Category: Young Adult

Book Review: The False Prince

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult8 Comments

Some books make the circuit of lots of blogs I read…and sometimes it still takes me a long time to get to them!  I finally picked up The False Prince by Jennifer A. Neilson, after seeing rave reviews from other bloggers.  And the good thing about waiting so long?  The rest of the trilogy is already out!

The False Prince is told to us by Sage, an orphan boy who is one day plucked from his orphanage by Conner, a wealthy noble with a sinister manner.  Sage soon learns that Conner is collecting orphan boys, intending to train them to pose as the long-lost Prince Jaron and prevent a succession crisis leading to civil war.  But only one boy will be chosen for the role, and Conner’s ruthlessness and secrecy make it clear that those left unchosen will be killed. Continue reading “Book Review: The False Prince” →

Book Review: Cart and Cwidder – Drowned Ammet

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult7 Comments

One of my goals for Once Upon a Time was to reread Diana Wynne Jones’ Dalemark Quartet, which I last read in high school and largely forgot.  I successfully read them…but didn’t manage to get to reviews!  Today I’m going to look at the first two books, Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammett.

Cart and Cwidder is about a family of musicians traveling in a cart through Dalemark.  And just to clear up the title, a cwidder is a musical instrument (somewhat like a lute, I think).  Moril is our main character, the dreamy one of the family who isn’t sure about his talents.  The family is on their annual trip through South Dalemark, ruled by oppressive earls, back towards the “free North.”  Moril and his siblings find themselves suddenly thrust into the center of a brewing war when their father is killed and they must undertake a vital task he left unfinished.  Oh, and that cwidder in the title?  Definitely magical. Continue reading “Book Review: Cart and Cwidder – Drowned Ammet” →

A Visit to Discworld to Finish the Story of Tiffany Aching

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult9 Comments

I found myself with a slight crisis recently, short on books and still waiting on holds, wandering the shelves of my tiny local library looking for something to carry me through the week…and was delighted to stumble upon I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett.  Discworld is the one series I somehow feel no pressure to finish–it’s too big and too rambling and I just dip in at random whenever I feel so inclined.  But the Tiffany Aching subseries as always felt much more self-contained and continuous, so I have been meaning to finish that off.

The final book in the sub-quartet presents Tiffany Aching at sixteen, still new to her role as Witch of the Chalk, but settling into the position.  But Tiffany’s dance with the Wintersmith in the previous book has awoken an ancient evil–one who hates witches.  With hostility towards witches rising throughout the land, Tiffany must find a way to fight through the fear and prejudice to confront its root.  And that while dealing with the upcoming wedding of Roland, her some-time beau, and the sometimes harmful help of her devoted allies, the Nac Mac Feegles.

I love the way Pratchett has presented Tiffany’s growth throughout the quartet.  She has always been someone who does what needs doing, from rescuing her little brother from a Fairy Queen in the first book, to the unglamorous witch work of caring for the ill, elderly and forgotten in this final book.  Tiffany has gained wisdom and confidence all along the way, but like life, it’s often been a few steps forward, a stumble or two back, a redirection and a new leap ahead.  Tiffany’s not only learned how to fulfill her role, she’s very consciously had to figure out what that role is, and how she wants to fulfill it.  Pratchett has done a masterful job of keeping Tiffany always the same person, while growing her throughout the series.

And then there are the Nac Mac Feegles, the Wee Free Men, the drinking, fighting, carousing, honor-bound (but always their own interpretation of honor!) clan who swore loyalty to Tiffany as the Hag o’ the Hills and will stick with her through thick and thin, no matter how many times she tells them to go away.  I love how well Tiffany understands them by now, and her back and forth with them is hilariously brilliant.  For instance, she’s somewhat less than surprised–and remarkably calm–when Daft Wullie sets fire to her broomstick in midair, and staunchly denies responsibility while holding a lit match…

I also appreciated that Rob Anybody, the Nac Mac Feegle chief, did get one moment of more depth.  The Nac Mac Feegles, basically, are never serious…until the humans try to dig up the Nac Mac Feegle hill, and for just a moment we glimpse a very real fear and anger from Rob Anybody about his wife and children.  I’m not sure I really want more than one serious moment from the Nac Mac Feegles, but one was perfect.

Having read other Discworld books, I enjoyed a cameo for Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg.  It’s always fun to see familiar characters from a different perspective, and I liked seeing them through Tiffany’s eyes–still the same characters as when they tell the story themselves, but with maybe a little more awe mixed in.

Pratchett’s books are all the more remarkable for being hilariously funny, while sharply insightful in their satire.  Here he personifies a familiar and particularly ugly side of human nature, the hatred of the Other simply because they’re Other.  Or as was said in another fantasy story, “we don’t like what we don’t understand; in fact, it scares us” (Beauty and the Beast, “The Mob Song”).  There it was against the Beast; here it’s against the witches, and there’s an added subtlety in the sense that part of the hatred comes because people know that the witches do what needs doing–what people guiltily realize they ought to be doing themselves and aren’t.

I already own all the City Guard Discworld books, and I think I need to start collecting the Tiffany Aching books.  They’re both my favorite kind of comedy–we have one stable, complex main character to ground us and guide us through the constant hilarity of everyone else around them.  This book was a wonderful end to the quartet, hilarious, insightful and deeply satisfying.

Author’s Site:

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Other reviews:
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Buy it here: I Shall Wear Midnight

Twice Upon a Time…and Once Upon the End

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Ruminations, Young Adult4 Comments

Somewhere earlier during the Once Upon a Time challenge this year, I read Half Upon a Time by James Riley.  I didn’t love it, but it had some intriguing parts to the ending, so I decided to go ahead and plunge into the second and third books in the trilogy.  And I thought I’d better plunge quickly before I forgot the details of the characters and the plot twists!  I didn’t love the later books either, but I do think they improved as they went, and overall I found the trilogy to be a pretty fun ride.

The first book introduced us to Jack, who considers himself more clever than heroic; May, a girl from our world who suddenly landed in Jack’s land of fairy tales; and Philip, a very proper handsome prince.  The second book, Twice Upon a Time, opens with the three of them searching for answers about May’s past, and for a way to defeat the Wicked Queen.  Their quest takes them to the Fairy Homeland (which has fallen under a Sleeping Beauty-style curse, thorns and all), into a slightly twisted Neverland, onto Blackbeard’s ship and under the sea, searching for a little mermaid.

As you can tell, this followed the style of the first book, mashing together familiar fairy tales and classic fantasy.  Riley mostly doesn’t retell stories–instead he takes the characters and gives them a new slant, or explores what might have happened to them after the traditional story ended.  Things get a little convoluted in the process, but there are some clever (and funny!) twists as a result.

The plot was entertaining, although at times I felt we were drifting pretty far from the main conflict, the fight with the Wicked Queen.  However, each individual adventure is pretty cool, so as long as you roll with it a bit, it works!

The third book, Once Upon the End, brings the Wicked Queen back to the center of the story.  There are fewer mashed together fairy tales (though we do get quite a bit of “Jack and the Beanstalk”), with the focus much more on Jack, May and Philip, and some very hard choices they each have to make about if, and how, they’re going to take a stand against the Wicked Queen.

That brings me nicely to why I think these books improved throughout the trilogy–the characters.  My main reservation on the first one was that the characters just didn’t grab me, feeling like basic fairy tale archetypes (even may as the “spunky princess”).  Fortunately, they gained more depth.  Philip was the one I most disappointed by, and he had the most satisfying growth.  He stayed the proper prince–but we got into the conflict of how hard it could be to always be noble and honorable and honest and good.  And what happens when two noble causes conflict, or the greater good requires a dishonorable act.

Jack got more interesting too, as he went on what was essentially a hero’s journey, finding his skills and his strength.  This was particularly apparent in the third book, where circumstances at one point make it very clear how far he’s come.

May, I am sorry to say, got more obnoxious in the second book, or so it felt to me.  However, she reined that back a bit in the third book, and went through some more complex character growth around who she can trust, and how to protect her friends.

The third book also gave us Penelope, also known as Sleeping Beauty.  And she was amazing!  She uses cursed spindle splinters as weapons!  And she gives Philip a stern lecture on how sometimes, he just needs to back off and let her handle things because she has a plan and he is not helping by swinging his sword around.  Penelope was not in this book enough, and I want another one about her.

I think this trilogy rides somewhere in between Middle Grade and Young Adult–the characters are sixteen which seems to imply YA, but the style feels a bit more Middle Grade.  A little lighter and a little simpler–so if you enjoy that, and fairy tale mash-ups, and are willing to ride with a little randomness…then this is just the trilogy for you!

Author’s Site: http://james-riley-author.tumblr.com/

Other reviews:
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Michelle I. Mason
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Twice Upon a Time and Once Upon the End

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:
Reading Is Fun Again
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And…there are many more!  Tell me about yours and I’ll add a link. 🙂

Buy it here: Cress