Category: Reviews

Down Time’s Rabbit Hole

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews5 Comments

I find time travel stories deeply intriguing–and Alice in Time by Penelope Bush promised an especially intriguing trip into the past.  Since the travel is facilitated by a magical merry-go-round, it’s solidly fantasy and suitable for Once Upon a Time.

Fourteen-year-old Alice hates her life–loudly and constantly.  She’s convinced that all her problems started from the birth of her younger brother, her mother’s post natal depression and her parents’ divorce soon after.  A spin on a merry-go-round sends her back seven years to just a few days before her brother was born.  She inhabits her younger body, while keeping her older memories.  Freaked out at first, Alice soon decides that this is her chance to change everything, saving her parents’ marriage and inflicting revenge on the girl who will bully her through middle school.

I was fascinated by the idea of going back into one’s own past, with the opportunity to relive life differently.  Doesn’t it make you think about what you’d do if you could go back into your own past?

Alice has definite plans, and one of the best parts of the book is Alice’s growing understanding of what really happened the first time around when she was seven.  As an older (and not emotionally-involved) reader, I saw very quickly what the real problems were in Alice’s family.  Within the first few chapters (pre-time travel), Alice’s father holds the reception for his second wedding at a pub, next to a bookie’s office, which probably tells you quite a lot too.

Even though I figured things out before Alice did, I believed in her blindness, and didn’t mind waiting for her evolving understanding.  There were also some nuances in her friendships that were, if not surprising exactly, interesting to watch unfold.

One of my favorite parts was watching how teenage Alice dealt with being seven again.  There were good things, like the closeness with her mother, and bad things, like the lack of freedom and control.  One of the sweetest parts of the book is when Alice gets to spend some time with her grandmother, who had died when Alice was eight.

I have to warn you that this book started a little slow for me–it’s a fast read overall, at a little over 200 pages, but it’s about 80 pages before Alice goes back in time, and I was starting to get impatient by that point.  It picked up a lot once the time travel came in, and became a very good read about family, friends and growing up…by being younger!

Author’s Site: http://www.penelopebush.com/

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Buy it here: Alice in Time

Visit Venice with the Gondola Maker

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Reviews5 Comments

I have rarely read a book that was driven so much by atmosphere as The Gondola Maker by Laura Morelli.  Set in Venice in 1581, this is historical fiction with the emphasis on the historical, taking us inside the world of the craftsmen and gondoliers of Venice.

Luca’s path in life seems mapped-out and unavoidable, to follow in his father’s footsteps as one of Venice’s finest gondola builders.  But in a moment of rage, Luca makes a terrible mistake.  He flees his old life and his old identity, becoming a boatman on the docks.  He soon becomes private gondolier to Trevisan, a master painter, and there Luca finds two new obsessions: Giuliana, a beautiful girl in a painting; and an old gondola he vows to restore to beauty.

This is a slow book, but not in a bad way.  It’s clearly minutely researched, and Morelli pays great attention to description, especially of craftsmanship.  Many characters are artists, not only the painter but also all the men involved with the different pieces necessary to create a beautiful gondola, Luca included.

I find that I have great respect for Trevisan, mostly because of one observation Luca makes.  Trevisan is a highly successful painter, who takes pains to dress like the nobility (possible through an agreement with a costume-maker’s shop!)  Because of this, he has become accepted among the patricians, even though “he engages in what is, after all, manual labor, little different from how any Venetian glassblower, ironsmith, carver or other artisan spends his day.”

There’s a fascinating double-play here.  Luca lowers Trevisan’s status to the same as all of these professions (including his own), beneath the wealthy in status.  No doubt this was true in the historical social hierarchy!  And yet, the depiction of these other crafts throughout the book raises them, to the level I think a modern reader is likely to place a master painter in, as a genius and great artist.

But mostly I respect Trevisan for finding a way to rise above his ascribed status.  He is a painter, he doesn’t enter a different profession or somehow earn a title, but he’s able to earn respect and privilege above what should be expected for his class.  I love that.  Trevisan is a supporting character, but he may be my favorite anyway.

That may say something about the main character…  I have no dislike of Luca!  Mostly, though, I feel like he was the eyes we used to explore a fascinating world.  His story takes second-place to the world he’s moving through.

And that definitely says something about the romance.  It’s a big plot thread, and it does add some good intrigue and plot twists to the story.  But as a romance it just didn’t grab me.  I mean, Luca fell in love with the painting of the woman.  Even when he begins to interact with Giuliana herself, I never felt sure he appreciated anything about her beyond her beauty.  And that’s a real shame, because there are glimmers that Giuliana is a very intelligent young woman who is determined to chart her own course, beyond the control (none at all) that girls of the nobility typically had.

I would have loved to read this story from Giuliana’s point of view, or perhaps in a split viewpoint.  Giuliana is objectified by every man in the story, some more blatantly than others (normal for the era, I’m sure).  Unfortunately, I was never convinced that Luca wasn’t ultimately doing the same thing.  He acknowledges near the end of the book that he doesn’t really know her at all and that’s true!  There are hints that there’s so much more to her, and I wish we’d had the opportunity to really see that come through.

I actually liked Luca’s “love affair” with the restored gondola much better.  While he takes the living, thinking Giuliana and reduces her largely to a painting, he takes the inert piece of wood and raises it to something that feels almost alive.

So at the end of the day…this is a good book if you like a certain kind of story.  If that story is rich in history and art, and especially if you have an interest in Venice specifically, then I can recommend The Gondola Maker!

Author’s Site: http://lauramorelli.com/

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Buy it here: The Gondola Maker

Disclosure: I received a copy of this novel from iRead Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.

 

Whimsy and Wisdom in a Land Without Time

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews7 Comments

Return of the Dapper Men by Jim Cann and Janet Lee sat on my To Be Read list for three years…and then I read it in forty-five minutes.  Possibly because it’s a graphic novel, which I may or may not have known when I added it to the list.  I can’t remember anymore!  I’m not sure whether it’s sci fi or fantasy, but it has a lovely whimsy that I think makes it altogether suitable for Once Upon a Time.

The story is set “long from now, in a land known as Anorev.”  Somehow or someway, time has stopped, creating only an endless Now.  There dwell in Anorev only children under the age of eleven, who live below the ground and endlessly play; and robots, who live aboveground and endlessly work.  Ayden, a human boy, and Zoe, a robot girl, have a unique friendship, and wander and wonder together.  And then one day, 314 Dapper Men, with identical bowler hats and umbrellas, descend from the sky to restart time and change everything.

If you’re thinking this doesn’t make much sense, you would be right!  This is not a book that offers explanations, or gives answers on a plot level.  The only “answers” are on a metaphorical, emotional level.  I tend to be suspicious of obscure books posing as profound, but in this case, I don’t think it’s just a pose!

Even though I read this in less than an hour, that was due to short length, not fast reading.  This is a book that demands slow reading.  It’s rich in details, both in text and pictures, which turn a bizarre story into something beautiful.

The drawings throughout are soft and whimsical with few straight lines and many textures.  And the text is full of lovely lines like this one about tomorrows, “the wonderful thing that follows dreaming.  Where everything is possible as long as you keep one foot in front of the other and make sure a tock follows every tick.  And hopefully, time for tea.”

I could ramble on, but perhaps I’ll give you my favorite page instead, the page that introduces Ayden and Zoe.

Return of the Dapper Men (2)I think it’s the tenderness between the two characters that I love, captured so well with such a deceptively simple drawing of two people looking at each other.

If I didn’t love this book enough already, it also draws from classic fantasy, opening with the lines, “To anyone who ever fell down a rabbit hole, walked to the sidewalk’s end, danced a wild rumpus, or followed the second star to the right, may you find adventure, wonder, and a little something from which dreams are made in these pages.”  And the pages do contain a setting that seems to combine Alice’s rabbit hole and Peter’s Neverland, make allusions to Pinocchio and Shakespeare–and I like to believe that the reference to “the little white bird who had become an angel” was a quiet nod to J. M. Barrie, and one of my very favorite books.

I don’t really understand Return of the Dapper Men, and plenty of things about it didn’t make a bit of sense…but just this once, I don’t mind in the slightest!

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Buy it here: Return of the Dapper Men

Reaching Into Books

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews6 Comments

I don’t often finish a book and then start grabbing friends to tell them, “You must read this!”  But I have been having that experience with Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines.  Quick advisory that it’s not my usual YA, but for older readers it’s amazing!

This one has been on my To Be Read list for ages, and I don’t know how it took me so long to get to it.  It has one of the most brilliant premises ever.  The lead, Isaac, is a librarian–but he’s also a libriomancer, part of a secret organization of magicians.  Libriomancers can reach into books and pull out objects–like Excalibur, Lucy’s healing cordial or Tinkerbell’s fairy dust. Libriomancers use their powers to deal with magical threats, from natural magic creatures, or ones created from books (more on that in a bit).

Isaac has been relegated to fieldwork after he lost control on a mission, but when a pack of vampires (the “sparkler” variety) attack him in his library as part of a widespread vampire uprising, Isaac is forced back into the fray.  Isaac, his fire spider pet, and a dryad named Lena soon find themselves at the center of a threat much bigger and more complicated than a simple vampire attack.

So I mentioned the premise is brilliant, right?  The mere concept of pulling objects out of books is amazing, but Hines makes it even better with complex rules around how the magic works.  In some ways I could almost see him deliberately creating limitations, but they’re limitations that make sense. For instance, you can’t grab the One Ring of Power, because certain objects have been deemed too dangerous, and their books were magically locked.  You can’t write your own book with whatever object you need, because it’s the readers’ belief in the story that enables libriomancers to pull objects out–so it only works with widely-read books…and did I mention that Johannes Gutenberg founded the libriomancers’ order?  You can’t do too much magic too quickly, because characters start bleeding into the libriomancer’s mind.  With some of the rules come dangers, giving this rollicking ride some darker undertones and greater depth a well.

So–brilliant premise and plausible, complicated magic, check.  References galore to other books?  Check!  Isaac uses books in his magic, and Hines has mostly drawn from real books–he includes a helpful list at the end.  I recognized most of the books, and I think that will be the case for most readers who enjoy sci fi and fantasy too.  This is a firmly fantasy book, but Isaac deals in sci fi books a lot too, so there are ray guns, and one never-identified-but-unmistakable lightsaber.

References in themselves are great, but Hines manages some hugely entertaining, tongue-in-cheek references.  Remember that mention of “sparklers”?  Many vampires came about because someone accidentally reached into a vampire book at the wrong moment and became infected.  So there are a variety of vampires classed according to what book they spawned from–like Sanguinarius Meyerii vampires, irritatingly superhuman and nicknamed sparkers, or the more traditional Stokerus vampires.  So.  Much.  Fun!

The danger of a really brilliant premise is how disappointing it is when a book falls down some other way.  Fortunately, that’s not the case here.  Isaac is a likable hero, flawed but honorable and well-meaning.  He struggles with some interesting, magical morality questions in a way that made me quite like him.

Lena, as I would expect from the author of The Princess Novels, is tough, take-charge, and very much an equal participant in the adventure.  As a dryad, she has some amazing wooden weapons she can use in very clever ways.  She’s also very much out of the mold of typical characters, considering she’s heavyset and bisexual, two ideas that don’t appear much in fantasy.  Lena has a very complex arc that I won’t try to unpack here, exploring questions of free will, character stereotypes, and power in relationships.  It’s carefully and powerfully handled.

If the book falters at all, it’s that I was just a smidge disappointed by the ultimate reveal on the villain.  Trying not to give spoilers, but essentially I expected the big bad villain to be, well, bigger and badder.  However, this is the first book in a trilogy, so I am optimistic that the threat level will rise with each book, and there were definite hints of something more dangerous lurking.

And the up-side to waiting so long to read this…I can go straight on to Book Two!

Don’t forget you can enter the KidLit Giveaway and win a signed copy of my novel!  Contest ends May 18th so enter now…

Author’s Site: http://www.jimchines.com/

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Buy it here: Libriomancer

Rapunzel in Her…Satellite?

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction, Young Adult8 Comments

The long-awaited Cress by Marissa Meyer finally reached me from the library!  And still in time for Once Upon a Time. 🙂  Technically it’s sci fi, not fantasy…but it’s a fairy tale retelling, so I’m saying it counts.  Cress is the third book in The Lunar Chronicles (read about the first two here) so spoilers may follow for the earlier books.

Cress picks up right after Scarlet, and continues the story of Cinder and her friends.  We also get our new title character, Cress, who we saw only briefly in the earlier books.  Cress has spent the past several years trapped in a satellite orbiting the Earth, forced to use her brilliant computer skills to spy on behalf of the Lunar queen.  She manages to make contact with Cinder–but a rescue attempt goes horribly wrong, ending with Wolf badly wounded, Scarlet abducted, and Cress and Thorne crash-landing into the Sahara Desert.  Meanwhile, Prince Kai’s plans to marry the Lunar queen in a desperate attempt to avert war are moving ahead all too quickly.

There are a lot of plot threads going on here, but Meyer manages to move very adeptly between different characters, giving us time with all of them.  I would have liked a little more time with Scarlet (because I love Scarlet!), but completely understand that something had to go in this already-long book.

It’s okay that I didn’t get much Scarlet because I loved Cress too.  She is naive and idealistic and a little bit awkward, because after all, she spent years locked away alone in a satellite.  She’s so thrilled by everything on Earth, seeing so much beauty in ordinary things.  I loved Cress’ growth through the book, gaining more insight and understanding as she interacts with more people.

And Cress and Thorne are just so much fun!  I really enjoyed the romance in Scarlet and this one is just as good, while being completely different.  Thorne has been putting on this heroic rogue persona, which everyone else sees through…but Cress is isolated and naive and develops a major crush on him.  The evolution of Cress’ feelings about Thorne as she gets to know him as a real person is just lovely.

And Thorne…is neither as heroic as Cress thought he was, or as bad as he pretends to be.  He’s a lot like Han Solo, circa A New Hope…except possibly a Han Solo who watched Star Wars and knows exactly what image he’s trying to present, without being entirely sure himself that he would come back to help blow up the Death Star (sorry, spoiler…) Anyway–such a great character, and these two may be my favorite romantic couple for this year.

As in the previous two books, there are some nice fairy tale tie-ins.  Cress, of course, is Rapunzel, from being trapped in her satellite to having her name be inspired by a variety of lettuce.  She also has very long hair that’s cut when she leaves her “tower,” and her “prince” goes blind at the same time.  I love how Meyer puts a sci fi twist on fairy tale elements throughout this series!

Cress has a lot of action and a lot of excitement and a lot of movement forward in the brewing revolution against the Lunar queen.  But there are very few conclusions, and I find myself more anxious for Book Four than I was for Book Three.  Because Cress and Thorne have not really figured their romance out, and the revolution has not come to a boil, and this book left me desperately curious about Book Four’s title character, Princess Winter.

So now I have to sadly wait until next year for the concluding volume.  But at least I can be happy that this series has gone through three out of four books without losing steam and, very possibly, getting better with every installment.  Making me so very hopeful for the final one!

Author’s Site: http://www.marissameyer.com/

Other reviews:
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Buy it here: Cress