365 Days of Books

The Warrior Heir, The Wizard Heir and The Dragon Heir are part of the Heir series by Cinda William Chima. We are introduced to a world where unbeknown to regular mortals a cabal of wizards fight for power. Specially talented people, including wizards, are born with jewels of power in them which tell which if powers they will develop and determine the strength of the talent. Wizards seek out and kill or kidnap these people in order to manipulate the balance of power. The three boys who are stars of each book (Dragon Heir does feature a young woman as well) struggle to understand the wars, control their own powers, and stand for what they feel is right. In the battles, the thrid way is used to good advantage. The Demon King is the beginning of a different series. The plot of this book revolves around a well known fol tale and the history that inspired it. There are princesses in disguise, powerful wizards, civil wars, and laws circumvented. It was a little too romance for me but I hope to find out more about the tribes in the other books of the series.

I'm not a big zombie fan and I thought a book about blogging and zombies might be boring. Frankly, I scanned over large parts of World War Z because I want more flow and less statistics. Feed was GREAT! I really bought into the world she has built and her zombie timeline. The characters were fun, cynical, focused, and cracked (in what could be flaws but are for now personality highlights). The immediacy of the blogs and the braid of action, editorial, and prose work together to satisfy. The main character set is small enough to feel that I know them but the additional characters are not paperdolls and are sufficiently fleshed out to register as meaningful.

Does this all sound vague and goopy? It's not that kind of book at all and my opinions are strong. I recommend this book. The characters and plot are strong. I think the world is good enough to support more books even if not about these characters.

Oh, I forgot...Georgia and Shaun Mason and their co-blogger Buffy are chosen to blog the campaign of a rising presidential candidate. As they travel and see the inside of the campaign, unslantingly reporting the truth, their cynacism starts to become hope. Then Georgia and Mason start to see signs of a deeper problem. Is someone targeting the candidate using zombies? Is one of the conspiracy theories about zombies actually true? When the danger is turned on Georgia and Mason, it looks like they are close to the truth.

Set in the Disc world I Shall Wear Midnight (reference the poem When I am old I shall wear purple) picks up the life of Tiffany Aching previously seen in Wintersmith and A Hat Full of Sky and her defenders the Wee Free Men. Tiffany is struggling to untangle where she and love intersect. It's hard to focus on the untangling while fear and an obsesses ghost are turning the community and the wider world into a witch hunt. The generally pragmatic witches find gentle ways to turn the hate and to shine a light into the dark places where the hate filled shadows confuse people. The whispering shadows seem almost comical and it is hard to take them seriously until violence begins. Tiffany knows she should be the mature person but (stamp foot) she is not yet old and she wants to live young while she is young.

This is probably the last in the Tiffany Aching series. Terry Pratchett settles things nicely, satisfyingly and not at all completely. Surely a character as real as Tiffany Aching will continue to live outside of the books just as I believe life in Disc world continues when Mr. Pratchett is not opening windows and giving us glimpses.

The only magic in Every Soul a (Star) is the glorious mysticism of astronomy. Three diverse teens are shaken out of their comfort zones but find new places and self-views. Moon Shadow is an isolated camping park specifically sited for optimum viewing of the stars and especially solar eclipses. A solar eclipse is due soon and the camp is gearing up for the big event. Ally and her family run the camp and have paid attention to maximizing the experience. Bree is happy in her town, practicing to be a fashion model. Jack is isolated and alone but used to it.

What if we aren't who we thought we were? Are we set in a pattern before our teenage years and can we change who we think of as ourselves if we have to or want to? How much effort does that take?

Gone and Hunger are the first two of Michal Grant's Gone series. I believe there are 4 in the series so far.

At the beginning of Gone everybody over 14 in the town and surrounding area of Perdido Beach disappears. There is a impenetrable dome around the area. Included in the dome are the town, a nuclear plant, and a boarding school. At first the children wait to be saved, then they work to pull themselves into a coherent group, then they start to look around, wonder, and plan. They must deal with the infants that have been left with them, the lack of communication, and the selfishness of humans. How can they work together to survive? Who can they look to for leadership?

Someone compared Gone to Lord of the Flies and there is that bullying personal darkness element but there are also aliens or alien or mutant powers in play. Yes, a fight of good versus evil but even more a personal inner struggle for integrity.

In Hunger, the children continue the struggle with the loss of food and electrical power. The non-talented fear and turn against the talented. The Darkness becomes more powerful and more is discovered about Petey's powers.

Worth reading as paperbacks but I'll not pay hardback prices to read more of the series.

I like Garth Nix's books. I have many on my shelves and read them over again every year. Grim Tuesday and the first book of the week series Mister Monday will not join the others on my shelves. Mister Monday was interesting, I like the idea of a will broken into pieces still trying to exert itself (oh, the wordplay was wonderful!). I felt a little let down by Mister Monday, as if it could have been MORE somehow, but I was intrigued and hopeful enough to buy and read book 2. Eh. Again the wordplay was wonderful but it moved slowly for me and I really don't like the Arthur much. The villainous Grim Tuesday was sympathetic in his flaw - I feel for him because his flaw is in how he was made (he can't help that) and the villainy comes from trying to reach beyond his limits (I applaud that) and failing in spectacular ways (don't we all?) - that hurts a body and makes him or her mean but Tuesday keeps trying. While Arthur seems horrified by the inhumanity of the Days, I kept seeing the struggle to survive as highly human and not worthy of destruction. I read one review of the books that claimed Garth Nix can't end a book. I don't agree with that opinion. I think he wraps each book up very well just not in convenient ways.

At the end, I had no desire to read further in the series or to reread these two books. I will read Garth Nix books again and look forward to other books and series.

White Cat seems aimed at a younger audience than Holly Black's Ironside books but there is still a darkness to the book. Cassel Sharpe is a teenager in a world where magic is a crime but prevalent. He thinks he is unmagical (and therefore a disappointment to his family). His family are magical con-men and women. They use and misuse him. He cannot trust those he loves the most or even his own memories. Is he more like his family than he'd like to think? Is he an abusive user of people? Will he do whatever he needs to in order to make things feel right? It's not a clear path.

In Z for Zachariah Ann Burden is either very lucky or very unlucky. The sheltered valley where her farming family lives has been spared most of the radiation of a nuclear war (yay!) but all the villagers are dead and her family who traveled out of the valley to find other survivors are presumed dead (boo). Ann has eked out a life for herself and the animals left on the farm; she expects that she will not meet another human again and sighs for the husband and children she might have had. Luckily Ann has been trained in canning and preserving as well as seed lore and farming. She has a village store at her disposal. Sadly, she has been brought up to serve males and to look for a future as a homemaker not as an independent person. Signs of smoke from a campfire moving slowly towards her are her fist hope for human contact but Ann is wary. She takes steps to hide herself from this person until she knows more. While Ann knows not all people are good, she hopes that this person will be good, a companion, a help, and perhaps a love. This person will be someone she can live and work beside. Zachariah is hard to figure out. He brings hope and conversation but also fear and guilt.

I really liked the end of this story. The plot and characters could have gone either way and I could not foresee their choices.

The Mammy is funny and sad. The Browne Family, minus Mr. Browne who recently died, lives a scraped by life. Agnes Browne struggles to raise her children with goals and the knowledge that she will do what she can for them but that they are expected to take care of each other. Agnes examines the compromises she has made in her life and the things she will not compromise on. Her viewpoint is simplistic and uneducated but sincere and strong. Whatever bad things happen, she will continue because she doesn't see other options. While things in her life are definitely hard, this is not a depressing book. The small humorous daily events are as much a part of life as the hard things. It's hard for me to explain. I enjoyed the story and felt connected to the characters.

The Persian Pickle Club is a murder mystery set in the Great Depression in Kansas. The Persian Pickle Club is a group of women who support each other, emotionally and substantially, whether they like each other or not. The author examines the fears that the Depression brought concerning strangers and loss. The development of the modern woman and the stress this put on established roles are part of the plot. I wasn't particularly interested in the characters but I finished the story hoping for a good twist - there wasn't one.

Makers by Cory Doctorow was an impulse addition to my Christmas list and my Mother-in-law came through. I thoroughly love this book! I read a lot of science fiction but don't consider myself an honored Nerd for the technology. Nor am I particularly interested in economics other than 1 or 2 previous science fiction books and my Economics class at UNCA where I found many interesting articles in the Wall Street Journal. Why did they require that for education majors? Makers is enthralling. I was torn between reading all day and all night and maybe even calling in sick to work or portioning it out in chapters and pages in order to make it last longer. I ended up doing a little bit of each. At night I dreamed about the characters and inventions; I woke up thinking about them. When it was over, I was satisfied but slightly sad. Perry and Lester invent things/ideas/concepts/systems. Suzanne documents it all on her blog. Kettlewell is the big company who wants to turn what they do into $$ and a way of living. Tjan is the financial manager brought in to organize "the boys". Can inventors keep inventing under the eye and constraints of any business model? What happens when a revolutionary business model threatens the monoliths of the business world? When is failure really failure? What is success on a personal level? I'm awestruck by Mr. Doctorow.

# posted by JJ @ 2:42 PM 0 comments

Spy Kids but for real! All right, not quite real as this is fiction but the set-up, training, and missions are tougher than the Spy Kids movies and much less glossy and less gadget prone. The CHERUB books are not new; Mission 1 was published in 2004. I may have missed these before but now I'm on a mission to track them down.Cherub Mission 1 The Recruit by Robert Muchamore was lots of fun and while some small parts were predictable most of it was fresh and surprising for me.

Fat Vampire asks all the questions that sparkly vampires might feel are distasteful. What if the new vampires weren't made from the beautiful people? Or by the beautiful people? What if it wasn't sexy? What if the new vampire is socially awkward or has morals? Doug is my hero. I'd rather read about him than any sparkly, strong, moody vampire.

Battle Dress by Amy Efaw is fiction loosely based on the author's experiences at West Point. Without minimizing the harshness of the machine, Amy Efaw shows the hope and joy of people who really want to be where they are. The heroine Andie is a seventeen year old woman looking to escape her dysfunctional family. West Point does break her down but it also recognizes her talents which is more than her family every did. Andie struggles to find her place as both a cadet and a female in the Academy.

I read Volumes 1-3 before Christmas. One Piece is manga about a young pirate wannabe, his collection of wacky sidekicks, and adventures against the Navy and other pirates. Monkey D. Luffy is our hero. He ate fruit of the devil tree and now has rubber powers. He's very silly. It's an amusing and easy read.

My son has been reading Rock Memoirs lately and I was inspired to read Just Kids by Patti Smith. This is less a "Rock" biography or memoir than a reflection on and explanation of her move to NYC and relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe. It is a very intimate look back. There is no glossing over hunger, hustling, sacrificing food money for a bit to make art. If you thought that punk rock and punk art were shallow, read and see how Patti Smith studied the classics, thought deeply, and stumbled unplanned into music through poetry. Through the several relationships in the course of the book, Patti Smith measures time and passages through her life and love with Robert Mapplethorpe. The intersections and interdependency of their arts is amazing.

I think I should have read a previous book about Agatha Raisin first because I felt like I was missing much of the context and character relationships. It wasn't terrible but it was disjointed. Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener is by M.C. Beaton who also wrote the Hamish Macbeth mysteries. Agatha is a retired business owner (advertising, publicist?) living in a small village. Agatha is totally human with flaws; she makes mistakes and is hasty. She often regrets her choices later but tries to take some responsibility for her actions. This book looks at bullies from an adult view. Why do we often let people get away with verbal abuse to ourselves when we would not stand for it against another person in front of us?

January is a great month for reading! I received all sorts of books for Christmas and bought myself the ones I didn't get and there are all those long dark evenings and weekends to read.