Active Voice

Sometimes here at Active Voice headquarters, we start a book and find it is so terrible we can’t – or at least don’t want to – finish it. What do we do? We can’t review it if we don’t finish it!

And so I’m kicking off a new category here at AV: Unfinished/Unrated. We don’t feel comfortable rating books we haven’t finished, but we still want to talk about them – and why we didn’t finish them.

By Charlie Fletcher [LibraryThing - Amazon]

From the back cover blurb: “When, on an otherwise normal day, George breaks the head from a stone dragon outside the Natural History Museum in a tiny act of rebellion, he inadvertently awakens an ancient power. The results are instant and terrifying: a stone pterodactyl unpeels from the wall and starts chasing George. He runs for his life, but the strangest part is, no one around him can see what he’s running from. No one except Edie, who is also trapped in this strange world.

“Now that George has disturbed the fragile truce between the warring statues of London, he is forced into a race for survival, where nothing is what it seems, and it’s never clear who to trust.”

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By Scott Mebus [LibraryThing - Amazon]

Rory’s always been able to see past tricks and deceptions, but even he’s surprised when he finds himself able to see even farther, deep into the secret history of New York. There notable figures of the city’s past walk as gods: Peter Stuyvesant, Babe Ruth, Alexander Hamilton, and countless others. Cockroaches ride rats into battles, albino alligators swim the sewers, and statues whisper secrets for a handful of coins. Rory quickly finds himself and his little sister Bridget immersed in this world, working to correct a great injustice committed a hundred and fifty years ago, but a great enemy is doing his best to stop them – an enemy with the power to murder the gods themselves.

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By Derek Landy [LibraryThing – Amazon]

Ever since helping to save the world, Valkryie Cain (once plain old Stephanie Edgeley) has been receiving training in magic, combat, and detective work from the undead gumshoe Skulduggery Pleasant and his extremely colorful associates. Now one of Skulduggery’s old enemies is back, intent on awakening his evil gods – and Valkryie is a major part of his plan. In order to foil the plot, Valkryie must fight her way through centuries-old enmities, corruption at the highest level, and more than one sociopathic killer with a mad-on for Valkryie herself.

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We’re introducing a new feature at Active Voice! Usually we review books that have come out in the past couple of years, but with our Old-School Reviews we’ll be talking about the books from our childhood and before. Our first Old-School Review features the fantastic Mr. Bruce Coville.

By Bruce Coville [Coville at LibraryThing - Book One at Amazon; Book Two at Amazon; Book Three at Amazon]

Nina “Nine” Tanleven is thrilled to be performing in a local play, but the excitement gets to be a little too much when she and her new friend Chris both start seeing the Woman in White, a ghost who may be trying to sabotage the show. And the adventures don’t stop there, because exposure to the Woman in White has made the girls more sensitive to ghosts, and they soon find themselves solving mysteries about Confederate soldiers and mad painters, hidden treasures and lost masterpieces…and more than a little bit of danger.

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By Stephanie Meyer [LibraryThing - Amazon]

When Bella moves to the dreary small town of Forks, she doesn’t expect to meet the love of her life – and she certainly doesn’t expect him to be a vampire. But Edward is exactly that, and his love for Bella may not be stronger than his thirst for her blood. And even if it is, can Edward protect Bella from the bloodthirsty newcomer who’s set his sights on her?

Warning: Minor spoilers behind the cut. Read the rest of this entry »

Justine Larbaelstier [Magic Lessons at LibraryThing - Magic Lessons at Amazon; Magic’s Child at LibraryThing - Magic’s Child at Amazon]

After discovering that magic is real and deadly in Magic or Madness, Reason’s story continues. In the second book of the trilogy, she and her friends Jay-Tee and Tom begin learning how magic works and what they can do with it. But their lessons are interrupted when what seems to be a magic monster begins stalking Reason and causing trouble. But it turns out the creature may not be out to hurt Reason after all… and it might just hold the answers Reason is seeking.

Warning: there is no real way to review the third book without spoiling major sections of the second, so yes, there will be uncovered spoilers below. Don’t click if you’re the sort who avoids spoilers!
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By Elise Primavera [LibraryThing — Amazon]

Although Prudence Gumm, Franny Muggs, and Cat Lemonjello have all lived on the same street their whole lives, they don’t like each other at all. And when Ivy Diamond moves to town, it’s not long before none of them like her, either. But then they find themselves mixed up with a witch, a lot of ruby red slippers – and one silver one – a wizard in a hot air balloon, and magical and perilous secret country. To survive, they’ll have to work together, appreciate each other’s strengths, and look at almost everything from the other way around.

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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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By Jonathan Stroud [LibraryThing - Amazon]

When Nathaniel, a young magician-in-training, summons the djinni Bartimaeus to get revenge for a minor humiliation, he has no idea that he’s embroiling the two of them in a massive conspiracy. As the years pass and Nathaniel rises in influence in the government, various coups fall, each one merely an offshoot of the one that threatens not just England, but the world. In the end, it’s up to Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and Resistance fighter Kitty Jones to save the day – if they can stop squabbling long enough to do it.

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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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