Fierce!

So...Tyra Banks wrote a YA novel. Which, of course, I totally expected to hate. And I kinda did. But I kinda didn't, either. I mean, I'm certainly not going to be recommending this one to every teenage girl I meet, but I'm also not going to be scowling and rolling my eyes in disgust if they choose to read it. Because it really is cheesy and the names are hi-frickin'-larious and the idea of a whole world that revolves around a "Next Top Model"-style competition is beyond ridiculous. But it's also full of Tyra's "Everyone is Beautiful" message and, in a day and age where girls have so many things stripping away their self-confidence, any book with an underlying message about loving yourself just as you are is super-welcome.

But, Oh My Gods, it is completely OTT. Let's start with the names. Our protagonist is called "Tookie" and I dare anyone to read this book and not keep thinking of "Tootie" from "Facts of Life". Tookie lives in "Metopia". Her sister is "Myrracle" and her mother is "Creamy". Their last name is de la Creme. The superest of the supermodels in this world are called Intoxibellas, which, to my way of thinking, makes them sound more poisonous than intoxicating, especially since their ruler is called the BellaDonna. The superestest of the Intoxibellas is called Ci~L (pronounced, as the book tells you, see-el). Tookie's friends are Dylan and Ross and (my favorite) Shiraz. Her "enemy" is "Zarpessa". And, really, it just gets more and more ridiculous.

And the plot...it's, uh, well...so every year these Scouts fly down from the misty mountain on top of which sits Modelland and they hand-pick about a hundred girls from all over the world and you can only be picked if you are Walking and your chances of being picked are improved by 91% (still unsure about the significance of this particular number) if you get one of the seven SM-IZEs (kinda like Golden Tickets, only eye makeup) that are delivered to supposedly random girls via water and Tookie is friends with this apparently crazy homeless girl named Lizzie and everyone expects Tookie's sister Myrracle to get picked to go to Modelland, but Tookie gets picked instead. So, Tookie and her soon-to-be-besties are all picked even though none of them are traditionally beautiful and Tookie has to leave Lizzie behind and has all kinds of guilt because they were supposed to run away together and the four new BFFs get to Modelland and most of the really pretty girls are super-mean to these odd girls out, which, duh. (I say most because there are exceptions, as there have to be, unless beauty=evil, which would be totally un-Tyra.) And then this totally hot dude from Bestosterone (the male modelling academy) totes falls for Tookie and stuff and stuff and stuff and drama and oooooh, twist! (that isn't very twisty to anyone who reads much) and happy-ish girl-power-esque ending-like-thing that is really just a prelude to the next book aaaaand...Scene.

Look, it's not going to be nominated for the National Book Award or the Printz or anything, but it's not awful and it does have some decent, self-sufficient female characters and a good core message about self-esteem. And, mostly, the over the top cuh-ra-zee is highly, highly entertaining. Teen girls could certainly do a lot worse when picking out a book.

Love and Death

Mostly love, though. Three romances and a mystery and, tomorrow, pure cheese. (It's a celebrity novel and it's, shall we say, fierce.)

Carly Phillips's 'Serendipity' is the one I forgot the other day and that's not really a surprise. It's not a bad book, but it is fairly forgettable. It's a good choice if you want a nice, un-offensive contemporary with nice, un-offensive protagonists in a nice, small-town setting. It was, in a word, nice. Which certainly has its place, but isn't enough to make it stick in my mind.

Unlike 'A Night to Surrender' by Tessa Dare, which is proving hard to shake. This is one of those books with some absolutely amazing dialogue (I wish I had it in front of me so I could quote bits at you) and a hero and heroine worth rooting for not just as a couple, but as individuals. It's the first book in a series and I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment, not least because the hero and heroine of Book 2 promise to be very, very interesting to watch.

'A Trick of the Light' by Louise Penny is another outstanding installment in her Chief Inspector Gamache/Three Pines mystery series. I love this series because the characters are so rich--and they aren't above commenting on the proliferation of murder in the tiny Quebec village of Three Pines. Although each story can stand alone, I would advise starting this series from the first book, 'Still Life'. Watching these characters grow and change and hurt and heal is, for me, even more satisfying than the inevitable resolution of the central crimes. And, in spite of what I know about these characters (and Three Pines's astonishing crime rate), I still want to go live in their fictional village with their fictional selves.

And, finally, there's Tina Gabrielle's 'In the Barrister's Chambers', which I was really looking forward to reading because the hero is a counsel for the defense, which one doesn't often see in historical romances. And the plot and characters were quite good, but, somehow, the actual writing never quite sparked for me. There wasn't any fizz to the prose. And the couple of diversions into the mind of the villain were probably completely unnecessary. And maybe a little more doubt about the guilt of the accused would have helped. Huh. Well. I guess that was my problem. The romance worked for me, but the suspense plot surrounding it didn't.

Don't forget: Cheese tomorrow. Possibly of the kind that comes in a can. At the very least, plastic-wrapped American slices.

At Last!

As of this post, I will finally be caught up from my ill-advised and not-on-purpose week away. As of tomorrow, I can start devoting posts to single titles--or maybe two at a go if I've had a good day of reading. But, for a while I hope, no more of these multi-book posts. They kinda hurt.

'The Forgotten Waltz' by Anne Enright is a book that I will freely admit I wanted to read because I kinda loved the cover. Sadly, the cover has fuck all to do with the contents of the book. Yes, there's a middle-class, middle-ish-aged lady on the cover, but that's all the cover model has in common with Gina, the protagonist. And, worse, the whole book is a rather depressing detailing of Gina's affair with a married man. It's quite well-written and I'm sure there are readers out there who enjoy this sort of thing, but I'm not one of them. Gina was not, to me, at all a sympathetic character. I never really understood her motivations for much of anything that she did. To be fair, I don't think she ever really understood them, either. I kept reading, hoping for some redemption or something, but never got it.

'No Proper Lady' by Isabel Cooper is an historical romance with elements of time travel and paranormal. The premise is quite good, the characters are realistic and sympathetic, and the whole reading experience was pleasant from start to finish. I don't really want to say much more, because this is really one worth reading for yourself. I also admit to quite liking the cover, mainly because the half-undone gown isn't just for titillation, it's showing the heroine's tattoo and a quite impressive bruise. I like this proof that ass-kicking has its cost.

'The Aviary' by Kathleen O'Dell is a lovely, fairy-tale-ish MR. I thought, at the beginning, that it was going to be a rip-off of 'The Secret Garden', but it's not. It has magic and birds and kidnapping and ghosts and all kinds of other really interesting stuff. It's set in 1903 (which I only found out after looking up a film that is mentioned in the book), which it has to be in order for it to be at all believable. Not the truly magic stuff, but the stage magic and kidnapping elements would never work in a contemporary setting.

And...oh...I know there was one more. Crap. What was it? Well, it's obviously not so superfantastico that it can't wait until tomorrow.

The Final Catch-up

I should be back on track on Sunday. This will actually take me through Wednesday night's reading, so I'm officially all caught up.

'To the Moon and Back' is the latest Jill Mansell novel and, once again, I'm in love. Ms. Mansell has the Brit chick lit thing down. Her books are smart and funny and touching and full of charming characters and the requisite adorable animals. Also, the apparently necessary scene of Our Heroine (in this case, Ellie) being caught outside in a state of near nudity (in this case, a dressing gown, but, sadly, no wellies). I gotta tell you, though, that this one did not start out easy and it kinda broke my heart a little bit. But, as is so very, very necessary in these sorts of things, Ellie got her Happily Ever After--and so did nearly everyone in her tight-knit circle. If you're looking for the perfect book to accompany a bubble bath and a glass of wine, then Jill Mansell should be your go-to girl.

Colson Whitehead has written a zombie novel called 'Zone One'. And, because it's Colson Whitehead, it's really well-written and smart and full of some delicious metaphors and descriptive passages. But, it's the Zombie Apocalypse and I, for one, am completely over it. The next time I read about the ZA, I kinda hope it's in the newspaper.

'When She Woke' is Hillary Jordan's follow-up to 'Mudbound', which won all kinds of prizes and accolades. I never read it, so had no expectations of this second book. Which is probably good, because, from what I understand, 'When She Woke' is completely different from 'Mudbound'. 'When She Woke' is a sorta-kinda dystopic retelling of 'The Scarlet Letter'. Of course, I hated 'The Scarlet Letter' with a fiery zeal. Thankfully, WSW only uses Hawthorne's novel as inspiration and jumping-off point and I really, really liked it. There's a touch--well, maybe more than a touch--of Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' and some really nice Underground Railroad parallels. It's also got a very, very lovely cover, which I am shallow enough to admit influenced my desire to read the book. Also, I was quite pleased by the fact that there were No Zombies. There were, however, religious fanatics and they're probably more frightening than hordes of the living dead, at least to me.

Yay! I'm all caught up! Here's hoping I can stay that way.

Almost There...

Nearing the end of the catch-up list. Looks like tomorrow I'll be all caught up. Remind me never to be a week between posts again.

'Lola and the Boy Next Door' by Stephanie Perkins is an absolutely charming YA romance about first love and true love and friends and family and fabulous clothing and finding yourself and figure skating. Okay. Figure skating is really only tangental, but it's there. Perkins is an author who is quite adept at putting to paper all the hurt and confusion and self-centeredness of being a teenager without making you want to kill yourself or her characters. Lola is both charming and kind of an asshole, as teenagers--or anyone--can be. She's easy to root for and easy to want to smack upside the head, sometimes at the same moment. By the end of the book, I was glad and more than a little relieved that she had finally started figuring shit out. And, oh, the "Boy Next Door"? His name is Cricket, which I pretty much can't forgive, but, other than that, he's completely awesome and it's a damned good thing Lola shaped up or she never would have deserved him.

'The Stranger You Seek' by Amanda Kyle Williams is a solid, but unsurprising and fairly unexciting crime novel about an alcoholic former FBI profiler who gets brought in on a serial killer case. It wasn't bad, and I liked the character of Keye Street okay, but I'm not jonesing for the next in the series. I think the problem might be that I read too much crime fiction, so it takes something truly unique or somehow spectacular to get me excited. It's no fault of the authors', but lies entirely with me, the jaded reader.

Teri Hall's 'Away' is a sequel to 'The Line'. It's decent post-apocalyptic older-Middle-Reader fare, but I think I'm getting burned out on the post-apocalyptic thing. And on authors being coy with the causes of the apocalypsi and how the subsequent changes to society came about. It's always some vague technological or atmospherical or viral or eveolutionary "Event" (or some combination) , but it's always just "Shit happened and now the world is like this." Sometimes, an author can pull it off--usually by dropping enough clues through the narrative that an alert reader can piece together the series of events--but mostly it's just annoying. Or maybe I'm just reading too many post-apocalyptic stories written for younger readers. They can't all be 'The Hunger Games' or 'The Maze Runner' or 'Gone' and I should stop expecting them to be or just stop reading them altogether. But, I keep hoping that I'll find the next gem, rather than another series that's just okay.

Three More or Maybe Four

Still playing catch-up...

'The Postmortal' by Drew Magary has an awesome cover and an awesome premise and is pretty good, but not awesome. I quite enjoyed the first half, but the second half kinda felt like a different novel. Not a worse novel, just a different one and I think the (perceived) change in tone and theme just never quite clicked for me. And, okay, its cover says "comedy", but it ended up, while having some quite humorous bits, being, ultimately, a tragedy. Or tragedy-lite, anyway. I think I wanted something more Christopher Moore-esque, or even Max Barry-esque and it just never delivered the humor level I wanted. Which is nothing against the book, really. I think I just read it at the wrong time with the wrong expectations.

'Cold Kiss' by Amy Garvey is a YA zombie novel. Sorta. It is about a teenager who brings her dead boyfriend back, but there's no eating of brains. The zombie bit is kinda secondary, really. It's more a book about loss and grief and moving on and first love and second love and family secrets and there's really only incidentally a dead boy in the neighbor's garage and he's really just a metaphor. In other words, it's a solid mainstream YA about teen issues, but with a lovely paranormal wrapping to trick the 'Twilight' crowd.

'Sanctus' by Simon Toyne is the new Dan Brown novel. Okay, not really. It's a little better than the standard Dan Brown offering, but it does have the "OMG Christianity is based on a big fat lie!" central theme and some ancient artifacts and ciphers and lots of globe-trotting and a mysterious religous organization. It's highly entertaining, but not really much more.

And, okay, looks like I have time for a fourth.

'Ashes' by Ilsa J. Bick is a post-apocalyptic YA zombie-esque novel. But, unlike most zombie apocalypsi (because it sounds better than "apocalypses"), this one is caused by an EMP and the "zombie-ism" doesn't appear to be contagious. It also seems to only affect teens and young adults. It's quite an interesting take on the zombie story, but sadly ends up falling into cliche toward the end. OH! And it's one of those YAs that I hate. You know? The ones that don't have an ending of their own because they're part of a series? Yeah. This one had a big ol' cliffhanger and no real resolution of any to what I thought were the primary plot points. So, that sucked. But, Bick's take on the ZA is interesting enough to me that I might be willing to read further in the series. I'm just not going to seek them out.

And, with that, it looks like I'll be all caught up by the end of the week. Yay, me!

A Mini YA Binge

More catch-up.

'City of Lies' by Lian Tanner is a sequel to last year's 'Museum of Thieves'. There was some fear that, because this second volume wouldn't be set in the museum, it would somehow disappoint. However, fans of that first volume should be pleased with this second installment, which has parts set in the museum, so no favorite character is completely off-screen for the whole book. There are a lot of new characters introduced in this volume and some very interesting new facets to how Tanner's imagined world operates.

'Wisdom's Kiss' by Catherine Gilbert Murdock is apparently a sort-of sequel to 'Princess Ben'. However, having never read 'Princess Ben', I can honestly state that it is not necessary to the enjoyment of this volume. I love a good fairy tale, and this one had a lot to like. It has multiple POVs, which occasionally got distracting, but mostly worked quite well. It had a Happily Ever After that was very much not the HEA one would expect. There was magic and a wicked queen and a cat and a circus and lots of other clever, charming things. It's not going to change anyone's life, but it's a quite pleasant way to spend an evening.

One of my favorite of my recent reads was Curtis Jobling's 'Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf'. It's a good, strong YA fantasy series with a very interesting take on the myth of the were. It's also got plenty of fighting and magic and political intrigue and pirates and kick-ass female characters (it's a series that seems to be aimed at boys, so that last is more pleasantly surprising than you might imagine). It also has--dare I say it?--a lot of heart. Family and friendship play a vital role and, though both win through in the end, there are some very difficult challenges to get to the happy-ish ending. Ooooh...that reminds me of one of the things I liked very best about this book. See, I have this problem with MR and YA series especially, where the early volumes in the series are not complete stories. If, for whatever reason, the next volume isn't published, there's no ending, just an end. This book, however, did not have that problem. It has an ending. Yes, there's more stuff that could happen, and probably will. But, all the major action of this book? Done. Over. So, kudos to Mr. Jobling for not leaving me pissed off and frustrated. I'm actually really looking forward to future books in this series, rather than wanting to fling this one against the wall.

Okay. Looks like just a couple more days and we'll be all caught up. Finally. I really hope I don't stay away so long again in the future. This catching-up thing is a pain.