Fiction Book Reviews

Now that I’ve actually read it, I’m doubly pleased that The Graveyard Book won the Newbery, because it’s a wonderful book with an amazingly creative premise—a boy whose family is murdered is taken in and raised by a graveyard full of ghosts, along with a few other guardians who aren’t ghosts but aren’t exactly human either (one is basically a werewolf, and the other is a vampire, which I totally did not figure out until Neil actually said so on the Colbert Report. I r smrt.). I was thoroughly taken in by the first couple pages, with the man Jack’s terrifying, methodical murder, but to be honest, I was a little concerned—that the murder would just sort of happen and we wouldn’t find out why or what would happen to the man Jack, that the book would just be a coming-of-age story for Nobody Owens without much of an overarching plot.

And then I reminded myself, don’t be silly, this is Neil Gaiman and you can trust him. I did, and he didn’t disappoint: it’s a coming-of-age story, certainly, tracing Bod’s life from toddlerhood up to about age 14, but it definitely has a plot, and it’s rich with the kind of worldbuilding and mythological elements you can play with when your character spends his life among the dead. There’s a twist near the end that I did see coming, but that didn’t bother me much; it just put me in an agony of suspense for characters who didn’t know their own danger, so of course I wanted to reach through the pages and yell at them to watch out, which at least shows that they were real enough to make me invested in them.

But I can’t give my full opinion on this without spoiling the ending, so read on at your own risk. (more…)

I’ve been told that Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart actually isn’t the best translation from the original German, because the English version doesn’t retain what made the other German, or something like that. When I read Inkheart after having recently read The Thief Lord, I got basically the exact opposite impression: at least compared to The Thief Lord, which had a different translator, Inkheart struck me as not only more accurate but more elegant. The former was awkward in places; I guessed that it was a translation before I knew it was. But Inkheart was wonderful. It took me a while to read because I kept pausing to savor it; the best word I could find to describe it was “delicious.” (It doesn’t help that 1) Dustfinger is awesome and 2) I already have a thing for the “power of words” trope.) It’s definitely on my list of top favorite books (and comfort reads, really); the only major thing wrong with it is that the book description gives away something the book itself doesn’t reveal until at least a third of the way through, which of course is Mo’s ability to read people outof books.

The sequels–Inkspell and Inkdeath–more or less followed the mold of sequels, in that they didn’t quite live up to the first one. I think, in part, it might be a matter of setting–Inkheart involves characters plucked from a fantasy world and transplanted in ours, while the other two spend the bulk of their time in the Inkworld itself; maybe it was the juxtaposition of fantastical and mundane that made the first book work. I’m not sure. Inkspell’s missing something that its predecessor had, anyway, and Inkdeath…

Well, I’ve got a pretty good idea what’s wrong with the final volume of the trilogy. I went looking for reviews before I read it and the general consensus seemed to be that Cornelia Funke had forgotten she was writing for children and young adults. And…that’s it in a nutshell. It wasn’t so much that she upped the adult content, because she didn’t (well, there might have been a bit more in the way of death and violence, but I don’t think it was a major difference). Thing is, these are YA novels, which means they need to focus on a young protagonist (something I discussed earlier). Inkheart did–Meggie was always the main character, even when other important characters came in and even though Mo, at least in the beginning, was the one with the reading gift. It was always Meggie’s story. Inkspell was the same way, as far as I remember; there may have been more chapters from others’ POVs than in Inkheart, but it was still her story, told through her words, seen through her eyes, affected by her actions.

*Spoilers for Inkdeath past this point, although not a lot that you couldn’t guess from reading Inkspell.* (more…)

I haven’t actually read this, which is not my fault, because it was published when I was in England for the semester and UEA’s lame uni library wasn’t at all like my uni library–connected to the municipal library system and able to get new books, in other words. I even tried getting Small Favor, the newest Dresden Files book, and Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox off interlibrary loan, and then I found out that ILL, at least at that library, is only for stuff you really need for school and you have to have your professor sign off on it. So much for that idea. I made do by periodically raiding the YA section instead and mostly read lots and lots of Diana Wyne Jones.

Now that I’m back, though, I’ve already read Small Favor and Artemis Fowl and the Time Paradox, and I’ve got Inkdeath (another book released while I was gone) and The Graveyard Book checked out and sitting on my nightstand. (Hm, I also need to read The Tales of Beedle the Bard. I could’ve actually bought that in the UK and decided I’d wait until I could get it cheap. Even though it was, like, three pounds. Whatever. I am not, however, planning to read Brisingr. I don’t even know how to pronounce that.)

Anyway, I’m looking forward to it; I understand it’s sort of like The Jungle Book except the kid is raised by ghosts, not animals, which is a highly intriguing premise in and of itself–and anyway, it’s Neil Gaiman, so it’s bound to be good. But that’s not the point of this particular post. The point is, I found out this morning from Neil’s blog that The Graveyard Book just won the Newbery. That’s also not the main point, although it’s really cool and I’m thrilled about it. The main point is that his blog and Twitter entries about this are really, really cute. I mean his blog is pretty awesome in general, in large part because of his journal labels and also because of entries like these (also, he likes Doctor Who) and Twitter posts like “Mr Gaiman briefly ponders putting marmalade in tea, then realises he has lost his mind,” but…I don’t even know. He’s very normal and just kind of adorable, y’all.

I don’t really know what to think about this book.

As a rule, I love Diana Wynne Jones’ work. Dark Lord of Derkholm was my first introduction to her novels; I think I first picked it up at the library because its cover looked so very, very cliched, I wanted to see what it was about and have a laugh at it.  Joke was on me, of course, because parodying fantasy cliches is one of the whole points of that book, along with a plot that’s fantastic in its own right, a lot of humor, and a family of wizards and griffins that bicker like crazy and still love each other to death. It’s one of those books where you’ve got a huge grin on your face when you finish because it’s just that much fun. Not all of her books are quite as good–the older ones like A Tale of Time City a bit less so, seems like, and I found Fire and Hemlock and Hexwood good but confusing (the former gets bonus points just for being a Tam Lin retelling, though)–but generally speaking you can’t go wrong with them, especially the Chrestomanci books.

The Homeward Bounders, though…I dunno, really. It’s…very different from her others. Oh, it shares a lot in common with others–even in books that aren’t actually related, she uses the idea of parallel worlds and dimensions all the time (I can think of at least five different books or series of hers that have nothing to do with each other but use alternate worlds in one way or another, and generally in different ways), and most of hers have young protagonists who end up having to save the world, often finding themselves faced with very difficult choices in the process.

But most of her books have an enemy that can, in some way, be known–the villains here are only referred to as They–and I’m pretty sure all her other characters get happy endings in one way or another. In this, you can kind of see the ending coming by the way the book begins and by hints the narrator drops along the way, and it’s not like it’s a bad ending exactly, but…it’s different. I found it depressing, to be honest, though I can’t say much more without entirely giving it away.

(It’s probably not too surprising, though, that I immediately thought of the perfect fix-it fic: the Doctor shows up, puts things properly to rights, and takes Jamie home in the TARDIS. This would of course allow the Doctor to angst about how he can never go home, but whatever.)

Apparently Rhiannon Lassiter really likes writing trilogies, and apparently I’m really good at reading only the first book of said trilogy, because that was the case with Hex too. I’m pleased to say that Borderland fixes some of the problems that marred an otherwise good story in Hex, but not so pleased to report that some of the problems remain and a few additional ones crop up too. (I should also probably add that I think “Rights of Passage” is a clever title for the trilogy, since much of the conflict in Borderland stemmed from who was and who was not allowed to travel between worlds and what they should or shouldn’t be doing there–but of course it’s also a play on words for “rites of passage,” since it’s about young people learning what it really means to grow up.)

The characters are more immediately likable, for one thing. Zoe, the protagonist, does snub some less popular peers in school, but that mostly crops up out of an understandable desire to make friends–she’s an Army brat and as such moves a lot, so she has to make new friends pretty often. She has a good relationship with her dad, too; even when she realizes she can’t possibly tell him about all the confusing problems cropping up because the friends she does make bring her, literally, to an alternate world, she still goes to him for advice, respects what he tells her, and tries her hardest to keep from worrying him. There is a goth girl who only wears black, but at least her name’s Morgan, not Raven, and although her characterization’s a little uneven, not only does she come across as more sympathetic than Raven ever did, but she’s also used for a rather clever purpose: in the world of Shattershard, black is a color that only powerful mages wear, and Morgan uses this perception to her advantage.

The worldbuilding is decent too, and rather than set up overly obvious good guys and bad guys in the political/military factions vying for power in Shattershard, Lassiter looks at the motivations for each and gives us characters on either side that readers can relate to, making the inevitable battle all the more tragic (it’s not a huge surprise when the character most eager for war gets a fast lesson in how awful it really is). Characters whom everyone else thinks are the height of cool actually do live up to that idea, more or less, and when they fall short, it’s because they’re supposed to, not because their characterization was sloppy.

Even so, most of the main characters don’t seem to quite get there. You like them okay if you’re supposed to or at least feel sorry for them when they get in trouble, but nearly all of them show some personality trait that’s just a little uncomfortable. It’s a bit hard to know whom to root for. And while it’s the first of a trilogy, it seems not entirely complete enough even for that, with hints about characters’ backgrounds and motivations that never become more than hints, not even strong enough hints to be sure they’ll get more development later. A few of the bad bits in Lassiter’s writing style got cleaned up at the expense of others, and I kept wincing at lines that just sounded rough. Apparently the 10 years between Hex and Borderland didn’t fix all of her mechanical or stylistic issues.

I read Fangs of the Werewolf for research, believe it or not, because I’m planning to write a werewolf story as my thesis…believe it or not. In preparation for it, I’m reading as many werewolf books as I can, largely ones that describe the folklore about it rather than fiction (because my werewolves follow those in the Potterverse pretty closely anyway, and because I’d never reach the end of them if I tried to read every novel with werewolves in, and because that would mean I’d have to read Twilight). This was one of the few that came up on my search at the UEA library, though, so I grabbed it.

My main conclusion is that I’m guessing it would sell a lot better if they changed the title and cover. I wish I could find a picture of the cover, because if you could see it you’d know what I mean. It’s cheesy and stupid and ugly and very…sensationalistic, I suppose, which the story itself mostly isn’t. Maybe more importantly, while the cover features a hideous anthro-wolf, the actual story’s werewolf is at first mistaken for an Alsatian and consistently described as looking like one.

That said, it’s not a bad read. Not a terrific one, and not one that filled me with werewolf-related inspiration (it did generate a few thoughts about the moon, at least), but at least serviceable. It deals in the supernatural without ignoring science or the reactions of rational people to such an event, and it does so through ordinary human beings trying to balance jobs, concerns about making friends, moving, children and siblings, fitting in at a new place.

Oh yeah, and werewolves. There is that.

Setting the story in Wales was a smart move, with a sense of mysticism and loyalty to a village upbringing gradually convincing one character to take the lycanthrope idea a bit more seriously, while the focus of the story is on 13-year-old Allison, recently relocated here and not liking it that much. The identity of the werewolf is no surprise, but the mythology is used reasonably well within the plot, and the adults manage to fix things up, more or less, without shoehorning out Allison as protagonist; just as importantly, the writing itself is decent, using a style that brings to mind any of those “true adventure, this really happened!!!” stories in a way that really works here.. I won’t be following the folklore used here because I prefer other takes on the werewolf idea, but it makes for a good quick read.

Good novels require the presence—and cooperation, I suppose—of a number of elements. In some cases, one or two elements may be so strong and compellingly written that they make up almost completely for the absence or shallowness of other elements. Take the Doctor Who episode “Blink,” for example, though it’s not a novel: if you think too hard about the plot or the logistics of the villains, the whole thing starts to fall apart, but the character interactions, dialogue, creepiness factor, and direction are so awesome you don’t mind, if you even notice. I certainly didn’t. Or take Diana Wynne Jones’ Dark Lord of Derkholm and Year of the Griffin: the former’s climax is a bit confusing and the latter’s is a bit anticlimactic, but both are such a fun read with such great characterization that I really didn’t care. (It’s probably a good indicator of this that I really want to own them because I want to cuddle them and read them over and over, because both leave me with a huge grin on my face. They’re just fun.)You can’t depend on that, of course, because one or two of these important elements are not meant to carry an entire story. That’s why there are several, after all. And if your story does end up depending primarily on a really cool plot or some amazing worldbuilding or a fantastic character but not more than one of the above, say, you had better hope that one element is really good.

Rhiannon Lassiter’s Hex has a fascinating premise with a lot of potential. And among all those various elements, a strong premise is the least able to support an entire novel.

The hex gene is a mutation that allows those who have it to access computers on an organic sort of level, allowing those who develop their abilities to become superhuman hackers. But they’re viewed as dangerous—and in this far-future and slightly dystopian London, with almost everything controlled by computers, it’s not hard to understand why. So there’s a law in place: anyone discovered to be a Hex will be arrested and destroyed immediately.

That’s good so far as it goes, and Lassiter does some creative things in portraying the rather alien Hex-computer interactions, but she falls short everywhere else. The plot meanders a bit and then goes in odd places in an apparent attempt to be edgy that comes across as the literary equivalent of a goth poser, and none of the main characters are as cool as Lassiter seems to think they are—certainly not cool enough to make up for the unlikable aspects of their personalities. You’ve got Wraith (yes, really), seen through other characters’ eyes as a natural leader who always knows what to do, and who gives absolutely no indication of such traits from his POV. You’ve got his sister, Raven (yes , really), who wears mostly black and is super awesome because she’s a Hex and thinks she can do anything, but instead of being awesome, she mostly seems to lack impulse-control, a moral compass, common sense, any of that fun stuff. Worse, the writing itself was little more than mediocre, making the other flaws even more noticeable.

In fairness, Hex is actually the first of a trilogy, and I haven’t been able to read the other two yet, so the characterization may well improve. Lassiter also published this trilogy when she was 19, which explains—but  shouldn’t—some of Hex’s shortcomings (and also makes me jealous, because I know my writing style was at least better than hers at 19…).

Still, on the plus side? At least she’s not Christopher Paolini .

Despite what I said in my last entry about books for kids versus books for adults, there are significant differences. There shouldn’t be many, but generally speaking, YA books have less “adult content” than do adult books. Language, violence, sex, all that fun stuff. (This could be part of the reason I tend to prefer them. Shut up, I’m not a prude. …Okay, yes I totally am.) They should be just as fast-paced, complex, well-written, intriguing, carefully constructed, whatever, as adult books; good YA novels should be enjoyable for a number of age groups.

But they should also be about young people.

That kind of goes without saying, right? Young people can enjoy books about older people and vice versa, but if you’re writing for the YA market, your protagonists should be roughly as old as your target age group. And although said protagonists don’t have to rebel against their parents or be orphaned or whatever–those elements are cliches for a reason–the young people and their actions should still be the focus of the story. (Sure, this can get unrealistic at times–most readers of Harry Potter have wondered why the kids always had to do it all alone–but that’s a different problem.) What teenager wants to read about kids who step aside to let the adults in their lives take over and solve all the problems?

Apparently, that’s something Louise Cooper still needs to learn, if Hunter’s Moon is anything to go by.

It starts out strongly, with a decently characterized family, a mysterious ruined church, shadowy figures in the night, and a strange connection between the church and children with red hair. Gil, ostensibly the young protagonist, finds her sister suddenly ill and has to stay with some eccentric relatives while her parents rush her sister to a London hospital. Jonas, her cousin, seems to be the only one willing to help figure out what’s going on.

[Spoiler warning] And about halfway through, the adults start taking over. Those eccentric relatives actually know what’s going on and have all along; for some reason they didn’t say so at first, but they know how to break the curse that’s sickening Gil’s little sister and then Gil herself. Time to dispense some exposition to kids who are suddenly downgraded from characters in their own right to…well, recipients of exposition. And then they ride to the rescue.  Which they couldn’t have done before, of course. Something special about this particular time. Or, you know, something. Everybody lives happily ever after, and all the readers who actually liked Gil and their cousin before they lost their characterization wonder just what happened.

Major plot holes aside, you just can’t let the adults in your YA protagonists’ lives come to the rescue (unless that’s critical somehow in and of itself–like, the character’s whole problem is that she doesn’t want to trust people and now has to rely on them, whatever). It’s a YA novel. It has to be about the young people. They have to unravel the mystery and save the day. That’s just how it works–as well it should, because most kids have had enough in their own lives of adults not taking them seriously; vicariously saving the day is about as much as most can do, and they can’t even do that if authors don’t let them.

(As a disclaimer, I haven’t read any of Cooper’s other books, and this was written in 1998, I believe. It’s entirely possible she’s done better than this elsewhere. Whether she has or not, though, my general point still stands.)

Un Lun Dun is only the second book by China Mieville that I’ve read, the other being Perdido Street Station, and the differences between the two are frankly astonishing. Some elements are similar–Mieville thrives on the unexpected and extraordinary, subverting expectations and creating rich, immense worlds full of terrifying dark corners that both readers and characters somehow come to love.

But Un Lun Dun is for children, and Perdido Street Station is for adults. That difference shouldn’t matter as much as it does. Un Lun Dun is thick and enjoyable for just about any age group, with its tale of UnLondon (reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, which Mieville specifically mentions in his acknowledgements) where broken and forgotten things go. It’s fast-paced, intriguing, and seriously clever, but kept from becoming silly by Deeba, its protagonist, who has a healthy sense of skepticism. Perdido Street Station has the feel of a masterpiece, but there, I got the feeling that Mieville was just a bit too pleased with his own wordplay and edginess. Perdido’s New Crobuzon is a bit like Torchwood, really: the good guys might save the day, sort of, but nobody gets a happy ending, and worse, by the time the characters have been thoroughly screwed over, readers have just begun to like them.

If anything, Un Lun Dun could be accused of ending too happily, but is that such a crime? It’s fun and deeply inventive, and it’s not spoiled by unlikable characters or anything that smacks of literary pretension.