I’m particularly excited to share today’s review, because I know the author, a member of my writing group, Stonehenge.  This may make me a little biased…but I promise you an honest review anyway! 🙂

Secrets in the Dark by K. D. Blakely follows the adventures of Kat and her two best friends–who definitely didn’t expect to fall into a magic world, when they were just trying to hide from a group of bullies.  They discover that an old tree in the town cemetary is a portal to another realm.  Every full moon, they and their friends can pass through to the magical world of Chimera.  It would be great…if the bullies didn’t keep following them, and if something hadn’t gone horribly wrong in Chimera, causing everyone living there to disappear.

This story is a lot of fun, and very engaging throughout.  The characters are my favorite part.  There’s a big cast of kids, but I never had trouble keeping people straight or telling them apart–and I’m not very good at that!  Kat is part of a group of five and there are four people in the group of bullies, so that’s quite a few people…but they all come to life as clear and distinct.  Kat and her friends all have their quirks, as well as their strengths and their flaws, and I particularly enjoy how they all have to work together with their different skills to deal with the challenges of Chimera.

Kat is a very likable narrator.  She’s not perfect but she is appealing, making for the best kind of heroine.  She’s twelve-going-on-thirteen, and is struggling to accept how much her world is changing.  It’s a very believable and sympathetic part of her character, and so appropriate for her age.

My favorite character may be one of Kat’s friends, Brady.  He’s super-intelligent, and talks that way.  His dialogue and the way he sees the world is so entertaining.  There’s also one major older character, Kat’s sister-in law, Ronny.  She has a special connection to Chimera, and does not always fit comfortably in the normal world.  In particular, she constantly gets sayings wrong–like “slow and steady wins with grace,” or “the grass is always cleaner on the other side of the fence.”  So much fun–and sometimes her sayings make a strange amount of sense!

I’ll end with one of my favorite aspects of the story: thanks to a wish that came true in an unexpected way, all the kids have familiars when they’re in Chimera.  The story is just asking for promotional-tie-in stuffed animals.  🙂  Kat and her friends have fun and adorable animals like a tiny owl, a cat and a fox.  They don’t talk, but they’re intelligent and often help as the kids explore the world.  The bullies, on the other hand, get rather nasty animals like a rat and a pig, which they keep trying to chase away.  The whole situation really makes me want a familiar…and who wouldn’t want a chance to explore a magical world?

If you find a tree (or a wardrobe) that lets you into a magical world, then by all means, have fun…but in the meantime, I highly recommend reading your way into the adventure!

Author’s Site: http://Kat-Tales.net

Buy it here: Paperback or ebook

Last week, I reviewed the first three books in Lois Lowry’s Giver quartet.  Today, I’m turning to book four, the recently-released Son.  Lowry does a wonderful job bringing together threads from all three of the previous books, and giving us a final conclusion.

This last book takes us back to the beginning of The Giver, and we see familiar events play out from a new point of view.  Jonas’ story in The Giver also involves Gabe, a baby boy whose future is in grave danger due to his “failure to thrive.”  In Jonas’ restrictive community, there’s no place for anyone who doesn’t perfectly fit the standards.

Son shifts the point of view to Claire, a girl who has been selected to be a Birthmother.  This is an assigned job like any other, and not an honored one.  Girls who are selected as Birthmothers spend a few years in the role, giving birth to three Products, and then going on to low-level labor for the rest of their lives.  Something goes wrong with Claire’s delivery, and she is shunted into a new role at the fish hatchery.  But she can’t stop thinking about her Product–her son.  Claire finds her way to the Nurturing center, and there she meets Jonas’ father, who is caring for her son, Gabe.

I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers, but I don’t think I can at this point–at the end of The Giver, Jonas escapes the community and takes Gabe with him.  In Son, Claire is devastated by this, and sets out on a desperate search to find her son.  She ends up in a shipwreck, washing ashore in a small, isolated village with no memories.  When her memories return, she resumes her quest, sacrificing everything to find Gabe.

It’s fascinating to go back to Jonas’ community, and to see it through Claire’s eyes.  I did spot a few inconsistencies, but considering the books were written 18 years apart, I’m impressed by how well Lowry did with the return.  The Giver showed us the community through the eyes of a twelve-year-old, while Son is from the perspective of independent young adults.  We learn more about life in the community, and there are extra details that add to what was already a brilliantly-painted picture.  There were comforting notes–I was relieved to see Jonas’ father expressing more concern over Gabe.  There were horrifying notes–we find out even more just how little bond there is between family members.

In some ways, Claire seemed a little too aware.  Part of the brilliance of Jonas’ character was that he simply didn’t know anything different, down to the level of not having the vocabulary to explain things he’s feeling.  Claire at times thinks about things that I don’t feel like she should even be aware of.  There’s some explanation for why Claire is different from the others around her, so mostly I believe it…but it was just a tiny bit off at times.

Son gives us a fourth community when Claire washes ashore.  This one felt like a medieval fishing village, maybe in Scotland or Ireland.  The community is close-knit and kind, for the most part.  They do turn judgmental when it becomes known that unmarried-Claire had given birth to a son.  Which is rather ironic, considering.  It didn’t occur to me reading The Giver, but the community has basically made an institution out of virgin birth–all the Birthmothers are impregnated using science.

One of my favorite characters in the book is in the fishing village–and it’s annoying me to no end that I can’t remember his name!  I already sent the book back to the library, and Google is not helping me here.  I’m bad at character names, so anyone out there want to help me out?  He has his own horrible past, and his attempt to climb out of the cliffs surrounding the village has left him crippled–but given him the knowledge to become Claire’s mentor as she continues her own quest.  I’m a big fan of gruff, antisocial characters who turn out to have unexpected depth and hearts of gold.  That part of the story is ultimately very bittersweet.

I don’t want to give too much away, but the story does take us eventually to the village from Messenger, where we get to see Jonas, Kira and Gabe, as well as the return of an old villain.  The one thing in this book that makes me happiest may be a relatively small plot thread that confirms happy endings for Jonas and Kira.  Messenger gives us some hints, and it’s so nice to have a definite conclusion!  I usually hate ambiguous endings in books.

I won’t tell you the end of Claire’s story, of course, but I just want to comment that she does undergo incredible struggles.  As heartbreaking as it often is, it feels right somehow too–the world is so thoroughly messed up, I wouldn’t have believed that it could be easily solved.

The first three books have a definite theme around the things that can dehumanize us.  I think Son is about keeping your humanity in the face of those threats.  Claire loves her son despite living in a society that barely understands the word; the people in the fishing village care for one another despite their relative poverty; and certain characters manage to resist greed in favor of things that are more important.

Thematically and plotwise, Son is an immensely satisfying conclusion.  Before I read it, I wondered if it would really be the end–after all, Messenger was supposed to be the end too.  But Son feels much more like The End.  The one plot thread that didn’t feel resolved relates back to Jonas’ community.  There are hints that things changed drastically after Jonas (and Claire) left, but we don’t find out details.  I could imagine a fifth book relating to those event, but it would be much more removed from the others in the series.

Barring that, I think we can pretty safely put the end onto the story.  So if I find a nice set of four, I’m buying it!

Author’s Site: http://loislowry.com/

Other reviews:
Literary Treats
Waking Brain Cells
Slatebreakers
And many more.  Tell me about yours!

Buy it here: Son by Lois Lowry

When I found out that Lois Lowry had released a fourth and final book in her Giver series, I had it on reserve at the library within five minutes.  Apparently everyone felt the same way, as I was about #25 in line.  That actually worked out perfectly, because it gave me time to reread the first three books!  Which also seemed to be in high demand…so perhaps other people felt the same on that too.  Today I want to talk about those three–and then discuss Son in its own review next week.

The most famous, I believe, is the first book, The Giver.  I remember a teacher read it to us in sixth grade, which is the same age Jonas is in the book (probably not a coincidence).  Until I picked it up again, I would have guessed that I had reread it more recently–but I don’t think so anymore, because it felt so different reading it as an adult.

Jonas lives in a very carefully regulated community, where a council of elders decide how each person’s life will be lived.  Everyone is assigned a career at age twelve.  Later on they’re assigned a spouse, and then given children.  When Jonas turns twelve, he is assigned the mysterious role of Receiver, the keeper of the community’s memories from a time before.  As he gradually receives memories from the old Receiver, now called the Giver, Jonas begins to question the world around him.

As far as I can remember when I was twelve, I didn’t find this book disturbing until most of the way through, when I found out what it really means to be “released” from the community.  Reading it as an adult, I was disturbed by page one, when a plane flies over the community unexpectedly and everyone, children and adults alike, stop in their tracks, paralyzed by uncertainty and fear in the face of anything different.  There is something really wrong with this society.

The more you read and the more you find out, the worse it gets.  Lowry has created an incredibly chilling book that is deceptive in its simplicity.  The language is simple, the book is short (I read it in a day) and it’s very much about a child–but it is so powerful.  Part of the chilling nature is Jonas’ easy acceptance of the world as it’s been presented to him.  I think when I was twelve I accepted it right along with him.  As an adult, I’m horrified immediately, while the narrator goes along without seeing a problem for most of the book.

This is not a flashy dystopia–no one’s bleeding, no one’s starving or forced to fight to the death in an arena.  The community is designed to prevent pain.  But it is nevertheless a terrifying vision of a future with no independence, where the individual is completely subjugated to the “good” of the community, and the goal of eliminating pain has eliminated all positive emotions too.

Now how do you follow that book?  Book two is Gathering Blue, which does not really seem to have any connection to The Giver (more on that in a bit).  This is set in a different future community.  Kira’s community is not neat and ordered like Jonas’.  Her village lives a subsistence life with no room for warmer emotions in the fight merely to survive.  Anyone who can’t contribute is killed.  Kira, born with one bad foot, was saved in childhood by her caring mother.  Now that her mother has died, Kira saves her own life through her talent for embroidery; the village elders choose her to repair the Robe that records the history of their world.

Kira’s people are as much dehumanized as Jonas’, albeit in a different way, and the governing body has no more concern for people.  It’s fascinating to watch more and more be revealed about her community.  Kira is a particularly good character, and there are good mysteries to unravel in her world.  I remember the first time I read this, I was so frustrated by where it ended!

So it’s a good thing there’s book three, Messenger, which ties the first two books together and gives us answers to their inconclusive endings–if not a final ending yet.  This book focuses on Matty, a young friend of Kira’s.  He’s living in a new village, a warm and welcoming place founded by outcasts from other, harsher communities.  But something is changing.  A mysterious figure known as the Trademaster has been inviting people to trade away parts of themselves–honor, kindness, strength–for whatever they most want, and the attitude of the whole community is hardening.

This is the first directly fantastical book.  There are fantasy elements in the first two, but they don’t feel like fantasy.  Jonas’ receiving of memories feels like a kind of hypnosis, and Kira’s embroidery abilities seem like they could be magic, or could be only inspiration.  This book features the Trademaster and his abilities, as well as a sentient, hostile forest, and a special ability Matty is learning to use.  Kira and Jonas both return, so we find out more about the next few years of their lives, and about their clearly magical abilities too.

We again see a theme of dehumanizing.  Jonas’ people lost their humanity trying to escape their pain.  Kira’s people are ground down by poverty and self-interest.  Matty’s people are sacrificing the best of themselves in the interest of greed.

Messenger is in some ways the weakest book, with its primary value bridging the two stronger ones.  I don’t feel like Matty is as effective a character as Jonas and Kira, and while Trademaster is terrifying, he’s also flashier–and we lose the subtle horror of the first two books that was so much more chilling.

However–I also think Messenger gets some criticism because it’s been perceived as the final book of the series.  It does part of that job, tying some things up, but it doesn’t give a strong finish.  Seeing it only as a bridge book leading to book four, I think it lives up to that role very well.

And book four, Son, gave me that stronger finish I was looking for.  But that will be the next review…

Author’s Site: http://loislowry.com/

Other reviews:
Annette’s Book Spot
Stephanie Early Green
Becky’s Book Reviews
Anyone else?

Buy it here:
The Giver
Gathering Blue
Messenger