The Host

I am firmly in the anti-Twilight camp. The first book was, at best, on the level of an amusing beach read, and the second book was one that I very nearly hurled across my bedroom. I didn't even touch the latter two books, and everything I've read about them assures me that I made the right choice. But I'd heard good things about Stephenie Meyer's book The Host, and so a couple weeks ago I asked my cousin if she had a copy I could borrow. It sat on my to-read shelf for a while before I picked it up on a whim today. It's a little over six hundred pages; I finished it in six hours. Basically, this book is surprisingly good.

Okay, so a little bit about it. Imagine that someone wrote up a one paragraph summary of the Animorphs series, ran it through Babelfish a couple of times, then posted it as an unattributed writing prompt to a romance writers' group. Basically, there are these aliens, called "souls", that have taken over Earth. They're pretty peaceful and conquered by subtle assimilation, but it still sucks for humans because they basically disappear. Seriously, just think Yeerk. ... Actually, I did that a little too much while reading because I would occasionally think, why don't they just morph? Anyway. Our heroine is a soul named Wanderer, who's had a ton of hosts in the past but is now stuck in Melanie, a rebellious host whose consciousness hasn't faded away. Wanderer wants to fit into her new life on Earth, but Melanie's memories interfere, and eventually the two of them band together to look for the other free humans that Melanie left behind. From there, the novel explores what it means to be human and the sacrifices that it takes to earn freedom.

I think my favorite feature of the book was that it was not focused on romance to the exclusion of everything else. There's just as much importance placed on friendship and trust (think nakama), and the relationship between Wanderer and Melanie is especially well-done. And even the romance aspect is well-done. The love interests are flawed without being repulsive, and the complex feelings of all the characters involved are handled adeptly. I think this novel was helped by having something larger at stake than just the romantic feelings of the characters. The whole matter of souls and freedom allowed for the drama quotient to be upped in a way that felt natural. The book is really freaking long, but the pacing is fine, so while a lot happens, the book never seems to drag. The basic writing style is good, too. No adjective abuse, just nice and descriptive prose. I particularly liked the worldbuilding and the imagination that went into the development of the souls and the other aliens and worlds that were described. There might be stuff to nitpick in this book, but it was overall a good enough read that I don't feel compelled to go searching for flaws. Basically, this book is surprisingly good, and even if you wrote Meyer off after suffering through Twilight, The Host is definitely worth checking out. It's above average, with some moments that really shine.

Legally Blonde

Anyone who knows me will be completely unsurprised at my reading choice this time around: Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown. Yes, the book on which the movie was based (which in its turn spawned a musical adaptation which I love). However, anyone who's seen the Reese Witherspoon film or the new musical will be surprised at how different the book is from its adaptations. It's not that anything is changed on a huge scale, but everything has been altered in little ways, so it's sort of a Twilight Zone feel. You know the story, but you sort of don't.

Well, for those of you who aren't women, I should explain the plot. Sorority girl Elle Woods is in her senior year of college and is totally expecting her boyfriend Warner Huntington III to propose. However, Warner is headed to Stanford for law school, and he needs a girlfriend who's more serious than Elle. But while Elle Woods might appear to be a ditzy blond Delta Gamma, she's got innate smarts and the passion to get what she wants. Wanting Warner back, she aces the LSATs and gets into Stanford herself. Of course, it takes more than showing up at Stanford Law to win Warner back. In over her head, Elle has to deal with a completely new lifestyle (shockingly enough, being Homecoming Queen does not win Elle instant popularity) and figure out what she really wants. However, with help from new friends and an internship with a prestigious law firm, Elle gets the opportunity to shine.

Anyway, one of the things I like the most about the Legally Blonde story is that behind its silly premise, there's actually a lesson to be learned. Don't judge people on appearances. You can be more than what everyone tells you you can be. Especially in the musical version, the story seems like an inversion of the Beautiful All Along trope; Elle's always smart (4.0 average, kickin' LSAT score), but it takes everyone a while to realize that because all they see is her blonde hair and matching outlook on life.

Anyway, Legally Blonde is a fun, breezy read. Short chapters, fast pace, nothing that demands intense concentration. It's just an amusing books that's put together well. If you're looking for a light, fun girl power book, this is it.

(Also, I need a better tagging system. I tried to go through and systematically tag everything, but it's tricky to know how to classify things.)

Troy High

Troy High by Shana Norris is fun. That is, I think, the best word for it. It's a stand-alone novel with a fast pace and a simple story. The basic idea is that it's a modern retelling of the Iliad. Two rival high schools, with football teams named the Trojans and the Spartans. Incidentally, my grade school's mascot was the Trojans, which you can bet we made jokes about when we were old enough to understand the sort of jokes that might be made. In any case, Trojans and Spartans are bitter enemies. Our heroine, Cassie Prince, is a rare exception, since her best friend, Greg Mennon, is a Spartan while she is a Trojan. Cassie, based on Cassandra the Seer in the Iliad, is the only who sees that trouble might be afoot when Elena Argos, a recent transfer from Lacede, home of the Spartans, decides to dump her old boyfriend Lucas Mennon for Perry Prince. This transfer of affection is perceived as an insult to Spartan pride, and the rivalry between the two schools gets even more heated. Pranks escalate, and Cassie is torn between loyalty to her brothers, the star players for the Trojans, and loyalty to Greg, her best friend whom she has also realized she has feelings for.

The reason this story works, I think, is that Elena is not a one-dimensional, catty popular girl. She's the start of all the trouble, and she is rather a typical cheerleader, but she's genuinely nice to Cassie, which makes Cassie's continued loyalty to Elena and the Trojans that much more believable. Greg's a good guy, but he also falls prey to the rivalry, so, again, the loyalty issue is complicated in a way where you don't think Cassie is dumb for not doing one thing or the other. The story zips along, without too much dwelling on teen angst, and Cassie has a natural narrative voice which doesn't jerk you out of the story. Troy High is not exactly going to become a classic of western literature like its source material, but it's definitely a fun read that I highly recommend.

The Hourglass Door

The Hourglass Door by Lisa Mangum is above average romance/adventure fare. Abby Edmunds is a totally normal high school senior with a normal life: she spends time with her boyfriend, applies for colleges along with her best friends, and assistant directs the school's production of Much Ado About Nothing. But at play practice one day she meets the new Italian exchange student, Dante Alexander. As is expected in books like this, she is immediately attracted to him. However, what kept me reading was that Dante was not a brooding, mysterious bad boy, or, rather, there was more to him than that. He and Abby develop a friendship and chemistry between the two of them that is fairly legitimately built up as lacking in Abby's relationship with Jason, her neighbor/childhood friend/boyfriend. Also to the book's credit is that Jason isn't depicted as some dumb lug; he's a truly nice, thoughtful guy who cares about Abby and she about him, even if there's no spark of romance there. The historical/time travel elements of the plot are handled well enough, although we don't get much resolution because, of course, this is a series and not a stand-alone novel. I'll keep an eye out for the second book, and I hope that we get to visit sixteenth-century Italy, because we know that Renaissance Italy is a favorite setting of mine, just as I love to see theatre and drama in books. Well, overall, The Hourglass Door was a decent read, even if it's not anything to rave about.

Flora Segunda

Flora Fyrdraaca lives in a magical house with a magical butler, but both house and butler have seen better days. Though the Fyrdraaca family is one of the big names in the city of Califa, you wouldn't know it to see Flora trying to manage the household and her mentally damaged father on her own while her mother, the Commanding General of the Army, is off on business. Then one day, shortly before her fourteenth birthday, Flora stumbles upon the house's banished butler in a lonely library that Flora has never seen before. The butler, a magical spirit named Valefor who used to be in charge of making sure the Fyrdraaca family lived in luxury, is now a pale shadow of his former self. But, he tells Flora, with her help he can be restored, and she'll be relieved of the burden of keeping up the house without magic. Tired of running herself ragged and tempted by a small taste of the Valefor's magical powers (including delicious foods he can whip up), Flora agrees, bringing her best friend Udo along for the ride. Of course, nothing goes quite the way Flora plans, and so there are all sorts of zany magickal hijinks and whatnot.

Okay, so. What makes this book so great? Well, first off, it's stunningly original and detailed in its worldbuilding. Sure there's hints of inspiration from real world cultures, but there's no way you could say, "Oh, it's like Victorian England but with magic," or anything so simple as that. Indeed, the dominant real-world inspiration seems to be Spanish, such as the Catorcena, the celebration of the fourteenth birthday, when a child becomes an adult. The fashions are another thing entirely, with everyone, men and women, wearing skirts or kilts for the most part. That's a simple but quick indicator that this isn't Western Europe as we know it. And the world-building and glimpses of history we see all fit together tightly. And I particularly like the detail given to the adventures of Nini Mo and her rangers.

Ah, this is why I shouldn't be lazy about writing these reviews, all the things I want to say become less fresh in my mind. But let's see. Well, the plot makes sense, moves quickly, and packs in a lot of action. The system of magic is clever and mysterious, but never seems to break its own rules. What I really loved was the depth given to all the characters. Flora's parents, in particular, have multiple facets and parts of their histories that aren't explored but which still affect their behavior and the story. That is, the first book doesn't give it all away. Flora is a fine protagonist. She's flawed but personable, doesn't always succeed, gets called out when she deserves it, and is an active heroine. Valefor and Udo both are good supporting characters and act as foils for Flora and each other. Well. Anyway, there's a second book in the series, and I have ordered it from the library, so we shall see how Flora's story continues to unfold since, like, all the best series, there is still plenty more to learn about our heroine and her world, more than could be covered in one book.

For the Win

For the Win by Cory Doctorow. Take one part MMO, one part economics lesson, and one part underdog story. That's For the Win in a nutshell. In the not too distant future, online gaming is even more popular than it is now. People make their living from the games, not just the companies who run them but players who work as gold farmers and the like. In some parts of the world, gold farming is run like sweatshop labor, and it's still the best living the kids playing are bound to see. However, there are brave workers who want to see a change in the system, for gamers to be treated fairly and paid fairly. Online and offline, the forces gather, preparing for a revolution and a change for the better. Wrapped up in this sprawling story are Wei-Dong, an American gamer who lives in privilege, Mala, an Indian girl whose prowess at gaming has earned her respect and income, and Matthew, a Chinese gamer who once farmed gold for a boss and is now trying to strike out on his own, as well as many others. Truly a global tale, this book succeeds for several reasons: the realistic, if not always likable, characters; the believable depictions of online gaming (I'm not a huge MMO player (but I love Puzzle Pirates) but I've played a few in my time and hang out with many who play religiously, and all of the stuff in this book rings true); the economic knowledge that understanding of the plot hinges on is explained simply but thoroughly; and the story walks the line between being realistic and hopeful in its outlook. I was constantly reminded of Neal Stephenson's writing, particularlyThe Diamond Age, but while the books are similar in the large casts and casual integration of semi-advanced and/or obscure subjects, Doctorow's book is a lot less grim, less of a crapsack world.

I'll finish up by saying that this book should be read by all gamers and anyone with a social conscious. Just like any good Terry Pratchett novel, Cory Doctorow's For the Win has a message hidden within its gripping story, something for you to think about long after you've closed the book. All in all, this is a great novel.

The Grimm Legacy

So, The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman is one of those books that totally looks like it's going to be hokey and I'm going to read it, cringe, and put it away. To my extreme delight, this book was a Kiki Strike - a surprisingly enjoyable story that I never expected. So, the basic premise of this book is that Elizabeth Rew, a normal girl who's an outcast at her new school, gets a job at the New York Circulating Material Repository, which is a library for things. Only, along with the mundane materials, there is a whole vault of magical items from the Grimm fairy tales. So, Elizabeth gets the job, but things aren't all candy and bunnies: magical items have been disappearing from the collection, and other library pages are under suspicion. There's also some well-executed teen romance drama which adds another layer to the shifting loyalties of the characters.

The whole thing works primarily because Elizabeth is a realistic, likable viewpoint character. She's got a good narrative voice, descriptive, but not in a way that makes you wonder why a high school girl is talking like that. She is also, and I love her character so much for this, not a complete idiot. I mean, she's a teenage girl who doesn't let her hormones drive her every action, who doesn't trust people who are blatantly untrustworthy, and who actually trusts authority figures. Glory be! From her point of view, we get to see the Repository and all of the various interesting magical items in the Grimm collection. The author, Ms. Shulman, makes good use of common and obscure fairy tales from which to pull items that feature in the story. The secondary characters were all nicely developed. Every time I thought I'd predicted what one of them was up to, whether they were a traitor or not, things would get more complex. Even the romance wasn't particularly formulaic, and the whole book had a sense of humor about it, not overtly so, but enough to keep the story light. I think the plot was the weakest part of the book, not that it was at all bad. It just felt that the story was more in the characters and their relationships with each other (and not just limited to the romantic relationships). I also got very slightly lost towards the end of the book when they confronted the bad guys. Not enough that it wasn't fun, but more where I was like, "I'm not sure what's going on, but whatever, it's cool, I'll go along with this." A nice thing about this book was that, while there's room for a sequel, it never felt like this story was just a set-up for something else. The Grimm Legacy easily holds its own as a standalone story.