Stacking the Shelves - May 3, 2014

 

Stacking The Shelves hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  It is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

EBOOKS I GOT THIS WEEK:

ARC Book Review: Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times by Emma Trevayne

Title: Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times
Author: Emma Trevayne
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date: May 13th, 2014
Rating: 4/5

Cover Impressions:  One of the most beautiful middle grade covers that I have ever seen.  I love the colors and the detail in the city.  There is so much to look at, my eye keeps moving across the image to discover new details.  I can't wait to see this one in person.

The Gist: When a mysterious magic man visits Jack Foster's mother, he is only slightly curious.  When this same man offers to take Jack away and teach him, he becomes more so.  When the man disappears through a mysterious doorway - Jack finds that he must follow him.  On the other side, he discovers a world that mirrors his own, but with strange and wondrous differences.  Metal seems to have permeated peoples' very bones and clockwork creatures roam the land.  It is ruled by a Lady that never ages and whose outrageous demands must be met or the world will face dire consequences.  Her newest desire is for Jack to act as her perfect, unaltered son.  Jack soon discovers that this mysterious world has a dark side and that he is not as safe as he might have thought.  With the doorway closed, he must find a new way to return home to London, and all his hopes rest in a fairy tale creature that may not even exist. 

Review:
Just one page in, this novel's narration style had won me over.  It was beautiful to the ear and I could almost hear Geoffrey Holder (the beautiful narrator from Charlie and the Chocolate factory) telling me the story in his deep tones.  The premise behind this story is really interesting and I love the idea of an alternative London, once that is much more dark and mysterious.  In the second half, we got to see a really fun twist on the phoenix myth and I appreciated the author's skill in making such an ancient and powerful story fit within the world that she had created.

I did find the main character a little difficult to like.  Jack wasn't particularly interesting and, for much of the book, merely allowed himself to be pulled along by the actions of the other characters rather than to be an active component in the plot.  This did get better in the second half of the book, once Jack falls from favor and learns about the darkness that really lurks in Londinium. I also didn't really connect with the two adults characters, Dr. Snailwater and Xeno, but I loved Beth.  It is strange, that, despite being the only character who is not quite human, she is the most fun and caring individual.  
 
I did have some issues with the ending, but only in that I wanted a little more information.  I would have loved to discover where the Lady came from and why she never ages, but I understand that this was not necessarily important to THIS story.  Perhaps a prequel or novella would satiate my curiosity.  

Flights and Chimes and Mysterious times features really lovely writing and a fun story.  I am still not a convert to the whole steampunk genre, but this is a much more enjoyable example than many of the others that I have read.

Teaching/Parental Notes:

Age:  10 and up
Sex: None
Violence: Hangings, Loss of a hand,
Inappropriate Language: None
Substance Use/Abuse: None

First Lines: April 2014

The first words you read can often set the tone for the entire story.  I thought it would be fun to keep track of the first lines of the books I read each month and share them with you.  Below are the first lines for all the books I read in April.

Nature Girl by Carl Hiaasen

"On the second day of January, windswept and bright, a half-blood Seminole named Sammy Tigertail dumped a dead body in the Lostmans River."

 

 The Break Up Artist by Philip Siegel

"Couples are made to be broken."

A Creature of Moonlight by Rebecca Hahn
"All summer long the villagers have been talking of the woods."

Feather Bound by Sarah Raughley
"At precisely seven in the morning, my oldest sister, Ericka, arrived at our Brooklyn shack and was horrified to find out dad sprawled out on the couch basting in a sea of beer cans."

Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times by Emma Trevayne
"There are doorways and there are doorways."

Life by Committee by Corey Ann Haydu

"Hey, Tabitha? I have a secret, Joe types."

I Kill The Mockingbird by Paul Acampora
"My mother's wheelchair does not fit through the bathroom door, and I don't know what to do about it."

Some great lines this month! I wasn't the biggest fan of Nature Girl but I did enjoy the detail and the picture that its first line painted.  I also really enjoyed both A Creature of Moonlight and Flight's and Chimes and Mysterious Times for their fantastical lines 

 

My least favorite was from Life by Committee.  It was a pretty standard and boring line and set us up for a lackluster teenage romance. 

Waiting on Wednesday: Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's pre-publication "can't-wait-to-read" selection is: Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times by Emma Trevayne which is due to be released on May 13th.

Ten-year-old Jack Foster has stepped through a doorway and into quite a different London.

Londinium is a smoky, dark, and dangerous place, home to mischievous metal fairies and fearsome clockwork dragons that breathe scalding steam. The people wear goggles to protect their eyes, brass grill insets in their nostrils to filter air, or mechanical limbs to replace missing ones.

Over it all rules the Lady, and the Lady has demanded a new son—a perfect flesh-and-blood child. She has chosen Jack.

Jack’s wonder at the magic and steam-powered marvels in Londinium lasts until he learns he is the pawn in a very dangerous game. The consequences are deadly, and his only hope of escape, of returning home, lies with a legendary clockwork bird.

The Gearwing grants wishes. Or it did, before it was broken. Before it was killed.

But some things don’t stay dead forever.

OK, what is NOT perfect about this book?  First of all, the cover.  OMG SQUEEEE!!! The steampunk, the detail, the whispy ghost?  It is fantastic.  Then there is the title.  It begs you to open up and see what is inside AND IT RHYMES!  Even the author's name sounds like a J.K Rowling character.  I have never been a fan of Steampunk, but this book may just be the one that I finally love.  

In Anticipation: May 2014

Time to leave the rainy April behind and get the lounge chair ready for those warm spring mornings reading on the deck.  There are lots of great titles being released this month.  Here are just a few of the ones that I am highly anticipating.

A Creature of Moonlight - Rebecca Hahn
 
A stunning debut novel about a girl who is half dragon, half human, and wholly herself.

As the only heir to the throne, Marni should have been surrounded by wealth and privilege, not living in exile-but now the time has come when she must choose between claiming her birthright as princess of a realm whose king wants her dead, and life with the father she has never known: a wild dragon who is sending his magical woods to capture her.

Fans of Bitterblue and Seraphina will be captured by A Creature of Moonlight, with its richly layered storytelling and the powerful choices its strong heroine must make.

Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times - Emma Trevayne
 
Ten-year-old Jack Foster has stepped through a doorway and into quite a different London.

Londinium is a smoky, dark, and dangerous place, home to mischievous metal fairies and fearsome clockwork dragons that breathe scalding steam. The people wear goggles to protect their eyes, brass grill insets in their nostrils to filter air, or mechanical limbs to replace missing ones.

Over it all rules the Lady, and the Lady has demanded a new son—a perfect flesh-and-blood child. She has chosen Jack.

Jack’s wonder at the magic and steam-powered marvels in Londinium lasts until he learns he is the pawn in a very dangerous game. The consequences are deadly, and his only hope of escape, of returning home, lies with a legendary clockwork bird.

The Gearwing grants wishes. Or it did, before it was broken. Before it was killed.

But some things don’t stay dead forever.

I Kill the Mockingbird - Paul Acampora
  
When Lucy, Elena, and Michael receive their summer reading list, they are excited to see To Kill A Mockingbird included. But not everyone in their class shares the same enthusiasm. So they hatch a plot to get the entire town talking about the well-known Harper Lee classic. They plan controversial ways to get people to read the book, including re-shelving copies of the book in bookstores so that people think they are missing and starting a website committed to “destroying the mockingbird.” Their efforts are successful when all of the hullabaloo starts to direct more people to the book. But soon, their exploits start to spin out of control and they unwittingly start a mini revolution in the name of books.

Oblivion - Sasha Dawn
 
Lisa McMann's Dead to You meets Kate Ellison's The Butterfly Clues in a psychological thriller full of romance, intrigue, and mystery.

One year ago, Callie was found in an abandoned apartment, scrawling words on the wall: "I KILLED HIM. His blood is on my hands. His heart is in my soul. I KILLED HIM." But she remembers nothing of that night or of the previous thirty-six hours. All she knows is that her father, the reverend at the Church of the Holy Promise, is missing, as is Hannah, a young girl from the parish. Their disappearances have to be connected and Callie knows that her father was not a righteous man.

Since that fateful night, she's been plagued by graphomania -- an unending and debilitating compulsion to write. The words that flow from Callie's mind and through her pen don't seem to make sense -- until now.

As the anniversary of Hannah's vanishing approaches, more words and memories bubble to the surface and a new guy in school might be the key to Callie putting together the puzzle. But digging up the secrets she's buried for so long might be her biggest mistake.

New Releases: April 29, 2014

It's Release Day!!  Here are some of the new books that I am excited about this week!

SLEEP NO MORE - Aprilynne Pike
 
My Review
 
The blockbuster film Inception meets Lisa McMann's Wake trilogy in this dark paranormal thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Aprilynne Pike. This novel is also perfect for fans of Kelley Armstrong, Alyson Noel, and Kimberly Derting.

Charlotte Westing has a gift. She is an Oracle and has the ability to tell the future. But it doesn't do her much good. Instead of using their miraculous power, modern-day Oracles are told to fight their visions—to refrain from interfering. And Charlotte knows the price of breaking the rules. She sees it every day in her wheelchair-bound mother and the absence of her father. But when a premonition of a classmate's death is too strong for her to ignore, Charlotte is forced to make an impossible decision: continue following the rules or risk everything—even her sanity—to stop the serial killer who is stalking her town.
  
A TIME TO DANCE - Padma Venkatraman
 

 Padma Venkatraman’s inspiring story of a young girl’s struggle to regain her passion and find a new peace is told lyrically through verse that captures the beauty and mystery of India and the ancient bharatanatyam dance form. This is a stunning novel about spiritual awakening, the power of art, and above all, the courage and resilience of the human spirit.

Veda, a classical dance prodigy in India, lives and breathes dance—so when an accident leaves her a below-knee amputee, her dreams are shattered. For a girl who’s grown used to receiving applause for her dance prowess and flexibility, adjusting to a prosthetic leg is painful and humbling. But Veda refuses to let her disability rob her of her dreams, and she starts all over again, taking beginner classes with the youngest dancers. Then Veda meets Govinda, a young man who approaches dance as a spiritual pursuit. As their relationship deepens, Veda reconnects with the world around her, and begins to discover who she is and what dance truly means to her.
 

THE TAKING - Kimberly Derting
  
When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

ARC Book Review: Life By Committee by Corey Ann Haydu

Title: Life By Committee
Author: Corey Ann Haydu
Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books
Release Date: May 13th, 2014
Rating: 3/5

Cover Impressions:  Cute, I like that the image connects so well with the pictures that members of the Life By Committee website post.  The blue of the font is a nice contrast but I wish the shoes were another character - they blend a little too well with the background color.

The Gist: Tabitha kissed another girl's boyfriend.  The secret is eating her up inside.  She can't tell anyone who knows her but she can tell the Life by Committee - a website dedicated to those who have secrets to tell.  As a member, she must share a secret and then receive an assignment.  At first, having the LBC make her decisions for her is freeing and she is doing things she never thought she would.  Soon, however, the assignments take a dark turn and Tabitha must decide if keeping her secrets is worth the fallout that the assignments will bring.

Review:

I chose this book for review because I was really interested in the premise.  I have to say, I was a little disappointed that (after searching) there was no Life By Committee website - holy missed marketing opportunity Batman!

One of the downfalls of this novel came in the form of the main character.  Tabitha was really difficult to relate to.  I could understand her being swept up in the forbidden romance of her flirtations with Joe.  Chatting well into the night, trading secrets has a secret allure that makes it exciting.  However, it was her actions with regard to her family and her friend Elise that made her rather unlikeable.  It is understandable that she be shell shocked, having been abruptly ditched by the people she thought where her friends but, throughout the novel, she comes across as whiny and self centered.  She doesn't seem to understand her role in her situation and makes decisions that negatively impact her family and friends.

I found the other characters and, in particular, Tabitha's school, rather weird.  As a teacher, I always find it rather difficult to believe that crunchy granola, feeling circle, kind of schools actually exist.  There are several instances where the actions of the teachers and the school in general are really unrealistic and prevented me from staying absorbed in the plot.  I was immensely annoyed with the actions of the guidance counselor, and the things that she was saying made me question the honesty of Tabitha as a narrator.  I also had a hard time with the portrayal of the other students.  Even in a very progressive, new agey school, I am not sure that Sasha could have gotten away with some of the stuff she pulled.

There was a great deal of slut shaming and, though Tabitha was on the receiving end and it was completely undeserved, I am not sure the lesson was made clear that this is NOT how to treat a person.  Despite having been ditched by her friends for suddenly growing boobs, Tabitha still wants them back and is willing to put up with their abuse rather than stand up for herself.  There is also a rather creepy character who touches girls without their permission and never gets any comeuppance - this bothered me.          

As the plot goes on, the things that the LBC group are asked to do get more and more outlandish. Zed starts to come across as more and more pretentious

ZED: it's a moral obligation to have us ALL live our best lives.  There's doing the right thing and there's doing the best thing.  They're not always the same thing.  The best thing is a challenge, the right thing is often a submission.

 I felt like he was some asshole pulling the strings of all these gullible young people, laughing as they took on his outlandish dares and never took any risks himself.  At one point, when one of the other members is revealed, it takes on the feel of a cult mentality - the character is unable to decide on any actions on her own and must check with Zed first.  This all led to a rather lackluster ending.  It was a little to Mean Girls, a little too unbelievable and didn't provide the big reveal didn't provide the shock value that I think it intended.  

Not sure if I will check back in on this author, guess it depends on the premise of the next story and whether or not I can expect the same level of slut shaming.

Teaching/Parental Notes:

Age:  15 and up
Sex: Kissing
Violence: None
Inappropriate Language: Fuck, Whore, Shit, Bitch, Slut, Piss, Dick
Substance Use/Abuse: Marijuana Use