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books

Ripley’s Enter if you Dare

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I’m in Las Vegas this week — the second time I’ve been to the land of the unique and strange and downright fantastic. So, I thought I’d leave you with some field notes on Ripley’s newest addition to their family of books: Ripley’s Enter if You Dare. I was able to give a length review last year here, so check that out if you want a little more about the Ripley’s titles.

Full color photos are of stand out note in this book that is filled to the brim with facts and figures covering everything from the amazing human body to incredible feats to weather to animals. This is a book that begs you to browse and browse and browse again. But not only that, this is a book that will have some reading every word straight through, as it is that interesting and engaging.

Did you know the world’s heaviest cat weighs in at 22 pounds? I kind of find that lower that I’d imagine, seeing one of my cats is himself 15 pounds. Check out this photo:

Doesn’t he look a heck of a lot bigger than just 22 pounds? Yikes! Don’t worry, the book says he was told to be put on a kitty diet.

What I like about the Ripley’s books is that they celebrate, rather than lampoon, oddities. Back in the day, people with long fingernails, bigger girths, or very strange hairy spots were circus freaks. In these books, they’re celebrated: they are unique and interesting to learn about, choosing to put themselves out there (for the most part — some are nameless statistics, which I find as respectful since it provides anonymity). I quite enjoyed digging through the parts about the circus in this volume because I live in the 19th Century Circus Capital of the World (complete with buried elephant under one of our lakes). Readers will be enthralled with the double page spread, too, about vampires, the shortest teenager around, and more.

The use of the double page spread is effective and exciting. Again, can I emphasize that when I was a kid, these books weren’t in full color like this?

How cool is that?

Ripley’s Enter If You Dare has wide appeal, and it will have special appeal to tween and teen boys, who love non-fiction. These books fly off the shelf at my library, and I suspect that this addition will do the same. The facts are new and fresh, not rehashed information with new pictures. These are the sorts of books that are not only fascinating, but they are appealing across generations. This is the kind of book parents can sit down with their kids and browse through and talk about.

If you haven’t read one of these titles in a while, I urge you to pick one up. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how readable, browsable, and bright they have become. And yes, I totally have seen some of these people in my trip, thank you very much city of lights!

Manifest by Artist Arthur

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Paranormal and supernatural books are the ones I struggle with the most. I have a hard time with some fantasy titles, too. For me, falling into a completely different worlds — ones with rules that don’t work likes ours — is hard. I like my fiction quite real, maybe even a little magical, and the paranormal/supernatural world is hard for me to connect with. But for many readers, as we know, this is ideal reading: slipping away from our world is what they crave, and I have to say, I’m a little envious of that!

Manifest, by Artist Arthur, is a the first in a new Harlequin Teen paranormal series. Krystal Bentley is new in town: after a bitter divorce between her mom and dad, she was ripped from her home in New York City and forced to move to boring Lincoln, Connecticut. She’s angry and frustrated, and she has a lot of pent up frustration toward her mother and soon-to-be stepfather. But that’s not all that causes her to be angry and frustrated. Quite the contrary — it’s the fact that she’s perhaps found the ideal guy to be with. . . but he’s not real. No, he’s a voice she hears in her head and a voice that asks her to avenge his death since he cannot do it himself.

But why Krystal? What does she have that sets her apart from those who have lived in Lincoln forever and know the back story of Ricky’s death? It’s the glowing array of freckles that form an “M” on her neck, and it’s not long before she discovers two others at Lincoln with this distinguishable marking, too: Sasha and Jake. But they don’t hear voices like she does. Sasha can make herself disappear and Jake can move things with a little mental concentration. And when they come together, things happen. Strange things, that is.

Manifest begins with an interesting premise, and while I think that further volumes in this series will give the readers more to work with, I felt a little let down as a reader. I never got to know what brought these three together as well as I’d like to, beyond a chilling message from Jake’s senile grandfather that mentioned the mutual births of the trio’s mothers during a rough storm. Krystal tries to unravel the mystery but never quite does so in this volume.

Further, I was left wanting to know a heck of a lot more about Ricky and why he sought out Krystal. We never get a resolution (as we wouldn’t in the first novel of a series) but I felt like I didn’t get enough back story to fall completely into the book.

Krystal, as annoying as she is, is a memorable character. She has a lot of bitterness and resentment — sometimes justifiable and sometimes not — but it makes her believable and real to teenagers, I think. She won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but she will be the perfect manifestation of feelings and actions for many readers. Likewise, Krystal is of mixed race, which added flavor to the story, too, and again, this will resonate with many readers. I don’t think there are enough non-white leads in teen books as it is and even less-so in paranormal titles…especially playing the good role!

Although Manifest didn’t live up to my expectations, this is a good book to hand to your readers of the other titles in Harlequin Teen’s paranormal lines (Rachel Vincent’s “Soul Screamers” series or Gena Showalter’s “Intertwined” series). I think as this series progresses, it’ll draw in more readers as we learn the back stories of not only Krystal, but her kindred spirits in Jake and Sasha. Oh, and that pesky ghost Ricky. This is a fast read, as readers are plunked into the story immediately and we find strange things happening right away.

You Wish by Mandy Hubbard

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What would you do if you woke up the morning after your birthday — let’s say your 16th birthday — and outside your window was a giant pink My Little Pony? Or what if the next day your former favorite toy, Raggedy Ann, suddenly was life size and became your constant companion? If gumballs took over your room?

Or maybe the worst: what if you thought you would be the reason you lost your best friend?

You Wish begins just before Kayla’s 16th birthday, which her mother — party planner extraordinaire — will inevitably mess up. When Kayla blows the candles out of her big pink cake, she is disappointed: this wasn’t the party she wanted, and her best friend Nicole is too busy with her new boyfriend (and Kayla’s long-time crush) Ben. That is when things get crazy in her life. Literally. We’ll watch as each of her former birthday wishes come true, leaving her more and more worried about what will happen when her biggest secret wish, kissing Ben, comes true.

Mandy Hubbard’s new title will please younger teen readers: it is sweet, a little sassy, and full of mortifying (…and hilarious) moments. The book is squeaky clean and would be an excellent book to recommend to fans of Lisa Greenwald’s My Life in Pink and Green, a title that my patrons adore. Kayla is a typical teenager who wants to fit in, keep her best friend, become girlfriend of her biggest crush since elementary school, avoid her crazy mother, and to have the most memorable 16th birthday. Fortunately, she’ll achieve many of those things, despite the presence of an overly doting Ken, the magical dirt bike, and spotlight stealing Ann.

I must admit, though, this wasn’t my favorite book. I never was quite convinced of Kayla’s persona: she was a little too scattered for me, and a lot of the things she comes to realize about who she is never quite made sense to me. That is, I never felt she was rebellious at school, which is something that will be rectified at the end of the story. I struggled, too, with Kayla’s maturity: for a 16-year-old, she acted much more like a 12-year-old, making me believe that had she been written younger, this book would have a readership MADE for middle schoolers. I think her being 16, though, might turn off some librarians, parents, and younger readers from picking up this title and enjoying it. Additionally, Kayla’s relationship with her mother never came together at the end for me; I felt there was some missed potential to give us a stronger mom figure or a stronger reason to dislike mom, but instead, she was more of a tool than a fully fleshed character. And finally, I never got resolution of or understanding why things ever happened. We know it has to do with a birthday cake, but the time frames, the events, and the ingredients never coalesced for me. But perhaps that’s all a part of the suspension of belief.

What I loved about this book, aside from its total clean factor, was its magical realism. I don’t think there are enough books for this age group that are willing to be a little silly. We have an overwhelming number of issues books, covering everything from suicide, to hoarding, to eating disorders, to abusive parents. While we have genre fiction (besides vampires), but there really is little that spans a little of both the real world and the magical world. I’m glad Hubbard tackled this sort of story, and I think that alone will give it some staying power.

This is a quick moving story once you pass the first couple of chapters. I anticipated the strange to happen, and making it through the first few chapters was challenging, since it was primarily setting up our characters. But for most readers, this won’t be difficult because as soon as the action begins rolling, the story flies.

You Wish will work for fans of Greenwald’s previously mentioned book, but I think it’ll also be a nice title for fans of Raina Telgemeier’s Smile, Wendy Mass’s 11 Birthdays and Finally, and even Ally Carter’s Gallagher Girls series.

You Wish will be available August 5 from Razorbill.

*Review copy provided by publisher

What I’m Reading Now

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In 140 characters or less, what’s on my bedside table, in my car stereo, and blaring from my boom box:

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, by Stieg Larsson
Third in the famous Millennium trilogy, and so far the weakest. Seems like there’s no mystery left, but Larsson keeps writing anyway.

The True Meaning of Smekday, by Adam Rex
I thought Rex showed promise with Fat Vampire, so decided to try his middle grade book about aliens. So far it’s amusing and more cohesive.

Alchemy and Meggy Swann, by Karen Cushman (audio)
Excellent narration and Cushman’s trademark amusing curses – Ye toads and vipers! – bring the streets of 16th century London to life.

Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff
Fascinating biography of a woman about whom we actually know very little. Includes info about the honored royal practice of murdering one’s family.

First Light, by Rebecca Stead
I enjoyed Stead’s Newbery winner, and I hope this one, about the far North and a community of people beneath the ice, will be just as wonderfully odd.

Double Take, Part XXIV

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We are probably all familiar with Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series. It looks something like this:


It’s a great cover that stands out. I love that the series is consistent looking and they all pop on the shelf.

Here’s the UK cover. I quite like this one, too:


I love the light blue and the tin of body parts.

And it has a twin in Sarah Harvey’s 2010 release of Plastic, a title from Orca Publishers:

They mirrored it but kept the same background color, which I think is an interesting choice.

I think both covers work quite well. The aqua against the silver tray stands out, and I love that the doll parts show off more than one skin color.

Do you have a preference?