STACKED

books

Rule by Ellen Goodlett

|

Goodlett brings teens a fast-paced high fantasy thriller about three girls from very different backgrounds within the fictional country of Kolonya: a Traveler (similar in description to the Romany people), a palace maid with higher aspirations, and a girl from a far-flung and almost forgotten section of the kingdom who is desperate to escape her abusive father. All three are brought to the King’s court in to learn that they are his illegitimate daughters and, now that the king’s only heir has died, must compete to earn the right to inherit the throne.

It’s a tremendous shock for all three, of course. At least one of the girls thought she knew her biological father already. But this is no ordinary story of competition a la The Hunger Games. Each girl has a deep, dark secret, and each begins receiving threatening messages – some in blood – soon after they arrive at the palace. The secrets are dark indeed, involving a copious amount of betrayal, death, and blood magic. The blood magic is an interesting world-building choice: all magic is done by cutting oneself to “tithe” blood, and some of it is done frequently and is a part of everyday life in Kolonya. But some blood magic is forbidden because of its effects, and it’s this blood magic that is most relevant and interesting. Initially a bit confusing, particularly the good magic vs. the bad magic, the magic system grows clearer as the novel progresses.

Rather than fall into the easy trope of having the girls willingly pit themselves against each other, Goodlett refreshingly has her characters do the opposite: join forces and work together to ferret out the blackmailer. Told in alternating close third person points of view, each girl’s voice is distinct and their predicaments sympathetic. Their interactions with each other – one girl’s assumptions of another, for example – illuminate how each is perceived by the public at large, often in a very different light from how we as readers first see them during their own close POVs. It’s a handy writing technique that reinforces the notion that people are, of course, more than what appears on the surface. Once the girls realize this about each other, they become a force to be reckoned with.

I listened to the audiobook version, and it’s a pretty good production with three narrators: Bahni Turpin, Lisa Flanagan, and Soneela Nankani. Turpin’s voice is always a standout, but I did have trouble distinguishing Flanagan’s and Nankani’s from each other. However, Goodlett’s mastery of her characters’ voices is good enough that I could pick up on the POV quickly anyway.

While many readers (including myself) may be frustrated by the ending, which resolves close to nothing, the story is gripping throughout. A planned duology, wise readers may want to wait to pick up this volume until the concluding volume is released in June (less than a year after the first book’s publication, much to my delight). This is a good pick for fans of Kendare Blake’s Three Dark Crowns, which never stays on the shelf for long at my library.

Scarlett Hart: Monster Hunter by Marcus Sedgwick and Thomas Taylor

|

Apparently I have a thing for graphic novels featuring plucky heroines who fight monsters and other scary creatures. Curiously, all five of these, including Scarlett Hart, are written and illustrated by men. Is it the archetype of the “strong female character” – meaning physical strength and a lot of fighting rather than force of personality or conviction – that so appeals to male creators? It also appeals to me, and certainly did so when I was a kid too. And I’m sure there are graphic novels featuring this kind of girl created by women too, I just haven’t read enough of them. (This is a longer discussion for a different post.)

Scarlett Hart is tons of fun. It’s set in an alternative Victorian England that’s been overrun by actual monsters: mummies, ghosts, killer dogs, and more. Scarlett’s parents, wealthy aristocrats, were the best of the monster hunters, but they were killed during a fight while Scarlett was a little kid, leaving her an orphan. Scarlett is a bit older now, but not old enough to legally fight monsters. That doesn’t stop her, of course – she just has her faithful butler/sidekick, Napoleon White, take the credit. Scarlett and Napoleon have a nemesis in Count Stankovic, who steals their monsters and constantly tries to turn Scarlett in for underage monster hunting. When they discover the Count is involved in a conspiracy to – well, if I told you, that would be spoiling things – they know they must stop him.

The book doesn’t break new ground in terms of the adventure comic, but it retreads existing tropes well. It’s funny throughout: Scarlett has a lot of inventive and innocuous “curse” words that will make young readers giggle, and sometimes Scarlett and Napoleon are just comically bad at monster hunting, which they acknowledge by repeating the phrase “we stink” at well-timed parts of the story. Scarlett uses Napoleon’s beloved car, which he’s named Dorothy, to travel around to find monsters, and Napoleon’s fear that Dorothy will be irreversibly harmed in the course of the hunt is a recurring theme (you can imagine how well a car survives a fight against a twenty foot tall monster). The monsters themselves are creatively depicted, and Scarlett has a number of contraptions to fight them that echo those of Bruce Wayne or James Bond.

Thomas Taylor created the cover art for the original UK edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s  Stone, and his art is well-suited to the graphic novel format here (it differs slightly in style from the image in the link). Scarlett is characterized by large, expressive eyes and a red braid that always flips out to the side. The determination on her face contrasts humorously with Napoleon’s facial expressions, which usually communicate “This is a very bad idea but I suppose we’re doing it anyway.” Taylor’s monsters are delightfully detailed, toeing the line between silly and scary. Colors are bold with an emphasis on reds, lending a gothic/steampunk atmosphere to the story.

This is the first Marcus Sedgwick book I’ve actually finished. After trying a few, I’ve learned his prose novels just aren’t my speed. But I appreciated his weirdness here, and he certainly knows how to tell a fun, fast-paced story. He wraps up the main storyline in this volume while leaving plenty of stories to tell in subsequent ones, which I hope we’ll get. This is a good pick for older middle grade readers who like their comics a little spooky but don’t want to be truly terrified.

Monsters Beware! by Jorge Aguirre and Rafael Rosado

|

I really loved the first previous two books in this fun and funny graphic novel series. In this installment, our hero Claudette has tricked her way into being chosen as her town’s champion in the annual Warrior Games, along with her younger brother Gaston and her friend Marie. Unfortunately for them, the Sea Kingdom has plans beyond simply winning the competition – they want to revive the evil wizard, frozen in amber in a previous volume, and rule the whole land. The Sea Queen’s children are the titular monsters, who transform from innocent-looking kids into creatures that devour the other competitors while no one is looking.

Unlike the two previous volumes, Claudette doesn’t really seem to be the hero of this book. Much of the story focuses instead on Gaston and Marie, who know what’s going on well before Claudette does. She’s off the page being oblivious and refusing to pay any attention to the warnings her friends are giving her. This is Claudette being Claudette; it gets a bit tedious for adult readers but probably won’t bother child readers. Of course, she comes through in the end, but by that point, I felt like she wasn’t really that necessary to the story. It’s nice in that it gives Marie and Gaston their moments to shine, but it also feels strange in a series called “Chronicles of Claudette.”

While there is an undercurrent of seriousness to the story, it’s mostly funny. The monsters look like oversized sea crabs and crack jokes after every meal. Gaston loves to cook and takes it very seriously, opening the door for a lot of puns about food. The Warrior Games themselves are the biggest joke: since Marie is competing, her father decides that the games must be safe, and combat competitions are swapped for activities like churning butter and setting tables. And despite the fact that the monsters gobble up almost everyone in town aside from our intrepid three, the happy ending is never really in doubt. Rosado and Aguirre actually give us even more happiness than we might have expected, with a plot twist that is surprising but also makes sense in context.

The art is fantastic as always, perfectly matched to the text to tell the story. The whole book is colorful and fun and a lot of the humor comes through in the characters’ expressions and movements. There’s an interesting bonus section at the end that describes how Aguirre and Rosado added a piece of the plot to the story after it was already drafted, which will be a great read for kids who want to make their own graphic novel. While I don’t think this volume is as strong as the first two, it’s a great addition, and the whole series is a winner. They consistently tell fun, action-packed stories with characters who buck gender norms, and they feature caring friendships and families, including a disabled father. This is one of my favorite graphic novel series to recommend to middle graders who love adventure.

Finished copy provided by the publisher.

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

|

Stevie Bell has been accepted into Ellingham Academy, a prestigious boarding school with no formal application – teenagers who want to attend simply write to the school, stating why they think they should be granted admission. Stevie is a true crime aficianado, and the powers-that-be at Ellingham think she belongs there. Stevie is eager to get away from her parents, who want her to focus more on dating and less on murder, but what she really wants is to solve the Ellingham cold case.

Wealthy tycoon and lover of games and riddles Albert Ellingham founded the school in the 1930s as a place where, according to him, “learning is a game.” But soon after it opened, his best intentions backfired in the most horrifying way: his wife and young daughter were kidnapped by someone who left a riddle as a calling card, signing it “Truly Devious.” They were never found and the crime was never solved, though someone was convicted of it (that someone died soon after). Stevie knows this is one of the greatest challenges she could undertake, and she makes it the focus of her senior project.

But things are about to get very real and a lot less cold at Ellingham. One of the students dies under mysterious circumstances, and the incident has overtones of Truly Devious. Stevie doesn’t know who to trust as she faces solving a cold case along with a very hot one. Is it an accident, as the school administrators claim? Or is one of her classmates guilty of a horrible crime? And is it connected to the original Ellingham kidnappings – has Truly Devious returned?

This is such a cool setup. I love mysteries set in two different time periods, where two different crimes could be connected – or maybe not. It adds layers to the mystery and makes it that much more intriguing. Of course, when you have two mysteries within a single book, there’s a lot riding on how they both turn out. Ideally, both solutions are equally ingenious. Ideally, the reader gets two solutions. Less ideally but still acceptable, the reader gets at least one really good solution and then learns that life sometimes doesn’t give you all the answers and is satisfied with forever not knowing the other solution.

Unfortunately for readers of Truly Devious, there are no solutions given here. Neither mystery is solved. Sure, we get one big revelation concerning each near the end, but an actual whodunnit? Nope. The book ends with To Be Continued (and probably a lot of groans of frustration).

By reading through the Goodreads reviews, I can tell you that this doesn’t bother everyone. Readers seem to be split half and half. And despite this glaring flaw of no resolution to a mystery (which is a requirement for the genre, much like a happily ever after in romance), this is a mostly well-written book with an intriguing plot and interesting characters. There’s going to be a sequel, of course, so readers who need solutions to the mysteries they read can wait for that and then read both books together as if they were one very long book (assuming, that is, we get answers in Book 2).

The book is a bit slow to get going; the modern-day death doesn’t happen until about halfway through. Not all of the cast of characters felt distinct, even by the end. The exceptions are the the amateur sleuth (Stevie), the love interest, the prime suspect, and the murdered teen, whose personalities come through clearly on the page. There’s also a bit of politics thrown in in the form of a fictional congressman who shares commonalities with many powerful Republicans today, which I think teens will appreciate – it brings a currency to the story that counterbalances the historical crime. I’m hoping that this facet of the story is explored more fully in the next book, including how and if it connects to either murder.

Ultimately, though, I was Truly Disappointed by this book. Maureen Johnson, I wanted to like it – but why’d you have to leave me in the lurch like this?

Copy provided by the publisher.

 

A Few Cybils Reads – Part IV

|

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

This might be the first ever media tie-in novel I’ve ever read, and it’s a really good one. It features teenage Diana and her first adventure off of Themyscira and in the human world. It’s set in the present day, so I’m not sure how it actually aligns with the movie (it doesn’t seem like it does at all?) and whether this is actually canonical or if it’s just licensed fan fiction. Regardless, it’s a great story.

When a human girl named Alia washes up on the shores of Themyscira, Diana risks everything – including her right to live with her Amazon sisters on the island – to save her life. Alia is being hunted by powerful people who believe she is the Warbringer, a descendant of Helen of Troy who simply by existing has the ability to bring about a cataclysmic war. Diana and Alia team up with a few other human teenagers to elude Alia’s hunters, hoping to get Alia to a particular place in Greece that will nullify her warbringer ability.

The book is action-packed, funny (Diana learning about odd human customs never gets old), and quite deep. Alia is biracial, Greek on her dad’s side and Black American on her mom’s side, and this provides a real-life example of the metaphor that Diana represents: a fish out of water feeling in your own family and your own culture, of straddling two places and not really belonging in either. Romances are hesitantly formed, friendships are tested, and there’s a shocker of a twist near the end – but one that sharp-eyed readers who trust themselves will have seen coming. Bardugo is a fine writer and she was a perfect choice to tell this story.

 

The Ravenous by Amy Lukavics

This is Lukavics’ third novel, and it’s taught me that she can be relied upon to provide all the chills a good horror novel usually brings. The Cane family looks loving and tight-knit to the outside world, but in reality, their relationships are highly dysfunctional. The father is always away for work (he’s in the military), leaving the mother to take care of the five Cane sisters on her own. She’s depressive and spends days – or even weeks – at a time in bed, leaving the eldest daughter, Juliet, to take care of the other four. Resentment abounds. Things come to a head in an argument where the youngest daughter, Rose – beloved by all her sisters – falls down the stairs in a horrible accident and dies. Only in Lukavics’ world, death is not permanent, and when the girls’ mother finds a way to resurrect Rose, she comes back…different, with a hunger that can only be satisfied by human flesh.

There aren’t a lot of surprises in this novel, since what I wrote about above is all revealed on the jacket flap. This is essentially a zombie novel, but Lukavics makes it her own with the pitch-perfect depiction of the twisted relationship between the sisters (which only grows more twisted as the girls try to find a way to keep Rose alive the second time) and the no-holds-barred descriptions of murder and cannibalism. Lukavics does not shy away from the gruesome, and the penultimate chapter will shock even those readers who saw the events coming. The writing felt a bit weaker to me than in her previous two books; there were times when an awkward sentence drew me out of the story. But overall this is really solid horror for readers who like their scares explicit and messy.