Book Review: Never Never by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher

Title: Never Never (Never Never #1)
Author: Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Kindle
Content Alert: Teen sex and swearing

A girl gains consciousness in a New Orleans high school, but she doesn't know who she is or why she is there. The reader follows along as she tries to piece together her history, and she quickly learns that her name is Charlie, her best friend since childhood/boyfriend is Silas, and that he has also lost his memory. Together they try to piece together their history, which involves warring families a la Romeo and Juliet, before time runs out and their memories reset.

I've never read anything by either Colleen Hoover or Tarryn Fisher, but I understand that both are popular YA romance authors. Never Never is written in a similar way to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist or Will Grayson, Will Grayson, where one author writes for each POV character. I found both Charlie and Silas to be interesting and engaging, and both authors definitely know how to propel a story forward and keep their audience interested. Many readers are disappointed by the fact that these novellas (the first two are 150 pages apiece) constitute a whole story over the three books, but don't stand alone as individual stories. There is no resolution of a minor story arc in this novel, with the ultimate resolution coming at the end of the trilogy. Instead, there's a big cliffhanger, and bam! see you in the next book. Of course, the books were published as $7.99 paperbacks or $2.99 Kindle reads, so the entire series is not that much more expensive than a single brick of a novel. I'm not sure what the rationale was for publishing the story this way, but it means a little loss of momentum for me as a reader since I didn't dive right into the second book immediately.

Book Review: Illusions of Fate by Kiersten White

Title: Illusions of Fate
Author: Kiersten White
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Library Copy
Content Alert: Some violence

Jessamin is a biracial girl from the Caribbean, sent to Victorian England (the places have different names, but you get the idea) to be educated at the school where her father is a teacher. By day she studies, and by night, she works as a maid with others of her class in a London hotel. Enter Finn, a dashing and mysterious Lord who has magical powers (apparently, all of the nobles in Albion/England have magical powers, and the commoners know nothing about it). Finn and Jessamin have to fight off some bad guys, and save themselves and the country from certain doom.

I think that Illusions of Fate was probably my favorite of the YA Speculative novels this year, but that had little to do with the story. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that I completely understood where Kiersten White was going with the magical element of the story-- yes, there was magic, and people used it to manipulate space, time, and other people. I loved the setting- White did a great job creating a world that was just a notch off a world that today's readers know well. Jessamin was also a great character, working to figure out her way as a member of the underclass in a new country, while also trying to embrace her role as a muse of one of the most powerful magicians in the country. The book is worth reading for Jessamin's character and the setting, the jury's still out for me on the magic.

Book Review: Remake by Ilima Todd

Title: Remake
Author: Ilima Todd
Enjoyment Rating: **
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: violence

Nine belongs to a society where children are raised in groups of ten, and when they reach the age of seventeen, they're able to choose their gender, their career path, and other aspects of their personality. However, as Nine is on the way to be assigned, the plane she's on crashes, and she washes up on the shore of a small Polynesian island where people retain the gender they're born with and live in families. Nine has to decide whether to go back to the old ways, or to embrace life as she experienced it on the island.

I'm not really sure what to say about Remake. On the one hand, I thought the mechanics of the story were pretty good. It was definitely a story that kept me reading and made me think. However, the subtext of the story seems to be that traditional families are superior to other types of families, and that the ability to choose something like gender leads to the downfall of society.

Book Review: Dangerous by Shannon Hale

Title: Dangerous
Author: Shannon Hale
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Library Copy
Content Alert: violence

Maisie Danger Brown (yes, Danger is her middle name) is eager for an adventure, so she turns in an application she finds on a cereal box, and is selected to attend space camp. What happens next feels right out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a Willy Wonka character that is every bit as creepy and dangerous as Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. Instead of simply simulating a space visit, Maisie and her friends actually blast off into space, and return forever changed. The book is one part Roald Dahl, one part Fantastic Four, and three parts implausible, with a love triangle between Maisie, the boy next door, and a boy who is probably an evil genius. The book feels a little rushed, and a little derivative, and doesn't have the staying power of Hale's other works. I can remember the entire plot of The Goose Girl six years after I read it for the first time, but I couldn't remember much about Dangerous even a week later.

Book Review: Cured by Bethany Wiggins

Title: Cured (Stung #2)
Author: Bethany Wiggins
Enjoyment Rating: **
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: violence

I feel like I'm coming into this novel at a disadvantage, having never read Stung, which presumably sets up the dystopian premise of the series, that a bee flu turns people into beasts, and the same bees no longer pollinate crops, so everything is scarce. Sounds like a fascinating premise, right? In Cured, the protagonists of the first novel, Fiona and Jonah, hook up with some neighbors, Bowen and Jacqui (who goes as Jack and pretends to be a guy for safety's sake), to spread the cure that saved their lives and look for their mother. Along the way, they run into Kevin, who may be either their savior or the one who undoes their mission, and prevents thousands from being cured along the way.

I felt pretty lost from the beginning of the novel. In Wiggins's defense, most of the problem was mine-- I was trying to read quickly, and since I didn't have a great understanding of the world she created and wasn't willing to take the time to read between the lines to figure it out, I never felt especially compelled by the story. I did feel compelled by Jack's character, as a former fat girl who lost weight in order to pass as a boy, we get to see her come to terms with both her body and her intelligence as she decides whether or not to give herself over to love. All in all, Cured was not my favorite read, but perhaps the problems had more to do with me than with the author.

Book Review: Relax, I'm a Ninja by Natalie Whipple

Title: Relax, I'm a Ninja
Author: Natalie Whipple
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: mild language, kissing, sharing a bed but no sex, violence

Tosh is a nerd at a San Francisco prep school by day, flying under the radar. But by night, he's the best young ninja in the city, trained by his father (who runs a karate studio as a front). Amy is a fellow student, both at the prep school and at the dojo, and Tosh's father invites her to train to become a ninja just as a serial killer starts killing people all around the city, leaving behind the unmistakable mark of the ninja poison Dragon Bile. As Tosh and Amy work to uncover who's behind the murders, they also discover that they have feelings for each other.

Relax, I'm a Ninja is a really fun read. It has just the right amount of action, well-drawn rounded characters in Tosh and Amy, a fun, smart mystery, and a little romance. In fact, the romance was one thing that made this book hard to classify. On the one hand, it's got the kind of action I think my teenage son would totally dig. I'd put it in the Hunger Games/Divergent- strong girl camp, except that the narrator is a guy. On the other hand, Tosh talks A LOT about what he's feeling about Amy, which made it feel a little girly (sorry, gross generalization, I know).  And then theres the fact that about halfway through the novel, it shifts from our everyday world to a speculative world where ninjas can steal souls and have superpowers and stuff like that. I liked that surprise and thinks it works here, but that ordinarily would be a strike against the narrative for me.

So I guess I'll give this book to both of my teenagers and suggest they read it. I think they'll both love it, for different reasons. And yes, there will be a sequel or two. It feels written to be a movie or three.

Book Review: Blackout by Robison Wells (Whitney Finalist 2013)

Title: Blackout (Blackout #1)
Author: Robison Wells
Enjoyment Rating: **
Source: Library Copy
This book would be rated: PG-13 for violence

A virus is spreading across the United States, infecting teenagers. No, it's not mono, because this virus gives people special powers. The type of power depends on the person, but the result is that some people are using the powers to try to overthrow the government and wreak havoc and the government is responding by rounding up every teenager in the country, putting many of them in a concentration camp in the Utah desert.

I was very hopeful while reading the first few chapters of Blackout. The initial scenes, with the bad guys destroying the Glen Canyon dam, and the high school dance at a rural Utah barn made me hopeful that the whole book would have similar strong setting and past-paced action, but once the characters were rounded up, the story fell apart for me. Furthermore, there were too many competing voices and narrators to differentiate, especially since the characterization was not especially strong, and Wells seemed to rely on the characters to tell the story instead of showing it in scene. This one felt more like a first draft than a well-edited, well-considered finished product.

Book Review: Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson (Whitney Finalist 2013)

Title: Steelheart (Reckoners #1)
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Kindle
This book would be rated: PG-13 for violence

David is a child who has seen his world destroyed in the ten years since the Epics were created and came to power. When they killed his father before his eyes, two things happened: he saw that the Epics might not be as invulnerable as everyone, and the became determined to help fight them. David wants to join the Reckoners, and he wants revenge against Steelheart, the Epic who took his father's life.

I've said this before and since Sanderson has a finalist almost every year, I'm sure I'll say it again. When I read books by Brandon Sanderson, I recognize that they're good. His plotting is solid, his characters are strong and multi-dimensional, and his writing is clear. Many people love his work, but it doesn't move me. It feels, especially in Steelheart, to be extremely male (if writing can be male or female). This is the kind of book that my teenage son would line up to see if it were made into a movie, but if I were his chaperone at that movie, I would fall asleep almost immediately.

Book Review: Friends and Traitors by C.J. Hill (Whitney Finalist 2013)

Title: Friends and Traitors (Slayers #2)
Author: C.J. Hill
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Kindle
This book would be rated: PG-13 for violence

In Friends and Traitors, C.J. Hill demonstrates how to hook new readers in the second novel in a series. She begins the book with a gripping chapter about a young couple who are traveling on a private plane carrying precious cargo (dinosaur eggs), when the woman goes into labor. This chapter serves to describe how the characters in the Slayers series have the power to fight dragons in the first place, and also gives crucial insight into the mind the Dragon Lord, their nemesis. Over the course of the rest of the novel, new characters are introduced, and other characters, including Tori, the daughter of a prominent politician, are developed. While there's plenty of high-flying (literally) action, Hill doesn't sacrifice internal conflict at the expense of external conflict. The story here is one that has a female protagonist but would be equally accessible to male readers, and it's definitely one that I could see my teen readers enjoying, even if they hadn't read the first book in the series.

Book Review: Pivot Point by Kasie West (Whitney Finalist 2013)

Title: Pivot Point
Author: Kasie West
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Library Copy
This book would be rated: PG-13

Two roads diverged. We like to say the paths we chose in the yellow wood "made all the difference," but do we really know how our lives will be different based on the choices we make? Addie does. She's a teenager living in a special community for paranormals, and when her parents divorce and tell her that she has to choose whether to stay at home with her mother or to leave the community with her father, she is able to search her future and see which series of events leads to the better outcome.

I really enjoyed Pivot Point. The narrative unfolds chronologically, and in alternating chapters, we see what happens in scenario A and scenario B. There are different schools, different friends, different potential love interests. And in both cases, she has a relationship with her best friend. All of West's characters seem well-drawn and nuanced, and I particularly liked Addie. I also like that the decision she makes is one that is not without its complications. This was a great read and one that I hope my kids would enjoy for the challenges Addie faces and the maturity she gains as part of her experience.

Book Review: Insomnia by J.R. Johansson (Whitney Finalist 2013)

Title: Insomnia
Author: J.R. Johansson
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Source: Library Copy
This book would be rated: PG-13 for intense situations and threats of violence

Parker doesn't sleep. He hasn't slept for four years. Instead, he spends his night inhabiting the dreams of the last person he made eye contact with before going to bed. This means he's spent lots of nights seeing his mom's dreams, and way too many nights witnessing the subconscious of people from school. Sometimes he the thing he sees are scary or dangerous. But what's really dangerous is the fact that his brain never rests. He can't concentrate and feels jittery. His mother is convinced he's on drugs. But then Parker meets Mia, a new girl at school, and when he inhabits her dreams, he finds rest.

The problem starts when Mia starts to think Parker is stalking her. It turns out that someone really is stalking her, and she has a troubled past, and since Parker has to make eye contact with her every night before going to sleep, the assumption seems logical. In order to clear his name, Parker has to find the real stalker, before he completely loses it due to his own sleeplessness. The premise of Insomnia is really interesting, and I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in the world of the first half of the novel. Overall, I found the book a strong contender. However, Parker is a male character, and this felt like female book. I don't know how to explain it, but the preoccupation with girls and relationships made me feel like this was a book more geared to female readers than male readers, which surprised me because of the male protagonist.

Book Review: Demons by Heather Frost (Whitney Finalist)

Title: Demons (Seers #2)
Author: Heather Frost
Enjoyment Rating: **
Whitney Finalist
This book would be rated: PG

In the last year, Kate has learned that she's no ordinary teenager. She's a seer- which means that she can see the emotions of the people around her. This ability places her at risk, so she has an immortal guardian, Patrick, to protect her. In the last book, they also fell in love. And in this book, they have a lot of work to do, because the Demon Lord is after Kate, and Patrick has learned that he might not be as immortal as everyone previously thought.

This is my final review in the Youth Speculative category. I spent a lot of time in some of the other reviews complaining about the lack of back story in the speculative books in general, and I am happy to say that Demons had plenty of back story. In fact, it had lots and lots and lots of story. That might be a great thing for a reader who eagerly gobbled up Seers and who has an appreciation for the relationship between Patrick and Kate and wants the story to last as long as possible. For me, the book was 432 pages without a lot of action until the last 75. I can't tell you how many times I fell asleep while reading it. I think that if Frost cut to the action a little sooner (while keeping some of the back story) and focused less on the set details of what people are wearing and what things look like, she might have better luck picking up readers with the second book in this series.

Book Review: Feedback by Robison Wells (Whitney Finalist)

Title: Feedback (Variant #2)
Author: Robison Wells
Enjoyment Rating: **
Whitney Finalist
This book would be rated: PG

Feedback starts right where Variant leaves off; Benson Fisher and his lady friend Becky, have just escaped from their boarding school, Maxfield Academy, when they learned that many of their fellow schoolmates were robots. In Feedback, Benson drags the injured Becky to a small town not far from the school, which is populated by the human counterparts to these robots. They think about staging a coup.... for the next, oh, gosh, 300 pages?

If you like me, when you read Hamlet, and he went on and on about how he couldn't decide whether or not to kill the king, you got to the point where you were like, "I don't care what you decide, just do something?" Well, multiply that by several times, and that's what Feedback feels like. Until the last 30 pages of the book, nothing happens. Benson wonders if he should leave. Then he doesn't leave. Then he decides to leave. Then he decides not to leave. Then the robots come and everyone hides. Then Becky tells him to go (I cheered), and then he doesn't go. While the premise of the story is cool, and the setup for the third book works, I felt like I was stuck in the very boring middle while reading Feedback. 

Book Review: Endlessly by Kiersten White (Whitney Finalist)

Title: Endlessly (Paranormalcy #3)
Author: Kiersten White
Enjoyment Rating: ***
Whitney Finalist
This book would be rated: PG, for violence, kissing, and lots creative curse substitutions

When Endlessly opens, Evie has renounced her relationship with the IPCA (the International Paranormal Containment Agency) and is trying to live normal life, going to high school and spending time with her boyfriend. But this is Evie we're talking about, and as long as there are paranormals about, Evie isn't going to be able to fade into the woodwork (as if-- her hot pink, rhinestone-studded clothes aren't exactly the kind that blend). Pretty soon, everyone wants a piece of her, the IPCA, the fairies, and everyone in between. And if the world is going to avoid utter destruction, Evie is going to have to play a role in that too.

When I read Paranormalcy two years ago, one of the things I loved best about the book was Evie's voice. I know that some will say that she is annoying, but I find her glibness and enthusiasm and over-the-top teenage talk endearing (in small bursts). Evie is also funny, which is a refreshing characteristic, especially in the YA Speculative category, where characters tend to take themselves so seriously.

There's a lot of action in Endlessly, which isn't surprising in this category. It feels that many of the books are based a lot on external conflict, which is true in Endlessly. Things happen to Evie. She's not sure who to trust, and she makes a lot of the same mistakes (which feels like inner conflict), but she's not especially reflective, and she's making the same kinds of mistakes in book three that she was making in book one. Her situation has changed by the end of the trilogy, but I'm not convinced that Evie has changed in significant ways. I'm the kind of reader that really grooves on inner conflict, and when I see lots of inner conflict in a YA Speculative book, that's a book that is a winner for me.

Book Review: Everneath by Brodi Ashton (Whitney Finalist)

Title: Everneath
Author: Brodi Ashton
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Whitney Finalist
This book would be rated: PG, maybe PG-13 for lots of kissing and general darkness

Although Everneath is not a sequel to something else, the opening pages of the book made it feel like it was. Nikki and Cole are emerging from a century of slumber in the underworld (which took six months of human time), and unlike nearly every human being who has ever been abducted into the underworld, Nikki manages to emerge alive. But she's weak and confused when she returns, and the narrative reflects that, jumping back and forth between the past and the present,

But in this case, a reader's persistence will pay off. Everneath turns into a story that draws heavily from the mythology of the underworld (Persephone and Hades, Orpheus and Eurydice). Although Nikki has escaped, she only has six months until she's claimed again, and this time, her journey to the underworld will be permanent. She has a few choices-- she be sucked into the tunnels and provide energy to the feeders, or she can return as Cole's companion and try to overthrow the queen, or she can try to beat her fate and separate herself once and for all from Cole. Of course, there's a love triangle-- Jake, the boyfriend she left behind and dreamed about every night for a hundred years, and Cole, in whose arms she slept while she was dreaming of Jake. Cole feels comfortable, and with Cole she might live forever, but Jake sustained her, and she loves him.

While I thought Ashton spun an interesting, complicated, literary, thoughtful story (enough good adjectives?) I'll admit that I was a little disappointed in the final chapter to discover that I was going to have to read another book (or three) to get some resolution to the whole Nikki/Cole/Jake saga. There were certain characters who felt a little underdeveloped (both the male and female sidekicks, for instance), and I was expecting more resolution in Nikki's feelings towards her dead mother, and now I'm seeing that Ashton is setting up a lot more drama in the future. If the next novel is as complicated and compelling as this one, I'm in-- even if it's not a Whitney finalist.

Book Review: Destined by Aprilynne Pike (Whitney Finalist)

Title: Destined (Wings #4)
Author: Aprilynne Pike
Enjoyment Rating: **
Whitney Finalist
This book would be rated: PG for lots of troll-fighting

I read and enjoyed the first book in Aprilynne Pike's Wings series three years ago for the Whitneys. And in the meantime, I forgot everything that happened. I mean, if pressed, I could probably tell you that there was a love triangle, and a girl who discovered, after years of thinking she was a human, that she was actually a plant-based life form, but that's it. I couldn't tell you her name, the guys' names, anything. I just remember lots of descriptions of trees and fairies.

Fast forward three years, and I'm supposed to read Destined. So I turn the first page, and I'm lost. I figure, there will be some back story, just give it some time. But no, there is no back story. Pike picks up exactly where she left off with the previous book. As I'm reading along, I don't know who's a human and who's a fairy, or who is bad or who is good, or why they're fighting. But fight they do, until the book mercifully ended 300 pages later.

And that's the problem with the YA Speculative category for the Whitney Awards. So many YA Speculative books are part of a three or four or five book series. This year, four of the five books are later books in a series, and in several cases I haven't read the previous books. So what's a girl to do? I'm already reading 40 books in two months-- it's unrealistic to read additional books to fill myself in. But it would be nice if the finalists who had books in series were allowed to give us sort of a cheat sheet so we could understand what's going on. As it stands, I do my best to glean what's going on, but in a case like Destined, I find myself lost and frustrated, which is sad, because my friends on Goodreads who have read the entire series say it's fantastic, and I feel like I'm doing a disservice to Pike (whose first book was excellent) to discount her because I was so lost, but I also don't know what else to do.

Book Review: Shifting by Bethany Wiggins (Whitney Finalist)

Title: Shifting
Author: Bethany Wiggins
Enjoyment Rating: 7/10
Referral: Whitney Finalist
Source: Kindle for iPad
Books I've read this year: 54

It's been a while since I finished reading Shifting, so it might be hard to give a great review of it. Maggie Mae is seventeen, and has been in about that many foster homes during her childhood. She has the unfortunate habit of being picked up by the police for indecent exposure. So Maggie's social worker deposits her in a town in Southern New Mexico with his mother, who promises to get Maggie out of high school and past her eighteenth birthday without mishap. However, this proves to be more difficult than either of them anticipated. People follow her. The kids at school seem to hate her. And then there's Bridger, the impossibly gorgeous guy who seems totally interested in her. Maggie isn't sure how much she can trust him or tell him about herself.

Shifting is well-written and engrossing. I definitely found myself captured by the story, and was even more impressed when I read that the paranormal stuff in the story, the Skinwalkers, come directly from Navajo legend. Wiggins does a great job setting the story against a backdrop that's rich in Navajo history. My main quibble with the story, and it's a small one, I think, is that Maggie waits so long to let readers know what exactly is going on with her. I can understand why she would want to keep the secret from her foster families and people at school, but it made me distrust her a little bit as a narrator when she didn't come right out and tell us why she was always naked in public until we saw it happen for the first time. 

Book Review: Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George (Whitney Finalist)

Title: Tuesdays at the Castle
Author: Jessica Day George
Enjoyment Rating: 8/10
Referral: Whitney Finalist
Source: Library Copy
Books I've read this year: 32

Ranking my favorites in the Youth Speculative category is going to be hard. Really hard. I've read four of the five books in the category already, and I like ALL of them. I know that choosing between good books is much better than the alternative, and I'm really pleased to see such a strong, competitive category, but man, this is going to be hard.

When I brought home Tuesdays at the Castle, two of my kids immediately commented on it. Annie, my ten-year-old, looked excited and said, "Mom, that's the book that we donated to the library for my birthday" (our elementary schools have a program where you can pay to have a book donated in your child's name for their birthday, and the school chooses something they think the child would like). She said that there was a waiting list for the book, and I told her that I'd read it quickly so she could read it before I returned it to the library. Then Isaac, my seven-year-old, grabbed the book off the counter and said, "There are a bunch of second-graders at school who are reading this." That, of course, made Annie (a fifth-grader) want to have nothing to do with it anymore.

But I'm going to make her read it anyway, because it's just so cute.

Tuesdays at the Castle is the story of Celie, an eleven-year-old princess living in an enchanted castle. At times, the castle will grow rooms or do other kinds of magical things to improve the lives of the royal family, and it seems to have a soft spot for Celie. When her parents go on a journey to a neighboring kingdom and end up missing and her fourteen-year-old brother takes the throne, a whole slew of lords and princes from the surrounding lands descend on the castle to form a council, or a puppet monarchy, at least until he's old enough to run the kingdom by himself (not that they plan to let him live that long). So Celie, Bram, and their older sister, Lilah, along with lots of help from the castle, come up with a plan to oust them and find their parents.

The book is well-written and fun, and reads really fast. George did a great job of making Celie's world feel believable, without spending too much time on the world-building aspects of the story. But I also think that Annie had a point-- this is the one book in the bunch that is for a middle-grade (or even younger) audience, while the other finalists are all firmly YA. As a middle grade novel, I think it's a success, but the fact that it is middle grade also means that it's shorter, with bigger type and a simpler storyline. I think it's does a great job doing what it sets out to do, but I'm not sure how well it will stack up against its more complicated competitors.

Book Review: The Evolution of Thomas Hall by Kieth Merrill (Whitney Finalist)

Title: The Evolution of Thomas Hall
Author: Kieth Merrill
Enjoyment Rating: 7/10
Referral: Whitney Finalist
Source: Library Copy
Books I've read this year: 31

Thomas Hall is a jerk. He's a hotshot painter who never visits his aging father, refuses to get into serious romantic relationships, fires his manager on a weekly basis, and needs huge commissions to keep up with his tastes for fast boats and even faster cars. He's also a serious talent, who seems to have sold out to the Man-- banking on huge mural projects painting showgirls on the walls of hotels in Las Vegas.

Hall ends up working simultaneously on two very different projects-- one an ode to Charles Darwin in the science museum in San Francisco, and one portraying Jesus performing acts of healing at a children's hospital across town. Hall initially feels more drawn to the science museum project-- he is an agnostic, after all, but museum politics interfere with the job and Thomas finds himself working for a guy who is an even bigger jerk than he is, a guy who won't stop at blackmail to get what he wants. Thomas feels unequal to the Jesus job-- he knows all about religious art, and he knows enough to know that he doesn't know Jesus enough to do his work credit, which is what the rich benefactor requires. But through the influence of his family, his manager, the kids at the hospital, and one very special hospital employee, he opens his heart.

In a lot of ways, The Evolution of Thomas Hall reminds me of the writing of The DaVinci Code, with a lot less fighting and hiding, and if Robert Langdon opened himself up for conversion. Both books real with the intersections between religion and art. Merrill's background as a filmmaker is evident-- this is a book that could be a film. It also reminds me of The DaVinci Code in the way that it's written-- it would be quick-paced if it weren't for all the details. However, there's a level of complexity to the plot and the narrative that's absent in the other General category finalists, as well as attention to detail in the editing process. This feels more professional than the other books I've read, if that makes sense.

A few more things-- The Evolution of Thomas Hall is not a Mormon book, despite being published by Shadown Mountain, a Deseret Book imprint. While many of the characters are religious, none is overtly LDS. The same is true of both The Walk: Miles to Go, and I presume it might be true of The Wedding Letters since last year's Jason Wright book was like this. As someone who writes Mormon characters and wants to make them accessible to a wider audience, I'm interested in reading works that sort of do the opposite-- Mormon authors who use non-Mormon characters for the purpose of inspiration.

The Goodreads summary of The Evolution of Thomas Hall says "he finds himself torn between illustrating a mural on the origins of man for a natural history museum--a tribute to Darwin--and illustrating the miracles of Jesus for a display inside a children's hospital called the Healing Place. A self-proclaimed agnostic, Thomas must dig deep within himself to believe beyond his doubts as he wrestles with that elusive something called faith. Then he meets a young, critically ill girl named Christina. Her haunting past and undeviating faith will test the very soul of Thomas and that of every reader." When I read that I sighed a great big sigh. I didn't want to read a book about the showdown between science and religion. I prefer to believe that my belief in both can comfortably co-exist. But I didn't find the portrayal to be as black and white as I expected (it is true, however, that the only truly bad guy in the book is the Darwinist). 


Finally, on page 419 (yes, this is a brick of a book), Thomas Hall says, "Words and pictures are very different things and art must speak for itself. For once in my life I sincerely hope what this art is about speaks louder than the art itself." I believe that Merrill feels that same way about The Evolution of Thomas Hall, and I think that it shows, both in the attention to detail the book has received and in the over message of inspiration he hopes to achieve.

Book Review: My Unfair Godmother by Jannette Rallison (Whitney Finalist)

Title: My Unfair Godmother
Author: Jannette Rallison
Enjoyment Rating: 8/10
Referral: Whitney Finalist
Source: Library copy
Books I've read this year: 28

A couple of years ago, Jannette Rallison's My Fair Godmother was a Whitney Finalist. I thought it was a decent book, but I wasn't in love with it. So I went into reading My Unfair Godmother, its sequel, with a certain guardedness. But I'm pleased to say that the book surprised me in lots of good ways. Just like in My Fair Godmother, Chrysanthemum Everstar, a fairy in training, picks an unsuspecting teenage girl to give three wishes and set her life on course. Chrissy is a pretty horrible excuse for a fairy godmother-- she gets things wrong, she doesn't show up when she should, and she has an attitude. In this book she tries to turn the life of Tansy Miller around, and she does this first by bringing Robin Hood and his Merry Men to the 21st century, and then by sending Tansy and her family back to the 12th century in order to meet up with Rumplestiltskin. There's a lot of humor and hijinks and just the right amount of romance.

I'm not sure why I liked this book significantly better than the first, but I think it might have to do with two things-- sequel fatigue, and having a daughter. First of all, I'm a fair bit of the way into the Whitney reading (13 down, 22 to go-- doesn't sound so great when I put it that way) and I've read a lot of books so far that are sequels or set up sequels. And in order to get the most out of those books, it's essential to start at the beginning and commit yourself to the whole series. What I really like about My Unfair Godmother is that it's more like Quantum Leap than it is like LOST. I did read the first book, but everything I needed to know about Chrissy and Tansy is included in this volume. Chrissy helped someone else (completely unrelated to Tansy) in book one, and if there's a book three, I'm sure it will be with a whole different cast of characters. I'm sure a publisher would give you a million reasons why you want to suck readers into as many books as possible, but as a reader, I appreciate being given the opportunity to decide whether I want to commit to the next volume.

In the time that's elapsed since I read My Fair Godmother, my own daughter has gone from age seven to age ten. Back then she was reading Junie B. Jones, and now she's right on the cusp of reading books like this. And I know that she would adore this book, if not now, then in a few years. There's enough depth and gravitas from Tansy's situation and the way she looks at life to counterbalance Chrissy's fluff, enough romance without it being icky (okay, maybe a little icky in the last few chapters, but icky in a way I think my daughter might like). I always like coming into books like My Unfair Godmother because it's one that I'll file away on my mental shelf for when Annie comes to me complaining about how deathly bored she is.