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The Shadow Throne by Jennifer A. Nielsen

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The Shadow Throne, the third and final book in the False Prince trilogy, starts off with a bang: Carthya is officially at war. Its neighbors – led by King Vargan of Avenia – are sending armies to attack, and it looks like its allies are few and far between. Jaron must become a war strategist, using a combination of trickery, fast talking, and military prowess to fight back.

And then the situation gets even worse: Imogen is kidnapped. By Vargan and the Avenians. Jaron knows they plan to leverage her against him in some way, but he can’t bear to leave her to the Avenians and whatever tortures they devise. He mounts a rescue. He falls into a trap. All within the first few pages. This is an exciting, action-packed book, and much like in the first two installments, Jaron isn’t completely forthright with the reader about his plans – which just makes everything all the more fun when those plans are fully revealed.

While I enjoyed this volume, it has some of the same problems present in the second book. Specifically, there’s a couple of loyalty shifts near the end, spurred by Jaron’s behavior, that feel too quick and too easy. It makes character development seem sloppy. This happened in book two with Roden, and it happens in a similar way, at a most convenient moment, in this third book with two other characters. It feels a bit lazy, and more than a little unbelievable. It makes not only that particular event seem off, but – since it takes place near the end of the book – the conclusion to the entire series seem a bit off, too.

It’s not a huge problem, though for me personally, it did mar an otherwise very good book. While this seems to be a weakness of Nielsen’s, her strengths are all here too: fast-paced and exciting plotting, humor, suspense, trickery. Jaron is so well-drawn, it’s a pity that not all ancillary characters are as well.

Jaron’s growth is very evident here. At times, it seems like he is too wise to be believed, but then Nielsen will have him do or say something that makes it patently clear he is still a teenager – a child. The amount of responsibility he shoulders is immense. As an adult reading it, it was at times difficult to believe that a child would be permitted such responsibility – but this is middle grade, and this is typical for middle grade high fantasy. Such books’ heroes and heroines are not sheltered children; they risk, they go on adventures without adult chaperones, and they frequently learn to lead and inspire the respect of people much older than them. It can be very empowering for its readers.

This is a worthy conclusion, though it’s not as strong as the first book, which had a hook and a twist that simply can’t be beat. It may be unfair to compare its sequels to it.

Review copy provided by the publisher. The Shadow Throne will be published February 25.

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

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From the time Nyx was a small child, not even ten years old, she knew she would marry the Gentle Lord, the terrible master of demons who has ruled Arcadia for the past 900 years. Before Nyx’s birth, her father made a bargain with the Gentle Lord. He and his wife, Nyx’s mother, hoped so desperately for children. The Gentle Lord told him they could have them – two children, though girls. In return, the Lord required one of the girls to become his bride at seventeen.

But the Gentle Lord always deceives, even while speaking words that have the ring of truth. Nyx’s mother died in childbirth, and in his grief, Nyx’s father decided that Nyx – the girl who looked most like him – would be sacrificed to the Gentle Lord upon her seventeenth birthday, marrying him in hopes of killing him and avenging the mother she never knew. It is also hoped that by killing him, Arcadia will return to its former splendor, that the sun and stars will return, that the demons who came with the Gentle Lord will be forever banished.

So Nyx has been trained her whole life on how to kill the Gentle Lord. Her twin sister, born mere seconds after her, has been coddled and lied to, told that Nyx’s mission is achievable, even easy. Nyx knows better. She knows that she’s being sent as a sacrifice and that her mission is a fantasy. Her resentment is powerful. She hates her father for his choice, she hates her mother for dying, and she hates her sister for her smiles and her optimism and the fact that she will live a long, long life.

Nyx’s story begins the day before her wedding, and the anticipation leading up to her first meeting with the Gentle Lord is almost excruciating. As readers, we know that this is a re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, but we don’t know how Hodge is shaking things up. She masterfully builds the tension and doesn’t let it snap until the very end.

I’m kind of amazed this is a debut. The writing is so polished, almost always lovely. I was engaged the entire time and read it in a single sitting. (This is something I very rarely do.) The pacing is excellent, which really sets this a notch above many other debuts; uneven pacing is often a hallmark of a first novel.

What I may have liked most about Cruel Beauty is how Hodge turns the idea of a pure, innocent, and good-hearted fairy tale heroine completely on its head. I don’t mean that Hodge’s heroine is a girl who “doesn’t allow herself to be victimized,” which is actually a rather common trope and a problematic one at that. Instead, Hodge has created in Nyx a character – a protagonist, importantly – who is cruel. Not all the time, of course. Not even most of the time, but sometimes. And it’s not passing cruelty. She hates her sister – not the kind of hate that washes over you and passes quickly, but the kind of hate that lingers, that takes root in your heart and lives there for years. It’s not the only emotion Nyx feels for her sister. Like in most of us, intense hatred commingles with intense love. It’s human. Nyx is painfully human.

It’s important to see characters like this in our novels, but it’s especially well-done here because Nyx’s cruelty – her impure heart, as it’s often described in a fairy tale – is what makes her a match for the Gentle Lord, who is more overtly cruel. Their shared cruelty is even more important, plot-wise, near the end of the story. This is how Hodge simultaneously honors fairy tales and subverts them, and it’s incredibly effective.

Stories inspired by Beauty and the Beast are always in danger of dipping into abusive relationship territory. A lot of re-tellings ask the reader to excuse abusive behavior – both physical and psychological – on the part of the hero by giving him a tragic backstory. They disguise the abuse as exaggerated misunderstandings. That’s not how it’s done here. To reveal too much would ruin some of the discovery of the novel, but I can say that one of the main reasons this book is different is there is no threat of sexual violence from the Gentle Lord. The other characters expect it, certainly, but that implication comes from them.

What else do I love about this book? I love how it incorporates Greek mythology in a way that makes it fresh again. I love that it sneaks in bits of other fairy tales, like Easter eggs for the reader to discover. I love how creative the plot is, how it uses something almost all of us recognize and gives us something completely new at the same time. I love how all the myths and stories and little details come together at the end, making this such a smart book. I love the ever-changing castle of the Gentle Lord, and how clearly Hodge is able to describe it to her readers, inspiring interest and awe. I love that its conflict, while magical, is rooted in complex humans. I love its magic, too, which has rules and is used as something more than a convenient plot device or deus ex machina. I love that it’s full of how the things we say can be misunderstood, how our words can have double meanings, purposeful or not. I loved nearly all of it.

I did have quibbles with the very end. There’s a huge plot twist, which does make sense and is true to the rest of the book, but its effects seem rushed. I feel like Hodge was trying to cram a whole new book into the last 40 pages. There was enough story there to cover an entirely new book, though I don’t think that would have been a wise decision either. This weakness is not enough to erase everything that came before, though, and Hodge still brings her story to a thoroughly satisfying conclusion – tender and true to her cruel/kind characters.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Cruel Beauty is available now.

Bright Before Sunrise by Tiffany Schmidt

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Brighton is the girl everybody likes, which is good because she strives to be liked. To be nice. Except today she’s not feeling quite like the “nice” girl she’s always been — her heart aches the day before the anniversary of her father’s death and the memorial that her family will be having.

Jonah is the new boy in school this year, but he’s not bothered trying to fit in. It’s senior year, and he’s feeling completely out of place in Cross Pointe. He’s not rich like these kids, and he’s just not one of them. He doesn’t have the spirit, and since he gave up baseball, he’s just focused on getting out as fast as possible. Of course, there’s much more to him than that —  his mom has recently remarried, his father moved away, and he’s adjusting to living apart from his girlfriend and long-time friend Carly. And tonight, well, he and Carly might not have a relationship anymore.

Brighton wants nothing more than for Jonah to like her. Jonah wants nothing to do with this and nothing to do with Brighton, and Brighton cannot figure out what it is she’s done to upset him. And even though Brighton sounds like she’s in this for the reason of wanting to be liked, it’s more than that: she wants something from Jonah and she’s going to go after it however she can. 

No, it’s not a relationship. He’s standing between her and achieving the goal of having everyone at school complete in a service activity for the year. If she does that, she’ll achieve what her father did before her. And she’ll feel like she’s really done something . . . nice. 

Over the course of one day, Brighton and Jonah’s worlds will continue to collide in Tiffany Schmidt’s Bright Before Sunrise. First on purpose, then by accident, then on purpose. Each of these instances happens authentically and naturally. And over the course of that night, Brighton and Jonah will discover why they are who they are to one another, as well as why this may or may not matter. 

Schmidt’s sophomore novel is a knock-out. This is a story about what it means to play into the roles that you believe you should fit into, whether you need to or not. Brighton falls into the trap of believing she always needs to be nice and always needs to be liked. Jonah believes he has to shut out all of the things from his present life and live in the past of who he once was, even though he’s also shut out so many of the things in his past that made him who he is. Together, the two of them will challenge each other to dig into those roles they’re playing and figure out why it is they’re playing them. Why can’t they just be who they are, rather than be somebody they think they need to be? 

This isn’t a romance. At least not an initially. There’s nothing instant about their connection, and frankly, there’s not necessarily a connection that happens between Brighton and Jonah. In the very end, though, Brighton lets down her guard after telling Jonah she’s never taken a chance on something — and she chooses to take that chance on him. Will they end up being together for the long term? Or will this be a short term experience for the two of them? There’s nothing clear cut about the end except that it’s precisely what Brighton does because of how Jonah convinces her it’s something she should consider doing once in a while: taking a chance. 

Bright Before Sunrise is a story about examining those roles you choose to play and the reasons you may be playing them. Is it the world around you? Is it your past? Can you shake them off, cast them a middle finger, and then be your true, authentic self? Can all of this happen in one night? What if the right person is begging you to strip down to your barest self? This is much more of a character-driven story than it is an action- or plot- driven one, and both Brighton and Jonah are at times tough to like. But that’s what makes them compelling and what pushes the story forward: despite maybe not being the most likable characters (Brighton, I suspect, will endure this label far more than Jonah will by most readers, much in part to her being a female who strives to be liked), it’s hard not to care about what it is that drives them both. Brighton’s not just mourning, but she’s also desperately seeking approval. Why does she need that? What validation does it give her? Jonah, new in school and okay with just skirting by, has not just a tough family situation to contend with, but it’s clear that he’s also not used to fitting into the social world of the kids in his new school. Schmidt does a good job giving a glimpse into some realistic socioeconomic issues here in a way that never feels like a message nor does it feel like Jonah’s a stereotypical “poor kid” now in a “rich kid” school. 

The writing is strong, the story moves quickly, and the setting and dialog ring true. It’s funny in parts, and there’s great romantic tension in parts. There are no world-changing events that happen; the characters bring that with them to the story already. Instead, it’s the dissecting of those world-changing events of the past that allow the characters to see one another as they really are — and that allows them to see themselves as who they really are. It’s a story that takes place in one night and one night only, but the revelations from that night have long-lasting ripples. It is hard not to pull for both these characters and what it is they may or may not have with one another. 

The tagline to Bright Before Sunrise is “One night can change how you see the world. One night can change how you see yourself,” and it’s perfectly fitting. If you didn’t know, there’s been a really enjoyable blog series for Schmidt’s novel going on over on Tumblr, where authors and bloggers have all shared the one night that changed their lives. If you’re curious, you can read mine here. There’s a perfect opportunity to talk the book with that topic, since everyone has one night that they can think of that changed their lives or the way they see themselves — which is precisely what the book is about.  

In many ways this book is reminiscent of Lauren Myracle’s The Infinite Moment of Us, where Wren challenges her “good girl”/”nice girl” life by choosing to follow the plans she wants for herself, rather than those expected of her. It’s also a little reminiscent of David Levithan and Rachel Cohn’s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Schmidt’s novel will certainly appeal to readers who like contemporary realistic YA that feels real. This lands more on the “actual reality” rather than “perceived reality” side of the scale, if there is such a thing. Readers who like romance in their stories should certainly pick this up, as should those readers who love a book that’s set in a tight time frame. But again: while there is romance in this book, it’s not a cut-and-dry romance, and I emphasize that because what this book is really about is how we challenge ourselves to see ourselves and our lives through different lights — and how we can choose to make things different. 

Bright Before Sunrise will be available tomorrow. Review copy  received from the author, with whom I have a relationship. 

Religion & Religious Memoirs: Reviews From the OBCB List

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Since the Outstanding Books for the College Bound (OBCB) list is finally live and active, I’m really excited to talk about the books I read this last year and loved. I couldn’t intentionally blog about them last year — though certainly because the scope of our charge was so large, it was impossible to know which titles I had blogged about would show up as potential considerations — so now that I can, I’m hoping it’ll encourage readers to pick up something completely new or consider recommending titles to other readers that may not have otherwise crossed your radar.

I served on two subcommittees of OBCB, reading those titles which fell under the category of Arts and Humanities and those which fell under the Social Science category. I nominated and read and talked about titles in other categories, but the almost fifty titles in my subcommittee lists are all ones I did get a chance to read (with one or two exceptions).

Rather than go down the list and talk about the titles in that order, I thought it would be more worthwhile to talk about them as they relate to different themes. Since I talked a little bit about how much I loved Aaron Hartzler’s Rapture Practice yesterday, it seemed fitting to dive in on the titles which explored religion or spirituality.

As someone who isn’t particularly religious, I won’t lie and say these were the books I was most looking forward to reading or talking about. But I think what makes these books so good and worth talking about is that they all captured my interest despite my own feelings and experiences with religion. There were four books that could really be categorized as “religious” from the Arts and Humanities list, and each one tackles something very different and those very different takes make them really worth reading, discussing, and passing along to other readers.

World Religions: The Great Faiths Explored & Explained by John Bowker

This is a DK book, which if you’re not familiar with, is a publisher that puts together these huge tomes on different topics and explores them in great detail. They tend to be very visually-driven, to the point where I can find them troubling to read because there is so much to wade through.

But it’s that abundance of information which makes Bowker’s exploration of world religions here great. This isn’t a cover-to-cover read. It’s a reference text, and it’s a bigger book, which makes the browsing factor of this more obvious.

This is an incredibly comprehensive overview of religions that are familiar and those which may be less familiar to readers. There are Western religions and Eastern religions, and what makes this book such a great tool is that it’s presented in the most objective manner possible. Bowker doesn’t have an agenda; instead, he’s offering the who, what, where, when, and why of each of the religious practices, and the book itself then highlights the visual artifacts, symbols, and more that give readers even deeper insight into the various practices.

Rapture Practice by Aaron Hartzler

Harzler’s memoir was, hands-down, one of my favorite reads in 2013. In fact, as soon as I finished reading it, I was tempted to write a length post about how much I loved it. But instead, I nominated it for committee consideration.

This is a story about Hartzler growing up in a very Evangelical household as he tries to come to terms with his own religious beliefs, as well as his own sexuality. But the second part of that is not out-and-out the focus of the book. This isn’t Hartzler’s coming out story, and I think knowing that is vital. This is instead his memoir about learning who he is when he’s living in an environment that doesn’t always encourage that sort of exploration. He knows early on he doesn’t have the same affinity toward religious practice and devotion that his parents do, but it’s not something he can be as open and honest about as he would like to be.

But what takes this story from being good to great is that Hartzler is incredibly respectful of everyone in the story. While he thinks a lot of what his parents believe — that the Rapture could happen any minute and they thus need to be prepared — he is conscious of why it is they believe that and he’s okay with it. And a lot of why he is that way is because he hopes that kind of respect can be extended toward him.

Rapture Practice isn’t a condemnation of belief or Evangelical practice. It’s a story about coming to terms with what it is you believe when you don’t necessarily believe in what you’ve grown up with. There is humor as much as heart in this one, and it has great teen appeal. This is a rare memoir written for and about being a teenager.

The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson

Wilson’s memoir was published for adults, but it has great teen appeal. Perhaps maybe more than having appeal for teens, this is the kind of book that college students and those who are just out of college will find tremendously interesting because it explores those post-college years in a way that a lot of other books simply don’t.

When Wilson took a course in Islamic Studies in college, she thought she found her path. She wasn’t Islamic, but it was a culture that fascinated her, and when she finished college, she decided to move to Egypt and find work. It was meant to be a way to shock herself with a new and different culture, but what it ended up doing was convincing her that converting to Islam was the right path for her.

The book follows as she rectifies the knowledge, experience, assumptions, and privileges she’s had her whole life as a westerner as she enters into the middle eastern world. She’s very insightful and perceptive, but this never comes off as preachy and it never once comes off as a story about how one culture or experience is better or more right than another. A lot of that comes through when Wilson falls in love with an Egyptian who grew up Islamic — she has to face the prejudices that his family may have and does have about his wanting to marry someone who converted. Could there be bridges built between their very different worlds?

The Butterfly Mosque also offers some interesting views of what it’s like to be a woman in a country where being a woman doesn’t allow as many rights as it does in the western world, as well as what it’s like to be an Islamic woman in this new world. It’s about being a foreigner but wanting to be involved in a new culture without exploiting or using that culture as a means of understanding herself. There are so many wonderful little lines in this book about life and about experiences, but I think the thing that stood out to me the most was that Wilson never comes off as privileged nor does she preach at readers suggesting that the only way to ever live is to have these foreign experiences. Instead, much of her point is that self-reflection is key to finding peace with yourself and beliefs and that self-reflection is precisely what makes you smart, strong, and gives you confidence to face new and challenging things, whatever those things in front of you may be.

There is definitely romance here, and I think for many teen readers, that will be a really great hook to the bigger story. I love, too, that OBCB has both Wilson’s memoir, as well as her more well-known novel Alif the Unseen, because it really showcases who she is and what it is she’s doing with her career. And she’s really young, too, which should inspire readers in its own right.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose

I read this book back in 2009, and I actually reviewed it here at STACKED back then, too, so I won’t rehash my thoughts on it. One of my hesitations about the book back then was that I had some questions about the authenticity of Roose’s experience, as his mentor was A. J. Jacobs and it reminded me a lot of those “do one weird thing for a year for a book deal” situations.

But I didn’t let that color my beliefs on the value of having this book on the list because I think that Roose talks about and learns, as well as the respect he comes to develop for students at Liberty University, were important and interesting enough to merit a place. Roose’s story replaced Jacobs’s A Year of Living Biblically, which was on the 2009 iteration of OBCB, and I think that the replacement was a good one. Not because Jacobs’s story is no longer relevant — it definitely it is — but because it offers another story, another voice, and another angle on religion and religious practice.

What I find to be interesting in looking at the books on the list in this way, rather than in their big, overarching category of “Arts and Humanities,” is that I can see what the biggest theme is uniting all four of these books, and it’s a simple one: respect. Each of these books explores religion, both eastern and western practices, in very respectful ways. They’re never exploited, and they’re never meant to be studies. The three memoirs specifically are experiential, with great reflection offered by the authors. And I think that those sorts of stories are not only relatable to teen (and adult!) readers, but they give a look into a world through a set of eyes that may or may not go in with an agenda but that come out more educated, more respectful, and perhaps more humble.

Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci

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Have you ever watched Babylon 5? If you have: Tin Star is basically Babylon 5 for teens, if the Babylon 5 space station were nearly abandoned and hostile to humans rather than run by them. If you haven’t: you should really get on that.

OK, I’ll give you non-B5 fans a bit more. Our human protagonist, Tula, is left for dead on the Yertina Feray, a mostly-derelict space station in the middle of nowhere. Humans aren’t well-regarded there, and Tula has no safety net. This means she has no money to purchase food or other basic necessities. The law-keepers on the station (if they can be called that) aren’t predisposed to be understanding of her predicament, especially since her story doesn’t check out with their sources.

Luckily – sort of – for Tula, she does find some sympathetic aliens, primarily one named Heckleck, an unsavory type who makes a living on the station by dealing on the black market – plus other not-strictly-legal business practices. She makes a home for herself in the underguts (basically B5’s Down Below), running errands for Heckleck. She learns to navigate this human-less world while trying to figure out what happened to her family, how to get off the station, and how to go about getting revenge on the person who put her in this situation.

And then humans arrive on the station, and she’s suddenly not alone. The humans are young, like her, and have motivations of their own. Tula must decide if her needs align with theirs – and again evaluate who she can trust.

There’s a lot here that I love. It’s so solidly scifi – set in space, chock full of aliens, lots of cool tech. And the aliens aren’t mostly humanoid, either. They’re sentient and strange (to our human sensibilities), and not just physically. The way they socialize isn’t what you’d expect, for example. Creating aliens that don’t act like humans in every way is difficult, so it’s definitely commendable when an author is moderately successful at it.

Because the socialization among the aliens is different, because Tula is such an outsider, it makes the relationships between her and the aliens especially interesting. She constantly misunderstands what’s being said to her. Things that would be easy to infer among humans are impossible to deduce among aliens. The relationship between Tula and an alien official on the space station who sympathizes with her is a good example of this – he’s such a mystery for so many pages, so when a moment of clarity occurs, it’s all the more gratifying for the reader as a result.

The relationship between Tula and Heckleck is equally interesting. Heckleck is not really a protector; he’s out for himself and isn’t afraid to do what it takes to survive in the underguts. But Tula affects him in some way. She learns to understand the unsaid things behind the things he says. In any book featuring interactions between humans and aliens, the author is always drawing parallels, however slight or unintended, with interactions between vastly different human cultures. Good SFF always makes us think more deeply about our own world, and I think Tin Star has a lot to offer in that area.

So there were definitely aspects that I liked. The humans’ arrival, on the other hand, while integral to the plot, was a dull point for me. They simply weren’t as interesting as the aliens on the station, and I never cared about their needs as much as I did Tula’s and her alien acquaintances.

I also found the story, overall, to be a bit sketchy. By that I mean I wish all aspects of it were more fleshed-out. It’s a fast-paced book – perhaps a bit too fast-paced. Perhaps Castellucci did her job of creating an interesting future too well, since I often wished she could have slowed down a bit and let us get to know it – and its denizens – better. Characters are interesting but stop just short of being living and breathing. I didn’t feel completely absorbed in the space station, either (in my mind’s eye it just looks like Babylon 5).

Would I read a sequel? Absolutely. It would give me more of the depth and details that I want, plus Castellucci doesn’t wrap everything up at the end. I do want to know more of Tula’s story.

Hand Tin Star to readers who want fast-paced science fiction and who may be tired of dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories. It may suit fans of other stories set in space, such as Amy Kathleen Ryan’s Glow or Beth Revis’ Across the Universe, though both those titles feel more intense and dystopian-esque than Castellucci’s book (the fate of humankind is not really at stake here). Christian Schoon’s Zenn Scarlett is more similar in tone and features some creative alien life as well.

Tin Star will be published February 25. A review copy was provided by the publisher.