Posts Tagged "Guest Review"

Maria V. Snyder is the author of the popular novels, The Study series, The Glass series, and most recently Inside Out, which also happens to be our Book of the Month right now.  We recently asked Maria to review one of her favorite YA novels.  She chose Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready.   Enjoy!

Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready

Award winning fantasy author, Jeri Smith-Ready has dipped her toe into the young adult market with her recently released fantasy book, Shade.

The premise of the book is quite intriguing – On the day of Aura’s birth a Shift happened and all children, including Aura born after this Shift can see and hear ghosts. It’s sixteen years later and the world has adjusted to life with ghosts that only kids can see. Aura would like nothing better to ignore them and hang out with her rocker boyfriend, Logan Keeley. In fact, Aura would like to find out why the Shift happened and how she could undo it.

Jeri has created an unique world with Shade. And she answered all the logical questions a reader would ask about what’s it like to live with ghosts (thank you Jeri!). For privacy, she invented black boxes that keep ghosts from entering certain rooms like the bathroom and schools. People wear red to repel them, and there’s a shady government agency (of course) dedicated to studying and policing them.

Just like in her urban vampire books, Wicket Game and Bad to the Bone, Jeri’s love of music is once again a main theme throughout this book. Aura’s hot boyfriend is the singer in an Irish-flavored rock band in Baltimore named the Keeley Brothers. In the beginning chapters of the book, we learn it’s the night of Logan’s 17th birthday and record company reps are listening to their gig. After the gig, he’s offered a recording contract. Basically, it’s the best night of his life, but unfortunately it’s his last.

Now don’t yell at me for spoiling this little surprise. Just read the back cover blurb or the write up on Amazon.com and you’ll know all about it, too. And the kicker about those back cover blurbs is – the author doesn’t write them. It’s usually the editor or marketing, hoping to hook a reader’s interest. After I read the blurb, I assumed that Logan’s death happened before the start of the story (don’t know why – I just did). That when I opened to chapter one, it would be a few months later or even a day later, but no, there’s Logan happy and full of life. He’s a great character and so are Aura and the band members (Jeri excelled with creating very likable characters).

Unfortunately for me, knowing he’s going to die makes it really hard for me to read the first three chapters (the reason – I’m a mother of a 15 year old boy so I don’t think this would bother the target audience as much). I kept putting the book down, but I wanted to review the book and I loved Jeri’s other books, so I kept with it. But as soon as I made it past the tragedy, I flew through the rest of the book in a day.

This is a great book you need to read. Logan returns as a ghost (so he’s not gone gone) and another potential and very much alive suitor, Zachary Moore arrives with his secrets and sexy Scottish brogue. The characters and world are rich and well developed and the ending hinted at more books to come. Which I just found out, the second book, Shift is due out on May 2011.

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Read also Maria’s review of Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer here.

Visit Maria’s website for more info about her and her books.

In keeping with our Book of the Month promotion here for January, featured authors of the new supernatural hit, Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl, chose a Young Adult book and penned a joint guest review for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Rampant by Diana Peterfreund

Description from Goodreads:

Forget everything you ever knew about unicorns . . .

Real unicorns are venomous, man-eating monsters with huge fangs and razor-sharp horns. Fortunately, they’ve been extinct for a hundred and fifty years.

Or not.

Astrid had always scoffed at her eccentric mother’s stories about killer unicorns. But when one of the monsters attacks her boyfriend—thereby ruining any chance of him taking her to the prom—Astrid finds herself headed to Rome to train as a unicorn hunter at the ancient cloisters the hunters have used for centuries.
However, at the cloisters all is not what it seems. Outside, the unicorns wait to attack. And within, Astrid faces other, unexpected threats: from the crumbling, bone-covered walls that vibrate with a terrible power to the hidden agendas of her fellow hunters to—perhaps most dangerously of all—her growing attraction to a handsome art student . . . an attraction that could jeopardize everything.

From Margie:

There is a special shelf in our office – and by that I mean our hearts – for books that Kami and I feel the same way about. We don’t always agree. I tilt towards high fantasy and Kami to the urban supernatural. Because I read as fast as I drink Diet Cokes, I approach bookstores as an all you can eat buffet. Because Kami not only writes books but raises two small children and teaches reading, she’s pickier, more of an a la carte reader.

But, when the stars align, we’ll agree on a book that we trade back and forth, recommend and fight over, and alternately claim to have discovered for ourselves. This year, we felt that way about Rampant, so when YA Reads asked us to do a joint review, it leapt off our Special Collections shelf.

There will be the reader, like myself, who hears the words “Killer Unicorns” and says, “I’m in.” It sounds like a parody, but Peterfreund’s take on the mythical beast is straight and deadly serious. The result is an entirely girl-powered mythology of her own, that builds more into what I would consider an Epic than a Series.

Peterfreund’s Astrid, the virginal killer unicorn slayer, is heir to the empty throne in her unicorn-slaying convent qua dorm – with the most kickass bloodline and the most powerful warrior-jitzu that Rome has seen in years. But she’s heir to more than that. On the YA supernatural shelf, Astrid is the heir to the empty throne that Buffy Summers has left waiting after seven long seasons of absolute dominion. Though many will claim the crown, there is only one Slayer in any generation (If you don’t count The Dushku, because really, who does?) and I’m not sure if it’s Astrid or Diana, but between them, the throne is empty no longer.

I recommend this book (as I do) for every teen – or grown-up teen – girl you know, because as it turns out, we’re all a little Slayer on the inside.

From Kami:

When Margie handed me Rampant and said, “You HAVE to read this book,” I started that night. I can’t speed read like M, but I finished it fast because I literally couldn’t put it down. Rampant was the perfect storm for me – urban fantasy with a totally original premise, a completely developed universe, and, most importantly, a strong female protagonist that embraces her power. The fact is, I’m a writer, but I’m also a teacher, and I believe the books children and teens read shape their identities and influence them profoundly.  I won’t hand one of my teen students a book in which a girl defines herself in terms of a boy. Or worse, is willing to give up who she is for a boy.

I’m tired of reading about girls spending all their time pining for a boy. I want to see her face unicorns the size of elephants and slay them. I want to see her walk away from a guy who hasn’t earned the right to be with her. I want to read about a girl with supernatural powers, who isn’t afraid to use them. Because as a teacher, I watch girls hide their intelligence and skill, their capabilities and talents, all the time. Just so they can be more appealing to a boy.

How do we change this? If you’re Diana Peterfreund, you write a book with a strong female heroine, and you let her slay some pretty badass unicorns. Will this solve the problem, and make every girl feel empowered to be herself and slay her own beasts? No. But it will make SOME girls brave enough to try.

And if a book can do that, it should have a place on every girl’s Special Collections self. Or in her purse, with her wooden stake.

You can keep up with Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl at www.BeautifulCreaturestheBook.com.

Join the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES US fansite at www.CasterGirls.com.

Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver is our Book of the Month here at yaReads. When Maggie took time our from her ridiculously busy schedule to write us a guest review, she confirmed our suspicions that she’s a real life Wonder Woman. She chose a book called Magic Under Glass by debut author Jaclyn Dolamore. Enjoy!

The audience didn’t understand a word we sang. They came to see our legs. As the posters said TROUSER GIRLS FROM THE LAND OF TASSIM! We were billed just underneath the acrobats and the trained dogs.

So begins Magic Under Glass, a debut novel by Jaclyn Dolamore (Bloomsbury, Dec ’09). It follows Nimira, a music hall girl, a dark-skinned oddity in light-skinned Lorinar, as she leaves the security of the music hall for employment with the mysterious and dashing Hollins Parry. Mr. Parry wishes to retain her services to sing with a handsome automaton — a man-shaped clockwork machine that plays the piano when wound (sexy, right?). Apparently Mr. Parry has had some problems with retaining girls in the past as they insist the automaton is haunted. They claim it mumbles to them, which is admittedly terrifying, and then they run away.

Nimira, however, is no wimp. So when the clockwork man does his mumbling thing for her, she doesn’t go running to Mr. Parry. Instead, in a completely refreshing sequence where she doesn’t spend pages agonizing over what she really saw (a pet peeve of mine in fantasy), she gets over her shock and disbelief and settles down to business: finding out what . . . or who . . . the automaton is. And what he is a angst-puppy trapped in cogs and springs. In other words, my brand of fun.

The result is a whimsical, smart novel that is sort of like a cross between Howl’s Moving Castle and Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell. The details are lovely, the voice consistent, the characters complex. And Nimira is refreshingly clever throughout. The ending is a bit muddled and weirdly paced, but it wasn’t enough to put me off my game. My biggest complaint was how short the book was — I could’ve been happily entertained for twice as long.

My verdict? I really enjoyed this novel now, but I have to tell you that, as a teen, I would’ve married this thing and had little clockwork babies. Highly recommended.