Book 9: Donna Jo Napoli's "Sirena"

I suppose you could classify this as a bit of a letdown after the last book. Not nearly as powerful or remotely probable but it is not that which led me to this book in the first place. What led me to it was an overabundance of knowledge about the Greek Myths. I studied those for several years and was positively obsessed with it.

The tale (pun absolutely intended) tells of Sirena, a siren of myth who with her sisters sings to sailors (ha alliteration), causing them to shipwreck and hopefully fall in love with the sirens. Only then will the sirens gain immortality. Sirena leaves the island and her sisters to Lemnos, where she meets an abandoned soldier, named Philoctetes. Who actually existed. She hides from him but falls for him.

Greek myths of the Gods and Goddesses are woven into this story. And frankly, there's not much depth to it, hence this short little blog about it. Yet, it is entertaining and I think adolescents would quite enjoy it, even if they aren't as nerdy as I am and don't know the Greek myths by heart.

This book gets a three out of five for being soundly entertaining but lacking in substance. Until next book dear readers.

Book 8: Jenny Downham's: "Before I Die"

Oh my god. I don't normally use that phrase, I prefer a good holey shit or other words you're still not allowed to say on network television. But wow, this book is probably the most powerful, amazing, awesome, just wow books I have read. So amazing that apparently, my vocabulary goes right out the window.

The story told is one of a teenage girl, Tessa by name, who is a little bit different from normal teenagers. She has leukemia. And she's given up treatment and has decided to put a list together with the help of her best friend of ten things she wants to do before she dies. Now this isn't a list like Disney World and meeting Brad Pitt. Make a Wish Foundation probably wouldn't help with it. Number one is sex. Drugs follows shortly thereafter.

Tessa's father quit his job to take care of her and her estranged mother took about a year to come back after she was diagnosed. Her little brother remains a powerful character as he attempts to go about his normal life while still being a loving brother. The characters are truly real. 

Tessa knows she will die, and soon. And she chooses to enjoy the rest of her life, even though it may hurt the others around her. She is selfish, mean, caring, loving, and scared. She is a character I would expect to meet randomly because of how real she is created. 

We see the rest of our lives in years, and she, though young, sees it in months. Her relationships are true and difficult. Her fear doesn't disappear, she isn't brave, she isn't perfect. She steals her father's car even though she lacks a license, and does shrooms out in the middle of nowhere. Just because. Perfect? No. Real? Yes. 

I apologize if I repeat myself (meh, not really sorry, I'm hungry and not thinking all that clearly), but this book deserves repeating. I'm not ashamed to admit, I read it twice, and cried both times. I expect to read it several more times and cry each and every time. 

Her death, no spoilers here, she gave up treatment and this isn't a fantastical book of random miracles, is amazingly written. The sentences are fragments, the paragraphs spaced, the chapters short, and the thinking not coherent. It makes it even more real. Her fantasies mix with reality as she dies, after days, weeks, we don't know. 

I could go on and on about this book because I will mark it as one of my all-time favorites. This isn't adolescent literature, this is pure literature. A book that deserves both young and old eyes because a character in a book, is so real, so vivid, teaches us all about life and death.

This isn't five out of five, it is beyond that. I dare you to read it. Until the next book, dear readers.   

Book 7: Laura Whitcomb's "A Certain Slant of Light"

Yes, I bring you yet another book about the dead, and yet another one about ghosts. I assure you however, this one is quite different. Found in the Young Adult section (I don't know why I allow myself to shop for books anymore, I am far too poor for it), this book cover attracted me again, along with it's title. I quite enjoy Emily Dickinson though she isn't my favorite poet and this is a title of one of her numerous poems. 

The book tells the tale of Helen, a ghost of unknown origin or back story. Her mystery is the story. She tells the tales of each "host" she has haunted, to keep herself from what she proclaims to be hell. All we know in the beginning that she died a long time ago, and has enormous guilt over something that happened. Normally, I most likely would say "what the hell?" and move on. I'm a bit of an impatient person despite no effort whatsoever to change that.

In the present, she haunts an English teacher, and does her best to inspire him to write, despite his wife who distracts him. The Mr. Brown, has no idea that he is being haunted. It is in one of his high school English classes that Helen is seen for the first time. By a human. The boy proclaims himself to be named James and he has a secret. One that allows him to see Helen.

This book is beautiful, from the cover to the imagery, to the words written. It tells this story and I can see and the world she inhabits so easily in my mind it's actually a little creepy. 

There was one aspect of the book I did not expect. I am talking about the big S.E.X. In surprising detail. Not that I'm a prude, but this being adolescent lit and not adult fiction, it caught me a little off guard. But hey, more power to Whitcomb. Go her. This country is too scared of sex in books despite it being everywhere else. 

I would have read this book as an adolescent, in high school, and would have thought it was awesome. There's no preaching about no sex before marriage (ahem Twilight ahem, nasty cough my typing has), and actually does show some anti-religious tendencies. 

I deem this book gorgeous, and it is a bit of a chick book, but so what? I'm a girl, it's allowed. I give it 4.5 out of five stars! Until next book, dear readers.

Book 6: Neal Shusterman's "Everlost"

A new series, or book to start us off today. As the cover tells "somewhere between life and death is...Everlost." Is it just me or did you have a dun dun duuunnn moment in your head as well. Just me? Well, okay. I picked this out at the bookstore in the Young Adult section mostly because of the cover. Yes, I judged a book by it's cover, but in this case, hey, it worked!


A story about two kids, Nick and Allie who didn't survive the car crash between their two cars. Both between the ages of 13 or 14, let's just say the term rest in peace didn't quite make the memo. They automatically head straight home, doomed to wear the same clothing and chocolate forever, or so they are so determined to not happen. 


Everlost is full of strange children, a world of dead lost boys in a way. The place sucks your name and memory if you're not too careful, and if you don't stick to "dead spots" you get sucked quite literally into the center of the earth. Which to me, finally settles the "why can in every movie ghosts not touch stuff but somehow don't fall through the floor," argument.


The characters in the story were a little too young for me to truly connect with them, but I felt their plight nonetheless. They weren't underdeveloped characters whatsoever, just still in the phase where punching is flirting and fortune cookies will always tell the truth. This book can be pretty full of religious dogma or could just be simply sticking its thumbs to its temples and waving his hands back and forth calling "nah nah nah nah nah." Frankly, it's hard to tell. 


Nevertheless I think it is a great book for my kiddos (my students) to read, and would highly recommend it to high schoolers as well. Not my favorite book I've read so far, but enjoyable enough. 3.8 out of five stars I would say.


Until the next book dear readers.

Book 5: Garth Nix's "Abhorsen"

So the end has come. This final book in the trilogy finalizes with a bang, quite literally. Lirael now embraces her heritage and destiny to whoop some dead ass. Finding herself in charge of the seven bells of a necromancer gives her the power to defeat the dead. But of course to find the ultimate enemy, she has help.


Frankly, this story brings all of the amazing parts of the previous two stories to life. culminating in an ending so awesome it makes the Death Star blowing up look like cheap, old CGI. Oh wait...


"Abhorsen" even has a little politics mixed in with the magic, dead things, and overall chaos that is the Old Kingdom. Ancelstierre plays a part once more in this story with Sabriel and Touchstone in mortal danger! Mogget and the Disreputable Dog reveal their true original natures, while still keeping to their sardonic, goofy, lovable character roots.


I won't lie, writing this blog, thinking back on reading these books makes me giggle with glee like a little girl. The imagery is at its best, and the villains are at their worst. Nothing could make this story bad—ah crap not the hand (read the book, seriously, have I not said it enough?).


If you can't tell dear readers, I am a huge fan of these books. I plan on reading them again, again, and again. Maybe once I get out of teaching the sixth grade, I'll even recommend them to my students. Despite the hand thing and the Dog thing, I might even say it was perfect...though I'm soft and will still give it five out of five. What? I can be gooshy.


Until next book, dear readers.

Book 4: Garth Nix's "Lirael"

Second in the "Abhorsen" trilogy, a new main character develops. This book takes place over several years (but just jumps through time, you don't have to read that much, though it is a very long book), following the young Clayr, Lirael. Lirael never developed the Sight which is basically seeing what will happen. She doesn't look the same as the others and for a moment it seems like this is going to be a whiny "I don't know who I am book!" but with some magic, a new job, and a certain disregard for the rules, it forms into a book that deserves to be on the same shelf as "Sabriel."


There also happens to be a switch in main characters, to Sabriel and Touchstone's son, Prince Sameth, otherwise known as Sam. And no, I will not tell you why and how he is a prince because that would completely ruin "Sabriel" for you. Sam gets himself in trouble like any other 17 year-old boy. Except his trouble is a bit more dangerous than graffiti or downloading porn and finding a virus instead. More like the dead and a certain pissy necromancer trying to kill him sort of way. 


Anyway, the story eventually settles and stops randomly jumping cross-country when, shocker, Lirael and the disreputable dog leave the Clayr's Glacier. Yes they live in a glacier, and are fricken nuts.


Personally, I think this book would have hit home more if I were younger, in high school, and wondering who the hell I was still. However, it is still powerful, and just as badass as "Sabriel." And as Lirael hint: works in the library, I connect with her for her love of books. 


As the story unfolds, we learn both who Lirael truly is and how she came to be. Equally as thrilling and full of magic, amazing imagery, and a bunch of dead things wandering around, as "Sabriel" was and longer. The villains are more devious and the plot is deeper. I may be giving too many of these out but five out of five stars. 


One more book in this series dear readers, enjoy.

Book 3: Garth Nix's "Sabriel"

The first in the trilogy, "Abhorsen," "Sabriel" explains, highlights, and maps out the world I have come to know and love. A story about a young women who sets off to the country of her birth, crossing the wall into a place of danger, to track down her father, the Abhorsen. As Sabriel starts her journey she uses her skill as a necromancer to ward off the dead and seek help as she makes her way to the house she grew up in. 


The Old Kingdom and Ancelstierre are the two countries in this series, one full of magic, the walking dead, and mystery, the latter more like the early 1900's in our world. Sabriel, a woman of both worlds is the daughter of the Abhorsen, the one necromancer who vows to put the dead down rather than raising them. She comes to see the Old Kingdom as unfamiliar, changed territory. The dead roam in different variations, i.e. dead hands, shadow hands, etc. 


The story told has love, action, valor, and more interesting versions of zombies. A book I recommend to all, young and old (though not too young it is violent and it frankly would have terrified me as a child, though I was a wimp), male or female. The imagery is extremely vivid and the story elaborate but not enough that you want to gouge out your own eyes because you are sick and tired from reading pages about a single tree (thank you very much, "Lord of the Rings). I love this series and I can't wait to read the next book. It sucks you in, this book. I am so glad that there isn't a movie, that I know of, because Hollywood with all of its CGI, could not hold a candle to this book. 


There's the romance for the ladies, in the form of the smoking hot Touchstone. Sarcasm for the cynical in the character Mogget, who is perfect in his role as a demon cat. And badassery (I don't care computer, it is a word) in the form as just about every character in the book. I get excited just writing about this book, so I guess you could call me a fan.


"Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?" Awesome quote, until the next book readers! Five out of five awesome and magic stars.