Posted by Rebecca on August 15, 2010 at 5:28 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, Historical Fantasy/Steampunk
By Jacklyn Dolamore [LibraryThing -- GoodReads]
Nimira left her home of Tiansher hoping to find fame and fortune in Lorinar, only end up a singing “trouser girl” in a low-class show. Then Hollin Parry, a well-to-do gentleman sorcerer, invites her to create a show with him, singing to accompany his fairy-made automaton piano player. Nim jumps at the chance — but when she arrives at his estate, she learns that it’s haunted by the ghost of his wife, and that there’s something strange about the automaton… In fact, it might just be alive.
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Posted by Jessica on June 7, 2009 at 4:45 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, Book Challenge, Other
Book Twelve
Starting Time: 4:30 pm
Ending Time: 7:25 pm
Title: Exposure
Author: Mal Peet
Genre: Athletics sociopolitical crime drama? Also, Shakespeare fanfic again.
Pages: 430
Summary: When Otello, a black soccer player in a racially-divided unnamed South American country, and pop star Desmerelda meet, it’s love at first sight, but the machinations of Otello’s two-faced agent Diego may destroy them both.
Thoughts: Really interesting world, really interesting exploration of racial dynamics. I liked Paul Faustino, the sports journalist who apparently is the connecting thread in several of Peet’s books, and his subplot with a handful of doomed street kids. But the transition from Othello wasn’t quite as smooth. Diego’s complete lack of motivation for his evil is less acceptable in a modern book than Iago’s is, and, well, spoilers: show
The jealousy thing is basically suggested and then dropped – Otello refuses to take the bait, which makes him a much more likable character than Othello. But then what happens is that Diego murders a street kid named Bianca and implicates Otello in it; charges are dropped, but Desmerelda leaves him and both of their careers are ruined. Diego gets off scot-free. All of which sort of seems to miss the point of
Othello, to my way of thinking – but then, I hate
Othello, so maybe that’s a good thing? What really bothered me was that while Desmerelda is much pluckier than Desdemona, walking out on Otello to protect herself and her child, Emilia – pretty much the only character I like in the original, and in many ways the HERO – is silent for the entire book, and it turns out to be because she’s SOME KIND OF LIZARD. And Bianca’s a none-too-bright tween who gets murdered and her killer is never brought to justice. So of the three female characters brought over from the play (the only other major female character, street kid Felicia, never does anything of note), one is a victim and one is A LIZARD. Not a brave woman who exposes the villain and restores justice to the setting, but A LIZARD.
Can you tell I’m mad?
Two and a half cupcakes
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Posted by Jessica on June 7, 2009 at 12:28 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, Book Challenge, Contemporary/Urban Fantasy, Fairy Tale/Mythic, Historical Fantasy/Steampunk
Book Ten
Starting Time: 1:30 pm
Ending Time: 3:22 pm
Title: The Pharaoh’s Secret
Author: Marissa Moss
Genre: Contemporary/urban / fairy tale/mythic / historical fantasy
Pages: 307
Summary: Talibah finds herself trying to unravel ancient Egyptian intrigue in order to put the souls that are haunting her to rest.
Thoughts: I liked the entirely non-white cast, the pluckiness of the little brother, and the solid grounding in history and Egyptology, but otherwise this book wasn’t very good. The prose was weak, and the resolution of the mystery – the explanation of how the modern characters were connected to the historical ones – was incoherent.
Two and a half cupcakes
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Posted by Jessica on February 3, 2009 at 9:16 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, Fairy Tale/Mythic
By Carolyn Hennesy [LibraryThing - Amazon]
Having returned Jealousy to the box of evils she accidentally opened last month, Pandora heads off to find the next plague: Vanity. Accompanied by her best friends Alcie and Iole, her faithful dog Dido, and their hunky new bodyguard Homer, Pandora travels to Alexandria, Egypt. But even if she can master the language, avoid the mummies, and break Vanity’s grip over the 10-year-old Queen Cleopatra, can she survive the traps the goddess Hera keeps laying in her path?
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Posted by Rebecca on July 26, 2008 at 4:33 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, Contemporary/Urban Fantasy, Fairy Tale/Mythic
By Rick Riordan [LibraryThing - Amazon]
Percy Jackson is about to get kicked out of school…again. He doesn’t mean to get in trouble, but it follows him everywhere and he just doesn’t know why. At least not until he finds out the teacher who’s always hated him is one of the Furies, and his friend Grover is actually a satyr, sent to protect him. Soon Percy discovers that all of his troubles happen because he’s the son of a Greek god, and he finds himself first surrounded by other half-human kids like him and then out on a dangerous quest to recover Zeus’s stolen lightning bolt. And if he fails, it means war among the Gods—and probably the end of the world as we know it.
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Posted by Rebecca on April 25, 2008 at 7:31 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, Contemporary/Urban Fantasy, Fairy Tale/Mythic
By Lynne Ewing [LibraryThing - Amazon]
Vanessa wishes she could be a normal highschooler, with normal concerns like zits and clothes and passing her classes…But she’s not. Instead, she’s got problems like the fact that whenever she gets excited or scared, she turns invisible. And her best friend can travel through time. And now someone has found out her secret, and all she knows is she’s in terrible danger…
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Posted by Jessica on February 17, 2008 at 11:04 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, Contemporary/Urban Fantasy, Fairy Tale/Mythic
By Michael Buckley [LibraryThing - Amazon]
Since returning to Ferryport Landing, now under the control of Mayor (Queen of) Heart(s) and Sheriff Nottingham, Sabrina has thrown herself into the business of being a Grimm with a will. But when their latest case causes rips in time to start opening up over town, that business seems even more dangerous than usual. Sabrina and Daphne find themselves on the other side of one of those rips, in a dystopian future where their very survival is in question. Can they get back to their own time and solve the case before they’re left with no future at all?
I found that I couldn’t really discuss my reactions to this book without talking about the various twists and turns the plot makes in some depth, so beware: there are major spoilers behind the cut, and they are not hidden behind a spoiler tag. You have been warned.
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Posted by Rebecca on February 9, 2008 at 2:57 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, High Fantasy
By Patrick Carman [LibraryThing -- Amazon]
As every summer, Alexa Daley is staying in Bridewell with her father while he conducts important political business. But she has decided that this summer will be different: Alexa is bound and determined to find a way outside of the wall that protects the civilized cities from the outside world. And when she does so, she develops the magical ability to speak to animals—and discovers a conspiracy that might just doom the world as she knows it.
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Posted by Jessica on October 29, 2007 at 1:47 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, Historical Fantasy/Steampunk, Space Opera
By Philip Reeve [Librarything - Amazon]
Floating out in space like a miniature planetoid, Art’s hodgepodge house Larklight has always been rather isolated and boring, much to his social-climbing sister Myrtle’s dismay. But when giant spiders attack Larklight in search of a mysterious “key,” Art and Myrtle are quickly forced to adjust to a far less boring way of life – one that includes man-eating moths, sentient storms, a motley crew of aliens, the British Secret Service, and the dashing space pirate Captain Jack Havock. Now the siblings must figure out how to save the entire solar system – and, more importantly, the Queen – and the answers may just lie in Larklight itself.
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Posted by Jessica on October 13, 2007 at 8:34 pm
· Filed under 2.5 Cupcakes, Fairy Tale/Mythic
By Tobias Druitt [Librarything - Amazon]
Corydon the shepherd boy is a monster, a mormoluke, with one normal human leg and one goat leg. That’s why he was thrown out of his village, and that’s why he is picked up as a freak in a pirates’ sideshow. There he meets other monsters like him: the Minotaur, the Sphinx, the beautiful, tragic Medusa, and more. With the help of a magic staff, Corydon and the monsters escape from the pirates, but the gods of Olympus are united against Corydon and his friends, and it isn’t long before the greedy and cowardly Perseus is uniting the “heroes” of Greece into an army to wipe out the monsters. Corydon must journey into the Underworld to learn how to use the staff to save his new family, but what exactly does such salvation mean?
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By Jacklyn Dolamore [LibraryThing -- GoodReads]
