Magic Study

Yelena has moved South, left her job as food taster, and her love, Valek.  She meets her familly and learns about her magical abilities. 

A definite drop in score for Magic Study. Even though I took issue with Poison Study for its simplistic writing style I still had a pretty serious book crush on it. I was leery of book #2 as I usually am.....and I was right.


I personally don't take change easily in my own life or when I come to know a character in a book. I was not excited that Yelena had to leave behind Ixia and travel South. The story ended up not being half bad. I just had to get used to it. But I did miss Valek with a heated passion.

Later things began getting sketchy. I appreciated that even though there was a rape in Poison, it was written with some dignity. But please......Snyder, don't make this a running theme. I don't want to hear about anymore brutality. STOP with the raping. Yelena went from a sharp awesome character to a nut job that forged ahead without thought. When Valek finally shows up later in the book.....after the magic and the characters have taken a nose dive...he is unrecognizeable. I don't know who he is any more. I am glad he loves Yelena...but he is a simpering sissy that says 'my love' all of the time. Once made my heart beat rather quickly....the successive times made vomit come up in my mouth a little bit.

I still think the writing style is very simple...like grade 5. Then Snyder throws in some sex and rape. Choose an audience!

After all of the complaints, I still liked the book and will continue the series to see if Valek ever mans up or Yelena gets control of her teen rebellion.
 
Rating 3 Not enough manly Valek and I don't like that Yelena doesn't think before acting.  The friendships are endearing, including the horse.
Rating PG 13 More rape and brutality, sex.

Poison Study

Up front I have to say that this isn't a clear 4 stars and I have a hard time pinpointing why. I loved the characters. I felt like the author had a great grip on who they were. Exploring the physical and psychological issues was accomplished very well. The fantasy was just enough but not so much that I lost interest (I can only delve so deep into fantasy lit.........shudder). The main character Yelena was extremely smart and strong. I loved her. The whole idea of the book was just smashing.

Here's the problem. Lots of times I felt like I would love to have my 10 year old daughter read this and then there would be a little swearing, eventually a rape (which was written not overly graphically). I believe the reason I kept thinking that it would be a great book for my girl was because it was written in such a rudimentary way. Maybe that sounds harsh. The writing was very simple but involved some adult themes. I questioned whether I was reading a book for 5th graders or young adults. It bothered me.

Still, I was charmed by the main idea (Yelena being saved from the gallows to become a food taster for the Commander and having to learn to identify poison.) This also included how not just the poison in the food but how we can be poisoned by lies, secrets, and abuse.

So there. I leave it at a 4 and hope that the writing for the next books becomes more intricate and developed.

 

Rating 4

Rating PG 13  language, rape, alluding to sex

Impossible

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

The song 'Scarborough Fair' takes the starring role as a curse.  Lucy is a regular girl living with her foster parents.  Her life takes a dramatic change;  her crazy birthmother shows up just as Lucy is heading off to her first prom, a strange and enchanting man shows up for dinner at her parent's house, her long time neighbor/best friend Zach, moves into her house, and her prom date becomes posessed and rapes her.
Lucy realizes that the song 'Scarborough Fair' isn't just a song her looney mother sang because she was nuts.  It is a curse, a riddle, and a warning.  Lucy has to find a way to accomplish all of the tasks in the riddle, in order to break the curse put on all of the women in her family by an Elfin Knight.  She only has a short amount of time to break the curse before she becomes crazy......as all of the women before her have.

Lucy was easily likeable.  She is quiet and determined and makes the strange plot easy to believe.  Lucy and Zach quickly fall in love despite their ages.  Zach, along with Lucy's very supportive parents, help her unwind the riddle that will soon take her mind.  I didn't really end up liking Soledad (Lucy's foster mother) very much.  I think somehow I took her to be a liberal, granola......and she never sat well with me most of the time.

Rating 4  Loved Lucy and Zach together.  I loved the magical quality and unique way that the song was turned into a curse.  The characters where a great group that I became attached to.

Rating PG 13   Rape, teen pregnancy, information about abortion, evil magic used to cause a mental disorder and to coerce someone into being a sex slave.

The Sugar Queen

   The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

Josey Cirrini exists in a small town that holds it memories and judgements like iron fetters.  Everyone remembers what a beast of a child she was.  Everyone knows now that she lives with her harsh elderly mother and does nothing but care for her.  Everyone knows she is plump and alone.  Josey knows she loves sweets and Adam the mailman, and no one else can know.  In a totally bizarre and magical twist, Josey opens her closet one day to find Della Lee......a local waitress.  Della Lee refuses to leave the confines of the closet, saying only that she won't be there for long before she moves on.  In her rough and caring way, Della Lee helps Josey open up to life.  Soon she isn't going to her closet for sweets but to see Della Lee.  Josey finds friendship and possibly LOVE?

This book didn't seem that interesting when I heard about it.  It came with good recommendations and I did like the author's other book 'Garden Spells'.  What do you know?  I loved it.  I read it lickedy split.  The book was magical and a little mysterious.  Josey was able to make a friend after years of being alone.  Many times I don't like books that lend to a 'sisterly' theme because they tend to cut everyone else out of the picture.  This book wasn't like that.  The girls met and became a great support to each other right away.  There were also some really great quotes in this book.  Allen has a beautiful way with words.

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"It feels like he's taken your heart, doesn't it?....Like he's reached in and pulled it out from you. And I bet he smiles like he doesn't know, like he doesn't know he's holding your heart in his hand and you're dying from him."


"You'd be surprised how easy some things can be, things you never thought you'd do, when you take self-restpect out of the equation."


"Sometimes you weren't supposed to share pain. Sometimes it was best just to deal with it alone."



"She'd always known he didn't love her. But it was easier to bear when he didn't know she loved him. That way they were even. Now he knew he had all the power."


Rating PG  domestic abuse, an affair, murder, ghosts
Rating 4.5  Only because I probably won't read it again soon, but I loved the magical qualities and Allen's descriptiveness.

Evermore

Evermore by Alyson Noel

Ever's family is swiftly taken from her in a tragic car crash. She is the only one to survive. Along with the guilt she also walks away with psychic power and the ability to read auras. She is whisked away to live her her rich lawyer aunt in Laguna Beach. Ever has a hard time dealing with the psychic noise and her changed life. She befriends the kids on the fringe knowing they are the only ones to accept her strange behavior.
Ever's life falls into a predictable pattern......go to school in hoodie/ipod to drown out psychic noise, sit through classes full of information she now already 'knows', go home to empty spacious house and wait for visit from dead little sister Riley. Even though it isn't what it used to be, Ever's life is as calm as she can make it. Then Damen arrives. Hot and lusted after by the whole student body for his Italian good looks. And despite the hoodie and mood swings he still likes Ever.
Damen seems hot and cold toward Ever. The touch of his hand makes all of the psychic noise go away and she feels normal again. Eventually Ever learns Damen's story. He is immortal and he has been searching for her.....his lost love. Ever is faced with letting Damen go and resuming her life...making it as normal as possible or sticking with Damen and choosing to possibly never see her family again in heaven.

So.......I was sucked in. I am now officially obsessed with immortal love of all kinds. I now really want to read the next book in this series......Blue Moon which will be released on July 7th.

Rating 5 Yes I will read this again........and now I have to buy it because I borrowed it from my neighbor. Love true/soul mate love.........I really do. I am in love with love.

Rating PG 13 Ever takes to alcoholism for a brief time when she realizes that when she is toasted she can't hear the thoughts of others or see their auras. Also she and Damen get frisky but don't go all of the way. I wouldn't be really happy to have my teen reading something like this that gave them the same kind of desires however it is probably clean compared to many teens real lives. So even though this is a young adult series I would hesitate to recommend it to a young teen..........but mom's go right ahead and get your fix.

The Girl Who Could Fly

The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester

This sweet little book was recommended by my neighbor and Stephenie Meyer. It brought to mind The Mysterious Benedict Society/X-men/with a dash of Little House.

Piper is born to a straight laced up tight farm family. She is their only child, born late in life. Not long after Piper is born, the McClouds discover that she is not as 'normal' as they are. First Piper can float and hover. By the time she is nine she learns she can fly. Once this discovery is made by the whole farming community, Piper is whisked away to a school for 'special children with special talents' where she can be kept safe.

Once in the new safe place, things don't go how you think they would. Instead of fostering their special abilities, they do the mundane. Why? It takes time but Piper finally makes friends and they help her shee what kind of 'special' place she is really in.

Sweet story that I think my nine year old would love. Also entertaining enough with foreshadowing and acceptance dilemmas that it also held me captive. I love to pick up a good clean book and this surely fit the bill.

Rating 4 Good story, good characters, not super fast paced.

Rating G Clean

Fairest

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine

This book is by the same author as Ella Enchanted. It is a distant retelling of Snow White.
Aza and her family run an inn, the Featherbed. She was abandoned there as a newborn and the innkeepers raised her as their own. She doesn't look like the rest of her family. She is larger with dark hair. I think we are supposed to think of her as unattractive because she surely does.

Aza is asked by one of the guests of the Featherbed to accompany her to the wedding of the king. While there Aza meets the Prince Ijori and his dog. She also is asked by the new queen Ivi, to be her lady in waiting. Soon after the wedding, the king is injured and lies in a coma.

When Aza still lived with her parents, she taught herself to illuse. She can throw her voice and mimic any other sound. One day the Ivi overhears Aza illusing. This kingdom loves to sing. They use singing the same way that we would use prayer, or the way other kingdoms would have a ball. Ivi comes from another kingdom and is not gifted with a lovely voice, the way that most of the others around her are. Ivi asks Aza to illuse for her whenever she must sing in public.

Ivi is ruining the kingdom while the king is in his sickbed. Aza and Ijori are falling in love.

Aza tries to find a way to become beautiful. She finds a spell but it doesn't work. She looks in Ivi's mirror and sees what she would look like if she were beautiful.

Soon the secret is out. Ivi and Aza are found illusing. Ivi blames Aza. Just as the guards are to put Aza in jail, she drinks the potion that Ivi has. She becomes stunningly beautiful. She is imprisoned. She breaks free and finds one of Ivi's men ready to take her into the forest to save her. Aza realizes that the man is really sent to kill her. Aza is able to save his life when confronted by ogres. He takes her to some gnome caverns and leaves her. He returns to Ivi to tell her that Aza is dead.

Aza lives with the gnomes and finds out that she may have gnome blood in her. While in the caverns she learns to appreciate herself more. Ivi finds out Aza is alive and makes herself into a gnome. She tricks Aza into eating poisoned food. Aza is trapped between life and death and is transported and then trapped in Ivi's mirror. She also returns to her former unattractive self. Eventually she is able to break free and destroy the being in the mirror that has trapped her there.

The king recovers. He still loves Ivi despite what she has done to the kingdom and to Aza. He decides after three years he will turn the kingdom over to Ijori. The king and Ivi go into exile. Ijori and Aza marry and have children. Happy, happy, happy.

This was a fun book to read. Levine made up a lot of songs since these were singing people. Sometimes I felt like the story didn't flow very well, but overall I liked that Aza was able to come to see how valuable she was despite how she looked. She is able to have a full life and because she becomes the queen she is then thought of as stately instead of ugly. I found this to ring true as I thought about people I know that think themselves unattractive. I rarely think about what people look like. I pay more attention to the way they act and the way they treat others. If they are good people I always tend to think of them as attractive.

Rating 3.5 I really liked this and may read it again.........I just couldn't go any higher. I don't sing so the songs really threw me off and sometimes I felt like Aza's voice was confusing.
Rating G

River Secrets

River Secrets ( 3rd Book of Bayern) by Shannon Hale

This is the third book in the Bayern series, the first two being Goose Girl and Enna Burning. This book focuses on Razo, the forest born turned soldier. The land of Tira wants to wage war against Bayern. King Geric and Queen Isi send their best friends......Finn, Enna and Razo as ambassadors and soldiers to quell the blood thirst of Tira.
Razo is small and not a great soldier. He can't understand why he was chosen by the army leader to be one of the select of Bayern's Own to travel to the southern city. Not long after the arrival of the Bayern newcomers, Razo begins finding charred bodies. He realizes his talent for detail and begins a search to find the murderer before Bayern is blamed for harboring a fire-witch and a bloody war begins. Meanwhile Razo meets Dasha. Dasha is the daughter of an ambassador sent to Bayern from Tira. She acts as a liason between Bayern's Own and Thousand Years, the center of the city.
Finally we find out that Dasha is a water speaker, just as Enna is a fire speaker and Isi speaks with the wind. Dasha needs help from another element before the power of the water alone overtakes her. Enna could help but doesn't trust Dasha because she is from Tira.
Enna and Finn are falling in love but Enna will not accept the proposals that Finn throws out all of the time. She finds him good at everything and always in control. She wants Finn to put himself out there in order to show his true feelings for her.
The three friends; Razo, Enna and Finn are able to come together with Dasha and find out where the burned bodies are coming from. Just in the nick of time they are able to thwart the war.
The beginning of the book was terribly slow at times..........if I remember correctly the other two were also. But then you find things picking up and by the end you forget that you didn't love the beginning. This is a great clean read..........even for the very young good readers that you are struggling to find appropriate reading material for. I found myself really enjoying the balance between the elements.....fire, wind, water, although not as pronounced as in Enna Burning. Also the mystery was intriguing.
Rating 4........I have to take some off for the slow start.
Rating G

Rules

Rules by Cynthia Lord

Catherine is a 12 year old girl with an eight year old autistic brother named David. Catherine has lots of rules for David to follow.............always knock, no toys in the fish tank, you can hug mom but not the guy at the video store, chew with your mouth closed, sometimes people laugh when they like you but sometimes they laugh to hurt you.
Catherine is struggling with wanting to protect and teach David and wanting David to be normal. Her parents' time revolves solely around David and his needs. Catherine is feeling left out and misunderstood.
As Catherine is in the waiting room of David's OT, she meets Jason. Jason is in a wheelchair and unable to speak. He uses word cards to have a conversation. Jason and Catherine become friends as she makes new word cards that are more applicable and useful to a teenage boy. Catherine loves art and hopes to become a breath taking artist one day. Her art and compassion help bridge the gap between Jason and the rest of the world.
By the end Jason is crushing on Catherine and she shows her human and immature side when she worries what others will think of her for being friends with him outside of the the OT waiting room.
I totally loved this quick read. By the end I was desperate for a sequel so I could find out more about Jason and David as they grew up. I like Catherine and felt like she was appropriate for her age.........although I wish she were a little older for the dancing/dating parts.
Rating 4.5
Rating G

Enchantment

Enchantment by Orson Scott Card



Card, better know for his sci-fi (Ender's Saga) has pulled off a lovely fairtale retelling. Enchantment is the story of Sleeping Beauty combined with Russian history and myths plus a lot of magic. Ivan and his parents leave Russia in the early 80's to seek a life in the U.S. On their way out they stop in the Ukraine to wait for passports and visas. They stay with relatives near the Carpathian Mountains. Ivan enjoys running which is strange for a boy of his age and background. As he is running through the forest he comes upon a clearing full of leaves, a sleeping woman, and something guarding the sleeping woman. In fear, Ivan turns and leaves. Years later he is still comsumed with thoughts of what he saw at the age of 10.
In 1992 Ivan returns to the homeland engaged to an American and ready to do work for his college dissertation on Russian fairytales. Just before his return to the U.S., Ivan visits his Ukrainian uncle. He decideds while he is there, he will put a rest to what he thought he saw years ago. Ivan finds the clearing, the princess and the bear that guards her. He is able to overcome the bear and kiss the girl.
Most of this story takes place after Sleeping Beauty (Katerina) wakes up. The now betrothed couple return to 9th century Russia where Katerina's village is in danger from the witch that enchanted her. Card is able to balance the viewpoint of multiple characters in various countries and times with incredible depth.
I so enjoyed the retelling........or rather what happened 'ever after'. I liked the historical aspect and the fact that Katerina and Ivan return to modern day American and we see how the differing cultures and times come together. The magic and fantasy are just enough that even if you aren't normally a Card lover you will still enjoy the novel. Coming from Slavic ancestry, this made me want to read the real Russian fairytales, which are supposed to be much more gruesome and tragic than our modern day ones.
Rating 5 Romance, magic, history and witches yum!
Rating PG 13 Some swearing, some violence, sexual language.

Garden Spells

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

This book sounded intriguing.............many people have likened it to Practical Magic. The writing reminded me a lot of Alice Hoffman.

This book is about the Waverly sisters. Waverly family members often have magical gifts. Sydney has a way with styling hair and understanding what the styles mean. Claire uses food to evoke feelings. Their Aunt knows items that people will need in the future, but not what they will need them for. Bay, Sydney's little girl has the gift of knowing where things or people belong. The Waverlys' also have an enchanted apple tree. Eating an apple from the tree will show you the most important event of your life.

Each sister is hiding from something in their life and trying to build a life where they are comfortable with themselves and their past. The characters were truly enjoyable and the touch of magic added depth.

Rating 4 Quick, happy read with some romance.

Rating PG 13, sexual content