STACKED

books

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

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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

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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.

 

A Few Cybils Reads – Part III

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Dare Mighty Things by Heather Kaczynski

Seventeen year old Cassie has been chosen to compete for a spot in an elite NASA program, one shrouded in mystery. All she knows is that there is room for a special mission to space – possibly further than humanity has ever gone before – for a young crew member, someone under 25 who will bring something special to the program. She and the other competitors must go through a rigorous set of trials which will test them physically, intellectually, and psychologically. Two people will be selected: the winner and an alternate. Cassie is determined to win, but of course, not all is what it seems.

This book ticks so many of my boxes: non-astronauts being sent into space, imaginative futuristic tech, the possibility of alien contact, and a plot full of twists and secrets. The cast is tremendously diverse, as it should be. If the program is truly gathering the best and brightest young people from all over the world, most of them are not going to be white. Protagonist Cassandra Gupta is an American of Indian descent on her father’s side of the family (her mother is white). She’s asexual, and there’s a really lovely conversation she has with a friend she makes during the competition, who is bisexual, about how both asexuality and bisexuality are totally normal and fine. Cassie is a great main character in general: she’s incredibly driven, and while she does develop deep friendships during the program (something she’s always struggled with), she never loses that drive that defines her; she just learns to balance it better. The competition, which takes up the majority of the book, is exciting and unique, and there’s a mega twist at the end that will make teens want the sequel right this second. Highly recommended.

All Rights Reserved by Gregory Scott Katsoulis

Speth Jime lives in a future America where everything is copyrighted, even words. This means that whenever a person speaks (or writes), the speaker must pay the copyright holder for each word, automatically deducted using a futuristic type of bracelet each person wears. Names are copyrighted, as are most gestures. The values of each fluctuate according to the market, much like the value of goods and services do today. There are a few things still in the public domain, but not enough to be able to communicate in any meaningful way without spending a fortune. Kids can speak freely until age 15, when they give their first speech and begin paying for their words. When Speth turns 15, something horrifying happens, and she decides to never speak again. This sets in motion a chain of events far beyond Speth could have anticipated.

While Katsoulis never quite succeeded in getting me to fully suspend my disbelief regarding his concept, which is taken to the most extreme of extremes, he does raise thought-provoking questions about intellectual property, freedom of expression, and how to balance the two. In Speth’s world, the Bill of Rights no longer exists, and the concept of freedom of speech is obsolete. The gulf between the poor, like Speth’s family (who have their debt for unpaid copyright infringement handed down from generation to generation), and the rich (who own the words and gestures and collect vast sums of money) is enormous. Teens who are still into dystopias will find a fresh and mostly relevant concept here, though the pace in the last third drags.

A Few Cybils Reads – Part II

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Mask of Shadows by Linsey Miller

This was really fun! Sal is a thief who decides to try out for a position as part of the queen’s “left hand,” a group of soldier-assassins who protect the queen and carry out her wishes (mainly orders to kill enemies of the state). Each person is named for a ring the queen wears, and the past Opal has just died, which means there’s an opening. Tryouts are brutal: candidates are given free reign to kill each other, provided they don’t get caught, and they’re put to additional tests as well, like avoiding poisons in their meals. Sal tries out for Opal in order to escape a (likely brief) life as a thief, but also to enable them to take revenge upon the people who destroyed their home and family a few years ago.

Sal is gender-fluid, and to them (Sal’s preferred pronoun according to the author), this means some days they feel more female, and some days they feel more male. Sal directs the other characters to address them as “he” when wearing typically male clothing and “she” when wearing typically female clothing (gender roles are a thing in Sal’s world). Sal’s gender fluidity is an important part of the story, but it doesn’t dominate it, and Sal experiences acceptance as well as pushback (but no outright violence) by various characters when it comes to their gender identity. The story itself is exciting, fast-paced, and bloody. There are a few really fun ancillary characters, like Sal’s assigned maidservant, and a sweet romance between Sal and a noble girl. Sal’s world has an interesting (albeit not the most original) history, which I hope is expanded upon in the sequel (this is the first book in a duology). Recommended for fans of action-heavy fantasy and those seeking a window or a mirror to a person we don’t see represented much in fiction.

The Beast is an Animal by Peternelle Van Arsdale

I’ve been wanting to read a good horror novel lately (YA horror provides just about the right amount of scares for me), and this one – about two soul eaters and the teenage girl who must fight them off, even as she feels pulled to become one of them – seemed like a good prospect. When the soul eaters kill all the adults in Alys’ town, she’s taken to the town of Dafeid, where the Beast (which the townspeople believe is connected to the soul eaters) is an ominous, unseen presence. The people of Dafeid have reacted to the news of the soul eaters in the town over by embracing a strict religion, where people are frequently killed as witches and neighbor spies on neighbor. The setting is fictional, but it resembles a vaguely historical Wales, which is not something we see in YA very often.

The writing is often lovely, but I found the plot dragged a bit. Much of Alys’ struggles are internal, and while that works for some stories, it was just never as compelling as it could have been here. The ending was a foregone conclusion, which means I never felt the urge to continue reading – that need to turn the next page to see what would happen next. Still, the atmospheric writing will appeal to some teens, and the idea of the soul eaters is intriguing. Their introduction in the beginning of the book is especially creepy. (Also that cover is beautiful.)

Renegades by Marissa Meyer

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Hello, fair Stacked readers! I bring you this special Thursday post as part of the Choose a Side: Renegades Blog Tour for Marissa Meyer’s new book Renegades, which publishes November 7. I don’t do a whole lot of blog tours (I mostly find them boring), but I make an exception for an author whose books I really love, and Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles fall into that category. (You can read my very enthusiastic review of Cinder from 2012 over here. Possibly the cheesiest line from this review is the one that gets quoted on the paperback copies.)

In Renegades, the first of two books (at least so far), Meyer leaves fairy tales behind and shifts gears to superheroes. These aren’t terribly different topics, really – my favorite fairy tale characters are mostly superheroes in some way anyway. In Gatlon City, a special group of prodigies (humans with superpowers) called Renegades protect everyone – or they’re supposed to. When Nova, a prodigy herself, was a small child, the Renegades didn’t show up when it mattered most, and people she loved died. Now that Nova is almost an adult, she’s determined to infiltrate the Renegades and take revenge. Nova is one of the Anarchists, the supervillains of Gatlon City and the foil to the Renegades. The story alternates in third person between Nova and Adrian, a true Renegade who has secrets of his own.

I love a good revenge story, and Meyer does a great job here, even though I wasn’t entirely sold on Nova’s motivation at the beginning. Her own superpower – the ability to induce sleep – is an interesting one, and the way the Anarchists have helped her hone it and actually put it to practical use is clever. Meyer is very good at multiple points of view (she introduced a new character in each of her four Lunar Chronicles books and managed to keep each POV different and interesting), and Nova and Adrian are no exception. They both have rich backstories, well-developed voices, and distinct personalities.

The story itself is interesting, as is the world in which Meyer has placed her characters. While the easy thing is to label the Renegades the good guys and the Anarchists the bad guys, that’s not the story Meyer is trying to tell. Instead, she explores the gray areas between the good and the bad – and the ways in which the good and bad coexist within a single group and a single person. The plot is suspenseful throughout and there’s a whopper of a twist ending (I’m such a sucker for those).

Part of the conceit for this blog tour was that we were supposed to choose a side: Renegade or Anarchist? Without having read the novel, I picked the Renegades, which is actually off-brand for me (I’ve been embracing my Slytherin side lately). But I figured the Renegades were probably the winners, and I like winning too. (Hello yes, I am a Slytherin.) After reading the book…well, I’ll let you read and decide which side you would choose.

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles will definitely eat this up, as will those who can’t get enough of the superhero tie-in novels being published lately. There’s a lot of tropey superhero goodness that Meyer pulls from, but she also throws in her own touches, and it feels fully like a Marissa Meyer book. It’s really solid and a ton of fun.

Review copy provided by the publisher.