Active Voice

Book Five
Starting Time: 8:35 pm
Ending Time: 9:32 pm

Title: California Diaries: Sunny, Diary 1
Author: Ann M. Martin
Genre: Teen drama llama
Pages: 180
Summary: Unable to deal with her mom dying of cancer, Sunny starts cutting school and hanging out at the beach, where she meets an older boy with the no-strings life she longs for.
Thoughts: I liked this one a lot better than the first one. Sunny says and does awful things, but unlike Dawn, she actually has good reason to be lashing out this woundedly. (I don’t think that’s a word.) Carson was kind of a skeevester and a tool (On the Road and Catcher in the Rye are your life, dude? Tooooooool.) until the end, when he actually turned out to be a fairly upstanding guy. In general Sunny’s voice just felt a lot more natural and relatable to me than Dawn’s wishy-washy self-righteousness. (She’s still a pain in the ass in this one. Sigh.)

Four cupcakes

Book Three
Starting Time: 4:00 pm
Ending Time: 5:25 pm

Title: Bite Me!
Author: Dylan Meconis
Genre: Humor/Horror/Graphic Novel
Pages: 168
Summary: A ragtag group of vampires attempt to rescue their coven during the height of the French Revolution.
Thoughts: I’ve read Bite Me! in its online form before, but I always prefer having a copy to hold in my hands, so I bought a copy at MoCCA. The story is hilarious; the art, drawn over several years starts out lively and fun and becomes lively and fun and fantastic as Meconis comes into her own. Good times.

Four cupcakes

Book Three
Starting time: 12:45 PM
Ending time: 4:13 PM

Title: Alex and the Ironic Gentleman
Author: Adrienne Kress
Genre: Humor
Pages: 308

Summary: Alex Morningside loves her sixth grade teacher, Mr. Underwood, so much that when he is kidnapped by the bloodthirsty crew of the pirate ship Ironic Gentleman, she sets off to rescue him. There are plenty of adventures on the way.

Thoughts: Basically, what Jess said when she reviewed it. An enjoyable read, and a bit reminiscent of Lewis Carroll, which I appreciated. I was glad when the whimsical narrative settled down a bit, and laid of the wacky asides and Significant Capitals, because those aren’t devices I’m especially fond of. And I’m baffled as to what time period the book takes place in, as it’s got modern bits (movies, cars, etc) but much of it reads like Ye Olde Fashioned pirate stories. (Though that’s not a very important detail to be concerned about.) The cast of the book was pretty fantastic, the little old ladies were truly menacing and creepy, the climax and resolution were great, and I will probably pick up the sequel when it’s out in paperback.

My favorite bit was the one with the Extremely Ginormous Octopus.

Four cupcakes.

Book Two
Starting time: 9:57 PM
Ending time: 3:26 AM

Title: Little Brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
Genre: Contemporary, borderline Aliens Among Us
Pages: 380

Summary: Teen hacker Marcus is in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets accused of terrorism, and is dragged off to a secret facility. When he gets back, his home town is a virtual police state. After everything he’s been through, Marcus can’t handle that, and he declares war on the Department of Homeland Security.

Thoughts: My feelings about this book are certainly mixed. I liked the characters — a stunning success on the race, gender, progressive lefty scorecard — and the prose, though there was something mildly off with the pacing. This book was recced to me as both good and important, and it is both of those things. That said, I didn’t enjoy it very much. I had a visceral reaction to the terrorism at the beginning, but beyond that… Hm.

I read mostly for escapism; that’s why so much of what I read is sf/f. When I’m looking at things like race and gender, I’m much more comfortable with looking at story subtext and seeing how that reflects the culture. But there is nothing sub about this text, and while important and engaging, it’s also a bit lecture-y. I agree with it, and I’m glad it was written, but it was an obvious case of story built around an agenda, not agenda built craftily into the story. So while it’s a good book, and I will happily loan my copy out to anyone who is interested, I doubt I will read it again.

Final thought? My favorite bits were the asides on math and cryptography. Sort of Neal Stephenson for the YA crowds.

Four cupcakes.

And now, because it is 3:30 AM, I shall go to bed. I think tomorrow I shall start with something light-hearted and whimsical.

Book One
Time Started: 8:30 pm
Time Finished: 11:20 pm

Title: Magic or Madness
Author: Justine Larbalestier
Genre: Contemporary/urban fantasy.
Pages: 290
Summary: Reason has spent her whole life on the run from her grandmother Esmerelda, but when Reason’s mother goes crazy, Reason finds herself trapped in Esmerelda’s world, with two new friends and the terrifying knowledge that magic is real – and dangerous.
Thoughts: Really, really excellent. Very exciting and creepy, and the characters are great. The world-building is also phenomenal. I want to know more, but alas, I will have to wait until this weekend is over to get my hands on the other two books in the trilogy.

Four cupcakes.

Book One
Time starting: 8 PM
Time finished: 9:45 PM

Title: The Invasion (Animorphs #1)
Author: K. A. Applegate
Genre: Aliens Among Us
Pages: 184

Summary: Evil, mind-controlling slug-aliens are trying to take over Earth. A good alien dies trying to stop them — but not before giving five ordinary kids the power to morph into animals. And now those five kids are all that stand between the rest of the human race and total enslavement.

Thoughts: Apparently, all my friends grew up on this series, but I totally missed it somehow. It was definitely the shortest of the books in my TBR pile, and the one aimed at the youngest crowd. The prose was very clean, and the change in narration styles when the POV character became an animal was really well done. The cast is multiracial, with girls kicking as much butt as the boys, so it gets a thumbs-up on both of those counts. A fun, fast read. I’d give it to my younger relatives for sure.

Four cupcakes.

Alanna: The First Adventure, In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman Who Rides Like A Man, Lioness Rampant
By Tamora Pierce [Pierce at LibraryThing -- Pierce at Amazon]

Women in Tortall are not warriors, but 11-year-old Alanna would much rather become a knight than a lady or a sorceress — so she hatches a plan to trade places with her twin brother. Disguised as a boy named Alan, she enters training as a page, hoping to become a knight before she is discovered. As Alanna works to prove herself, learning both fighting and magic, she becomes friends with Prince Jonathan — and with George Cooper, a rogue who is the King of Thieves. But all of her friendships and new skills may not be enough when only Alanna realizes that the prince’s cousin, a powerful sorcerer himself, is plotting to take the throne to Tortall… And it seems like only Alanna will be able to stop him. (Very mild uncovered spoilers behind the cut.)

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By Bruce Coville [Coville at LibraryThing -- Coville at Amazon]

I’m going to do something a little new, here. It’s no secret that Bruce Coville is my favorite author, and I can’t pretend to be objective about his books — I get too caught up in fangirling. I read all of these books in marathon sessions over the course of a week, so I wasn’t pausing for deep thoughts. Basically, I just want to get these book reviews out there, so I’ve decided to include two short reviews here: one of Bruce Coville’s series The Unicorn Chronicles — including the newly-released book Dark Whispers — and one of his Rod Allbright’s Alien Adventures series.

The Unicorn Chronicles: A strange man begins following Cara and her grandmother, and the incident sends her from her home town into a whole new world — literally. Cara finds herself in Luster, the land of unicorns, where she must deliver a message the unicorn’s queen. But that’s harder than it seems: not all of Luster’s creatures like humans (or unicorns). Cara soon finds herself in the middle of a centuries-old war between the unicorns and a clan of humans who have sworn to hunt them into extinction.

Rod Allbright’s Alien Adventures: Rod Allbright is a typical kid — albeit a clumsy one. Then a group of aliens crash-lands in his science project, and reveal that the school bully who torments Rod is actually a villain wanted galaxy-wide for crimes of unspeakable cruelty. Things get even worse from there when it turns out Rod’s enemy may be the only one who knows what happened to Rod’s long-missing father.

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By Tamora Pierce [Pierce at LibraryThing -- Pierce at Amazon]

Though for ten years, it’s been legal for girls to train as pages and aspire to Knighthood, Keladry of Mindelan is the first one who has actually done so — and being legal doesn’t make it easy. She’s put on probation as a page, something never done with a boy; she’s hazed by bullies; she’s treated unfairly by the training masters. No one, it seems, wants to see a lady knight. But Kel is determined, and she won’t let anything — or anyone — stand in her way.

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Apologies for the lack of posts! I have been completely swamped with moving. However, now that I can read on the subway (as opposed to the bus, which gives me a stomachache), I should be able to get a lot more Active Voicery done. Here’s hoping!

By Garth Nix [LibraryThing - Amazon]

In the beginning, the Architect made the House, the epicenter of the universe, and she made the Secondary Realms, in which to play out her great experiment: life. Then she went away, leaving the House in the hands of seven Trustees. But the Trustees were untrustworthy, corrupted by the power they held, and the House fell into disrepair.

Now 12-year-old Arthur Penhaligon has been chosen by the Architect’s Will as the Rightful Heir. One by one he must face the Trustees, take their Keys, and restore the House to rights. But all he really wants to do is go home.

In Superior Saturday, Arthur, having defeated the first five Trustees, takes on the one who has been working insidiously against him from the start. Disguised as a Piper’s child, faithful companion Suzy Turquoise Blue by his side, he must infiltrate Saturday’s realm – which is entirely populated by sorcerers – free her section of the Will, and take her Key. Meanwhile, his forces are waging war on the Piper’s army, Saturday is waging war on Sunday, the lower sections of the House are crumbling into Nothing, and Arthur is becoming less and less human.

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