'Dreams of a Dark Warrior' Immortals After Dark #11 by Kresley Cole

From the BLURB:

HE VOWED HE’D COME FOR HER . . .

Murdered before he could wed Regin the Radiant, warlord Aidan the Fierce seeks his beloved through eternity, reborn again and again into new identities, yet with no memory of his past lives.

SHE AWAITS HIS RETURN . . .

When Regin encounters Declan Chase, a brutal Celtic soldier, she recognizes her proud warlord reincarnated. But Declan takes her captive, intending retribution against all immortals—unaware that he belongs to their world.

TO SATE A DESIRE MORE POWERFUL THAN DEATH . . .

Yet every reincarnation comes with a price, for Aidan is doomed to die when he remembers his past. To save herself from Declan’s torments, will Regin rekindle memories of the passion they once shared—even if it means once again losing the only man she could ever love?

Regin is cursed to love one man, and lose him, over and over and over again. . .

The Valkyrie first met mortal man Aidan the Fierce when she was twelve years old. Nine years later they became lovers, until the night that Aidan was brutally murdered before her eyes. But he vowed he would come back for her, would never be kept from his beloved Reginleit, his Radiant One.

Over the centuries Aidan came back, again and again, always a warrior. Regin found and loved Aidan in four different reincarnations. And each time he dies right after remembering who he is, and what Regin means to him.

Now Aidan is back, this time as Declan Chase – ‘magister’ and hunter of immortals. He’s tasked with finding the infamous Valkyrie, Regin, and locking her in a cell to be experimented on and cracked open.

But when Chase inevitably remembers who he is, and how much Regin means to him, will he be able to live with what he has done to her as the Magister?

‘Dreams of a Dark Warrior’ is the eleventh book in Kresley Cole’s ‘Immortals After Dark’ paranormal romance series.

I love Cole’s series. Eleven books in and I still come into each new novel with giddy anticipation, and I’m very rarely disappointed with her heady mix of action, humour and romance. But I have to admit that with ‘Dreams’ I was a little underwhelmed.

In keeping with Coles’s usual timeline overlap, the eleventh book retraces over the storyline of ‘Demon from the Dark’. That book was also set in the immortals holding facility, but told from Carrow’s captured perspective. This time around we get the view from both imprisoned Regin, and her captor, Declan Chase.

I am a little bit over the prison-setting at this point. The twelfth book in the series is ‘Lothaire’, and I have a feeling that we might just be going back to the prison (for a little while at least) because a bit of Lothaire’s background takes place during his confinement. I do understand that this is Cole’s MO – she looks at the same events, from a different character perspective and lends new plot dimensions to ground that readers have already tread. But usually her settings are grandiose and exotic – she has taken us to the Scottish Highlands, picturesque New Orleans and even an Amazonian jungle. And if she’s not taking readers off the continent, she at least sets a good portion of her books in the always fun Val Hall – sorority home of the Valkyrie’s. So, by comparison, the immortals prison is just a little ho-hum.

I did like Regin and Chase/Aidan’s romance. It’s fraught with tension and drama, of the star-crossed, doomed-love variety. I thought Aidan and Regin had a wonderfully epic back story. But as the novel progresses we come to realize that Regin didn’t really, truly love Aidan . . . and that didn’t ring quite ring true for me. I admit, I thought it would be tricky for Chase to accept that Regin could love him, while remembering Aidan – but I also thought it was a minor cop-out to say that this beautiful, grand romance she had with Aidan wasn’t really all it was cracked up to be.

Of course this is ‘Immortals After Dark’, and Ms Cole brings the funny. Regina is a total crack-up, as is her prison cellmate, the fey Natalya. It’s always the case that the funniest moments intermingle with the high-drama, and that’s once again true in ‘Dreams’;

Regin cocked her brow at a dead guard’s machine gun. She hooked her foot under it, hiking it up to catch it.
Natalya said, “Have you ever fired one of those?”
Lorekind scorned them. The weapons were so tackily human. “Look, I've seen Terminator. How difficult can it be? Now, let’s go find Tiger!”

One thing I really liked about this book was introduction of a new Immortal call Thad. He’s a seventeen-year-old cellmate of Regin and Natalya’s, who has only just realized he is part-vampire when some storm-trooper-wannabes dragged him into the prison. To say he’s not coping well is an understatement. But underneath it all Thad is still a Texan quarterback and Eagle Scout, and some hilarity ensues when Natalya very nearly makes him her jailbait. I loved Thad, and I hope his appearance hints that he’ll get his own book one day soon.

All in all, ‘Dreams of a Dark Warrior’ kind of paled in comparison to bigger and better ‘After Dark’ books. I have high-hopes that Lothaire’s book will bring the series back on a high, because his story (and questionable sexuality) were very amusing in this eleventh book.

3/5

'The Fault in Our Stars' by John Green

From the BLURB:

Despite the tumour-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

Hazel Grace has cancer of the terminal variety. There is no cure, no getting better and no chance of survival. But a drug called Phalanxifor is helping to prolong her fight, even if it isn’t curing the build-up of fluid that creaks her lungs.

Hazel’s mum and dad know what a blessing it is to have her with them for just a little while longer. But her lengthened life won’t mean much if she doesn’t get up off her butt and do something with it. So they send her into the Literal Heart of Jesus (architecturally speaking) – to a cancer support group where people talk and cry, praise the battle-weary cancer kids and repeat stories about losing their testicles to the big-C. It’s a hoot.

And then one day, while sitting around discussing a cancer survivor’s current state of ball-lessness, Augustus Waters walks in, and everything changes.

Augustus Waters is currently in remission, minus one leg courtesy of the cancer monster. Augustus has stared death in the face, and laughed heartily . . . and now he continues to chortle. He sticks cigarettes in his mouth but doesn’t smoke them. He is a terrible driver. His best friend is about to be blind, and he falls irrevocably and stupidly in love with Hazel pretty much at first sight.

But Hazel is reluctant. Augustus has already lost so much to cancer, and she doesn’t want to be another grenade in his life (sure to wound) . . . so she tries to resist his crooked smile and general hotness. Just friends, okay?

‘The Fault in Our Stars’ is the new contemporary YA book from astronomically popular Edgar & Printz winning author, John Green.

Brace yourselves. John Green’s newest book is a love story starring two cancer-ridden teenagers. Yes, it’s sad. Yes, it’s actually so sad you will blubber while reading and be all snotty by the last page. Expect great big gulping, hiccupping tears. The embarrassing kind. The kind you don’t want to shed on public transport. You have been warned.

That being said . . . this is a John Green novel, so it’s totally worth your crying, blubbering, hiccupping, snotting tears. Truth be told, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ is down-right magnificent.

Our narrator is Hazel Grace Lancaster – terminally ill ‘cancer kid’ whose mortal coil has been somewhat lengthened thanks to a (minor) miracle drug. But Hazel has been sick for so long that she doesn’t exactly know how to be normal and just live. She’s only sixteen but attending college, having surpassed her classmates studying by herself while being cooped up indoors. She’s a quick-witted firecracker of a girl who has side-stepped the brink of death only to become a terminal couch-potato (addicted to ‘America’s Next Top Model’). Her mother, and full-time carer, wants to see Hazel interact with the world. Hence, Cancer Support Group in the Literal Heart of Jesus. Hence, meeting Augustus Waters. Hence inconveniently falling for a cancer survivor who she is bound to hurt and maim when the death-knock sounds for her.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Hazel and Augustus grow closer (despite her reservations) when she shares an important part of herself with him in the form of her favourite book, Peter Van Houten’s ‘An Imperial Affliction’. A book famous for ending abruptly, and somewhat incompletely, about a cancer girl and her glass-eyed mother who falls for a rich Tulip Man. But the abrupt ending plagues Hazel, and then Augustus. Peter Van Houten has not written another word in seven years, and has no plans of writing a sequel or answering fan-mail.

I loved the story behind ‘An Imperial Affliction’, mainly because it felt like Green putting a little tiny bit of himself in his book – a bit of life imitating art. John Green’s first novel was ‘Looking for Alaska’ – a Printz-award winning book that beguiled and surely frustrated many teen readers. Frustrated, because there’s a rather crushing death in the book that is never fully explained. No definitive reason is given for a beloved character’s passing, and I have read reviews in which people cursed and lamented the lack of resolution at the end of ‘Alaska’ (despite the fact that there’s truth in the not knowing). In ‘Fault’, Hazel and Augustus wrack their brains over the abrupt mid-sentence ending of ‘An Imperial Affliction’ – which hints at the protagonist’s death, but never confirms it. They become obsessed with the idea of getting the answers from the author, Van Houten himself.

I loved this story-within-a-story. It feels like John Green speaking rather directly and affectionately to his readers (but it should be noted that Green couldn’t be further from the Van Houten character). Through Hazel’s obsession with ‘An Imperial Affliction’, Green assures readers that he understands how important fictional characters can be . . . that they have a life of their own within reader’s hearts and minds, and that the author has a certain ‘contract’ to fulfil with the reader by letting them walk into our lives and consume us for a little while. And consume us they do, such is the case with Hazel and Augustus . . .

These characters will get to you. You’ll wish that they are real people you can hang out with, talk to them and try to keep up with their whip-quick comebacks and banter. You will love them. Augustus is sweet and earnest, a perpetual optimist who goes after Hazel with everything he has. He and Hazel are a riot together – bouncing off each other beautifully, able to sway between deep metaphorical musings and laugh-out-loud repartee. They’re both a little bit brilliant. Which is why reading their doomed star-crossed love hurts so much (and will induce aforementioned snotty blubbering);

I would probably never again see the ocean from thirty thousand feet above, so far up that you can’t make out the waves or any boats, so that the ocean is a great and endless monolith. I could imagine it. I could remember it. But I couldn’t see it again, and it occurred to me that the voracious ambition of humans is never sated by dreams coming true, because there is always the thought that everything might be done better and again.

Something I especially love about John Green novels is the abundance of quotable quotes. I come away from a Green reading with many curious thoughts and ideas to turn over in my mind. And since the themes and topics in ‘Fault’ are so expansive - hopeful and morbid, set on epic life-or-death scales - the book is full of heartfelt reflections and pin-point accuracies.

It seemed like forever ago, like we’d had this brief but still infinite forever. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

Nobody should be surprised to learn that ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ is simply sublime (as we all knew it would be). John Green is exploring a deathly disease with gallows humour and infinite tenderness. It’s a total cliché, but you will laugh and you will cry. And by the end of the book you’ll feel a little bit bruised and battered, tender and exposed. But Hazel and Augustus will stay with you for a long while after reading, John Green having fulfilled his promise to the reader that these characters matter; they have weight and substance, and they will not be easily forgotten. You will feel lucky for having read about them.

5/5

'When You Reach Me' by Rebecca Stead

From the BLURB:

Four mysterious letters change Miranda’s world forever.

By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it’s safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner.

But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda’s mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then Miranda finds a mysterious note scrawled on a tiny slip of paper:

I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.
I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.

The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she’s too late.

Miranda is writing a letter. She doesn’t know to whom. She doesn’t know why. But someone has asked her the location of the spare key. And to explain the day that her best friend, Sal, stopped wanting to hang out with her. Someone wants Miranda to write it all down … so she is, slowly.

‘When You Reach Me’ by Rebecca Stead was the winner of the 2010 John Newbery Medal.


‘When You Reach Me’ is sort of like the Georges Seurat painting, "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte". Up close it’s just a bunch of tiny, tiny dots – indecipherable and meaningless. But when you stand back, you get the whole picture… and it’s kind of magnificent.


Stead’s novel is set in 1981, and is in part a recollection of her own childhood as a ‘key kid’ in New York. She delves into the curiosities and concerns of many sixth-graders – like losing friends, getting somersault-belly when a cute boy walks past, and facing fears. For Miranda, her biggest fear is the laughing man on the corner street, the man she passes everyday on her way to and from school. He yells out insanities – “bookbag, pocketshoe” – he calls her new friend an ‘Angel’ and Miranda a ‘Smartkid’.

Miranda’s other consuming fear though, is that she’s losing her best friend, Sal. They have stopped hanging out, upon Sal’s request. A run-in with a bully called Marcus has sent Sal into a sort of hibernation, and Miranda doesn’t know what to do about missing him.

But Stead’s novel is bigger than the sum of its parts, and interspersed with Miranda’s narrative about cute boy Colin, and working at Jimmy’s sandwich shop, are curious asides to an unknown person who has tasked Miranda with writing a letter. This person wants to know the location of the key to Miranda’s apartment. They leave notes for Miranda, foretelling of a Christmas present and her mother’s appearance on Dick Clark’s $20,000 Pyramid game show. This person also warns Miranda that when they meet, they will not look the same …

And therein lies the true brilliance of ‘When You Reach Me’. On the surface Stead’s novel is an enjoyable recollection of a NYC sixth-grader navigating the torrential waters of growing up and moving on. But there’s more … oh! There’s so much more. To reveal would be to ruin a wonderfully plotted semi-mystery.

What I liked best about Stead’s novel is that it was intended for a middle-grade audience, but also appeals to a crowd much older than that. Through Miranda, Stead explores big ideas through tactful and succinct sixth-grade musings, and it’s a delight to get Miranda’s view of the world;

Mom says each of us has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world, like a bride wears on her wedding day, except this kind of veil is invisible. We walk around happily with these invisible veils hanging down over our faces. The world is kind of blurry, and we like it that way. But sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments, like there's a wind blowing it from our faces. And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love. But mostly we are happy not to. Some people learn to lift the veil themselves. Then they don't have to depend on the wind anymore.

‘When You Reach Me’ is nothing short of incredible. When you read it through once, you’ll want to go back and read it again – hold the book up in a new light and appreciate the delicacy and interwoven complexity. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

5/5

'Everybody Sees the Ants' by A.S. King

From the BLURB:

Lucky Linderman didn't ask for his life. He didn't ask his grandfather not to come home from the Vietnam War. He didn't ask for a father who never got over it. He didn't ask for a mother who keeps pretending their family is fine. And he certainly didn't ask to be the recipient of Nadar McMillan's relentless bullying, which has finally gone too far.

Lucky has a secret—one that helps him wade through the daily dysfunction of his life. Grandad Harry, trapped in the jungles of Laos, has been visiting Lucky in his dreams—and the dreams just might be real: an alternate reality where he can be whoever he wants to be and his life might still be worth living. But how long can Lucky remain in hiding there before reality forces its way inside?

Lucky Linderman’s Granny Janice died when he was seven. But before she passed she tasked him with an impossible mission – to bring his granddad home. But Lucky’s granddad can’t come home – he was drafted in the Vietnam war and became one of the thousands of missing soldiers, going on the long list of POW/MIA and irrevocably ruining the Linderman family.

Granny Janice’s final breaths smelled like week-old oysters. She was pretty high on morphine and talking to herself. I didn’t know what to say, so I held her hand tightly and said, “Good-bye, Granny. I love you.”
Her fluttering eyelids lurched open, and she grabbed my forearm so hard that it left a red mark that outlived her. She said, “Lucky, you have to rescue my Harry! He’s still in the jungle being tortured by those damn gooks!”
“Gooks?” I asked.
“It’s the medicine, Lucky,” Mom whispered to me.
“You have to find him and bring him back! You need a father!” Granny blurted.
Then she died.
My mother sent me out of the room, which was fine by me, but she couldn’t erase those words from my memory. If Granny Janice needed me to do something, then I'd do it, even if I didn’t quite understand her orders.

Lucky’s dad never got over not having a dad. He grew up altered by the loss, and now Lucky likens him to a turtle – hard shell exterior, always retreating into his own world.

But if Lucky’s dad is a turtle, then his mom is a squid. She swims 200 laps every day in the local pool; she swims to escape, to forget that she says ‘yes’ to everything and stands up for nothing, not even Lucky.

But Lucky needs someone to stand up for him. Nader McMillan has been bullying Lucky ever since he peed on his shoes in a restaurant bathroom when he was seven-years-old. Now that they’re fifteen-years-old and Nader is a lifeguard at the local swimming pool, the bullying is getting worse. And it’s not just Lucky who Nader picks on. Everyone is scared of Nader and his quick-to-sue lawyer father. Girls are especially terrified of Nader and his torments. But nobody does anything.

A particularly horrific act of bullying sends Lucky’s mother into hiding. She packs up and takes Lucky to Arizona, to stay with her brother, Dave, and his overweight, pill-popping wife, Jodi.

Lucky has a scab the exact shape of Ohio on his face, to remind him of Nader McMillan and a childhood worth of hurt. At night he dreams of rescuing his limb-less grandfather from a Vietnam jungle prison. But even states away from his problems back home, Lucky starts to realize that he doesn’t want to be another turtle, like his father.

‘Everybody Sees the Ants’ was the 2011 young adult book by Printz Honor recipient, A.S. King.

I fell under King’s spell with her magical realist/literary YA fiction novel ‘Please Ignore Vera Dietz’. I vowed to consume everything King writes, and ‘Everybody Sees the Ants’ is more brilliance to convince me of her writing prowess.

The book covers a landscape of teen problems, without ever being preachy. A huge focus of the novel is on Lucky being bullied by one Nader McMillan. Everybody had a Nader in their school life, or at least watched one from a distance as he picked on other kids (secretly relieved to avoid his wrath). A.S. King has perfectly captured the menacing awfulness of this Nader character, who is so senselessly cruel that he substitutes for any reader’s personal bully from their childhood.

Nader is on the wrestling team, his father is a lawyer who is quick to cry foul on all complaints made about his son. Nader is a mindless and gutless bully – with a cache of followers who are too scared to stand up to him, so follow him blindly in his cruelty. Girls are particular targets of Nader’s – and he orchestrates ‘group gropes’ against unsuspecting girls. Lucky knows about this because of school rumours, and a survey question that keeps him finding notes in his locker. The survey was for social studies, and asked his classmates the question ‘if you were going to commit suicide, how would you do it?’ One girl, Charlotte, keeps leaving answers to the anonymous question in Lucky’s locker – her curled writing always admitting that she’d take Nader down with her.

After a particularly awful incident with Nader, Lucky’s mother puts her foot down and insists that something be done to stop the torment. She leaves this mission in the utterly incapable hands of Lucky’s father, and whisks herself and Lucky off to Arizona to stay with her brother and his wife.

While away, Lucky continues to dream, as he has his whole life, about rescuing his grandfather from a Viet Cong prison. In this departure from reality (something A.S. King is fond of doing – a sprinkling of magical realism, if you will) Lucky learns about the impotence of violence, and the importance of survival. Lucky also learns about the man his father missed out on in his life . . . and, slowly, Lucky starts to understand some of his father’s problems. About how you can miss someone you never even knew.

‘Everybody Sees the Ants’ is a dark and gritty young adult read, one that hurts so much because it speaks a lot of truth. Lucky is a gorgeous and kind young man, navigating his way to adulthood amidst the violence of Nader McMillan and the brutality he witnesses in his dreams, of his captured grandfather. A.S. King has written another brilliant young adult read; on the surface ‘Everybody Sees the Ants’ may seem to be talking a lot about violence, but as the novel progresses Lucky learns that sometimes violence is not the answer. Sometimes it’s more powerful to just stand up, speak your mind and not retreat into the comfort and safety of your shell. Brilliant.

5/5

'Halfway to Good' by Kirsten Murphy

From the BLURB:

It's the first day of Term One, and Luke and Anna are on opposite sides of the student-teacher divide. School is the last thing Luke feels like - how can he feel halfway to good when his father is sick, his mother is sad and his older brother is painfully present?

Anna's life still revolves around love, friendship and homework, but she's a graduate teacher now. Can she cope with a bullying co-worker, a persistent ex-boyfriend and a class of unforgiving Year Elevens, and still find time to help Luke?

Luke’s dad is dying and Luke isn’t coping well. He can’t tear apart his old hatred from his current fears, and so he winds up having panic attacks. They come and squeeze his heart, constrict his throat and leave Luke shaken.

Anna finds herself in a toilet cubicle on her first day at her new job. It’s not the idea of facing a grade of glaze-eyed year eleven’s, or even the fact that this is her first teaching job fresh out of Uni. It’s that Tom is back. Tom, who broke her heart (twice) and left for London is now back in town, living in his parent’s house just down the street from Anna and her brother, Ben.

Luke’s girlfriend and best friend are suspicious of his odd behaviour, and are trying to figure out how they can help him. His new English teacher has found out about the panic attacks, and is encouraging him to seek help. Luke’s brother, Oliver, is trying to be a supportive and constant presence in Luke’s life during this hard time. He has even invited him round to have dinner with him and his girlfriend, Georgie, and her family.

Anna has survived the first week of her new teaching job. She has a mentor she envisions could be a great friend, but she’s also unknowingly made an enemy of a seasoned teacher. Now she has to get through dinner with her perpetually-flaky sister, Georgie, and her new boyfriend. Not to mention the fact that her darling brother, Ben, has invited his best friend, Tom, around too. Could this night get any worse?

And then Oliver and his brother, Luke, walk through the door. . . Oliver is Georgie’s new boyfriend, and Luke is Anna’s brilliant but struggling pupil.

‘Halfway to Good’ was the 2009 contemporary YA novel from Australian author, Kirsten Murphy.

I read Murphy’s debut ‘Raincheck on Timbuktu’ way back in 2001, when I was fourteen. I completely related to perpetual couch-potato, and anti-social climber Lucy. The book remains a particular Aussie YA favourite, and so I decided it was high-time I revisited the wonderful works of Ms Murphy.

‘Halfway to Good’ is split between two omniscient narratives – Luke and Anna’s. At first they are ships passing in the night, Anna is the cool, young, new English teacher at Luke’s school. But Luke isn’t going to school – he has decided to ditch until he feels absolutely certain he can get through the day without doubling-over in a panic attack. They have their own issues to deal with – for Anna it’s starting a new job and trying to be nonchalant about the reappearance of her ex. For Luke, it’s coping with his father’s cancer and imminent death. But eventually the Gods of fate cross Luke and Anna’s paths, in the form of Luke’s brother and Anna’s sister.

On the surface, this book has all the elements to make a wonderful YA. But there was just a niggling disconnect that I couldn’t quite shake throughout my reading. I really liked the dual perspectives of Anna and Luke – I thought it was particularly ingenious to have Anna as his teacher. Anna is twenty-two and fresh out of Uni, and utterly none the wiser about love or life in general. Luke is in year eleven, coping for the first time with death and finding himself completely unable to deal.

I liked that Murphy was ‘humanizing’ teachers in this book. Quite a few of my friends and family have entered into the teaching profession recently, and it boggles the mind to think of them running a classroom – but what really niggles is the thought that many of my primary/secondary school teachers were just as young as my friends are now when they taught me. You definitely have a warped view of teachers when you’re sitting in front of them – so I quite liked getting some additional perspective on the student/teacher dynamic through Anna and Luke.

The disconnect and issues, for me, stemmed from Anna and Luke’s personal lives. Well, more Anna’s thank Luke’s. Early on in the book we are given the low-down on Tom. That he was a family friend whose sister was Anna’s best friend, and they lived in the house down the street from Anna and her family. Tom is best friends with Anna’s brother. A few years ago (unbeknownst to either of their families) and while Anna was still in Uni, Tom ended his relationship with his long-term girlfriend and started seeing Anna. Then he went running back to the long-term girlfriend. Anna was crushed. Tom once again ended his relationship, and rekindled things with Anna . . . only to flee the scene once again, claiming he wasn’t right for her. He left for London, and left Anna a shell of herself.

Years later Anna was on track to mending her broken heart . . . and then Tom comes home, and wants Anna back in his life. Ready for round three?

I really liked the messiness of Anna’s love life, and thought there was plenty of juicy tension between her and Tom. Even better is Anna’s confession that she hasn’t spoken to Tom’s sister, and her best friend, since Tom left for London. But Murphy only offers us a pittance handful of scenes between Anna and Tom. And Tom’s sister (Anna’s supposed ex-bestie) never even appears in the book! Most of the drama in Anna’s life stems from her teaching shenanigans and coping with a bullying co-worker.

Yes, the teaching aspect is somewhat amusing. But as Anna dissects the various nasty, cold-shoulders of her co-worker, my eyes glazed. Office politics is boring, especially when Murphy dangled the far juicier Tom story before readers’ eyes. I wish that Anna’s teaching life didn’t so completely and detrimentally eclipse her far more interesting personal life.

By comparison, Luke’s home life had me feeling for him. His panic attacks are nerve-racking and always lingering;

'Not now,' he sighed. 'Please not now.' He put the toilet lid down and sat, resting his head in his hands, concentrating on his breathing. This had happened a couple of times now, but he had been all right. He reminded himself of this as he closed his eyes, trying to clear his mind of everything, thinking only of getting enough air into his lungs and making the stars he was seeing disappear. But hearing the inconsistent rhythm of his breathing only made him more anxious. His short, sharp intakes of oxygen were somehow not registering, and much as he tried, he couldn't make them longer or deeper. He wondered whether it was possible to drown on land. Or maybe he was having a heart attack at the age of seventeen. That must have happened to someone somewhere before. He unzipped his hoodie and took off his long-sleeved T-shirt, leaving only his singlet. But it was still too warm, suffocating. He hugged his knees to his chest and waited, hoping that the awful feeling would pass as quickly as it had come.

On the one hand, I loved that Kirsten Murphy offered up a young adult novel with a high school teacher as one of the protagonists, alongside one of her students. On the other hand, I wish the teaching-aspect had been watered down a bit in favour of Anna’s messier (and more interesting) love life. I think this book was bursting with potential, and it was met with Luke’s internal struggles with his dying father and concerned friends. But Anna’s concurrent story brings this book down a notch, if only because there was so much emphasis placed on her being a ‘teacher’, that she lost interest as a character.

3/5

'The First Part Last' Heaven #2 by Angela Johnson

From the BLURB:

Bobby's a classic urban teenager. He's restless. He's impulsive. But the thing that makes him different is this: He's going to be a father. His girlfriend, Nia, is pregnant, and their lives are about to change forever. Instead of spending time with friends, they'll be spending time with doctors, and next, diapers. They have options: keeping the baby, adoption. They want to do the right thing.

If only it was clear what the right thing was.

Bobby has Feather and Feather means everything to him. Even if she wasn’t planned. Even if the plan was for him and Nia to give Feather up for adoption. Even if Bobby was just sixteen when Nia handed him a balloon and changed his whole life. None of that matters, because either way you cut it – between now and then – Feather means everything to her daddy.

‘The First Part Last’ was the 2003 Printz-winning book from Angela Johnson.

It took me a one-way train trip to read this 131-page book. One train trip to read the book, but the story is staying with me for a lot longer than that.

Angela Johnson writes first chapters better than some authors write entire novels;

I've been thinking about it. Everything. And when Feather opens her eyes and looks up at me, I already know there’s change. But I figure if the world were really right, humans would live life backward and do the first part last. They’d be all knowing in the beginning and innocent in the end.
Then everybody could end their life on their momma or daddy’s stomach in a warm room, waiting for the soft morning light.

So begins Bobby’s first person narrative, between ‘now’ and ‘then’.

Now, Bobby is tired and worrying – he has little Feather depending on him, but some nights he just feels like curling up in his mother’s bed and being the kid taken care of, instead of daddy to his baby girl. He loves Feather – her sweet smell and pudgy baby hands. But sometimes he misses who he was before she was born.

Then, Nia and Bobby had to sit down with their parents and feel the burden of their mistake. Bobby had to watch Mrs Wilkins smile because she couldn’t deal. He had to watch his own mother bite her lip so hard that blood ran down. And Bobby has to get used to the idea of being a father – no shooting hoops with K-Boy and J.L. whenever he feels like it. No asking grandpa to babysit whenever he can’t deal. He has to start taking responsibility and getting ready for the baby. He has to get Nia tacos when she’s craving, and rub her feet when she’s aching.

Angela Johnson’s story is sublime. If you think she can’t pack a punch in 131-pages, you will be startlingly mistaken. Johnson’s novel is beautiful and thoughtful, gut-wrenching and eloquent. But what makes the story even better is that she does it all in so few pages. It takes a true maestro to move a reader to tears with a word-count that some authors spend on first chapters alone. It’s like fitting a symphony into a pop-song, and I am awed by her prowess.

5/5

'Cinder' The Lunar Chronicles #1 by Marissa Meyer

Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

A forbidden romance.
A deadly plague.
Earth's fate hinges on one girl . . .

CINDER, a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, is also a cyborg. She's reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's sudden illness. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she finds herself at the centre of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen - and a dangerous temptation.

Cinder is caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. Now she must uncover secrets about her mysterious past in order to protect Earth's future.

New Beijing is under threat. The King is lying on his deathbed, his Queen already dead and his son, Prince Kai, feeling utterly unprepared for what the next few days could bring … because plague is ravaging earth. A plague called Leutmosis, with a high mortality rate and no known cure.

Above the earth, the Lunar planet looms large and foreboding, and Queen Levana has her sights set on Prince Kai for a political marriage. And as part of her bargaining, Levana is dangling a cure to Leutmosis before Kai’s eyes.

Down in the dregs of society works Cinder, New Beijing’s most talented mechanic. Cinder is also a Cyborg – a hated faction in this world, where the human/machine hybrids are considered monstrous and given few rights. And while the plague ravages the city, Cyborg’s are being drawn like a lottery for cure ‘experiments’, whether they like it or not.

Cinder is owned by wealthy woman, Adri, whose husband bought Cinder and then left her in his family’s care when he tragically succumbed to Leutmosis. Adri has two girls, the egotistical Pearl and lovable little Peony. They are not sisters, but Cinder loves Peony like she’s family.

Cinder works to pay Adri’s bills and clothe Pearl in pretty dresses. But when Prince Kai arrives at her mechanic stall one day, she is tasked with a new job that will have repercussions for everyone around her …

‘Cinder’ is the debut sci-fi Fairytale from Marissa Meyer, putting a new-world spin on the old ‘Cinderella’ story …

I have been looking forward to this book, ever since I fell in love with new ABC show ‘Once Upon a Time’, which puts old Fairytales in a kooky modern small-town setting. If vampires were 2009, angels so 2010 and zombie passé by 2011, then Fairytales is definitely the new theme du-jour of the paranormal/sci-fi scene. And Marissa Meyer’s ‘Cinder’ is jus the book to scratch this new itch!

As the title suggests, ‘Cinder’ is a reimagining of the old ‘Cinderella’ Fairytale. Except that out princess is a Cyborg, plague is ravaging the kingdom and the closest thing you’ll get to a fairy godmother is an adorable little android called Iko. A few footnotes of the traditional fable remain the same (if a little futuristically skewed), like Cinder’s ‘stepmother’ being her owner. A glass slipper is more likely to be a new detachable mechanical foot. And the pumpkin carriage is actually a (vintage) gasoline car!

Meyer has done wonders with twisting and modernizing the old ‘Cinderella’ tale, and with each modification and story adjustment comes new delights. Cyborg Cinder is ingenious – not only is she the downtrodden worker to her owner, Adri, but she is apart of a detested segment of society. I loved the ramifications this has on the story, Cinder as a minority in New Beijng, whose Cyborg ‘race’ is so discriminated against that a lottery has even been created to force them to be guinea pigs for cures against Leutmosis.

The setting of ‘Cinder’ is a future one not dissimilar to Joss Whedon’s TV series ‘Firefly’, in which the future had heavy oriental-influence (presumably because China and the like had become the new world power). Androids are servants, and Cyborgs are discriminated against. Above the Earth looms the Lunar planet, inhabited by beautiful people and ruled by an insane, vain, mind-bending Queen.

And since Meyer is sticking to a few Fairytale conventions, there is still a handsome prince (phew!). Kai is still reeling from his mother’s plague-death, and is now looking at a similar fate for his father … which would make Kai king. The crown holds even less appeal since Queen Levana set her sights on Kai as her husband. Levana has a particularly horrible history – there are rumours that she murdered her husband, scarred younger (prettier) female royals and organized an arson attack against her baby niece.

But when Kai requires mechanical assistance from Cinder, their crossed-paths has ramifications on the kingdom that neither of them could have ever imagined;

'I'm looking for a Linh Cinder,' said the prince. 'Is he around?'
Cinder dared to lift one stabilizing hand from the table, using it to tug the hem of her glove higher on her wrist. Staring at the prince's chest, she stammered, 'I-I'm Linh Cinder.'
Her eyes followed his hand as he planted it on top of the android's bulbous head.
'You're Linh Cinder?'
'Yes, Your High--' She bit down on her lip.
'The mechanic?'
She nodded. 'How can I help you?'
Instead of answering, the prince bent down, craning his neck so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes, and dashed a grin at her. Her heart winced.
The prince straightened, forcing her gaze to follow him.
'You're not quite what I was expecting.'

I did really enjoy ‘Cinder’. It’s a dusting off of an old Fairytale, and Meyer has customized her new imagining with much-needed updates. Like how Cinder is less ‘woe is me’ and more stubborn, take-charge. I would even say that the ‘evil’ stepmother is given a bit of heart in this new tale, and she’s all the more interesting for not being so black and white.

There are a few things that didn’t work for me in this book, and they have been touched on by other reviewers. Meyer isn’t great at in-depth scene setting – I got the ‘Firefly’ reference from other readers, and it’s only because I’m a devoted Browncoat that I was able to flesh out this futuristic oriental city in my mind. I would have liked more atmospheric writing on the city of New Beijing, beyond Meyer simply offering up the ‘Beijing’ name and expecting readers to add flying cars and androids to the City as we know it. I also think there were a few missed moments between Cinder and her ‘family’, particularly Adri and Pearl, the traditional ‘villains’. True, in Meyer’s new version the step-family aren’t the focus of evil, that’s much more Queen Levana, but I still think it would have been nice if Meyer had delved more into Cinder’s home life. Pearl, the rotten sister, is awful but doesn’t get much page-time and comes across as a little one-dimensional because of it. Adri, on the other hand, started out typically-villainous, but towards the end I wanted to spend more time with her since grief and circumstance fleshed her out with new dimensions…

But there are minor complaints about an otherwise breathtaking story. I was a little surprised by the ending, only because I thought ‘Cinder’ would be a stand-alone novel (I was under the impression that Meyer would be updating all the Fairytale princesses – ‘The Little Android’? ‘Beauty and the Robot’?). But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that ‘Cinder’ will be a continuing saga … and it makes sense, since so much of this first book is about building political upheaval and winding a royal mystery.

‘Cinder’ is a delightfully modernized spin on the old ‘Cinderella’ story. Marissa Meyer’s new Fairytale is a dark delight – about a plague-ravaged kingdom, a royal conspiracy and the Cyborg mechanic at the heart of it all. Brilliant!

4/5