Category: Young Adult

A Magical Lady Knight

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews, Young Adult12 Comments

I’m going to try–I really am–not to wax too enthusiastic today.  But it’s hard when I’m talking about a favorite series–when it would actually not be inaccurate to use phrases like “changed my life” and “favorite character ever.”

Am I talking about some great inspirational work?  Well…not a traditional one.  I’m talking about the Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce.

The first book is Alanna: The First Adventure.  Alanna is a girl who wants to become a knight, except that girls aren’t allowed to become knights.  So she disguises herself as a boy and sets out to become one anyway.  Alanna is an incredible character.  When I was younger, I basically wanted to be her when I grew up.  She’s stubborn, determined, and incredibly brave, but also human–she makes mistakes, she has struggles, and she’s not always sure of herself.  She was my favorite character when I was a kid, out of any book I’d read.

The series has a host of memorable characters, with new ones arriving in later books as well.  A couple of favorites include Prince Jonathan, every girl’s dream of a handsome and charming prince, and George Cooper, the roguish and equally charming King of Thieves.

They all live in a world of swordplay and tournaments that is nevertheless grounded and believable–swing a sword around too long and you’ll have sore muscles.  They also live in a world of magic.  Alanna possesses the Gift, which she can use for various spells, some practical and some dramatic.  There is also an entire pantheon of gods who occasionally step into mortal affairs.

The books are funny, exciting, engaging…amazing.

And they changed my life.  I’m a firm believer that a girl can do anything a boy can do, that women have the same rights as men, and that we all ought to be equal, whether in pay rates or in who cleans the house.  I’m sure a lot of that belief comes from my parents, especially my mom, but I think reading about Alanna at a young age helped.

I also met one of my best friends because of Tamora Pierce.  We were freshmen in high school, and were both shy book-lovers.  We were in a class together, but hadn’t talked.  She was reading a Tamora Pierce book, and so was I.  I can’t remember now who talked first, but we’ve later admitted that we each noticed the other one’s book, and each took out our own book before class started in the hopes that the other one would notice and use it as an excuse to start a conversation.  She’s still one of my best friends; we’re both eagerly awaiting Tamora Pierce’s next book, promised for this February.

You may also be recalling right now that in Fiction Friday, I’ve featured some of my writing about a girl who disguised herself as a boy so that she could become a pirate.  It’s not a coincidence that my character’s name is Tamara.

Song of the Lioness is my favorite quartet by Tamora Pierce.  She’s written other books set in the same world, and many characters, Alanna included, turn up in those books.  I recommend those as well.

Much as I still love her, I don’t think I want to be Alanna anymore.  Now, I think that when I grow up, I want to be Tamora Pierce.  I don’t know anything about her personal life, but I’d like to be her from a writing perspective, at least.  🙂

Author’s Site: http://www.tamora-pierce.com/

My Tamora Pierce Collection

Inspired by Shakespeare–Or So I Was Told

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young Adult1 Comment

Today—a rant.

I picked up Starcrossed by Mark Schreiber because it was described as a retelling of Romeo and Juliet.  Also because I wanted to query the agent, but that’s another story.  I even read a review of the book that described it as being a really obvious retelling of R&J.  And I thought, all right, I like Shakespeare, I can go for that.

I am now giving fair warning—if you’re looking for a good retelling of R&J, watch West Side Story.  Don’t read Starcrossed.  This book is no more Romeo and Juliet than it is Hamlet, and I was immensely gratified to see the hero actually point that out halfway through the book.  He was having this discussion with the heroine, who was adamantly convinced that R&J was telling the story of their love.

"Do you bite your tongue at me, sir?" -- The Capulets and the Montagues--not appearing in Starcrossed

But she’s kind of a flake, so that doesn’t signify much.  I’ve read Romeo and Juliet and I’ve seen it performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, so I feel I can make a claim on knowing how the play goes.  Am I right in thinking that the feuding families are just a LITTLE essential to the plotline of R&J?  You can replace them with feuding gangs, I’m fine with that, but if no one’s feuding with anyone, you don’t have Romeo and Juliet.  All you have is a teen romance with some ups and downs, and that’s pretty much every teen romance ever written.

I might forgive this for not being Romeo and Juliet if it was a decent story in its own right…but it’s not.  It’s the love story of Christy and Ben.  They’re together.  They’re not together.  They’re back together.  This gets in the way, that gets in the way, one obstacle doesn’t have much to do with any other obstacle, yeah, yeah, the course of true love doesn’t run smooth, but I would like to feel that the course has some kind of point to it rather than obstacles thrown up for the sake of obstacles.  Especially obstacles like OH NO, you lied to me about your birth date and now our astrological signs are not aligned!!!  I swear I’m not making this up.  This book is contrived, it’s angsty, I disagree wholeheartedly with the reviews it’s getting on Amazon, to the point that I refuse to link to them.

And for heaven’s sake–who names their heroine Christy Marlowe in a book that, theoretically at least, is supposed to be based on a Shakespeare play? Maybe someone who believes Marlowe wrote the plays (by the way–he was dead at the time.  I’m a Stratfordian).

It just goes to show.  Claiming to be inspired by the Bard, A) does not mean you really are and B) does not guarantee a good book.

My sympathies, Mr. Shakespeare.  You deserve better.

Following Scott Through Antarctica in 2083

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction, Young Adult3 Comments

As you may know from reading past posts, I’ve developed a small obsession with Antarctic explorers lately.  So when I was doing some writing at the library and my eye caught the word Antarctica blazing (freezing?) out of the fiction section, I had to investigate.  I found Surviving Antarctica: Reality TV 2083 by Andrea White.

The story is set in 2083, where five fourteen-year-olds are on a reality TV show recreating Captain Scott’s historic trek to the South Pole.  But in this dystopian future, reality TV has reached a whole new level of realism–where no one interferes, even when that means people die.  And when you’re sending kids to recreate a journey where five men did die…well, that guarantees some good adventure programming, right?

Scott and his men at the South Pole

They had me at Scott.

I admit I was in it for the Antarctic explorers side of things, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a fascinating dystopian society too.  In this future, the government has gone broke.  Since they can’t afford anything, like scientific research and schools, they’ve decided that the way to keep the people complacent and uncomplaining is to provide better entertainment, and keep them watching television all the time.

It’s a disturbingly insightful idea.  Over 97 million people voted in the most popular American Idol vote.  About 106 million people voted in the 2004 presidential elections.  Sure, this would be more impressive if those numbers were reversed…but that’s not a big gap when you’re talking about two things as different as a TV show, and deciding the leader of the country.

So between looking ahead to a disturbing potential future and looking back to a fascinating past, you’ve got something good here.

About that past–my particular Antarctic obsession (if you’ll let me go a little poetic about it) swirls directly around the bundled and slightly frosted (but still charming) figure of Captain Lawrence “Titus” Oates.  I think Andrea White’s interest in Antarctica would shift left a little to bring fellow explorer Birdie Bowers into more direct focus.  Titus, sadly, does not come up by name until 160-odd pages in.  But I respect her interest and bring this up not as a criticism and only as a comment on my personal preferences.  I’m sure Birdie was very nice too.

Ultimately I think the concept of this was more interesting than any individual characters, although the five kids (plus one not on the mission) were all good enough characters in their way.  But it’s mostly the ideas in this book that make it work, rather than the individuals, or even the plot.  The individuals are fine, and it’s a good plot, but it’s more about the ideas.  It’s a thought-provoking book.  It might make you think about your television, or about reality TV.

It also makes me wonder if I’m going to be able to hunt down any more novels set in Antarctica.

Author’s site: http://www.survivingantarctica.com/

Of Sparkly Vampires

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult3 Comments
I NEVER sparkle. But I am double-jointed.

When I first started thinking about this blog, I knew that if I was going to write about young adult fantasy, there was one book I couldn’t ignore for very long.  So while I didn’t want to start with Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, I think the day has come to look at it.

If you’ve never heard of Twilight, I’m going to have to respectfully ask what planet you’ve been on recently.  Twilight is the love story of Bella, clutzy book lover, and Edward, ravishingly handsome vampire.  They’ve taken the teenage world by storm and spawned any number of vampire story knock-offs.  Some of which surely make Bela Lugosi, above, turn over in his, er, coffin.

I’ve read all four books in the Twilight series.  And there are few books that leave me so confused about how I feel about them.

You see, here’s the problem–I can tell you all about why they are deeply flawed books.  And yet I read each one in two or three days, and found it very difficult to put them down.  So let’s take both sides of it.

The flaws.  Well, chief in there are the characters.  I can’t tell you much of anything about Bella or Edward as people.  I described Bella as a klutzy book lover, and that is ALL I can tell you about her.  Oh, and she’s in love with Edward.  Madly, obsessively, all-consumingly in love with Edward.  Which kind of works out, because he’s madly, obsessively, all-consumingly in love with her.  And that’s pretty much all I can tell you about him.  Oh…wait…he plays music.  Which we mostly hear about because he wrote Bella a song.

The two leads are one-dimensional characters.  And, in the first book at least, none of the other characters are developed either.  That gets better later in the series…the rest of the vampire clan get their moments to talk about their histories and we find out more about who they each are.  I particularly like Carlisle and Alice.  Jacob has his moments.  Edward and Bella…stay pretty flat.

The all-consuming, to the exclusion of all other interests, romance is…well, it is kind of fun, but it’s also disturbing when you step back long enough to really look at that.  I watched the movie version of The Great Gatsby not that long ago, and there’s a scene where Gatsby stands outside Daisy’s house all night “in case she needs me.”  And I thought–that’s such an Edward thing to do!  Except that it’s clear Gatsby is unhealthily obsessed, and Edward is supposed to be a model for romance.

So there’s some massive problems.  And I know that the writing is really not that great, and even the plots are, well, not usually much more complex than “evil vampires are coming to get us!!!!”

And yet…I found the books so addictive.  Why????  I don’t really know.  The main thing I’ve been able to figure out for myself is that Edward and Bella are really cute when they’re romantic.  Yes, they’re obsessive…but there are a lot of cute, sweet scenes.  And one thing sort of on that note that I do have to give Stephenie Meyer huge points for (minor spoiler here)–way to go on not having them sleep together before they’re married.  Especially when Bella’s only seventeen.  That is so sadly rare in modern stories (books, movies and television) and it’s nice to see that.  And also–concrete proof that it’s possible to write extremely romantic stories without having the characters jump into bed (okay, well, literally they do–but you know what I mean).

Now that I’ve rambled a little about my Twilight conflict, I’m going to give up on inventing my own explanations and just point you to someone who’s already got it all worked out–Cleolinda Jones (maybe you’ve heard of her Movies in Fifteen Minutes parodies?) wrote an absolutely brilliant analysis on Twilight.  Here it is.  I think she’s nailed it on all counts.  And also, she pretty much sums up all of Twilight in this one line: “Omg I love him I love him I love him I love him I love him I love him he loves me!! And he sparkles!”

Yeah.  That’s Twilight.  And the literary analyst in me can’t stand the thing, but my inner teenage girl loves it.  So I’m conflicted.  And, please, by all means–tell me your thoughts about the sparkly vampire.

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

On Garbage Bags and Poetry

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young Adult1 Comment

Every high school student should read this book.  Actually, everyone should read it, if only for the metaphor of the title.  A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag by Gordon Korman sounds utterly ridiculous–and it is.  It is a hysterical, hilarious, wonderful book.

My slightly battered, much-loved copy

But the title is actually remarkably profound.  It’s based on a one-scene reference (like To Kill a Mockingbird‘s title) when the main character describes a commercial for garbage bags.  The garbage bag is hooked up to a machine that keeps pumping in more and more pounds of pressure, and the smiling spokesman talks about how much pressure the bag is taking.  He keeps on cranking it up, while the poor bag is struggling to hold together.  Sound like high school to anyone?  Or life, for that matter?

The main character in the book is Raymond Jardine.  He has no luck.  Zero, zip, zilch.  His overriding dream is to somehow make it Theamelpos, an island in Greece which he is convinced grants extraordinary luck to all visitors.  Six students will be selected (methodology unknown) for a school trip this summer, and Jardine is determined to lie, steal, cheat, scheme, and connive his way into one of those six slots.

And that’s just the beginning of the story.  We’re guided through the book by the comparatively normal Sean Delancey, who is paired with Jardine for an English assignment.  Korman often takes the wise tactic of giving us someone relatively sane as a lead character, who can navigate us through the wild and wacky world of the book, where anything is possible.

Where it’s perfectly normal, for instance, for students to surf on trays down tables in the cafeteria–the temperature in the cafeteria is typically around 90 degrees, because the school is powered by the experimental SACGEN, which all the students know doesn’t work but which the school board is determined to insist is a great triumph.  That’s just one example of the world we find ourselves in.

The English assignment Sean and Jardine have to do together is a 30 page report on a poet of their choice.  Jardine is determined to pick a poet no one else will do (reasoning that if they pick a famous poet, another group will too, the teacher can compare the two reports, and his is bound to be worse).  Literally minutes before the deadline to choose a poet, Jardine selects Gavin Gunhold, the author of “Registration Day.”  They rave to their teacher about how much they love Gunhold’s work, and find out later that he never wrote anything else, having died in a freak accident shortly after writing his only poem.  Their solution is start writing their own poetry in Gunhold’s style, using for inspiration words they pick at random from the encyclopedia.

As to Gunhold’s one original poem:

On registration day at taxidermy school

I distinctly saw the eyes of the stuffed moose

Move.

I’m not usually a fan of poetry, and I have probably quoted Gavin Gunhold more often than almost any other poet.

A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag is packed with memorable characters, funny scenes, and even an explosion or two.  You will get your money’s worth in laughs out of this book.  And surely everyone can relate, at least a little, to how Jardine feels about that garbage bag?

Author’s website: www.gordonkorman.com