Review: Stray by Elissa Sussman

First, thanks to Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  I have really been into fairy tale re-tellings, as well as just reimaginings or stories with the characters from those fairy tales.  And this story ended up not disappointing. 

The main character is Princess Aislynn.  In the world she lives in women have magic, but are not supposed to use it.  They are supposed to follow the "Path"  and prepare themselves for a life with their future husband and without magic.  Girls who fail at holding their magic in will get redirected to be fairy godmothers.  The fairy godmothers are allowed to use magic.  And every princess, or girl on her path to her future life with her husband, has their own fairy godmother.  Aislynn has always had a little trouble holding her magic in.  She has learned when it is seeming to bubble up that she can stop it by causing herself some kind of bodily harm.  And so she has cuts and scars all over her legs.  A place that is hidden with her tights and long dresses.  But right when it is time for her big Introduction Ball, one of the other girls there, a very hateful girl, upsets her so much that she can't control the magic.  And from that she is redirected to become a fairy godmother.  She now will lose her loving heart, and become the help for another princess.  This time it is a well-known princess, Linnea, and she is at a new school, far away from her family.  At this new school she makes new friends.  A maid named Brigid, a gardener named Thackery, as well as the carriage driver named Ford.  And she learns that maybe not all she was taught as a princess is true.  Maybe those that she was always taught were evil aren't necessarily the ones causing the problems.  And maybe those they've always thought they needed to follow their directions and rules are the ones that should be feared.

A great idea of who fairy godmothers are or might have been before they became as we know them.  Now, there doesn't list a sequel on Goodreads, but it does say this is the first in a collection of intertwined stories, and I don't know how long I can wait to read the next one!  Especially since this had a bit of a cliffhanger ending.  This one did start off a bit slow for me, but soon it picked up and I could barely put it down to work, to sleep, to do anything else.  There are still many questions I have about this world, and so as I said, I'm very eager for the next story to come out.  A definite recommendation for anyone who enjoys fairy tales reimagined.

Review: The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings

First thanks to Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins, and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this title.  I have followed this author as a blogger for a while now, and was very excited to be able to read this book when I saw it was available. 

This was a pretty quick read.  It had lots of action, and not a lot of time spent explaining things when it wasn't needed.  I think this helped the story move along very quickly, although I spent probably the first half of the book wondering, okay what is causing all this?  That's not a bad thing at all though, that is what kept me turning pages, the need to know more. 

The main character is Meadow, she is 15, and her whole life her father has trained her to be able to not only defend herself if needed, but to kill in the cases it might be required.  The reason for this is that at a certain point she will try to jump on a train and be taken to the Initiative to get a job.  Getting a job there means extra rations for her family.  Her family is her father, her older brother, and her younger sister.  Her mother was killed by the murders that seem to be happening during what is called the Dark Time, when all people are supposed to stay home and be safe.  This is a future where no one gets sick. they have these tags in them that have nanos that cure any injuries. They don't necessarily save them from scars, but at least they heal quickly and don't get sick.  Meadow's brother Koi didn't pass the test to work for the Initiative, because he was unable to kill, the final test.  Meadow is sure she can do it, as she wants to get in and try to solve the murder of her mother.

The other main character is Zephyr.  And he has killed.  What he doesn't know is why he kills.  He is a Ward, which means that he has no family and lives in a tent with other Wards.  He works every day helping to pick up the bodies of the people murdered over night.  He has dreamed of a beautiful girl with silver hair.  And one day he will run into her, because she is Meadow.  Meadow will be drawn to him, and together they will find there is a conspiracy of some sort.  One that puts Meadow in trouble, so that she must go on the run.  But she doesn't know if she can trust Zephyr, since he tried to kill her. 

As they're on the run, you could use the old saying, "the plot thickens".  More and more things are brought to light about this dystopian society.  We learn things about Meadow's family that make even more questions for Meadow and Zephyr to try to answer. 

While I got a lot of answers by the end, I still need to know more and what else is going to happen.  So, I'll be waiting for another book, and also plan to read the novella, The Fear Trials.

A great dystopian read full of action and mystery, really hard to put down once you pick it up.

Review: Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

I was lucky enough to get to read an ARC of this that was sent to the Barnes and Noble where I work part time by HarperCollins.  I was extremely excited to read it because I had been hearing so much about it on other blogs, as well as from Epic Reads, and then the fact that I am supposed to be moderating a discussion panel with the author in May.  Unfortunately, I will not to get to keep the copy of the ARC, because I have to pass it along to the other librarian who will be helping me moderate the panel.  Guess I'll just have to buy an actual copy of it.  Not sure where that money is coming from at the moment, but I've got a month before the author will be visiting.  Anyway, on with my review!

If you haven't heard about this, as the title might give you a clue, Dorothy is now a bad guy.  She's come back to Oz and seems to have gone to the dark side.  She wants all the magic for herself, she's taken over Emerald City as a princess, and has enlisted her friends, the Tin-man, the Scarecrow, and the Lion as her advisers/security.  But as with other story re-tellings, we learn that some of the story may not be quite as it seemed.  Glinda the "good" witch has also become a bad guy, as one of Dorothy's friends.  The Tin Man is a bit different than pictured as he now has sharpened weapons as part of his tin suit.  The Scarecrow is a bit evil with his experiments that his brain wants him to do, many to only help himself.  And the Lion is pretty evil as well.  He takes the fear of others to increase his "courage".  The main character of this book however is not Dorothy.  It is Amy Gumm.  Amy also comes from Kansas, but has had a much different upbringing than Dorothy.  She lives in a trailer park with her mother.  Her mother who has emotional problems, as well as drug problems.  The kids at school are horribly mean to her, and when the popular girl, who is also pregnant, punches her at school, Amy gets kicked out.  So Amy walks home, seeing the skies get dark and stormy.  After a fight with her mother, who is leaving for a "tornado" party, the tornado does hit the trailer park, as you would expect from the old adage.  And Amy soon lands in Oz.  A much different looking Oz than she'd seen in the movie.  You see, Dorothy is mining all the magic from the land so that she can hoard it at the Emerald Palace for herself.  And taking the magic has made huge holes in the land, as well as turning it brown and gray, and dead looking.  She is met upon arrival by a very handsome boy with intriguing green eyes.  But he is very mysterious, and while he gives her the directions to follow the yellow brick road, he then disappears.  Amy sees an abandoned Munchkin village along the road, but all the Munchkins are out helping Glinda mine the magic.  One Munchkin ends up helping Amy on her travels.  Other creatures along the way are different than expected, such as the flying monkeys.  Which are now under Dorothy's command.

Amy must now decide what to do, and who to trust.  She will be arrested for trying to save a creature.  She will see a new friend be destroyed by Dorothy's minions.  So she knows Dorothy is not a good guy.  She is approached by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked, which includes one green familiar looking witch named Mombi, another witch named Gert, and a witch named Glamora, who is a twin to Glinda.  Also, a boy named Nox, handsome in his evil looking way, but at first not a fan of Amy's.  They have said that Amy is the only one who can defeat Dorothy, because she has come from the same place, Kansas.  She will train with them, but still doesn't know if she can trust them.  Amy will infiltrate the palace as a servant, to see what she can learn to help with the plan.  While there she will find out just how evil the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man really are now.  She will meet the Wizard, who is also back.  But can he be trusted either?  And back at the palace she will see the mysterious boy who greeted her, and also meet Ozma, the true princess of Oz.  She must decide who to trust, if Dorothy really must die as she's been told, and if she can really play a role in saving Oz from losing its magic.

A really fun, original read.  One thing that kept me hanging on every page was what would be incorporated from the original story/movie, and how it would be changed, or used to fit this story.  Now, I will admit that I've never read the books.  So of course Dorothy's shoes should be red in my mind.  This book talks about them being silvery.  Any of you who have read the book, is that true?  Or is it one way the author has made it her own story?  Questions I had about how old Dorothy would be in the story, and why she came back, etc.,  I am currently getting answered as I read the prequel There's No Place Like Oz.  I'm glad in a way that I waited to read the prequel until after, although as I've not finished it yet, I don't know that it would have ruined anything for me to read it before.  I'll let you know when I review it.  All that said, this is a great book, you need to get your hands on it.  And know, it will be a series, as the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, and we're kind of left still not knowing who to trust for sure.

Asylum by Madeleine Roux

First thanks to HarperCollins and Edelweiss for allowing me to read an e-galley of this.  I've read another book by this author, Allison Hewitt is Trapped, and I enjoyed the zombie story.  So when I saw the info about this on Edelweiss, and heard it was going to be like Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, I immediately requested a download of it.  And it was a pretty good, twisty plot story.  It comes out at a good time, after the recent hit TV show American Horror Story had its 2nd season take place in an insane asylum.  My only disappointment is that not all the photos for the story were part of the e-galley.  Although I definitely understand why that was probably the case.
The main character is Dan Crawford.  Dan is attending a summer institute called New Hampshire College Prep.  It just so happens that the dormitory the high school students are staying in is called Brookline, and was once an insane asylum.  One that has some really bad history, and the town really would like to see it destroyed.  Dan doesn't seem to have a lot of friends from what he sounds like at the beginning.  And his roommate Felix is a bit odd he feels.  But at the mixer the first night he meets a girl named Abby.  And she introduces him to the friend she made on the bus trip there, Jordan.  Now, when Dan first got to his room, there was a picture in the drawer where he put his belongings.  It was what looked like a doctor maybe, with his eyes scratched out.  And his roommate said he'd seen some cool stuff down in an office that was from the old asylum.  So when Dan tells Abby about this, she immediately thinks it sounds like a fun trip.  It takes a bit of convincing, but they get Jordan to go as well.  Once down there they find more pictures, and old files, and weird things start to happen.  Abby finds a picture that just speaks to her for some reason.  Dan begins having dreams where he seems to be seeing things from the warden's view point in the past.  And that's not all.  When they get caught for being down there by one of the Hall Advisers, a day or so later, he is found dead.  And not just dead, but kind of posed, the way a serial killer that had once been at the asylum used to do to his victims.  And when Dan tries to ask townspeople more about the asylum, he runs into some issues.  One is when he tells them his name.  See Daniel Crawford was the name of the last warden, the one who was doing so many horrible things to the patients.  What is really bothering Daniel is why he has the same name, why such a huge coincidence?  And as he is adopted, there is no telling if there was some relationship between him and this guy.
In the end, it is definitely left a bit open, because I would like to know exactly what his relationship is, and while they thought they'd solved the mystery, something happens at the end that leads you to think otherwise.  A good creepy story, and I can't wait to actually see the book in print with all the pictures, and then I'll be eagerly awaiting a sequel, I hope!

Unnatural Creatures: Stories Selected by Neil Gaiman

Thanks to HarperCollins Children's Books and Epic Reads, I won this ARC from a contest in the Shelf Awareness email newsletter.  I haven't read a lot of Neil Gaiman books, American Gods was one that I read and did really like though.  So I knew that I was interested in this.  The really cool thing about this book is that when people purchase a copy of it they will be supporting a nonprofit organization called 826DC that supports students with their writing skills, as well as helping teachers inspire their students to write. As a middle school teacher, I think this a great organization.
I went into this book expecting a bunch of new short stories about, as the title says, unnatural creatures.  And it is about those things, but most of the stories are not new.  One of the stories even dates clear back to 1885!  Now, as will most often happen, there were some stories I liked, and others that were ehh, and some that just were kind of confusing.  The stories started out pretty short, and seemed to get a little longer as the book went on.  I'll talk about a few of my favorites.
I have to list the story that Neil Gaiman wrote first, Sunbird.  It's basically a story about the phoenix.  Kinda like Fawkes in the Harry Potter stories.  The story is about a very exclusive group called the Epicurean Club.  Their main goal is to try to eat as many rare and outlandish things as they can.  Supposedly they've had unicorn, fruit bat, flash frozen mammoth, giant sloth, giant squid, and in the twenties they even had man on the menu.  So this current group of members is trying to find something else new that they haven't eaten.  One member brought up the idea of the Suntown Sunbird.  Most of the members have never heard of it, or believe it to be imaginary. Which is when the fact that they'd had unicorn is brought up.  Eventually they decide to go capture it, in Egypt, and try it.  The twist in the story is pretty good!  I won't give it away.  And there was one point in the story that immediately made me smile.  When they ate the mammoth, one member, Jackie Newhouse, says that all he could think of was Kansas City barbecue sauce and what the ribs on the mammoth would have tasted like if they'd been fresh.  Have I mentioned that I live in Kansas City?  And that we are pretty well known for our barbecue?
The next story that I really enjoyed was called The Cockatoucan; or, Great-Aunt Willoughby by E. Nesbit.  This is about a little girl that is not happy with the fact that she has to go visit her Great-Aunt Willoughby.  Only she lucks out when her nanny/nursemaid takes the wrong bus and they end up in a town where the buses don't ever return, and so they are stuck.  Once there the king asks for her help with the cockatoucan, who every time it laughs, something gets messed up.  In fact, immediately when they get there, the cockatoucan laughs and Pridmore, the nursemaid is turned into a type of vending machine, that when you push the button, dispenses "advice" or the little sayings she would always spout to the little girl, Matilda.  Matilda all of a sudden becomes very clever when the bird laughs, and so decides to stay and try to help the King get his kingdom back.  As good as this story is, can you imagine that it was written back in 1900?  Wow!
The last story I'm going to mention is called The Compleat Werewolf by Anthony Boucher.  It was written in 1942, which you can tell from reading it, as it is about Germany, and all that was going on during that time period.  Also, it is about a werewolf.  Only the way this type of werewolf works is that you have to say certain words, and he will change into a wolf.  And in order to return to a human, another word has to be said.  The problem?  You can't say the word as a wolf.  So you need someone you trust to say it for you.  This works mostly for the main character, Wolfe Wolf.  Yes, that is really his name.  When he changes at first he goes out into nature, then he gets bored and misses people, so he goes back into town.  While there he helps a little boy home, and even stops a robbery.  But when he gets back late to where the man who is helping him is supposed to be waiting, and he can't get in, he decides to go to his classroom, see he is a German professor, and scratch the name on the chalkboard so that one of his students will say it.  They do, and he is human again, but unfortunately naked.  This leads to losing his job.  He's been really unhappy because he proposed to the woman he loved, a former student named Gloria.  She is now an actress, and has told him he is not someone she could ever love like that.  But now she's coming back and Wolfe is so excited to see her, and thinks that showing her he is a werewolf will definitely impress her enough to make her give him a chance.  I'll stop there, and let you read the rest!
There are many other stories, 13 others.  And there are a few that this is their first time being published.  So there are newer stories and older stories.  And some that it is maybe a stretch to say it is an unnatural creature, or maybe you could say it is almost just alluded to, and not really easy to get.
I'll be passing this ARC on with the ARCycling project.  Now, I just have to remember to try to log on and try to get my own recycled ARC one of these Sundays.

Pandemonium (Delirium #2) by Lauren Oliver

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First, I have to say thanks to my employer, Barnes and Noble, and also Harper Collins Children's Books for giving me the chance to read this as an Advanced Readers Copy.
Okay, once again, I think that I give this a 4 instead of a 5 because I didn't like the ending! Not that it wasn't a good ending, don't get me wrong. In fact I wish I could rate 4.5 instead of just 4 or 5, but the ending irritated me. I'm really a bit tired of love triangles. I won't say who the love triangle is with, I'll let you read the book itself and see who the 2 boys are, but I don't feel it was needed with this series. To me, the 3rd book could have been about the search for Lena's mother, who she glimpses and comes in contact with briefly in this book. And trying to help the guy she now has feelings for survive the "deliria" she now knows well.
I was so happy when I found out that there was a second book in this series as I was so mad with the way the first one, Delirium, ended. It sucked that she lost her love, Alex at the end. In a way it made me as mad as the first and only Nicholas Sparks book I ever read, in that it made me feel all good inside and like the system could be overcome and people could be happy, but then BAM! true love is gone because one of them dies.
Pandemonimum is a really good second book. As many sophomore books have been lately, they've just kind of moved the series along, didn't necessarily quite live up to the original, but were necessary to keep the series going. This one blows that all away. It moves the story along with enough action and plot to keep up with the original in my opinion.
Lena is now living in the Wilds. We are told her story through flashbacks in between what is happening when she must re-enter the Society to help with furthering the fight for those who want their own choice to love or not. When she first gets to the Wilds she is in bad shape, she has been on the run, by herself, and without Alex, she doesn't know how to survive, and so barely manages to stay alive, until she is found by members of the resistance, or Invalids, as they are called in the cities. They nurse her back to health, and soon require her to start contributing to their camp in a way that everyone else does. And as soon as she does start feeling better, Lena goes back to what we know she loved best in Delirium, running. Every winter they must move their camp south in order to survive. And they must send scouts out to make sure their way is safe. Well, as they move along, sooner than planned due to a message from their contacts on the inside that things have gone wrong, they end up losing a few of their group. This sends them in to the city to try to help further the resistance. Lena must go in undercover, and join into the opposition as a member. At a big rally, things go wrong. Lena is following Julian, the leader of the DFA - Deliria Free America's son. And she gets kidnapped at the same time he does. They must fight their way out to freedom, and find that there may have been some betrayal by someone they wouldn't have suspected.
Often books that jump back and forth like this can be confusing, but the way the author does this really worked for me. I really liked this book, except for the ending, mind you.
One other thing I have to point out that amused me so much I had to tweet about it as I read it. The vans that are used kind of as police type vehicles, they have the name of the department, the City of New York, Department of Correction, Reform, and Purification as an acronym which reads: CRAP. Funny? Or is it just me?

I will be counting this as the "O" in my A-Z Book Challenge for the author's last name.

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Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins, first off let me say I LOVED this book. I like the new take on the afterlife. This was a different paranormal romance, no vampires, werewolves, angels, fairies. There are immortal beings, and in a way, they are kind of like vampires. These immortal beings though live on the feelings or emotions of mortals. They can take it during events like concerts, like the band that Cole is in. Or they can take you to the Everneath where you will be right next to them for 100 years while they get the sustenance they need to last another 100 years. Now, this 100 years in the Everneath is much longer than how much time actually passes on the surface. And normally, after you've been here, you age too. But for some reason, Nikki, our main character, doesn't age after this 100 years with Cole. And she wants to go back, back to a face, a boy she knew. She went with Cole because she was sad, her mother had died, things with her social life were not at the greatest, and so she let him take the pain away. But by going back, instead of staying with Cole and doing what he wants her to do, to stay with him forever and maybe take over the Everneath, she now owes the shades, the creatures that connected them, and after a short time back, about 6 months or so, they will pull her back into the Tunnels, a horrible dark place she is told. But Nikki wants a chance to actually tell her family and friends goodbye this time. She needs to see the guy whose face she saw the whole time, Jack, at least one more time. Cole is there the whole time trying to win her back.

This story was so good. I had to know what would happen. I loved the mythology in it, as well as the way those myths could be re-interpreted to fit this story. I'm so glad to see on Goodreads that there is a sequel, because I need to go on with this story. I'm not ready for it to end. And you won't be either.

And, isn't the cover beautiful!



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