Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass--Sarah J. Maas
August 2012 by Bloomsbury
406 pages--Goodreads

Meet Celaena Sardothien.
Beautiful. Deadly.
Destined for greatness.

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament—fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. 

---

I would call Throne of Glass a solid meh, except that I care too much about it for it to just be a blah book.  I wanted to like it.  I still want to like it.  So many people say the series is amazing and the covers are cool, and are assassins and political intrigue and arhgablargastarg!  

I have a lot to say.  I may get a bit ranty.

First, I see this book compared to The Girl of Fire and Thorns a lot.  Stop comparing them.  Right now.  They are not the same in tone or plot or character or setting or style or anything.  Just because two fantasy romance YAs with female protagonists came out at roughly the same time does not mean the two books are similar.  Besides, Girl of Fire and Thrones is a much stronger and more enjoyable novel.

Second, the shifting POVs are a bit shaky, especially at the beginning of the novel.  I think this is what rubbed me the wrong way initially, and it made me more critical as the book progressed.  We spend nearly all our time in 3rd person limited, dipping into Celeana's thoughts.  At some chapter breaks we change to 3rd person limited Chaol or Dorian.  Fine.  Not terribly clear at first, but fine.  But randomly, in the middle of some chapters, without indication, and especially near the beginning of the novel, we switch POVs for a couple sentences or paragraphs.  No reason is given for why we're hopping into Chaol's brain for a second.  We don't know why it should matter that we're now getting Dorian's thoughts but only for these two sentences.  Or we're following some super temporary omniscient narrator and seeing into multiple heads at a time.  It's just clumsy and confusing and annoying.

Probably my biggest problem with the novel:  I am so sick of love triangles.  I can enjoy a good romantic subplot.  I can even enjoy a good romantic foreplot.  But these stupid, angsty triangles-are-cool-right-now, weak excuses for plots are driving me insane.  If Celaena just had feelings for Chaol, that would be fine, though it would still be a pretty weak romance.  But the Prince was just terrible.  Spoiled, arrogant, entitled, and uninteresting.  As a side character he would be annoying, but as a romantic interest I couldn't stand him.  All the time spent mooning over the prince could have been spent on Nehemia, easily the most interesting character in the book .  Rebel spy; witty, fighting princess from conquered lands?  Why isn't more of the book about her?  Granted, there are actually some good plot reasons for this, and it looks like she might get more screen time in later books.  But I just wanted to leave the boys behind and have Celeana and Nehemia to go off monster-slaying and empire-overthrowing with occasional side trips for Celeana to pull a heist with Nox.

The villains, meanwhile, are too obvious to be very interesting.  Spoiler paragraph.  It is pretty clear from pretty early on that Pennington and Kaltain are up to no good.  Maas isn't trying to be sneaky there.  But the question who's butchering the champions is supposed to be the driving mystery of the whole book.  I'm supposed to wonder.  I'm supposed to be surprised.  I'm supposed to have several wrong guesses before the true villain is finally revealed.  Instead we get the obviously distasteful brute named after the most famous murderer in all of Western literature who's being manipulated by Pennington, who we already know is a bad guy.  With what we get in the final chapter, I could see Pennington and the king becoming more interesting, but overall I wanted better antagonists.

And Celeana herself is unrealistic.  Not that she's too skilled; I can buy that.  Nor is she too vain; her need for others to recognize and applaud her skill fits her character.  But she's an assassin--trained to live in the shadows, to be alert, to trust no one.  And she was betrayed.  AND she's spent the last year in the salt mine death trap.  Yet she keeps falling asleep, in seconds, no problem, around people she doesn't fully trust, or continues to sleep soundly when they sneak into her room.  I don't need full on just-off-the-streets Vin paranoia, but a little more caution and attentiveness from the supposed best assassin in the land would be nice.  Yes, this sound nit-picky, but come on.  She specifically makes her door hinge squeaky so people can't sneak into her room, then two scenes later the Prince sneaks in to watch her sleep (which was creepy by the way) without the door making noise or Celeana waking up, then two scenes after that the door is squeaky again and she wakes up when Chaol comes in to report another murder.  I expect better from my assassins.

But in spite of all this, I do think I will try the first 50 pages or so of book 2.  I have heard from multiple people that the series gets better, that book one is the weakest, that if I just stick it out I'll be satisfied.  There is potential.  The mystery of the Wyrdmarks, the fae realm, Celeana's past, more Nehemia, more assassination.  Book two could be good.  Or it could get bogged down by the stupid love triangle.  I guess I'll see.

Review: The Family Romanov by Candace Fleming

The Family Romanov--Candace Fleming
January 2014 by Schwartz & Wade
304 pages--Goodreads

From the acclaimed author of Amelia Lost and The Lincolns comes a heartrending narrative nonfiction page-turner. When Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II, inherited the throne in 1894, he was unprepared to do so. With their four daughters (including Anastasia) and only son, a hemophiliac, Nicholas and his reclusive wife, Alexandra, buried their heads in the sand, living a life of opulence as World War I raged outside their door and political unrest grew into the Russian Revolution.

Deftly maneuvering between the lives of the Romanovs and the plight of Russia’s peasants and urban workers—and their eventual uprising—Fleming offers up a fascinating portrait, complete with inserts featuring period photographs and compelling primary-source material that brings it all to life.

---

This was a really interesting read.  I was surprised by some of the things I learned, like that the Romanovs were not all killed the very night of the revolution as Bolsheviks stormed the imperial palace.  Granted, all of my previous knowledge about the Romanovs came from the movie Anastasia, so it's not like I was any sort of expert on the family or that time period or anything at all about Russia.  But it still surprised me.  We (I) internalize probably far too much of the faux history presented in fictional tales.  

The Family Romanov:  Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia (great title by the way, I love long titles) is more than just a biography of Nicholas Romanov.  It is more even than a biography of him and his family.  This book covers the the legacy of the Romanovs, Nicholas and his family, his poor decisions as a ruler, the Russian aristocracy, the Russian peasantry, the development of the Bolsheviks, Lenin, civil unrest, the revolution, the early attempts at democracy, the transition to communism, the reality of communist Russia not living up to Lenin's ideals, the rise of Stalin, the execution of the royal family, conspiracy theories about the potential escape of some of the royal children, and the discovery of the Romanovs' bodies years later.  Not bad for a children's nonfiction. 

Fleming takes this ambitious scope and presents a narrative that is both interesting and easy to follow.  We really get to know Nicholas and the other Romanovs and we sympathize with them as people.  But we also see how their awful decisions and their oppression of the people led to civil unrest and eventually revolution.

I listened to this on audiobook (which was great for the pronunciations I never would have gotten on my own), so I missed out on all the great photographs in the physical copy.  I've heard they're amazing, so I'll have to drop in at the library and flip through a copy so I can see them.

Review: A World Away by Nancy Grossman

A World Away--Nancy Grossman
July 2012 by Hyperion
400 page--Goodreads

A summer of firsts

Sixteen-year-old Eliza Miller has never made a phone call, never tried on a pair of jeans, never sat in a darkened theater waiting for a movie to start. She's never even talked to someone her age who isn't Amish, like her.

A summer of good-byes

When she leaves her close-knit family to spend the summer as a nanny in suburban Chicago, a part of her can't wait to leave behind everything she knows. She can't imagine the secrets she will uncover, the friends she will make, the surprises and temptations of a way of life so different from her own.

A summer of impossible choice

Every minute Eliza spends with her new friend Josh feels as good as listening to music for the first time, and she wonders whether there might be a place for her in his world. But as summer wanes, she misses the people she has left behind, and the plain life she once took for granted. Eliza will have to decide for herself where she belongs. Whichever choice she makes, she knows she will lose someone she loves.

---

Eliza's journey really resonated with me.  Knowing what was expected of her, but still being curious about the outside world.  The tension between living authentically but letting people down and living a lie that preserves everyone's expectations.  Feeling torn between two worlds and seeing no way to choose both.  I love how the novel resolved.  I thought that Grossman would have to end before Eliza revealed or made her choice because many readers would never understand why Eliza would choose an Amish life and many others would feel betrayed if she chose an English life.  But in the end, this worked really well.  Eliza's choice was the right choice for her.  It made sense for her and her journey, and Grossman didn't try to sell it as the only choice that should be made.

The shunning was just heartbreaking.  I think all religions, from the most isolated to the most open, participate in shunning to some degree.  Communities are defined in part by borders, so what do you do when someone crosses those borders?  I don't have a lot of great answers to that, nor do my personal religious affiliations, but I know they shouldn't shun.  Rules should not be more important than people.  In that light, I loved the relationship between Beth and Eliza's mother.  I can't say too much without spoiling things, but it was just...right.

And the romance wasn't stupid and corny!  I know that doesn't sound like high praise, but it is.  In recent years I've lost a lot of patience with YA romances.  I feel that they usually get in the way of the much more interesting parts of the story.  This book did not make me swoon.  In fact there may have been a bit of eye rolling.  But it was fine for the most part.  And I am so glad that Eliza explicitly made her decision for herself and not for a boy.  This could have turned into an awful triangle where she lived her life based on the boy she choose, but it wasn't.  Thank you YA gods.  I will go sacrifice the requisite goat.

Minor complaint time.  Super minor.  Barely even a thing:  The book is slightly dated.  This feels weird to say since the book was only published in 2012, but it was.  It wasn't anything huge: a brief mention of renting a movie from a rental store, the continued popular existence of CDs, and one of those early generation ipods that used the spinny circle thing to menu options.  I wanted one of those so bad in high school!  Ahem.  Back to the review.  Other than those minor dated references, Eliza's transition into the "normal" world worked really well.   I loved her exploration of modern technologies and the minor mix-ups, like thinking that Josh worked at a fruit stand since he sold Apples.

A World Away appeals to the universal experience of feeling out of place and stuck.  While it tells a very specific story, many readers will find elements of themselves in Eliza.

Review: The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

Well hello, poor sad dusty neglected old blog.  It's been a while.  I never called, I never wrote.  Let's jump back into the swing of things with a review.

The Girl of Fire and Thorns--Rae Carson
September 2011 by Greenwillow
423 pages--Goodreads

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.
Elisa is the chosen one.

But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can't see how she ever will.

Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.

And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people's savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.

Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.

Most of the chosen do.

---

This book has been floating around in my periphery for a while, but it looked like just another generic fantasy adventure, so for the longest time I didn't bother picking it up.  Boy, was that a mistake.  I've been missing out on a fascinating world, endearing characters, and a plot that is at times an intensely satisfying slow-burn and at others a compelling page-turner.  From the very beginning of the novel, even when not much was happening, I couldn't put the book down.

As interesting as the plot is, where Carson truly shines is in getting you to care about the characters.  From surly, little Prince Rosario to the genuine, sweet Humberto and even the aloof and weak King Alejandro.  You can't help but want to know more about them, and spend more time watching them live out their stories.

I also really enjoyed the development of the mystery surrounding the Godstone, its powers and mythology, and Elisa's place as God’s chosen one.  The way Carson wove in the previous stone-bearers, especially the ones who had failed, was really interesting.

The book certainly isn't perfect.  Carson saves most of the world building for books two and three, leaving the setting a bit underdeveloped in this first installment.  And the spinning Godstone bellybutton amulet at the end was more than a little bit hokey.  But at that point, I just didn’t care.  I have fallen for this series hook line and sinker.  I’ve devoured book two and am well into book three.

Review: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
May 2012 by Hyperion Books
343 pages--Goodreads

Oct. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.

When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.

As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage, failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

---

There was so much hype surrounding this book.  It won a Printz honor.  Many people raved about it and gave it 5-star reviews.  It was on all the recommendation lists for a little while.  And it wasn't bad; I actually quite liked it.  But it is slow.  Very slow.  The ending is fantastic, but you have to be willing to push through the first half of the novel to get there.  I read Code Name Verity using the audiobook, which worked out quite well.  The narration was excellent and it kept me going through the less-engaging first half of the novel.

I loved how well we got to know Julie and Maddie.  This book is sometimes pitched as a spy novel, which is just misleading.  No Bond or Borne here.  This is a book about the friendship between two young women, albeit in rather dangerous circumstances, but the events of WWII take a distant back seat to the women's friendship.  And I honestly don't remember the last time I read a young adult (not middle grade or children's) novel that celebrated love between friends with absolutely no romance whatsoever getting in the way.  Though it was slow, I do appreciate the development of their relationship.

Without being gratuitous, this book is honest in its descriptions of torture, interrogation, and execution.  But with its level of violence and some strong language, it is not a book for younger readers.

This next paragraph is spoilery, so feel free to skip it.  

I can't think of the last time an author has pulled off an unreliable narrator so well.  As I read the second half of the book and realized what Julie had done, I had to keep flipping back to earlier in the novel to see how she had done it (I actually had both a physical copy in addition audiobook).  Suffice it to say, there were many "What the heck!?" moments.  And the best part is Wein tells us from the start that there would be an unreliable narrator.  She says in the first few pages that sabotage is integral to the mission of a captured combatant.  It was sort of like Michael Cane's bookend statements in The Prestige about how you look for the secret but you won't find it because you want to be fooled.  

Code Name Verity is a well-written novel with excellent characters.  It's not as fast or exciting as the hype or description implies, but if you can put in the investment, it is worth it.

Review: Stolen Songbird

Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen
April 2014 by Strange Chemistry
469 pages--Goodreads

For five centuries, a witch’s curse has bound the trolls to their city beneath the ruins of Forsaken Mountain. Time enough for their dark and nefarious magic to fade from human memory and into myth. But a prophesy has been spoken of a union with the power to set the trolls free, and when Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and taken beneath the mountain, she learns there is far more to the myth of the trolls than she could have imagined.

Cécile has only one thing on her mind after she is brought to Trollus: escape. Only the trolls are clever, fast, and inhumanly strong. She will have to bide her time, wait for the perfect opportunity.

But something unexpected happens while she’s waiting – she begins to fall for the enigmatic troll prince to whom she has been bonded and married. She begins to make friends. And she begins to see that she may be the only hope for the half-bloods – part troll, part human creatures who are slaves to the full-blooded trolls. There is a rebellion brewing. And her prince, Tristan, the future king, is its secret leader.

As Cécile becomes involved in the intricate political games of Trollus, she becomes more than a farmer’s daughter. She becomes a princess, the hope of a people, and a witch with magic powerful enough to change Trollus forever.

---

I will start off by saying that ending was so much not okay.  I need book two right now.  What do you mean book two wont be out for a year and then I have to wait a whole nother year for book three?!  GAHAHGadfjaoeiwnodainvpaofiahs.

Now that I've gotten that out, I will say that I loved Stolen Songbird.  It was not a perfect book and it is not a book for everyone, but I could not put it down.  With the exception of the 30 or 40 pages I read before going to bed, I read the whole 400+ pages in one day.  Had I started later in the day or had the book been longer, I would have needed to stay awake all night to finish it to find out what happened.

This is one of the very few times a romance has taken center stage in a plot without me objecting as I read.  With many, many romances I roll my eyes at how shallow the characters are and how uninteresting their story is, but I cared about this one a lot.  And the romance didn't detract from the other important things going on.  I really wanted Tristan and Cecile to get together, and at the same time I really wanted to figure out Tristan's political machinations.  And I wanted to find out whether the rebellion would work or fail miserably.  And I loved seeing how Cecile integrated herself into Troll society 

I also loved the minor characters.  Marc, Tips, even Anais, but especially the twins.  I loved Victoria and Vincent and their good natured competitions and Cecile's friendship with them.  Along with engaging characters, Jensen presents us with a rich world with complex political and social structures without infodumping.  We are given answers just a little bit at a time as Cecile learns things or figures them out.

Stolen Songbird reminded me a lot of The Hollow Kingdom but with more adventure and romance.  And endearing characters.  And pages.  Basically take everything I liked about The Hollow Kingdom and add more of it and you get Stolen Songbird.  I did not expect to love it so much.  It is not the right book for everyone, but it was the right book for me right now.  It's full of mystery and intrigue, and I need answers.  Do you hear me, Jensen.  I need book two now!

Review: Cress by Marissa Meyer

Cress--Marissa Meyer
February 2014 by Feiwel & Friends
560 pages--Goodreads

Rapunzel’s tower is a satellite. She can’t let down her hair—or her guard.

In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker—unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

---

After almost a year's wait since reading Scarlet, Cress is finally out.  Huzzah!  It's a long one, but it's never slow.  There's always some rescue to pull off or some danger to avoid or some scheme to execute.

However, Meyer stretches herself too thin with all these characters.  I do enjoy seeing from each character's point of view, and POV switches are sometimes necessary to tell the story from its multiple locations.  But switching between  ten different characters is just too much.  At the same time, the characters are the best part, and I wouldn't have her cut any of them out.  I just wish we could see more of Cinder.

I really like where Meyer is taking Levana's character.  Rather than being evil for the sake of being evil, we get just a hint that her motivation is loneliness.  If her people will not love her on their own terms, she will make them love her; and she will conquer Earth so that more people will love her.  I hope Meyer expands this angle of Levana's character in the next book.  It makes her much more compelling than the generic evil queen.

I love how vulnerable Cinder is in this book.  Not to say she can't hold her own in a fight (she can) or that she's an emotional wreck (she's not).  She's just freaked out about the pressure of having to save the entire world (and moon).  She's scared and worried that she won't be able to do it.  She feels guilty for the deaths she's caused.  It's so nice to have a character who reacts normally to the saving the world situation rather than being completely confident or even just mildly worried.

My only major criticism, aside from the multiple perspectives, is that there isn't much chemistry between Thorne and Cress.  Wolf and Scarlet's relationship (while too sudden and cheesy) at least had chemistry.  I can see them going somewhere in the next book, but I don't root for them as I read like I am Cinder and Kai.

Cress is not a perfect novel, but it is a fun, fast-paced one.  Now I just have to sit here and wait for a year until Winter comes out.  

Review: Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund

Across a Star-Swept Sea--Diana Peterfreund
October 2013 by Balzer +  Bray
464 pages--Goodreads

Centuries after wars nearly destroyed civilization, the two islands of New Pacifica stand alone, a terraformed paradise where even the Reduction—the devastating brain disorder that sparked the wars—is a distant memory. Yet on the isle of Galatea, an uprising against the ruling aristocrats has turned deadly. The revolutionaries’ weapon is a drug that damages their enemies’ brains, and the only hope is rescue by a mysterious spy known as the Wild Poppy.

On the neighboring island of Albion, no one suspects that the Wild Poppy is actually famously frivolous aristocrat Persis Blake. The teenager uses her shallow, socialite trappings to hide her true purpose: her gossipy flutternotes are encrypted plans, her pampered sea mink is genetically engineered for spying, and her well-publicized new romance with handsome Galatean medic Justen Helo… is her most dangerous mission ever.

Though Persis is falling for Justen, she can’t risk showing him her true self, especially once she learns he’s hiding far more than simply his disenchantment with his country’s revolution and his undeniable attraction to the silly socialite he’s pretending to love. His darkest secret could plunge both islands into a new dark age, and Persis realizes that when it comes to Justen Helo, she’s not only risking her heart, she’s risking the world she’s sworn to protect.

In this thrilling adventure inspired by The Scarlet Pimpernel, Diana Peterfreund creates an exquisitely rendered world where nothing is as it seems and two teens with very different pasts fight for a future only they dare to imagine.

---

I am so impressed by this novel.  After being a bit disappointed by For Darkness Shows the Stars, I was worried that Across a Star-Swept Sea would follow suit.  No worries!  It takes everything that For Darkness did right and builds on it.

First, the setting is perfect.  It's an excellent adaptation of the source material.  Peterfreund takes the class system of the first book and fits it to the framework of the French revolution.  The the reduction was cured a few centuries ago, but there is still class tension between the aristos and regs.  In Galatea those tensions erupt into a Reign of Terror with people being reduced rather than guillotined.  Fervor blinds the revolutionaries to the cruelty of their actions until they care only for revenge against the aristos and those who support them for all their crimes and their fathers' crimes and their fathers' fathers' crimes.  In Albion things are more stable, but those tensions still exist.  Some aristos are fair stewards; others are not.  And whispers of revolution from discontented regs threaten destabilize a regency government.

And the fact that Justen invented the reduction drug (albeit by accident) is a great adaptation of Marguerite's accidental betrayal in the original.  Basically, I just love good adaptations.  The ones that bring out the most important parts of the original and adapting those conflicts into a new setting.  The ones that stay true to the core of the characters while bringing out something new and interesting about them.

In that light, Persis is so annoying, and I mean that in the best possible way.  Her disguise requires her to act in a manner WAY below her intellect.  It drove me crazy how she had to hold back her complicated opinions about politics, gender relations, and social equality.  I hated every time Justen thought of her as a spoiled idiot.  It is so perfect for this story and the tension it needs.  I was a bit worried about this aspect of the adaptation--there is a big difference between a fop and a shallow socialite woman--but Peterfreund pulls it off masterfully, causing even Justen, the oh-so-enlightend, to question his gender assumption.

I know it wouldn't fit the story, but I wish we could see more of Persis' parents.  Dealing with an Alzheimer's-like condition would be both a fascinating, though tragic, plot line.  Persis, understandably, wants to ignore what was happening to her mother, but I want to see more exploration of that situation.

I only have a couple of complaints.  First, the multiple perspectives get a bit confusing at times.  For the story Peterfreund is telling, we do need to see from multiple characters' perspectives, but there isn't quite enough cuing as to when we switch perspectives.  I don't need a label slapped on each section, but it needs to be clear in the first sentence who's talking.  Sometimes it takes nearly a paragraph before we know who is narrating.

Second, I know most people were excited to see them again, but Elliot, Kai, and the rest of their group feel out of place in this story. There would have been better ways to lure the Poppy into a trap (for example, Remy getting captured) without pulling these characters in so late in the game.  And then the ending itself is just a bit too sudden.  Minor qualms, but still.

Across a Star-Swept Sea is excellent, both as its own story and as as a retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel.  I need to go rewatch the movie now.  If you haven't read For Darkness, don't let that stop you from reading Across a Star-Swept Sea.  It's more of a companion novel than a sequel and can stand on its own.

Review: Legend by Marie Lu

Legend--Marie Lu
November 2011 by Putnam Juvenile
320 pages--Goodreads

What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic's wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic's highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.

From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths - until the day June's brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family's survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias's death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.

Full of nonstop action, suspense, and romance, this novel is sure to move readers as much as it thrills. 

---

A bunch of my students love this series, so I figured I'd check Legend out.  Sadly, it was not as good as I had hoped it would be.  

I think I've finally figured out why most of the dystopian novels published in the last few years disappoint me:  they tend to use dystopia as a setting rather than as a social critique.  When I read a dystopia, I want the novel to hold up a mirror to our own world, to show the dangerous potential of where we could go, or to exaggerate our society's flaws so we can more easily see how they are problematic.  Books like Legend just use dystopia as a cool setting where the young heroes can be pitted against impossible odds.  That's just not as compelling to me.  

Additionally, the world building is too sparse.  Even ignoring the lack of social commentary, the setting is vague.  We never see how or why the Republic is a dystopia; we just have to take the synopsis's word that it is.  I need to see how the government is repressive.  What do they do that is so awful?  Since no one knows about the plague cause, that isn't enough.  What started the war between the Republic and the Colonies?  What happened to the United States to cause it to break  into factions?  Why would people start revolting at Day's arrest?  He's not a Robin Hood or a Mockingjay figure, and there's almost no evidence of repression, so the riot seems to exist solely to prick June's conscience.  More detail about the world will probably be revealed later in the series, that's too late.  You can surprise me later, but you must sell me on the world in the first book. 

INSTALOVE.  Seriously?  A military girl working undercover and a rebel criminal living on the streets should both be much much much slower to trust and should not start making out with each other a day after they meet each other.  I can accept descriptions of Day's gorgeous eyes and June's stunning beauty.  I'll just roll my eyes and move on.  But their relationship is way to serious given the time frame. 

June and Day's personalities and voices are not distinct.  Aside from their differing circumstances, either character could be narrating at any given time.  If you are going to use two first-person narrators, their voices need to be clearly different from each other.  As similar as the two characters are, they should not be identical. 

Lu gets points for allowing Day to be vulnerable enough to cry, but those points are cancelled out by Day telling June, "Sorry.  I couldn't help it," to explain why he kissed her.  You'd better help it, Bucko.  Even if you are not in control of your feelings, you are certainly in control of your actions.  Words on even the hazy end of the victim-blaming spectrum are not romantic.

Despite all it's flaws, Legend is a decently enjoyable read.  The mysteries, despite the bland world, are intriguing.  The writing is fast-paced.  The plot is exciting, and the book draws you in from the first line.  Legend gets a low 3.

Review: Scarlet by A. C. Gaughen

Scarlet--A. C. Gaughen
February 2012 by Walker Children's
292 pages--Goodreads

Posing as one of Robin Hood’s thieves to avoid the wrath of the evil Thief Taker Lord Gisbourne, Scarlet has kept her identity secret from all of Nottinghamshire. Only the Hood and his band know the truth: the agile thief posing as a whip of a boy is actually a fearless young woman with a secret past. Helping the people of Nottingham outwit the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham could cost Scarlet her life as Gisbourne closes in.

It’s only her fierce loyalty to Robin—whose quick smiles and sharp temper have the rare power to unsettle her—that keeps Scarlet going and makes this fight worth dying for.

---

Aaarg!!  This book was such a disappointment.  I wanted Scarlet to be an awesome adventure about the girl hiding in plain sight among the Merry Men.  I wanted to know where she came from and why she was hiding from Gisbourne and how she got so good at knife throwing and why she dressed up like a man and why she joined Robin's group and how she hid her identity from the world.  Basically I wanted an Alanna-esque character inserted into the Robin Hood mythology.

Of all the stories that didn't need a stupid, stupid love triangle!  This could have been such a good book with knife throwing and daring escapes and hangings.  But instead, we spent the whole book listening to Robin, John, and Scarlet angst about who would get together with whom, completely ignoring the more important and deadly things going on.  Yes, Alanna had a love triangle too, but the adventure and the fate of the kingdom always came first.  The external plot or internal non-romantic conflict in a novel will always be more interesting to me than romantic angst.

And the best part of the awful unnecessary romance:  Robin, who never said a word to John about sleeping around, calls Scarlet a "whore" for accepting a little comfort in a moment when she is scared and injured and in shock.  And his reason for doing this?  "Hurting you is the best way I know to punish myself."  What kind of messed up crap is that?!  That statement is so close to justification for domestic abuse, I can't believe it made the final cut into the novel.  We'll just log it away with Carosel's If-he loves-you-it-doesn't-hurt-when-he-hits-you message.

The slightly less annoying or unsettling problems in the novel include:

• The trust timeline was unrealistic.  Scarlet had been working with Robin and company for almost two years before the book gets started, and she didn't trust them at all.  Then, once we finish the first few chapters, she suddenly trusts them.  Because reasons.
• Robin needs to be an adult.  Otherwise, the myth loses a lot of its significance.  Robin has to be a man when he returns from the crusades to find his lands seized and his people starving.  You can't blame a mere boy for letting his people down, but Robin the man has to accept that responsibility.  If you're going to make Robin a teenager, you better have a very good reason for doing it, and angst is not a good enough reason.

Scarlet was so disappointing, and yet frustratingly addictive.  I couldn't stop reading, even though I didn't like it.  This book sullies the good name of Scarlet.  Go read a good Scarlet instead where Marissa Meyer proves that a romantic sub plot can enhance rather than completely derail the main plot.

Review: Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel

Skybreaker--Kenneth Oppel
November 2005 by Harper Collins
560 pages--Goodreads

A legendary ghost ship. An incredible treasure. A death-defying adventure.

Forty years ago, the airship Hyperion vanished with untold riches in its hold. Now, accompanied by heiress Kate de Vries and a mysterious gypsy, Matt Cruse is determined to recover the ship and its treasures. But 20,000 feet above the Earth's surface, pursued by those who have hunted the Hyperion since its disappearance, and surrounded by deadly high-altitude life forms, Matt and his companions soon find themselves fighting not only for the Hyperion—but for their very lives.

---

I really wanted to like Skybreaker, but it just wasn't as good as Airborn.  It was still fun, still exciting, but it had some glaring problems.

Airborn contained some deus ex machina here and there, but Skybreaker took it to a new level.  Oh no!  We're trapped by pirates with no chance of escape.  But wait!  The pirates have been electrocuted by a sky jellyfish.  What?  Again and again, Matt and company got stuck in hopeless situations and then were provided with miraculous escape routes.  I can accept this once or twice in a novel, but it happened too frequently here to ignore.

Matt was really possessive of Kate.  I get that he likes her and that he's hurt by some of her actions, but he took it too far.  He can feel like he's been punched in the gut, but to think to himself, "How dare she?" isn't okay.  He doesn't own her!  If she wants to flirt with other guys, she can.  She's her own person.  She's not even cheating on him since they have no defined relationship.  But no; how dare she.

I wanted to see more of Nadira.  I wanted her to be her awesome gypsy girl self, jumping off buildings and doing other daring things. Instead, she became fuel for a messy love quadrangle and an angst fest from Matt.  

Skybreaker was not as good as the first book, but it was still a fun romp, complete with sky pirates and a bit more steampunky.  It's just so darn compelling. 

Review: Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale

Palace of Stone--Shannon Hale
August 2012 by Bloomsbury USA
323 pages--Goodreads

Coming down from the mountain to a new life in the city is a thrill to Miri. She and her princess academy friends have been brought to Asland to help the future princess Britta prepare for her wedding.There, Miri also has a chance to attend school-at the Queen's Castle. But as Miri befriends students who seem sophisticated and exciting she also learns that they have some frightening plans. Torn between loyalty to the princess and her new friends' ideas, between an old love and a new crush, and between her small mountain home and the bustling city, Miri looks to find her own way in this new place.

---

When I heard that Shannon Hale was publishing Palace of Stone, my first thought was "No; Princess Academy's story is complete.  It does not need a sequel.  A sequel would diminish the story that already exists."  I still hold that position, but Palace of Stone isn't a sequel, weird as that sounds.  Yes, it takes place in the same world with the same characters, but it's not a sequel.  Rather than stretching the Mount Eskel story beyond what it has material for, Palace of Stone is its own story.  Hale explores new situations and new locations while holding onto the characters and spirit we love from the first book.

The political situation is excellently crafted.  Hale poses complicated situations that I think her younger readers will miss the nuances of, but I love them.  We Americans tend to be a overly gung-ho in support of revolutions, but Hale asks the hard questions.  Is it better to support the stability of a bad ruler while some people starve, or to incite rebellion which may improve things or may lead to complete anarchy and widespread starvation and violence?  This part of the plot is wrapped up a bit too easily and neatly, but Miri faces the issue's complexity enough that I'll take it.

Hale even makes a love triangle work!  This is no "Team Edward/Team Jacob" clone thrown in to garner sales from angsty teenage girls or to cover up lack of substance elsewhere in the plot. The triangle is used more as an external representation of Miri's torn allegiance between the familiarity of home and the excitement of new experiences in Asland, which is a much more interesting tension than a romantic one.

I love the characters; I love the world; I love the plot;  I love Hale's writing style.  Palace of Stone was exactly what I needed after a massive disappointment from a different book.

Review: Friends with Boys by Faith Erin Hicks

Friends with Boys--Faith Erin Hicks

February 2012 by First Second

220 pages--Goodreads

After years of homeschooling, Maggie is starting high school. It's pretty terrifying.

Maggie's big brothers are there to watch her back, but ever since Mom left it just hasn't been the same.

Besides her brothers, Maggie's never had any real friends before. Lucy and Alistair don't have lots of friends either. But they eat lunch with her at school and bring her along on their small-town adventures.

Missing mothers...distant brothers...high school...new friends... It's a lot to deal with. But there's just one more thing.

MAGGIE IS HAUNTED.

---

Friends with Boys is an excellent graphic novel about growing up. I can't really narrow the subject down more than that; it deals with friends and crushes and enemies and fathers and siblings and twins and mothers and fitting in and standing out and moving on and dealing with loss and new beginnings. For such a short novel, there was so much going on. Hicks perfectly captured the feel of high school: the isolation, the friendships, the crap "friends" put each other through.

I loved the illustration style. It fit perfectly with the story Hicks told and was deceptively simple. The illustrations were fun and quirky sometimes and deep and poignant at others. Hicks says so much with so little.

The ghost story was weaved in well. It wasn't over the top, as it easily could have been. It served as a way for Maggie to process and cope with all the stuff going on in her life, particularly her mom's abandonment of the family.

I picked up <i>Friends with Boys</i> expecting a quick, fun, fluffy contemporary story. It was fun, but it was also surprisingly deep. And as a bonus, one of my most reluctant readers loved it.

Review: Enchanted by Alethea Kontis

Enchanted--Alethea Kontis
May 2012 by Harcourt's Children's Books
308 pages--Goodreads

It isn't easy being the rather overlooked and unhappy youngest sibling to sisters named for the other six days of the week. Sunday’s only comfort is writing stories, although what she writes has a terrible tendency to come true.

When Sunday meets an enchanted frog who asks about her stories, the two become friends. Soon that friendship deepens into something magical. One night Sunday kisses her frog goodbye and leaves, not realizing that her love has transformed him back into Rumbold, the crown prince of Arilland—and a man Sunday’s family despises.

The prince returns to his castle, intent on making Sunday fall in love with him as the man he is, not the frog he was. But Sunday is not so easy to woo. How can she feel such a strange, strong attraction for this prince she barely knows? And what twisted secrets lie hidden in his past - and hers?

---

I loved all the references to well known and less known fairy tales, but Enchanted  wasn't as strong a retelling as I had hoped.  

First, there was the instalove.  It just didn't work, even for a fairy tale.  Retellings are a way to explore things that are skimmed over in the original tale, particularly the romance.  For me, retellings have to expand on the romance and have the characters more realistically fall in love over a longer span of time, at least a little bit.  Instead, Sunday kept love-at-first-sighting.  And she just wasn't smart in some scenes.  Really, Sunday.  You wake up in a dress that is not yours in a place you've never been before in the arms of a man who was not there when you passed out, and you're not at all worried?  Not even a little bit?  Not even when you first wake up before you get your bearings and realize it's the prince?  Really?  Come on!  You should freak out at least a little bit.  And Rumbold, you took too many liberties in that scene.

That wasn't the only aspect of the story that wasn't fully developed.  The climax was rushed.  So many fairy tales were pushed into that one scene that I wasn't sure exactly what was going on.  And why was the family suddenly okay with Wednesday and Sunday involving themselves with the royal family?  Weren't they supposed to hate them?  

I did like the scene where Sunday and her father swapped stories.  Honestly, Papa needed to be a bigger part of the story.  Familial relationships are sadly neglected in these types of stories.  I would have loved to see more of the father-daughter relationship.  And there should have been more Saturday.

In the end, I think Enchanted's biggest problem was trying to tell to much story in not enough time.  It wasn't the retelling for me.

Mini Review: Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

Charles and Emma:  The Darwins' Leap of Faith--Deborah Heiligman
December 2008 by Henry Holt and Co.
272 pages--Goodreads

Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species, his revolutionary tract on evolution and the fundamental ideas involved, in 1859. Nearly 150 years later, the theory of evolution continues to create tension between the scientific and religious communities. Challenges about teaching the theory of evolution in schools occur annually all over the country. This same debate raged within Darwin himself, and played an important part in his marriage: his wife, Emma, was quite religious, and her faith gave Charles a lot to think about as he worked on a theory that continues to spark intense debates.

Deborah Heiligman's new biography of Charles Darwin is a thought-provoking account of the man behind evolutionary theory: how his personal life affected his work and vice versa. The end result is an engaging exploration of history, science, and religion for young readers.

---

Charles and Emma is an interesting biography.  It let me get to know Charles and Emma Darwin as people.  I love how the biography focuses on their relationship as well as Darwin's theories.  The science story is well known, but I had never known how much Darwin struggled with the publication of his theories, both because of the inevitable public backlash and because of his personal religious doubts.  And I've never seen Emma's side of the story represented before.

Quotes from the Darwins' diaries and letters are weaved in seamlessly with the narration.  Charles and Emma is an engaging text. This is good nonfiction.

Review: 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

13 Little Blue Envelopes--Maureen Johnson
2005 by Harper Collins
322 pages--Goodreads

Would you follow the directions?

Would you travel around the world?

Would you open the envelopes one by one?

Inside little blue envelope 1 are $1,000 and instructions to buy a plane ticket.

In envelope 2 are directions to a specific London flat.

The note in envelope 3 tells Ginny: Find a starving artist.

Because of envelope 4, Ginny and a playwright/thief/bloke–about–town called Keith go to Scotland together, with somewhat disastrous–-though utterly romantic–-results.

Everything about Ginny will change this summer, and it's all because of the 13 little blue envelopes.

---

Meh, this one's not for me.  It just seemed to unrealistic, partially because I would never go off to Europe without having every single step planned out or make out with a boy I had met earlier that day.  I can handle characters who are different from me, but not when they don't follow common sense and personal safety rules.  Sure, I'll go to this random guy's house.  I have no reason to trust him and don't even know his name.  No one knows I'm in this country or will miss me if I disappear.  Sure.  Why not?  What could possibly go wrong?  The whole book was a series of I-would-never-do-thats and they kept me from being able to lose myself in the story. 

Despite the life-changing journey promised in the blurb, Ginny never really grew or changed.  We don't see her before the trip, so we have nothing to compare her end-of-book self to.  A little, she-wouldn't-be-that-spontaneous-on-her-own isn't good enough. That's not significant change.  And I never felt like I got to know any of the other characters either, not even Peg, and the book is supposed to be about her almost as much as it is about Ginny.  

All around, 13 Little Blue Envelopes is just not the book for me.

Review: Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe

Mississippi Trial, 1955--Chris Crowe
May 2002 by Dial
240 pages--Goodreads

At first Hiram is excited to visit his hometown in Mississippi. But soon after he arrives, he crosses paths with Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago who is also visiting for the summer, and Hiram sees firsthand how the local whites mistreat blacks who refuse to "know their place." When Emmett's tortured dead body is found floating in a river, Hiram is determined to find out who could do such a thing. But what will it cost him to know?

---

I learned about the Emmett Till trial just a couple of years ago and it surprises me that this isn't included in our general education about the Civil Rights Movement.  I think it's something that needs to be discussed in our conversations about race and equality and injustice.  I think Mississippi Trial, 1955 does a good job of framing the trial and the events leading up to it, but it misses the mark on a couple of other things.

What bugged me most was that Hirum pulls a 180 about halfway through the book for no apparent reason.  First he hates his dad and can't see eye to eye with him on anything.  Then, poof.  He sees his dad's side of things and becomes too forward thinking for his time period and his previous actions.  This turn around should have been preceded by a number of small things that made Hirum question his belief system before he made his full transition rather than happening in one fell swoop.  

As the title indicates, this book focuses on the trial rather than on Emmett Till himself.  I'm not sure if I liked that or not.  It did highlight the fact that while most Mississippians did not kill Emmett, they did support the system that promoted the behavior and thinking that allowed the murder to happen.  But I would have liked to know Emmett more as a person.

I really like that this book confronts the fact that good, normal people are capable of doing horrible things.  Not many of us are willing to face that fact.  We like to think of evil as something that exists outside of us.  But I firmly believe that there are very few full-on monsters out there, just a lot of partial ones.  Mississippi Trial makes us face the partial monsters within all of us.

Review: The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans

The Prisoner of Cell 25--Richard Paul Evans
August 2011 by Simon Pulse
326 pages--Goodreads

My name is Michael Vey, and the story I’m about to tell you is strange. Very strange. It’s my story.

To everyone at Meridian High School, Michael Vey is an ordinary fourteen-year-old. In fact, the only thing that seems to set him apart is the fact that he has Tourette’s syndrome. But Michael is anything but ordinary. Michael has special powers. Electric powers.

Michael thinks he's unique until he discovers that a cheerleader named Taylor also has special powers. With the help of Michael’s friend, Ostin, the three of them set out to discover how Michael and Taylor ended up this way, but their investigation brings them to the attention of a powerful group who wants to control the electric children – and through them the world. Michael will have to rely on his wits, powers, and friends if he’s to survive.

---

The Michael Vey books are super popular at my school, especially with students who don't normally read, so I figured that as a responsible teacher, I should check them out.  I can see why they're popular with all my students, but they're not the books for me.

The Prisoner of Cell 25 seems to have been written specifically for some of my short attention span reluctant readers.  It is quite fast paced.  Boom.  I have powers.  Boom.  I can't tell anyone.  Boom.  I told Taylor.  Boom.  She has powers too.  Boom.  Now people are chasing us.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  Boom.  There wasn't any set up or space to breath between events.  The book is made of short chapters and very, very short sentences.  Come on, vary your sentence length at least a little.  Don't write down to teens, Evans; they're capable of more than people give them credit for.  

The villain is a bit too mustache-twirly, crazy, and evil-for-the-sake-of-being-evil for me.  Yet, he can't come up with anything more evil than blackmailing airline companies?  He makes stupid mistakes like running a metal pipe from Cell 25 and the cell where Taylor and the other electric powered kids are being held when he knows that electric powers can be conducted through metal.  And the reason Hatch and company are scary and unbeatable is because "They have private jets and hidden compounds" (pg 156)?  I had to giggle a bit at that line.

The kids are way overpowered.  I'm fine with them having electric powers, even strong powers.  But no police department anywhere is going to let a 14 year old interview a violent suspect because, you know, he might just get more information out of the guy that we have, despite the fact that we've been specially trained and do this as our livelihood.  The final fight seemed a bit unrealistic too, though I can't speak about it in detail since I got bored and skimmed through it.  Beyond being overpowered, the characters are rather unoriginal.  We've got the cute, popular cheerleader; the overweight, genius friend; and the bullied kid with secret powers.  They don't grow throughout the novel.  And Zeus's 180 at the end is just unrealistic.

And Meridian?  If you've ever driven through the West, you know for a fact that there are more obscure, tiny, out of the way places to hide out than Meridian, Idaho.  And how big of a coincidence is it that two electric kids just happened to go to the same school?

The Prisoner of Cell 25 is basically brain candy.  It reminds me a lot of The Maze Runner and all the reasons I didn't like that book much either.  I know some of my students think Michael Vey is the best series ever, but I just don't know if I can in good conscience recommend it except to my reluctant reader when I know there are better written books out there with complex characters and logical plots.

Review: Okay for Now

Okay for Now--Gary D. Schmidt

August 2011 by Clarion Books

360 pages--Goodreads

As a fourteen-year-old who just moved to a new town, with no friends and a louse for an older brother, Doug Swieteck has all the stats stacked against him. So begins a coming-of-age masterwork full of equal parts comedy and tragedy from Newbery Honor winner Gary D. Schmidt. 

As Doug struggles to be more than the "skinny thug" that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds an unlikely ally in Lil Spicer--a fiery young lady who "smelled like daisies would smell if they were growing in a big field under a clearing sky after a rain." In Lil, Doug finds the strength to endure an abusive father, the suspicions of a whole town, and the return of his oldest brother, forever scarred, from Vietnam. Together, they find a safe haven in the local library, inspiration in learning about the plates of John James Audubon's birds, and a hilarious adventure on a Broadway stage. 

In this stunning novel, Schmidt expertly weaves multiple themes of loss and recovery in a story teeming with distinctive, unusual characters and invaluable lessons about love, creativity, and survival.

---

It's rare that a book can make me cry and laugh on the same page.  I can't tell you how many times I gasped aloud or giggled or teared up (which was bad because I was driving and listening to the audiobook) while reading the book.  And there were actual tears coming down my face as I finished the book.  I put off lesson planning, I put off sleep just so I could finish this book.  It is beautiful.  Just as The Wednesday Wars ties in Shakespeare plays to Holling's life, Okay for Now weaves Audobon's bird paintings into Doug's.  The noble pelican, the terrified eye, the mother bird looking into the distance.  

As a character, Doug is real.  Doug's reactions are genuine, even annoying when he lashes out like a jerk or a thug.  That's how Doug would react.  He has parts of his father in him, mostly sayings and phrases that he has internalized.  Even if he breaks the cycle of abuse, he is still partly his father.  All the other characters are multidimensional too.  Schmidt humanizes almost every single one of them.  Even the bully brother and the bully gym teacher became real people with both light and dark inside them.

The abuse was handled, well, I can't say beautifully because it is not a beautiful thing, but artfully maybe.  It is never stated directly that Doug's father is abusive, is alcoholic, beats his family.  Everything is implied.  And I loved that.  When it happens in real life, abuse is never talked about, even though everyone knows.  Schmidt conveys that through his writing style.  

The title fits the book perfectly.  Will things get better for Doug?  Maybe not.  Maybe they will get much worse.  But for now he is okay.

Part adorkable (the puffins!), part heartbreaking, Okay for Now is a beautiful book that I will definitely come back to again.  Congratulations, Mr. Schmidt.  You have been added to my "I will read anything you publish" list.

Review: Dead Reckoning by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill

Dead Reckoning--Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill
June 2012 by Bloomsbury USA Childrens
336 pages--Goodreads

Jett is a girl disguised as a boy, living as a gambler in the old West as she searches for her long-lost brother. Honoria Gibbons is a smart, self-sufficient young woman who also happens to be a fabulous inventor. Both young women travel the prairie alone – until they are brought together by a zombie invasion! As Jett and Honoria investigate, they soon learn that these zombies aren’t rising from the dead of their own accord … but who would want an undead army? And why?

---

A steampunk, wild west, zombie horror, gender bender adventure.  A book like this will either do really well or fail miserably.  Thankfully, Dead Reckoning did not fail.  It's nothing terribly serious, just a fun romp through all the genres.  It's not too gory, even for a zombie book.  No unnecessary romances.  Just sleuthing and sciencing and exploding, and escaping and actually very little gun slinging.  It is quick paced, easily read in just a day or two.

The characters are fun.  Jett is strong and lives her disguise.  She is always the gambling gunslinger outlaw.  Only every now and then does her femininity manifest, like when she fusses over her horse when he returns unharmed after a run in with zombies.  Gibbons is annoyingly committed to science and rationality even when the pursuit of science could get her killed, but that's what makes her fun.  White Fox, he actually isn't really fleshed out.  Side note complaint:  Why didn't Lackey and Edghill just make White Fox Native American?  I get the whole child-of-two-worlds-so-he-belongs-to-neither thing.  But seriously, why not just make him Native American?  Gibbons and Jett would have been fine with it.  Does the entire cast have to be white?  Don't start going off on whether it would be plausible or not; you have zombies, for crying out loud!  Plausibility no longer applies.

There is some major villain monologuing explaining just exactly how and why he accomplished his master scheme.  That could have been handled more skillfully.  And some loose strings are left hanging.  You inject Jett with a vial full of poison and we're not ever going to address that again?  That should have some effect on her even if it doesn't kill her.

Dead Reckoning is genre blending done well.  It's not the book for you if you're looking for a pure western or pure steampunk or a pure zombie horror, but it's a light combination of all three.  I see potential for sequels and would probably have to pick them up.