The Distance Between Us (Kasie West)

The trope is as old as Cinderella, as Bathsheba. Still, readers continue to be fascinated by the rich guy-poor girl romance. Some days I might complain why we keep on falling for this story, but then I'd have to come out and admit that I'm not entirely blameless. [Full disclosure: My longest obsession with this was over Hana Yori Dango, a manga turned anime, more popularly known in Manila as the Taiwanese drama Meteor Garden or as its recent Korean reincarnation Boys Over Flowers. Somebody just gave my high horse a good slap on the behind and it went off running without me.]

But what I enjoyed about Kasie West's The Distance Between Us is that it infused the trope with a needed amount of levity and spirit. I was expecting something akin to Pretty in Pink but I was pleased that I didn't get it. Here, Caymen helps her mother run a struggling doll store that caters to rich collectors. Two things she likes poking fun at are dolls and rich folks. But when Xander Spence walks into her shop, she finds herself striking an unlikely friendship with him. Together, they question labels and explore the boundaries of the world they thought they knew.

As the cover implies, this is a romance. It evolved at a steady pace, which made their relationship extremely believable. Caymen's character -- sassy, snarky, and loyal -- is a breath of fresh air for me. I like how she's sarcastic but not hard. Her insights and her banter with the people around her keeps things from being too predictable. She was one of the reasons I couldn't put this down! Aside from constantly worrying about her mother's shop (which she personally doesn't care too much for), she's candid enough to admit that she doesn't know what to do when she gets to college. While that may not stack up against the more dramatic issues of YA literature, I appreciated its purpose in this story. Xander has all the self-assurance that one would expect from someone as rich as he was. Caymen takes it for arrogance in the beginning, but I really liked how Ms West shows that there was more to him. He is confident without being abrasive, encouraging without being patronizing. The supporting characters, from Caymen's friends to her mom, were also tightly-drawn.

I had a few concerns with the story, but nothing that really took away from my enjoyment. There was a plot twist coming, which Ms West had already primed the reader to expect, but when it came it was unlike what I was thinking that it jarred me. But upon re-reading, I finally picked out the subtle hints that pointed to that direction. They weren't a lot but if I had been sharper during my first read, I might have had less misgivings about the twist. The story also tends to skew deeper into wish-fulfillment territory. Not a bad thing of course, because the drama and the pay-off can be greater, but I wish it had been more consistent. Still, this was more a personal preference than anything. Caymen and Xander really won me over that I was ready to forgive everything. Overall, The Distance Between Us is something I'd heartily recommend to someone looking for a sweet and charming contemporary YA book.

Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys (Kate Brian)

This month's quick fix came courtesy of Kate Brian's Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys, an unassuming little read that was fun from start to finish.

The titular character is an army brat, shuttled to different places because of her parents' jobs. (Incidentally, this comes a week after my niece's best friend, herself an army brat, leaves for a different state.) Megan's parents are heading to South Korea and they give her a choice: come with them or stay stateside with her dad's best friend's family. Megan wants to complete the last two years of high school in one place, so she picks the latter. But it's not exactly the easiest of decisions, because the McGowans have seven boys. It's both a challenge and an education for only-child Megan, and even her sporty, tomboyish ways aren't enough to win over her new family. And that's not even counting her complicated crush on Evan.

(First off, I didn't quite get why Megan chooses to stay with the McGowans. Her argument against moving to South Korea is primarily fueled by her desire to stay in her current high school in Texas. I mean, if she still has to move either way, then why pick the strangers, right? Oh, I forgot... seven boys. Fine, I might just pick the same way, but I'm also much older and this would probably be highly inappropriate.)

Okay, now that I got that off my chest...

The book itself is a pretty good distraction from life's other surprises. It doesn't pretend to be more than it is and delivers a solid story about fitting in, family relations, and male-female relationships. The fish-out-of-water trope is used quite effectively. It also provides a good backdrop for all the issues that are tackled in the book. From dealing with resentful 'siblings' to challenging the high school queen bee to even befriending a person with Asperger's, the book introduces conflict that seem to grow organically given the story's unusual circumstances. What's more, Ms Brian knows how to resolve these issues. Even if there are plenty of them in the story, they don't seem too overwhelming and they're all addressed by the time you close the book.

Because I didn't see it mentioned in the book, here are the McGowan boys, according to their order of birth: Sean, Evan, Finn, Miller, Doug, Ian, and Caleb. Ms Brian gives each of the boys (well, save for the youngest two) distinct personalities so it isn't difficult for the reader to identify them.

Even with all these colorful characters around her, Megan holds her own. She's upfront and bullish, but she can also be caring and sensitive. She's an interesting lead who refuses to be overwhelmed by her situation -- most of the time. That said, the climax seemed completely unlike her. I understand that the drama was needed -- it is the climax, after all -- but her decision and the subsequent resolution both seemed weakly realized. Still, all in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Despite its ups and downs, I admired the way the plot carries Megan from one challenge to another and encourages her to face them with her brand of tenacity and determination.

How They Met and Other Stories (David Levithan)

I'm in love with David Levithan's How They Met and Other Stories. Consider this:

C'mon, you've seen the movie: As soon as the headstrong girl announces she's not going to fall in love, you know she'll be falling in love before the final credits. That's the way the story goes. Only it's not going to be my story. I am taking my story in my own hands. I don't care for the way it's supposed to go. Some people find happily ever after in being part of a couple, and for them, I say, good for you. But that's no reason we should all have to do it. That's no reason that every goddamn song and story has to say we should. - "Miss Lucy Has a Steamboat," p48

Or:

What do I know about love? Not much--that's the safe answer. Even when I think I have a grasp on it, something comes along to make me realize I don't know anything at all. - "the escalator, a love story," p78

In this collection of stories about love, David Levithan defines abstractions with the familiar, even the mundane, and then turns the mundane into springboards for some three o'clock epiphany. There are so many facets explored here: friendship, sex, obsession, heartbreak, gay love, straight love. Even with the overboard of romance in a collection like this, Mr Levithan keeps his characters from becoming cliches. They can be heartbreakingly honest. They can lie with conviction. They are confused. They are certain. He also takes us through different perspectives and narrative styles, ensuring that the writing is always fresh and never static.

The two stories that I mentioned above are some of my favorites, but they're not all. Others are "Starbucks Boy," "Flirting with Waiters," and "Without Saying," but even those I didn't mention shone with their own charm. It's testament to an author's skill when he can get a straight thirtysomething female reader empathizing with a gay teenager without feeling out of place or disjointed.

I've had How They Met and Other Stories for months now, but I'm glad I got to finish it before Valentine's. David Levithan must be cringing at being turned into a cliche, but this was just exactly what I needed to read. Love that's bitter, love that's sweet, and its other intersections in between.

Chain Mail Addicted to You (Hiroshi Ishizaki)

Two things have kept me from posting as many book reviews as I could have during the past few months. One: a business trip to Tokyo that had me occupied weeks before and even weeks after my visit there. Two: a role-playing game that my friends and I have been playing for the past ten months. I've gotten obsessed quite steadily.

It's hard to explain how truly addictive an RPG can get, especially to someone who hasn't played one. Chances are, I'll only get strange looks should I attempt to do so. In a nutshell though, an RPG -- especially one that is as long-term as ours is -- lets you develop complex relationships with the other players. It lets you populate an imagined world with projections of your own selves: a direct copy, maybe; an ideal, possibly. Sooner or later, you get attached to them despite your better judgment. And in building these relationships, an RPG can also isolate your from everyone else who isn't part of it. May sariling mundo, as we say in Tagalog, in more ways than one.

That's the premise of Hiroshi Ishizaki's Chain Mail Addicted to You. Four teenage girls find themselves answering yes to an enigmatic request sent to their phones: Would you like to create a fictional world? The game they play is fairly straight-forward. Each girl takes on one of four roles: a young girl, her stalker, her boyfriend, and a detective. Through their posts, they help build the action and flesh out the characters. But eventually, the lines between what is real and what is a game start to blur -- not just for the characters but for the reader as well.

Chain Mail takes the reader through the different reasons why someone would seek to escape into an imagined world. For example, Sawako is standoffish and isn't too popular with her friends. Mayumi, on the other hand, is devoted to her best friend, a star badminton player. She's never questioned her role in the relationship until now, when she realizes that she can make things happen, even if it's just in the game. Mr Ishizaki writes from each girl's point of view. It's a challenge, but he manages to differentiate the girls from one another. He is also effective in creating tension within the game. Even if all we read are excerpts from the girls' exchanges, sufficient excitement and paranoia is built to make us eager to find out what happens to the young girl and her stalker.

There are so many elements to Chain Mail that makes the reading experience an intriguing one. Though the twists in the story were not that unique, what stands out is the depiction of teenage life from something other than a western perspective. With its Tokyo setting, different concerns and motivations are pushed into the spotlight. Of course, with what I had revealed earlier, it goes without saying that I could relate to a lot of elements in this novel. My own experiences definitely color how I appreciate a book but I hope that you can give this psychological thriller (and a social commentary of sorts) a chance as well.

The Scorpio Races (Maggie Stiefvater)

Every autumn, wild capaill uisce (water horses) emerge from the sea and into the small island of Thisby. Men brave enough to catch these flesh-eating, sea-mad horses -- the fastest steeds on land -- ride them in town’s Scorpio Races, held every first of November, a day when someone is sure to die.

How I just devoured this book. As characters, Puck Connolly and Sean Kendrick have their own baggage and sorrows, their own hopes and desires but the story doesn’t choose to dwell on just these things. What it is about is a race, told from the perspective of two people who want to win for two different reasons. Puck joins the Scorpio Races almost on an impulse, a last-ditch attempt to keep her brother Gabe at home before he goes to the mainland. Later she realizes that her family’s future on the island depends on how well she does.

"Boys just aren't very good at being afraid," one character says, and this cuts into Puck's own bravery. She isn't going out there to make a feminist statement. In fact, she's not even doing it to save the house (in the beginning, at least); she's doing it because this is how she thinks she can keep her family together. She's not afraid of the capaill uisce; what she's most afraid of is losing what's left of her family. I like Puck’s fire. She dares to race on her island-bred horse Dove in a race for water horses. She is reckless because she has much to lose. She is brave because she needs to brave for others. "I have my own reasons for riding. [...] Just because I'm a girl doesn't make those reasons any less (p196)," Puck declares, and this made me cheer for her every time. I also like how Ms Stiefvater made sure that Puck had all options available to her, like the chance to run the race on a real water horse. It made the decision to race with Dove a practical, rational one instead of a purely emotional one.

The other protagonist of the story is Sean Kendrick. At nineteen, he’s got an almost otherworldly bond with the capaill uisce, especially the red capall Corr. Sean’s won the Scorpio Races for Malvern Stables four times now but no race has ever been more important than this one. This year he’s got a slim chance to win it all but not without risking it all too. Sean is a perfect foil for Puck’s character. He’s cool and steady, no matter the challenges being leveled at him. His is another story of bravery, one that is quiet and firm, like a cornerstone, something that cannot be shaken. The bond he has with Corr just moves me on so many levels. (Also, Sean is a great romantic lead. He’s the swoonworthy, silent, and brooding guy that most romance novels wish they had but can never perfect.)

Thisby is an imagined place, but I could easily picture it off the coast of Ireland or Wales. I like how this is fantasy world is a given, the magical woven into the mundane without any explanation. No one here is Dorothy bewildered by the loss of Kansas, no one is subjected to a mythological infodump. If anyone dares voice out the strangeness of the Thisby world, it is George Holly, the American horse breeder, but his question is more out of sociological curiosity, not "Why in the world are there things like flesh-eating water horses?" kind of way. I thought Ms Stiefvater showed a lot of skill and restraint when exploring the characters and culture of Thisby, especially in the way the island both revered and feared the water horses. She revealed just enough for the story to retain its mystery. I thought this way brought both Thisby and the capaill uisce to life. Ms Stiefvater carefully shows the readers just what these strange vicious horses mean to Thisby.

I was reluctant to let go of this even after I was done with the last page. I could feel myself still in Thisby, still standing on that shore and not wanting the moment to end. I guess it shows in the way I've gone on and on about this. Shutting up now. In my dreams, there's a capall waiting by the water's edge, daring me to come closer.

The Night Circus (Erin Morgenstern)

I'm not quite sure what happened with The Night Circus. I thought it started quite well, lush in intent, but as the story progressed, I didn't find all that much meat to the story. The battle is between two fundamental opposites: Celia and her father, who believes in a magician's innate ability; and Marco and the mysterious man in grey, autodidacts who learn their magical skills on their own. Celia and Marco are only the latest in a long-standing and deadly game, with the Night Circus as their battlefield.

There were parts that I really took to. The opening chapters found a way to hook me in, short and tantalizing as they gave hints about the bigger story. The descriptions of the Night Circus, though not quite literary thaumaturgy at work, still helped me visualize Celia and Marco's world. But what of the rest? The book set the stage for a battle, but all I got was akin to foreplay. Celia and Marco were two people caught in a game not of their own shaping, but I didn't really feel them struggling against their bonds. In fact, they took to their kind of prison quite well -- and if the romance is any indication (not a spoiler to anyone who reads the book blurb before purchasing), they even welcomed it in a way -- so I felt the book did not have a central driving conflict behind it. I found myself interested in the characters but not really caring for them one way or the other, and I sincerely hope that it was my failing as a reader that led me to that conclusion.

Then there was the chronology. Events were chronological enough, but between their chapters was the story of Bailey (and the circus twins Poppet and Widget), which progresses separately at first but eventually ties in to the others. I would have been fine with it had it not been for some moments when the stories approach each other closely but never connect; I found it hard to jump between teenage Poppet and Widget in the Celia/Marco storyline and then back again to the Bailey one. It made my reading experience somewhat disjointed and from then on I could never really recover whatever magic The Night Circus was promising. When the story ended, I found myself drawn Bailey and the twins marginally more, even though they only appeared in a third of the book. It left me strangely empty, as if the experience of reading it had been as illusory as the magicks in the Night Circus.

The Trident of Merrow (Amber Marshall & Kristopher Lewis)

Readers who enjoy their adventure stirred with some romance will find much to like in The Trident of Merrow. The story moves swiftly, following two separate crews: the Sea Drake, where Tosh is imprisoned by the pirate Jebediah Blud and a powerful Strega witch with an agenda, and the Gallows Jig, captained by Tosh’s childhood friend Germaine . From mutiny and sea monsters to airships and ancient rituals, The Trident of Merrow delivers action at a blistering pace.

The first pages immediately throw the reader into Tosh’s world: not just a swift mapping of the circumstances surrounding her current life but also a taste of the place she inhabits. She and her father live in Kingsport but their lives and trade revolve around the Shardsea. By the end of the chapter (it must be noted that the chapters are relatively short), Tosh’s adventure is already well underway. The action is instinctive. It sweeps the readers from the sea into the air; one can almost hear the John Williams soundtrack.

I liked how the magic elements were handled here. Ships employ a weather mage, with limited but useful abilities to calm huge waves or dispel a fog, but who can also appeal to and negotiate with various elementals to help them with more difficult tasks. I also enjoyed reading about the melding of magic and technology; at one point they even use it to create the Aquan equivalent of a missile.

Another interesting aspect of the story is its mythology. Aquan gods and goddesses are binaries: brothers and sisters are also rivals locked in battle. For instance, the Strega witches worship the Abyssal Lord Merrow as the god of the sea while sailors believe in Tryta, the Harlot Mother of Tides. I thought this framed the other binaries of the narrative quite nicely: magic and technology, the Gallows Jig and the Sea Drake, the Rozinante and the Colossus, Germaine and Massimo.

Unfortunately, Tosh is not as strong a character as she first appears to be. It’s evident that the authors tried to distance her from other literary damsels in distress by making her useful and allowing her attempts to rescue herself from her captors (she’s a steam mechanic, with life skills that come in handy once in a while). But there’s something about her that just falls short of being a compelling and relatable lead. It seemed rather unfortunate that the story’s main conflict revolved around Tosh and Massimo when they could be counted among the weaker characters.

However, that doesn’t diminish the impact of the other characters in the story. The Brinhold twins, Brion and Gage, are colorful members of the team who present interesting perspectives. Their backstory alone paints an intriguing culture and dynamic that I hope can be further explored should the authors choose to expand the book into a series. There is also Ama, the resident Manic Pixie Girl-type, an endearing addition to the story even if she only appears in the latter half of the book. Even Germaine, the knight errant, has moments of conflict and introspection, which surprised me because I had expected him to be a one-dimensional character. They might all fill certain stock roles, but they evade the predictability of their tropes just enough to ensure that the story remains memorable.

Despite the non-stop adventure, readers are constantly reminded that The Trident of Merrow is also a romance. In fact, it ends with a realization on Tosh’s behalf regarding the nature of love: not as a rosy-colored, sugar-coated fantasy [but]... seeing someone at their worst, a filthy keening animal. Wise words, but when concluded by someone whose own romance unfolds like the nautical equivalent of the Stockholm Syndrome, it just doesn’t deliver the desired impact. It’s actually the romances in the story that prevent me from fully enjoying the story; sometimes it can get cloying, other times just plain confusing.

Though The Trident of Merrow winds down to a predictable conclusion (the final confrontation with the Big Bad seems almost anti-climactic), there are a lot of moments in the journey that are exhilarating. Young adult readers will enjoy this alternative to the sword-and-sorcery medieval fantasy, and even older ones won’t regret a brief afternoon spent lost among the waves of the Shardsea.


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This review is cross-posted to Adarna SF. The author provided a free copy for this review.

Interim Goddess of Love (Mina Esguerra)

In her latest book, Mina Esguerra combines contemporary teen romance with hints of Philippine mythology to offer a satisfyingly-layered and unique read. Here, Hannah already has a job helping out at the Guidance Office but on top of that, the Sun God has also asked her to fill in for the Goddess of Love temporarily. Not exactly the easiest job for a sophomore on scholarship who's still trying to find her place at an expensive college. Interim Goddess of Love is the first book of a planned series, and aside from Hannah's struggles, it also features her first project: Kathy, a girl who claims to be 'invisible' but is getting lots of attention from a secret admirer.

Readers looking for a definitive introduction to Philippine mythology might want to look elsewhere, but for the casually curious, Interim Goddess of Love intersperses enough hints of Filipino gods and goddesses between Hannah's college life. As the IGoL, Hannah is privy to a number of romantic situations (and cute guys!). You get a good glimpse of the inhabitants of Ford River College from her perspective -- the mortals and the deities, the RKs (rich kids) and the SKs (scholarship kids). The author excels in capturing a certain slice of Filipino life that I think is alternately familiar and unique. The writing is smooth and the whole book is broken down into different situations that almost seem episodic to me.

What I admire most about Ms Esguerra's stories is that they create romantic moments without always resorting to Hollywood's Big Gesture but still have enough warm and fuzzy feelings to go around. I really loved how Kathy's love story was developed. The gifts she got from her secret admirer were swoon-worthy, the kind that will make a girl go, "Hey, this guy really gets me!" I also enjoyed reading about the divinities mentioned in the story. The pantheon of Filipino gods is huge and tends to vary from region to region, so a local reader like me had the added bonus of trying to remember which god was which. I also think that the book sets up the rest of the series quite well, and I look forward to seeing how Hannah's powers develop in time and if she'll find her own match in the game of love.

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Note: Real life recently demanded time away from my online one, especially with the huge Ati-Atihan festival annually held in our town. I hope I can slowly catch up with my long line of reviews to write. Please be patient with me!

The Duff (Kody Keplinger)

Maybe it's not good to start the new year -- and a leap year at that -- by declaring that I can totally relate to the Designated Ugly Fat Friend (DUFF). That's who I am and I don't think there's any harm in admitting that. In Kody Keplinger's The Duff, Bianca Piper starts a hate-love relationship with Wesley when he acquaints her with the term. Not exactly the most promising start to any kind of relationship with each other, as they are about to find out. (Spoilers ahead, because it is hard to review this book without dishing out some of the details.)

There were a lot of elements about The Duff that surprised me. Of course this is not the first YA book to mention sex, but the way Bianca and Wesley dive into their enemies-with-benefits arrangement shows a view of contemporary teenage relationships that is markedly different from the ones I've previously read about. I couldn't understand how Bianca would feel that engaging in an intimate relationship with someone she says she hates is going to make her feel better. Am I supposed to give her a pass because she's a teenager? I'm no angel but to be honest, reading about all the casual sex this book made me feel like the world's biggest prude. I have to give it Bianca though. She knows she's making a mistake but still she is all gung-ho about it, damn the consequences.

Still I could see Bianca struggle with her need to find an anchor in her life, even if that anchor was sex. Some people would turn to friends, others to alcohol or school activities. Yet Bianca chose this complicated relationship with Wesley to escape her problems with her alcoholic father. The story really has more to do with that and little to do with her struggles about being labeled fat or ugly, so if you're looking for those triumphant Cinderella rom-coms, look elsewhere. You won't find it here. Thankfully, it takes her loyal and caring group of friends and their own insecurities to make Bianca see that every girl can feel down about herself once in a while and this doesn't mean the end of the world.

Bianca is sharp and cynical, and in parts, she is also rather selfish and facetious. Given everything, she does feel realistically drawn. But the subject matter and approach used in The Duff can be very polarizing and despite my high hopes for it, I realize it isn't completely for me. I'm just too old for this.

After the Rain (Norma Fox Mazer)

Upon having dinner with Cel and Chachic last week, I was reminded of how little YA I've been reading these past few weeks. Not because there is an extreme lack of it in my library; my friend Oz has kept me well-supplied. But since I kept shuttling back and forth Manila since September, most of the books that I have bought and borrowed have remained in the city even when I had already returned to the province. Well, now that I'm in Manila I have no excuse, so I took on Norma Fox Mazer's After the Rain.

I had read Ms Mazer's Babyface a long time ago and I had A My Name is Ami /B My Name is Bunny when I was in grade school, but I really can't remember how those books made me feel. After the Rain has a fairly straightforward storyline about a teenage girl and her dying grandfather, without a lot of plot hooks and twists. It starts out rather slowly mainly because Rachel isn't particularly memorable for me. She felt very gloomy (although I suppose if I had been younger, I would have liked the fact that she wanted to be a writer).

Although it took me a while to warm up to the story, I eventually started getting interested in the relationship between Rachel and her ornery grandfather Izzy. The characters in the book always call Izzy 'mean', but it really feels that we have different definitions of the word. I thought Rachel's character only emerged through her grandfather's influence, and by the end of the book, I felt truly invested in the things that she cared about, as opposed to my indifference to her in the beginning. I like how the book scrutinized the other relationships within their family, the cracks in their facades.

One of the strengths of novel lies in how Rachel and Izzy grew, both as individuals and in terms of their relationship as granddaughter/ -father. It's a solid YA read, if you can soldier through the heavy mood of the themes tackled here and Rachel's own serious outlook as a protagonist. The payoff is touching, poignant, and leaves enough room for reflection.

The Infernal Devices Book Two: Clockwork Prince (Cassandra Clare)

Ever since I read Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel, I've been eagerly awaiting its sequel. Clockwork Prince still has a lot of the elements that I enjoyed from the first book, especially the melding of Victorian romance and fantasy -- a true guilty pleasure read for me. But I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed by the absence of a pronounced challenge posed by the Magister's automatons, despite a grand battle with one of them at the book's climax. However, it just felt that it was missing the fear of the unknown that had sparked the incidents of the first book: the Clave didn't know who or what they were up against, and I thought that effectively highlighted each character's way of reacting to and coping with conflict. Since in this sequel they already know who they're dealing with, it didn't feel as exciting to me as the first book had been.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Clockwork Prince is meant to be a transition book: the Institute, led by (my favorite characters in the series) the young Charlotte Branwell and her absent-minded husband Henry, is on the trail of the Magister. Their investigations reveal that he is driven by revenge, not greed, and despite his absence he has left others to do his work. Readers also find out more about Will and Jem, the Institute's teenage Shadowhunters, and Tessa finally makes a choice between them.

I'm not too sold on the conflict/resolution introduced here about Will's behavior towards people. He was already a bit Jace 2.0 (from her Mortal Instruments trilogy) but it was something I overlooked in the beginning because I had faith that he would have a different story. But with the latest development, I think he just grew more into his Jace skin. Jem also does something here that I question given his condition, and I'm not inclined to dismiss this easily knowing that he had refused to be Will's parabatai before. It makes me feel that I'm re-learning their characters all over again. It still makes for an interesting read when you realize that there is more to the characters that you didn't consider before, but it runs the risk of them coming out as uneven and inconsistent. Despite not being as enjoyable as Clockwork Angel had been, I still look forward to reading more of the London Institute. There is enough action and promise here to anticipate a highly-charged conclusion.

Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (Patricia C Wrede & Caroline Stevermer)

Fantasy and romance are two of my favorite genres, which find a satisfying balance in the YA title Sorcery and Cecelia by Patricia C Wrede & Caroline Stevermer. Taking on the form of an epistolary dialogue between two cousins, the book is a quick and light read that follows cousins Cecelia and Katherine through their many magical and social (mis-)adventures.

In the story, Kate gets to experience her first London season with her sister Georgina, while her cousin and best friend Cecy remains at their home in the country. Though they are apart, the girls' lives still manage to connect: Cecy makes the acquaintance of Dorothea Griscomb, who mysteriously draws men to her like bees to honey, her wizard-mother Miranda, and Dorothea's cousin James, who is quite unsuccessful when it comes to spying. In London, however, Kate is content to follow her prettier sister Georgy around, but unwittingly wanders into a magical trap laid for the Marquis of Schofield. Add to this story a blue chocolate pot, charm-bags, chaperones, falling hairpins, and brothers who get turned into trees and you have a good idea of how much trouble two very stubborn Ladies of Quality can get themselves into.

The book pays homage to Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer, and there's a fair amount of romantic tension mixed in with the fantastical elements of the story. The girls do not concern themselves with finding husbands as they do investigating their mystery, but the ending seems inevitable. Fans of Regency romances will be delighted by the mention of familiar places and terms like Almack's, Vauxhall Gardens, and the Elgin Marbles. Even famous people like Sally Jersey, Lord Byron, and Lady Caroline Lamb walk into the story. For all its twists and turns, the story winds down to a rather predictable conclusion, but I still found it very charming and refreshing. Cecy and Kate are both candid in their observations and are quite insistent on solving their own problems despite the conventions and notions of propriety that their society has set.

Ms Wrede and Ms Stevermer both share snippets of this unique writing journey at the end of the book. According to them, the idea started out as a Letter Game introduced to them by Ellen Kushner, where they wrote to each other as two different personas (with Ms Stevermer writing as Kate and Ms Wrede as Cecy). "But we didn't play the Letter Game to publish it," Ms Stevermer confesses. "We played because it was fun." They admit that they didn't discuss plot between them, only timing, encouraging them to work out the details as they went along. As I read the book, I find this quite commendable because I was struck by how similar Kate and Cecy sounded, too similar I thought, as if they had been written by the same hand. Even the male romantic leads seem cut from the same cloth, but that wasn't a deal-breaker for me. Sorcery and Cecelia remains an appealing, enchanting, and well-written read that makes me wonder why I don't see more wholesome Regency romances for a younger audience.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Laini Taylor)

I took this book everywhere until I was done with the last page.

Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone takes place in a richly-imagined, layered, and lyrical universe -- an Elsewhere that exists along with ours -- that makes it difficult to put down. Karou, an art student in Prague, runs strange errands for her family, errands that take her to Paris, Saigon, San Francisco, Marrakesh in the blink of an eye, though there is much she doesn't know about her existence. I understand that that might sound like a tired cliche from the paranormal romance genre, but Daughter of Smoke and Bone was more than I expected. Here, I'll let the blurb do the talking:

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love.
It did not end well.

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

There are many things to recommend about Daughter of Smoke and Bone, foremost of which is the gradual unfolding of the plot. Though there were twists and elements that are revealed towards the end of the book, I never felt that Ms Taylor had tacked them on superfluously. The novel is well-layered, ambitious, and successful as it takes the reader from one world and one thread of the story to another. The pace allows the narrative to gain much ground. What's also striking about the story is that it carries with it a commentary on war, prejudice, and tolerance. It does not allow the romance aspect to overpower the important themes that the novel contains.

The setting also plays a significant role in perpetuating the fantasy. Most of the earthly activities take place in Prague, with its art schools and historic corners and grand cathedrals -- already a grand playground for the imagination -- so that when the tale moves to a different plane, the change is gradual and not shattering. Ms Taylor's other world comes with a colorful and diverse group of characters that evoke religious imagery without offending my Catholic sensibilities. I think the author was effective enough to use the angelic-demonic archetypes as a jump-off point to create her own characters of myth and legend to populate her world.

Karou herself is a great character: an admirably balanced mix of a heroine who is physically strong and more than capable of taking care of herself and one who has a great capacity for love. When I encounter characters such as this, I notice that one trait often precedes the other: as if love is a 'gentle' feeling that the female-warrior/tough-girl is required to shun at the beginning of the novel. In Karou, however, they exist at the same time, but I don't feel that this diminishes her strength as a character.

And the language! Some of my favorite lines:
'... clock towers across Prague started arguing midnight... (p56)'

'In her belly: a flutter of winged things shaking themselves fervently to life (p195).'

'It is bright within her, like a swallowed star (p311).'

I've used that 'arguing midnight' line on friends who have taken this book from me -- as I mentioned, I brought it everywhere -- and raised an eyebrow at the cover. Like I tell them, it is not every day that you come across a YA fantasy/romance like this. Daughter of Smoke and Bone appeals to readers who would want to be swept off their feet by an epic love story, as well as those eager for a secondary world with a rich mythos and history to accompany it.

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My Advance Review Copy is courtesy of Hachette Book Group Philippines, through the kindness of Honey and Chachic. Much thanks!

Anna and the French Kiss (Stephanie Perkins)

For months now, my teenage sister has been trying to get me to read Stephanie Perkins' Anna and the French Kiss. The premise reminded me of the Janet Quin-Harkin titles in the Sweet Dreams series (Exchange of Hearts, Lovebirds, and Ghost of a Chance, to name a few), where the Heroine is forced to go to a new country/state/town for a set period time (anywhere from a summer vacation to a year), where she finds love/independence/self-worth or some variation thereof. From the cover to the title, this book makes no secret of just how close it adheres to that romantic trope. But to my surprise, it's much more layered than I had expected, making me wish that I had listened to my sister a little sooner.

Anna is forced to spend her senior year at an international boarding school in France instead of in her familiar high school in Atlanta. She hates that she has to leave her latest crush behind, especially when they're thisclose to being a couple. Not only does she have to start over as a new kid while in her senior year, she has to do it in a place where she barely speaks the national language. Little does she know that that's only the least of her problems. When she befriends Meredith, Etienne, and the rest of their group, Anna must struggle with the fragile balance between friendship and romance, and stand up for what she wants in the process.

The characters are delightfully nuanced, especially Etienne St Clair, the object of Anna's affections. He is far from perfect -- both physically and emotionally -- and yet he remains a person whom the romantic reader can support. I like the dynamics of their group. All five of them come across as real friends, with their petty fights and their secret fears and their ability to understand each other even when they don't like each other very much. I thought the book captured Anna's precarious position in the group -- not wanting to rock the boat but not knowing where to take her own feelings either.

It would have been so easy to let the setting overwhelm the story. Paris is the city for romance; what more can two hot-blooded teenagers want? But what I admired in Ms Perkins' work was that she let the story tell itself. Paris, for all of Anna's explorations, remains a lovely backdrop, never stealing the attention away from Anna and Etienne.

I also enjoy how gradual this story is. Their relationship clearly moves from stage to stage, taking its time to establish how Anna comes to depend on Etienne as her staunchest friend despite her romantic attraction to him. It is sweet and honest, and it really shows me that a story can have a seemingly light theme but still carry weight. Highly recommended to YA fans and romance readers.

Quatrain (Sharon Shinn)

I was drawn to this because I'm a fan of Sharon Shinn, especially her novel Summers at Castle Auburn, admittedly one of the lesser-known ones in her portfolio. When I found out that my good friend from Celina's Books and Magazines was selling a hardcover edition of Quatrain, which contained a companion story to Summers at Castle Auburn, I instantly snapped it up.

Quatrain is a collection of four novellas set in Ms Shinn's different worlds. "Flight" is a prequel to her Samaria series. It revolves around Salome, a former angel-seeker who now spends her days far away from the angel holds, in a farm where she can raise her teenage niece Sheba. Little does she know that Archangel Raphael's arrival will send their world into turmoil. I like that Salome is in her forties, and her worldly wisdom is justified by her past. "Flight" is rife with family secrets and betrayals, especially when Salome is forced to confront her past and the lover who suffered because of her choices.

"Blood" is perhaps my favorite story in the collection, though I am least familiar with Ms Shinn's sci-fi novel Heart of Gold, in whose world this tale takes place. Here, three races -- the indigo, the gulden, and the albino -- live in relative harmony. Kerk joins his stepmother's family in a new city, with the hopes of finding his real mother there. To do this, he turns to an indigo heiress who takes him under her wing and introduces him to The Lost City. But his new environment and friendships slowly are making him question the man he has become. What I appreciated about this was how it utilized Kerk's search to explore issues of prejudice, responsibility, and family. There were plenty of moments that resonated with me. The story feels very contemporary, though I wouldn't have known that it took place in a sci-fi world had I not read up on it beforehand.

"Gold" is the reason why I bought this in the first place, a medieval-type romance that takes place years after the events of Summers at Castle Auburn. Princess Zara is hastily sent to the magical kingdom of Alora, to avoid being caught in a potential war in her own world. But there are many temptations that lurk underneath Alora's dazzling beauty, and Zara must face a different kind of battle from the one she has left behind. It is a lovely story, but maybe my rather high expectations prevented me from enjoying this more. (I had hoped to read more about Zara's parents, whom I adore!)

The final story is a prequel to Ms Shinn's Twelve Houses series. "Flame" is about her Mystic and Rider protagonist Senneth, a mystic who must face fear and prejudice in a small town that she has tried to help. Of all the stories, this had the most 'cinematic' climax though I thought it was the most open-ended of all. As far as prequels go, I felt that this one served its purpose by laying the groundwork and setting the tone for the subsequent series.

Here are Ms Shinn's words from her website: 'While these four stories take place in radically different worlds, a lot of little details tie them together. For instance, the titles roughly correspond to the four elements; all four open with an almost identical sentence. And a few other things like that. :) If I could have managed it, I’d have made each story the same number of words, but that proved to be impossible! I loved revisiting my old worlds, and the collection was a lot of fun to write.' Another central theme to these novellas is that of forgiveness, despite the many faces and forms of betrayal, ignorance, inconstancy, and mistrust. This made it much easier for me to move between worlds, assured that Ms Shinn's capable writing will turn disparate settings into one delicate and cohesive read.

Sweethearts (Sara Zarr)

Sara Zarr's Sweethearts was one of the first books I placed on my Amazon wishlist a number of years ago, but I was only able to buy it last Friday. Long time coming.

Outcasts Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were best friends--each other's only friend, in fact--when they were nine years old. But Cameron moves away and leaves Jennifer to deal with her share of traumatic memories alone. As she struggles to find life after him, she reinvents herself as Jenna, who's popular and well-liked and thin. But now that she's is high school, Cameron is suddenly back in her life and Jenna has to deal with loose ends and unfinished business and the definition of best friends and first loves.

I was surprised by how Sweethearts unfolded. I think it's so rare for a young adult book to winningly combine the elements of love, friendship, and coming of age (Melina Marchetta's Jellicoe Road comes to mind). Sweethearts may not be as epic as Jellicoe Road, but they have a similar strength about them. There's a love story here, true, but it's not quite how I had imagined a YA romance to be treated. There's teen angst and drama here, also true, but it is not preachy or overwrought. It deals with dark issues in a quietly emotional way, and at the same time it also tackles identity issues that a larger number of teens might be more familiar with. I'm a reader who tends to shy away from contemporary YA that ventures into darker territory but in Sweethearts these issues are handled with a deft hand and the characters' reactions are often believable.

Jenna is a strong lead for this narrative. Her confusion and character provide good perspective into life with a friend like Cameron, and how this friendship has impacted who she has become. I really felt as if I were right there beside Jenna undergoing all the unsettling feelings that Cameron's return has triggered. I also greatly admired how Ms Zarr chose to depict the adults in this situation. They all had their roles to play, something I often find is missing in most YA books.

Sweethearts had me wiping a few stray tears by the end. It also had me genuinely thinking about how I define 'being there for someone.' I don't think I've ever had anything that comes close to the relationship between Jenna and Cameron, and as this story proves, time will tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing. One thing's for sure: this is one of the best contemporary YA books that I've read in a long time.

Across the Universe (Beth Revis)

I picked up Beth Revis' Across the Universe on the strength of my fifteen-year old sister's recommendation. She knew I liked sci-fi and YA and thought that I might appreciate something like this. Solid premise. Lovely title. Rest = history.

In the simplest terms, Across the Universe is a sci-fi mystery. Sometime in the unknown future, a powerful international alliance called the Financial Resource Exchange has made space travel possible. Amy's parents -- her father a military man, her mother a scientist -- have been chosen for its first mission to make Centauri-Earth a habitable place. Along with Amy, they have been cryogenically frozen, traveling three hundred years through space in the Godspeed. But Amy is mysteriously unplugged from her cryo-chamber fifty years before their scheduled landing and wakes to a ship led by an autocrat named Eldest. Before she can find out the truth about her re-animation, one that nearly cost her her life, she must first learn to live within the ship's rules. But Godspeed has its own people, its own culture, its own morals. With the help of Eldest's successor Elder, she uncovers the truth behind Godspeed and Eldest and the fate of everyone on the ship.

The strength of novel lies in the way it boldly raises issues of freedom, race, and morality, among others. I find it very admirable that these find a place in the middle of an already engaging mystery. Similar to Paolo Bacigalupi's near-future scenarios that depict grim ecological consequences, the novel does not flinch from showing the darker side of good intentions. It is much more than the love story that the cover promises. In fact, I didn't find the romance essential to the story; I thought it would have been even more natural without it. I also thought that it tackles a little too much and that tying up all those loose ends resulted in a rather cramped denouement. I'm hopeful that in the succeeding novels, these issues can be better paced and further explored then.

I do have some misgivings. Ms Revis appears to have most of her work grounded in real science (or to be safe, reasonable conjecture on how science can develop years into the future). If it had been the science of a space opera like Star Wars, where interplanetary travel is a given and parsecs are a unit of time and not distance, then I probably wouldn't have the discomfort I have with it now. I think it's one thing to suspend disbelief about something that happens in a galaxy far, far away; it's quite another when a story grounds itself in something plausible and then misses the mark down the line.

There were tiny but very forgivable hiccups, like the mundane complaint I have on how Amy turned her bedroom lights on and off. She had to flick a switch and then speak to a computer program to make it work. I guess I just found the extraneous action off-putting because it didn't make a lot of sense for it to be developed in the first place. But I can set that aside. What really bothered me was an important piece of information revealed in the middle of the story. It's a pretty big spoiler so I won't discuss it here. Even though I'm not an expert I thought it was a rather significant flaw. If that had really happened, then Godspeed could have easily taken a better course of action than the one they ultimately did, which was presented as if it were the only solution available. I guess that really didn't sit well with me. But don't believe me; maybe I got the science all wrong.

Still, despite my apprehension over certain things, I believe Across the Universe is worth reading and recommending -- and not just to teenagers who would like a break from the dozens of paranormal romances on their shelves. There are a lot of other themes worth pursuing here and I really think it can inspire spirited discussions in classrooms everywhere. Like Amy, it is strong and fearless, and clearly echoes with the undying message of hope.

A Monster Calls (Patrick Ness)

This is not a review.

I first heard of Patrick Ness thanks to an old Amazon recommendation in 2009. Later, he was mentioned in an io9 article, which somehow legitimized my desire to find his books. In 2009, I found both The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer in Bibliarch Glorietta, and the rest was history. I remember not even managing to climb the stairs of my lonely apartment because I was too engrossed in his books. I read them straight. I don't even remember fixing myself dinner. After the release of Monsters of Men last year, I had been eagerly awaiting his next title.

Then came A Monster Calls. Like I said earlier, this is not a review.

A Monster Calls was really the brainchild of author Siobhan Dowd. I am sorry to admit that I've never read anything she has written before this. But Ms Dowd passed on before she could finish it, and Mr Ness was left with the task. In the story, Conor comes face-to-face with a walking nightmare. And whether Conor likes it or not, the monster is there to tell him three tales -- and expects one in return. And what Conor has chosen to tell literally shook me. I cried. I had been in his shoes before. I knew that life. This is what I mean when I say this is not a review. I am not the right person to ask.

The spark which belonged to Ms Dowd was shaped by Mr Ness' way of writing powerful coming-of-age stories and Jim Kay's brilliantly dark illustrations. A Monster Calls knew, with its honest and simple prose, how to reveal a carefully layered story, one that is brimming with emotion that is neither put-on or pretentious. You have to be there, at 12.07, to know what I mean.

If you've faced sickness and death and loss and regret in your life, read it. This is not a review. This is an exhortation.

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A very special thank you to Tina of One More Page for my lovely copy.

My Name is Memory (Anne Brashares)

I'm not quite sure what I expected from Anne Brashares' My Name is Memory. The story's premise is somewhat akin to The Time-Traveller's Wife which moved me, and knowing that this was geared towards more adult readers, I approached it with a determination to like it. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed.

Daniel and Sophia are old souls that keep on coming back after every death. Daniel's memory is special: he remembers every lifetime he has ever lived and recognizes those he has come across. It is both a blessing and a curse. In his very first life in Africa, he had watched a woman die as he burned her house down. Unable to forget her, he continues to be drawn to her soul in every lifetime thereafter. Unfortunately for Daniel, Sophia's memory is wiped clean every time. Now, in modern-day America, she is known as Lucy, and in this rare moment that they are within each other's reach, Daniel is determined to make her remember.

I appreciated how the story is very introspective and Daniel, the main character, tends to wax philosophical, giving it a different approach to the many paranormal romances on the shelves these days. But this also means that it took quite long to unfold, and this was one of my first sources of confusion: I wasn't sure if the lovers were going to meet any time to soon to face their conflicts together or if it was going the Sleepless in Seattle route. That isn't to say that Daniel and Sophia didn't meet at all in between their first lives and now; in fact, they meet countless times. They would be strangers, sometimes related by marriage. Sometimes, one of them would be a child. There are moments in their strange lives that paint touching images but I strongly believe that it is only when Daniel meets Constance during the First World War that their love is truly justified. Everything else is mere commentary. The only other time I felt such strong emotion in this text was when Daniel visits one of his graves and finally recognizes how much he had loved his mother then.

One of the conflicts that the lovers face is Daniel's brother Joaquim, another old soul who is driven by vengeance. There was so much foreshadowing about Joaquim's abilities and his mysterious friend that I expected some revelation, some measure of triumph over him, but I was left with no closure. I didn't think the climax was as strong as it could have been and the denouement was even weaker. I would be very happy to know that there will be a sequel because then readers who have already invested their time into this text shouldn't feel as abandoned as I was towards the end. I feel that the choices Daniel makes at the end are contrary to what the book has been exhorting all along: to let go of the past, to realize that there is no shame in regret, and to learn to live for the present. I think that there is a still a healthy part of the teen audience that will gravitate towards a romance like this, but I hope that Ms Brashares will deliver a love story with more robust characters and a more thought-out plot in the future.

The Replacement (Brenna Yovanoff)

I am generally distrustful of novels that put excerpts at the back of the book instead of actual summaries. It makes me think: a) someone's not doing his job; and b) really? you're going with that?

Not the case with Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement. It was the excerpt that lured me in, guaranteed that I would think about it until I actually bought a copy and read until the last page. In case you're curious, it reads:

'In the story, Emma's four years old. She gets out of bed and pads across the floor in her footie pajamas. When she reaches her hand between the bars, the thing in the crib moves closer. It tries to bite her and she takes her hand out again but doesn't back away. They spend all night looking at each other in the dark. In the morning, the thing is still crouched on the lamb-and-duckling mattress pad, staring at her. It isn't her brother.
It's me.'
As you've probably gleaned from that, the protagonist Mackie Doyle isn't one of us. He lives in the town of Gentry, a self-sustained little town that somehow still clings to Old World folklore and traditions. Every seven years, a child is taken from the town and a changeling is left in his place. These replacements often doesn't live too long; Mackie is lucky that he's found a family who has loved and nurtured him all these years. Unfortunately, they can't protect him enough: his uncommon appearance and his susceptibility to blood, steel, iron, and holy ground continually mark him as an outsider and living in our world is slowly killing him. When his classmate Tate's younger sister is taken, events come to a head and he begins to confront the world beneath Gentry and his true heritage.

Reading The Replacement felt like reading Kelly Link-lite in a Guillermo del Toro/Tim Burton-esque world. Worth noting is that the mysteries surrounding Mackie and Gentry are presented and dealt with little fanfare. There is no breathless wonder accompanying each revelation. As most of the locals do, the reader is almost expected to accept the circumstances quickly and move on. I say this because a reader expecting otherwise might find The Replacement cold and detached in that sense.

I liked Mackie as a protagonist and was quickly drawn into his world. A lot of Old World beliefs are present in the text: scissors hung over cribs to prevent a child being stolen, the faerie aversion to iron, milk left out for the Good Neighbors. I liked how these elements were casually slipped into the text. Mackie's friends and family (particularly his sister Emma -- their relationship was one of the best things in this book) are an amazing support system, a positive force for a teenager who in all appearances looked and acted (with good reason) pretty emo. But there was something about the characters that made it difficult for me to truly empathize with them. Perhaps I just found his actions to be a little uneven: sometimes Mackie decided things quickly, other times he dithered. I understand that not everyone has to be brash and impulsive all the time, but I found that this reflected the pace of the entire novel. There were times when I thought that there was a lapse in action and plot movement while towards the end, I kind of wished that the climax had taken its time to sweep me along with it. To be fair, I liked the resolution and found it effectively dealt with the issues presented. I guess I had expected it to be a little grander, given the outcome.

YA readers who like their fantasies a little on the dark and macabre side might want to pick up a copy of The Replacement. It's a stand-alone novel with an intriguing premise that courageously wraps its story in a ccontained way. It might not be for everyone but Ms Yovanoff has found a new fan in me (plus she mentions Leonard Cohen, which is always a good thing). Do with it as you will.