, it seemed. Why did Korah have to be paired with a guy? Couldn't she have stayed single? That would have been a nice divergence from the previous two stories, where the princesses both got guys. It's okay to have some variety- really.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

A middle-aged soldier, weary from fighting for his kingdom for twenty years, hears of a plea from the king: discover where the twelve princesses of the kingdom are going every night to dance, for the are bewitched and the only thing that can save them from the spell is for a man not of the princess' family to follow them to where they go and tell the King after the sun rises. He takes it and with the help of an invisible cloak given to him by an old woman he helped, he just might succeed.

And here was some of the variety that I wanted. Instead of having to read the princess's point of view, we are in the point of the of the soldier, who is never given a name. What's wrong with naming him? Then again, no one has a proper name in this story, so I'll let that slide. This one follows closely to the original tale while still adding its own twist and once again, the added twist kind of messes things up. You remember the old woman that gives the soldier the invisible cloak, don't you? In the original story, she only gives him the cloak and warns him not to drink what the princesses give him. In this one, she informs the soldier of exactly what bewitched the princesses, why, and what he must do to save them. Isn't that strange? In the original story, one can assume she would put together her warnings after hearing others who have taken on the task talking once they failed. How does she know so much in this tale?

Ultimately, this collection of stories wasn't very good. All of the princesses fell flat, each story was the worst kind of long-winded, and they just weren't memorable. I doubt that I will be coming back to reread this book in the future and most likely, I will sell it off once I acquire too many books again. I did enjoy the stories for at least a short time, so they are saved from a worse rating.

3 stars!