The dark, dangerous, and desirable

Throughout all my time as a reader, I have found just a few writers that seem to have almost a mystical prowess; that grab their readers attention immediately, and hold them in a trance from the beginning to the end of their novels. Among these spell-casters, Holly Black stands out as one of the best.

I’ve raved over every Holly Black book I’ve ever picked up. I read ‘The Spiderwick Chronicles’ as a teenager and was entranced. I read ‘Doll Bones’ for a class in college and loved every moment of it. And ‘The Coldest Girl in Coldtown’ is one of my favorite vampire novels of all time, and I read a lot of vampire novels.

Even with her prodigious repertoire of YA and children’s novels, nothing quite compares to her newest release, ‘The Cruel Prince’ a spellbinding tale of the unseen fairy realm.

The book centers on Jude, a mortal girl taken from her home at the age of seven when her parents are killed by a red-cap, Madoc. She and her twin sister, Taryn, along with her older sister, Vivienne, are taken from their mortal home and into the fairy realm. Vivienne is Madoc’s daughter, and, feeling a sense of obligation to his late wife, he raises Jude and Taryn as his own as well.

As ever, Black’s fairy world is less frolicking-through-the-meadow and much more dark and murderous. The everlasting fey of the Fairy Court are both beautiful and perilous. Black’s world is one where danger lurks around every corner, but the danger is enticing, enchanting. A beautiful river flows through the forest, but in the river lurks bloodthirsty kelpies. A golden fairy fruit will taste incredible to a mortal, and poison them at the same time. This dark and fantastical world pulls the reader directly into it, both enchanting and horrifying at the same time.

It is a story of a scrappy main character with a shifty moral code. Perhaps the best thing about her is her mortality. Jude is human, though she longs to be fey. Because she is human, though, she makes human choices, taking actions that surprise even herself. She is spurred on by her parents death and a desire to be in control of herself; The Folk can ‘glamour’ humans, or make them do their bidding. Her desires lead her to lie, cheat, and spy in the Fairy Court’s own version of Game of Thrones.

The rich tale of politics and betrayal gives this story a backdrop of intrigue. And while Princes fight for their place on the throne, Jude takes on problems of her own: her sisters secret suitor, her own fairy lover, and an enemy, Prince Cardan. Jude and Cardan have a chemistry of their own; much like the rest of the book, what is dark and dangerous is also desirable.

It is a spellbinding work, guaranteed to pull you directly into a perilous and exquisite world. Black is a compelling writer who, like the creatures she writes about, will truly hold you under her spell.

This Savage Reviewer

In the past, I have spoiled myself on subscription boxes of adorable, bookish merchandise. The company that I use is Owl Crate, a monthly, Young Adult subscription box. They send all sorts of fun merchandise and a YA novel.

The last book I received was ‘The Serpent King’, a book to which I gave very high praise.

This month, I was less enthused.

‘This Savage Song’ by Victoria Schwab was, for the most part, a frustrating read. The story was interesting, and, toward the end, even compelling. But I often read for style, and the style choices Schwab made were sloppy and made me often set the book aside, too frustrated to read any more.

The following is me nit-picking. If you want to hear what I liked about the book, you can skip ahead a paragraph.

PRONOUNS. They exist for a reason. When there are only two characters interacting through pretty much 80 percent of a book, and one of them is a boy and the other is a girl, you can use the words “he” and “she” and the reader will still know who you’re talking about. Schwab names Kate and August, the two main characters with every action they do, every thought that they think. I was so frustrated that I finally counted how many proper nouns I saw on one page. 8. Three paragraphs. 18 sentences. 8 Kates and Augusts. As I said, it is a nitpicky thing, but something that separates a good book from a mediocre book.

And this book could be a good book, I think. The central conflict is compelling, the characters complicated and interesting.  It is set in an apocalyptic future where acts of violence create literal monsters: the Malchai, who eat blood, the Corsai, literal shadows with teeth that rip their victims apart, and the Sunai, the most mysterious of monsters, who steal souls with a song. Kate Harker is the daughter of a Mafia King Pin, whose mobsters are literal monsters. August is a Sunai who just wants to be a normal person.

Sounds great, right? As I said, it is compelling. I fought through annoying style choices and found my way to the meat of the story. It examines good and evil in an interesting way, looks at what it is to be human. And begs the question: are humans the real monsters?

But for 250 pages, I had to muddle through chapter by chapter, getting more and more frustrated by the mediocre writing, nearly throwing my book in anguish when Schwab hid our two main characters in a restaurant kitchen and said August rammed “some sort of kitchen tool through the door handles,” to keep out the Malchai. Has the author never been in a kitchen? She couldn’t say ladle? Or whisk? Or spatula?

It is little things like this that grow more and more off-putting in YA novels. The story is there, but the style isn’t. It has been the case with more and more of the new YA books I pick up: ‘A Study in Charlotte,’ ‘The Lunar Chronicles’ ‘The Haunting of Sunshine Girl.’

When I read a book, I want the whole package, story and style. Although I have heard good things about Schwab’s other books, I will not be picking up another.

Changing Destiny

There are a few books that I’ve come across in my time that I’ve clutched to my chest, tears running down my face, and felt  a brief moment where I know I’ll never find anything that will quite compare.

“The Serpent King” by Jeff Zentner is one of them.

Wow, this book was incredible. Zentner tells the story of three teens; Dill, a singer and songwriter with a dark past; Travis, a literally enormous boy who is a total softy as well as a fantasy nerd, and has his own family secrets; and Lydia, an up-and-coming fashion blogger with big dreams.

The three explore the dangerous territory of high school together, but the reader is given peeks of their lives when they are alone. Dill’s father, a signs minister who handled snakes and drank poison with his congregation, was imprisoned for child pornography.
He carries the name Dillard Early, the same as his father’s and father’s father, and throughout the book, he wonders if perhaps the name itself is a curse; if he maybe carries on more than just the name.

Travis, six-foot-six and 280 pound teddy bear, lives in the fictional world of a series of books called Bloodfall. It is a welcome escape from a verbally and often physically abusive father. Throughout the book, Travis finds his moments of bravery and learns to stand up for himself and the people he love, like Dill and Lydia, and, especially, his mother.

Lydia meanwhile, carves out a persona for herself online. She is a starkly independent and driven young woman, an excellent heroine for the story. However, she is not perfect. Her blog is an edited and fictional version of her life, where she never mentions her two best friends and yearns for the big city life. This causes problems between her and Dill, who loathes to think of his world without Lydia in it.

The book takes a tragic twist that makes them face their oncoming future, which, after a brief period of darkness, looks brighter and more beautiful by the end of the book.

This book is about being brave, about growing up, and about changing your own destiny. Zentner is a spectacular writer, weaving poetry into his prose. He describes the most beautiful moments, and the most heart-wrenching moments in incredible detail.

When I finish a book and feel changed, I know it was worth it. This book was a spectacular read. I hope others read it and feel the same.

Just another YA novel

The phrase “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” is total baloney. It’s not a secret that I love books. And I don’t just love them for the words inside. I find books aesthetically pleasing. Therefore, I am bound to pick up a book based on its cover. I like a nice font, pretty colors, loud patterns.

I’ve been steeped, lately, in the bookstagram community, a place where I see photo after photo of beautiful books. I have been particularly drawn, lately, to the Lunar chronicles, which were recommended to me years back.

I finally talked myself into reading ‘Cinder,’ the first book in the series after several people told me that I’d love it. In fact, I did have an affair with this popular YA novel, but I will say that “love” is not a word I would use in our relationship.

All things said, I can see why the series is popular. The story was certainly entertaining. It is easy to read, which makes it difficult to put down.

However, it was also difficult to get into. I wasn’t grabbed by it, or compelled. I saw the inevitable love story immediately (which, granted, I knew about going in), and I was unimpressed with the vague, futuristic world that had been created.

Going forward, I began to enjoy the characters more. I found myself sympathetic toward Prince Charming (a.k.a. Kai), and more supportive of Cinder’s stubborn will. Cinder, a cyborg servant in her step-mother’s home, plans to escape her life. Meanwhile, people are dying of a futuristic plague and she is somehow immune.  Even the mad scientist, a doctor named Erland who experiments on her, becomes almost endearing.

It is easy to get caught up in the story as it takes a few sudden, heart-wrenching turns. And the story really gets going when the Evil Queen (a.k.a. Queen Levana) enters the picture. She is the Queen of a race that has evolved on the moon. They are advanced to the point where they can control other people’s minds, and the vain queen uses her power to control an entire society too scared of her to rebel.

It is all around a good idea and a solid story. But it was also predictable. At one point, I noted “If this book surprises me, then I am going to be very surprised.”

Despite the beautiful cover, I wasn’t especially wowed by this book. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good YA read and a pretty cover. But I will, by no means, be recommending ‘Cinder’ as strongly as it was recommended to me.

A legend that still holds us captive

London is steeped in legend and myth. From King Arthur to Robin Hood, myths have been spread and talked about so much that they’ve become reality. One of London’s mysteries is that of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

I finished reading “Sweeney Todd: The Graphic Novel” this weekend. The graphic novel was adapted from Thomas Peckett Prest’s penny dreadful serial “A String of Pearls.”

The art in this novel was gorgeous. Any pages with Todd were bordered in black, where other characters stories were bordered in white, or other light colors. This distinction, though minor, really added to the story. There was also minimal violence shown in the pages, a plus for younger readers, who seem to be the books intended audience.

That’s not to say the book isn’t scary. The original is very different from Steven Sondheim’s musical and Tim Burton’s screen adaptation, the story that I am familiar with. Todd was not originally the sympathetic anti-hero that these adaptations paint him as. He kills for selfish reasons, namely money, and, twice, for a string of pearls. Often, his face is painted in shadows as he looms over his victims.

Even more scary is Mrs. Lovett, the owner of a meat pie shop and his partner in crime, who locks men in the basement to make the pies. They are only to eat the pies, and when they grow tired of their job, she has Todd “polish them off.” There is a never ending string of cooks who end up in the very pies that they were baking.

Yep. Creepy.

The book includes a helpful afterword addressing the legend of Sweeney Todd. Prest’s periodical was not the only story of a killer barber; Todd was written about in The Newgate Calendar, which published gripping tales of criminals. However, no official records of a trial exist, leading many to believe that the story in The Newgate Calendar was a fabrication.

Whether fact or legend, Sweeney Todd’s story is captivating. Brought to life in vivid color, this graphic novel is the best way I can think of to relive the legend of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The Dead Girls of Katie Alender’s world

Last week, I was eagerly awaiting a package from Amazon, a package that contained a book I had been excited to read for months. “The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall”, Katie Alender’s new young adult thriller. I was so excited to get my hands on this book that when I opened the package, I rubbed my face on it like a cat. But maybe that’s getting too personal.

After a ceremonius book smell (t.m.i. again?) I started reading. In an hour, I’d read fifty pages, then put it away for the night. The next day I finished it. Such is the power of Katie Alender.

What is it that makes her books so tantalizing? For starters, her spunky heroines. “Dead Girls” boasts Delia, a regular teenager with a chip on her back because her parents are overbearing. Delia inherits a house, but not just any house, a retired asylum for girls, nicknamed “Hysteria Hall.”

The Piven Institute, with it’s dark history of mistreating patients and mysterious deaths, is, unsurprisingly, very haunted. When Delia starts meeting ghostly inhabitants, she finds it stocked with girls of all kinds: a southern debutante, a flapper with a dark past, and a sad mother. She finds there are good ghosts and bad ghosts, and ghosts that are just plain pests. Despite the other occupants of the hourse, Delia is on a mission, determined to learn more about her Aunt Cordelia, whom she corresponded with only briefly years before she left her a haunted insane asylum.

Alender is a pro at suspense building, an excellent tactic that keeps her readers on the edge of their seat, ready for the next chapter. It’s a ghosts world in this book, and that means creepy creatures of all kinds, from the disfigured little girl who stalks Delia, to black smoke monsters.

All six books that Alender has written clearly take place in the same canon universe, a universe where ghosts lurk around every corner and spunky teenage heroines have to deal with them. In her “Bad Girls Don’t Die” series, Alexis comes across not only bad-tempered spirits, but a poltergeist. Not all of Alender’s ghosts are bad though. In “Famous Last Words” an angry ghost is trying to warn Willa of a murderer. Alexis, despite her run-ins with nasty ghosts, comes to be close with her dead frenemy who helps her out in times of crisis. The dead girls living in the Piven institute are a combination of the two, the best and the worst of the oogly-booglys. Five out of her six books also make mention to the author and ghost expert Walter Sawamura, tying all the books together. It is clear that Alender found her niche in hauntings.

In “Dead Girls” Delia gets the opportunity to save her little sister Janie from a horrible fate. But first, she has to unravel the house’s troubled past as it tries harder and harder to claim everyone she loves. It is thrilling, creepy, and touching, all things that I’ve come to expect from Alender’s excellent stories.

If you haven’t explored Alender’s haunted world yet, then I suggest you pick up “Dead Girls” and settle in for a few hours of ravenous reading.

A fun, feminist find

It’s no secret that I think  reading is fun. It’s an activity that should be enjoyable. I like a book that makes me laugh out lout, a book that keeps me on my toes. I like my books to be fun.

I don’t know that I’ve ever had as much fun with a book as I did with “Beauty Queens” by Libba Bray.

In her book Bray strands fourteen girls on an island after a plane crash. These girls have to learn to fend for themselves when they realize no one is coming to rescue them. The girls have to learn to let go of petty pageant ideals in order to band together to survive. As they learn more about each other, they also start to learn more about themselves.

The book is sprinkled with a healthy amount of absurdity. While the girls are stranded on the island, they have no idea they’ve unwittingly become part of a grand plan between an evil Corporation and a lovestruck, gun-happy dictator who carries around a stuffed lemur and calls it his advisor. (Absurd, right?) Meanwhile, The Corporation is responsible for literally everything. It’s basically every evil corporation wrapped into one. The Corporation sells the beauty products the girls tote, they produce all the hottest television, and they make secret weapons. The Corporation hosts programs like “Captains Bodacious” a reality series about hot male pirates picking up girls in port, and “Your Blood is, Like, So Hot,” about a group of hemophiliacs “who lie around looking anemic and sexy.”

The goofy absurdity had me laughing out loud, but beneath the absurdity, there is a layer of truth. The Corporation hopes to brainwash a generation with television and then sell them their products. Reality peeks out through the absurd.

The most important reality in this book is that society places too much pressure on girls. And that’s where we get to the good stuff. As the girls fight for survival, they unlearn what The Corporation and their parents have been shoving into their heads. Tiara, for example, is fairly dumb. When she completely loses it and starts chopping her hair with a machete, she starts to share her pageant experience, she started when she was two weeks old. All her life, she’s been told that all she can be is pretty, because she’s not smart. With help from her friends on the  Island, she finds her talents in interior decorating, and learns about feminism.

Shanti, an Indian girl obsessed with winning lies about her heritage in order to get ahead. She obsesses about bringing down her competition, Nicole, a black girl saying “they’ll never let two brown girls into the top five.” The two have to work together to save themselves from quicksand, and in the process, Shanti confesses her lies to Nicole, while Nicole confesses that all she cares about is becoming a doctor. She only does pageants because her mother wants her to be a star.

Taylor, proud Miss Texas, continues to obsess over the pageant, even when the girls are stranded. Pageants were all she had after her mom left, and she was left feeling heart broken. Wanting to feel stronger than her mother, she worked tirelessly to make sure she was pageant perfect. She starts out as the bitch of the group, making the girls practice their dance numbers in the hot sun, rather than working on survival. Later on, she saves them countless times because of her iron will and need to impress.

Petra, who is still in transition to become a girl, gets found out when Tiara sees her bathing. Half of the girls accept her willingly, but several of the other girls have a difficult time understanding Petra’s feelings of dysphoria. In the end, she shows that she is proud to be trans, and the girls, and hot boys, accept her easily.

Mary Lou is obsessed with her purity ring, a fact which riles up her best friend Adina. Adina argues that sexuality is not just something for a man, but something that a woman should embrace for herself. After she loses her ring, Mary Lou takes some time to get to know her sexuality a little bit better, while also getting to know a hot revolutionary.

The girls come away with a better understanding of what it is to be a woman. Mary Lou comments “Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one’s watching them so they can be who they really are.”

Away from the strict gaze of society that holds impossible standards over their heads, the girls discover themselves. And though  their adventures were a little absurd, the reader comes away with a whole host of new ideas about what it is to be a girl living in today’s corporate run society. While learning about the 14 beauty queens, I learned a little more about myself.

And what could be more fun than that?

Life’s intangible things

I think it was John Green who said something about road trips being the best way to show adolescence. A road trip is a journey to find something, a way to better understand oneself, things that are important to teenagers.

In “The Museum of Intangible Things,” Hannah and Zoe hit the road in search of the intangible things in life: joy, knowing what you want, and insouciance.

Though the book started off slow (it took me two weeks to read), it picked up when Zoe, bi-polar best friend of Hannah, decides to run away from home before her mother can send her to an institution. Hannah, who’s alcoholic father has just stolen all her money, agrees to go along for the ride, hoping to both help her best friend and also to get away from her family and past.

The wild adventure that follows includes sleeping in an Ikea, wreaking havoc on the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade, line-dancing, storm-chasing, and a wild night in Las Vegas.

Beware, though, all does not end well. I picked up the book hoping for a happy story about a road trip shared between friends, which is accurate. But Zoe’s disorder causes her to believe that aliens are trying to take her away.

There is a moment when Hannah and Zoe are watching a tornado that Hannah pins Zoe down to the ground so she isn’t blown away. When the storm clears, Zoe says “You need to let me go. When you are ready, you will let me go.”

Zoe hints often that she will not be around much longer. The book is a fight for Hannah to keep her friend, and fight to hold on.

The book was beautiful and tragic and difficult to describe. It is a must-read for those who want to know more about love, life, and the intangible things that come with it.

Seek ‘Asylum’ in these page turners

Here is something I love: a book that raises the hair on your arms and makes your heart race. Creepy books are the best, because nothing gets me more excited than wrenching through the pages trying to figure out why creepy stuff is happening.

I was drawn to Madeleine Roux’s “Asylum” books by the dreary covers, and the grim photos within.

The books feature Dan Crawford, a regular 16-year-old nerd. Interested in history and psychology, he arrives at a six-week prep course looking to meet friends and do a lot of homework. You know, fun summer activities.

There, Dan meets Jordan, a math prodigy whose parents think he is spending the summer at a Pray-the-Gay-Away summer camp, and Abby, a talented artist with no fear.

While staying in Brookline, the three begin exploring the building and digging up it’s dark past. Brookline was used as an Asylum, where the Warden, used experimental methods on it’s residents, including lobotomies.

Upon  finding out the Warden’s name, Daniel Crawford, Dan becomes obsessed with finding out more about the asylum, and whether or not he had a relation the old Warden. The past comes back to haunt him even worse when students start dying.

Though they make it through their summer alive (barely), Dan, Jordan, and Abby feel compelled to return to the campus after receiving the creepy message “You’re not finished” on the back of a photo of a carnival. In “Sanctum,” the three follow the advice of their would-be murderer, and return to Camford to discover Warden Daniel Crawford’s secrets.

With a secret society of masked people on their trail, the three dig up information on hypnosis and drug tests done long before the Warden was in charge of Brookline. The book becomes a race to take back control of their own minds before someone else can.

Both “Asylum” and “Sanctum” are rapid page turners. I ripped through “Sanctum” in less than three days, eager to discover the mystery along with the trio of characters. Each chapter ends with a cliff-hanger compelling the reader on.

The pictures in both books add to Roux’s storytelling. She is able to set the foreboding scene with the grim photos.

Not only are the books appealing because of the fantastic storytelling, but also for the pop culture references. The characters reference their own favorite YA literature, such as “Harry Potter,” and at one point, Dan flirtatiously calls Abby “Khaleesi.” Pop culture references come up frequently, reminding the reader that Roux’s trio of characters exist in our world.

I loved every heart-stopping second of Roux’s “Asylum” books, and only hope that I might be treated with more. A good creepy novel is hard to find, and it was a pleasure that I happened to come by these.

‘Orange’ shows incredible journey and unbreakable bonds

June 6 is less than a week away, and because of this, my mind has been on one thing and one thing only: “Orange is the New Black.” The first season was everything from hilarious to heartwarming, but the viewers were left with one hell of a cliffhanger. I and thousands of other fans are eager to find out the fate of both Pennsatucky and protagonist Piper Chapman.

Because of my excitement over the television show, I did what I always do when faced with an unbearable cliffhanger. I bought the book.

From page one, there is an obvious difference between Jenji Kohen’s fictional world and author Piper Kerman’s real one. Kerman herself has very little in common with her television alter-ego. In fact the most obvious similarities between the two are that they are both blonde white ladies serving time for delivering drug money ten years before their sentences.

Kerman’s story featured far fewer moments of hilarity than the television series. I was disappointed to find that the chicken was a invention of Kohen’s, rather than a reality in Kerman’s book. The sharp, witty character of Nicols, who provides much of the comic relief in the television series was absent from Kerman’s book, and the real Crazy Eyes, another major source of comic relief in the series, backs off and disappears from Kerman’s story almost instantly.

There are several familiar faces, however, that do show up in Kerman’s book. Red is based off Kerman’s Pop, the Russian cook who takes excellent care in feeding Kerman in return for little favors like foot-rubs (strictly against the rules in prison, of course). Yoga Jones is based off Yoga Janet, who patiently guides Kerman to feeling more serene about her time in prison through daily Yoga. And then there’s Delicious, who throws out lines that fans of Tastee will be familiar with. “You got some nice titties! You got those TV titties! They stand up on they own all perky and everything!” These women and many other incredible women riddle Kerman’s book.

A warning to those going in expecting the re-kindled love between two women who have some epic long lost romance; Kerman’s book does not deal with her past lesbian lover in the same way Kohen’s series does. Kerman and now husband Larry kept true to their engagement when she was imprisoned, and her past relationship with ex-girlfriend Nora is remembered bitterly. The two do have an interesting reunion, just not in the way you might expect.

While the incredible characters and female bonds make up a majority of the book, even more important was Kerman’s scathing criticisms of the prison system.  “No one who worked in ‘corrections’ appeared to give any thought to the purpose of our being there, any more than a warehouse clerk would consider the meaning of a can of tomatoes… How can a prisoner understand their punisment to have been worthwhile to anyone, when it’s dealt in a way so offhand and indifferent.” She also weaves facts among her poignant moments of reflection, including the fact that the United States has the biggest prison population in the world: 25 percent of the world’s prisoners even though Americans only take up 5 percent of the world’s population.

Though the book and the television series are two different things entirely, the book is still an incredible read. Featuring forgiveness, understanding, and the unbreakable bonds between women, this book is a must read for women everywhere.