Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium--Lauren Oliver
February 2011 by HarperTeen
441 pages--Goodreads

Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet. Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.

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I can't decide If I like the writing in Delirium or not.  In some places it seems overly emotional to the point of being sappy, but in others it's quite skillful.  I like Lena a lot as a narrator.  Her mannerisms are just funny, but that could have just been the style the reader spoke in.  Alex doesn't have any of his own drives or goals or even a personality. He's just there to fall in love with.  The book contains more language than I'm comfortable with.  And I kept waiting for someone to pop out and stab everyone in the back a la Uglies, but it never happened.  

I wish I had known from the beginning that Delirium takes place in an alternate present.  I thought it took place in the near future and there's no way our culture would accept such a drastic change (love being a dangerous disease) in so little time.  It makes much more sense in an alternate present with its own culture.  Oliver should have made that clearer. 

Delirium doesn't quite make it as a dystopia for me.  Dystopias need to explore the what if's and the how's and the how could we get there's of our present society extended to the extremes of the book's world.  Delirium is too big a jump to be plausible.  So while it is an interesting enough premise, it doesn't do what a dystopia is supposed to do.  Matched did a better job of bridging that gap to a similar premise.

And I get the whole "resist the evil oppressive government to and with your last breath and never submit" thing, but I don't think conflating martyrdom and suicide is going to help our teen population at all.

But my biggest pet peeve is that Oliver completely misunderstood Romeo and Juliet.  English Major Hulk Smash!  Yes, Romeo and Juliet is a tragic love story, but it is NOT the greatest love story ever.  It's a play about two twitterpated preteens who make horrible decisions and their families who also make horrible decisions.  Come on!  Romeo begins the play head over heels for Rosalind.  That's why he goes to the Capulet party in the first place.  When he sees Juliet, he forgets Rosalind ever existed.  Given a few more days, he may have moved on to another girl.  And Juliet was only 13.  Do you know how many crushes I had when i was 13?  A lot.  Does not equal true love.  This is not the play to base your romantic relationships on.

So, not an awful book, but not a great one either.  Oliver got me more involved in the plot of Delirium than Roth did with Divergent, but I was still just so so in the end.  I cared how the book ended, but I don't feel at all driven to finish the series.  2.5 stars.

Mini Review: Sweetly by Jackson Pearce

Sweetly--Jackson Pearce
August 2011 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
310 pages--Goodreads

As a child, Gretchen's twin sister was taken by a witch in the woods. Ever since, Gretchen and her brother, Ansel, have felt the long branches of the witch's forest threatening to make them disappear, too.

Years later, when their stepmother casts Gretchen and Ansel out, they find themselves in sleepy Live Oak, South Carolina. They're invited to stay with Sophia Kelly, a beautiful candy maker who molds sugary magic: coveted treats that create confidence, bravery, and passion.

Life seems idyllic and Gretchen and Ansel gradually forget their haunted past -- until Gretchen meets handsome local outcast Samuel. He tells her the witch isn't gone -- it's lurking in the forest, preying on girls every year after Live Oak's infamous chocolate festival, and looking to make Gretchen its next victim. Gretchen is determined to stop running and start fighting back. Yet the further she investigates the mystery of what the witch is and how it chooses its victims, the more she wonders who the real monster is.

Gretchen is certain of only one thing: a monster is coming, and it will never go away hungry.

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Sweetly is a slow paced novel, but it drew me in and wouldn't let me go, so I finished it in two days.  It's a compelling read. Each of the characters has depth, but I particularly like Gretchen's development.  The angle Pearce takes on the villain is also interesting.  Not something I expected, but something I'm still thinking about.  I like Pearce's writing.  She keeps that slowly growing unease feeling going the whole time and some parts just sent chills up my spine, particularly the prologue.  And so many different kinds of chocolate described in such detail I could practically taste them.

Sweetly is by no means flawless.  The Samuel romance thing felt a bit unnecessary, and how did Gretchen become such a marksman over the course of a week?  But I'm willing to forgive those things for the rest of the book.  And the cover is so wonderfully creepy.  I will definitely have to read Sisters Red and Fathomless (which happens to be on sale this month for Kindles).

Mini Review: The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle by Christopher Healy

The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle--Christopher Healy
April 2013 by Walden Pond Press
477 pages--Goodreads

Prince Liam. Prince Frederic. Prince Duncan. Prince Gustav. You remember them, don't you? They're the Princes Charming who finally got some credit after they stepped out of the shadows of their princesses - Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, and Briar Rose - to defeat an evil witch bent on destroying all their kingdoms.

But alas, such fame and recognition only last so long. And when the princes discover that an object of great power might fall into any number of wrong hands, they are going to have to once again band together to stop it from happening - even if no one will ever know it was they who did it.

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I won a copy of The Hero's Guide to Storming the Castle in a giveaway from Walden Pond Press.  Thank you, thank you thank you.  This book is a lot of fun.

The characters reverte back to where they were at the beginning of the first book.  Frederick goes back to being a scardy-cat.  Liam loses his confidence.  Etc.  They do grow again, but I don't want them to start over at the beginning of each new book.  They could have kept their distinct personalities without losing all the progress they made in the first book.

I like the growth from Briar Rose.  In the first book, she was just a spoiled brat.  Now, she's starting to show that all she really wants is friendship; she just doesn't realize it yet.  I see a lot of potential for her in future books.  Lila is still the best.  I want a side book just about her adventures with Ruffian during her bounty hunter training.  Troll is even funnier this time around.  I love Gustav's nicknames for everyone, particularly Tassels for Frederick.

This series is just a whole lot of fun.  Clever in some places, like the henchman Redshirt who is thrown out a window a couple paragraphs after we meet him.  I can't wait for the next installment.  And we'll finish off the review with a couple more quotes, just for fun.

"The element of surprise can offer a hero great advantage in battle. The element of oxygen - also important."

"Some people say Rundark was born out of a mad alchemist's attempt to distill the essence of pure evil. others clam he emerged fully grown from an erupting volcano. although it's also possible that he was the son of a used cart salesman from Nebbish Villiage--they didn't keep very good records in Dar."

Mini Review: The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy

The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom--Christopher Healy
May 2012 by Walden Pond Press
419 pages--Goodreads

Prince Liam. Prince Frederic. Prince Duncan. Prince Gustav. You’ve never heard of them, have you? These are the princes who saved Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel, respectively, and yet, thanks to those lousy bards who wrote the tales, you likely know them only as Prince Charming. But all of this is about to change.

Rejected by their princesses and cast out of their castles, the princes stumble upon an evil plot that could endanger each of their kingdoms. Now it’s up to them to triumph over their various shortcomings, take on trolls, bandits, dragons, witches, and other assorted terrors, and become the heroes no one ever thought they could be.

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The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom is just a fun book.  It's a bit cheesy, but it's funny and cute.  It's a zany sort of slapstick adventure with some word play thrown in.  Saving Your Kingdom is long for a middle grade novel, but it clips along at a quick pace.  The characters are just great.  They're a bit one dimensional, but there's enough characters that you get a lot of variety.  Ella the adventurous, Frederick the timid, Lila the awesome.  Troll is a lot of fun, and I love Gustav's direct bullheadedness.

I don't have much else to say, so I'll just finish with some of my favorite quotes.

"Neville and Horace stopped and eyed them smugly through the bars.  Eyeing smugly was something the pair excelled in.  They'd actually shared the title of Best Smug Eyers in their graduating class at bandit school."

"The rooftop level of the Bandit King's castle had been constructed as a convenient spot from which the robbers could spill boiling oil down onto anyone who tried to break into their headquarters, but it also served as a nice place to have duels, and occasionally, to sunbathe." 

"This was not Liam's finest hour.  The frustrations of the past several days had been slowly eating away at him and muddying his mind.  On a normal day, had Liam been confronted by a fire-breathing dragon, he would have come up with a brilliant tactic for defeating the beast.  He would have lured the dragon into a tight spot to trap it, or maybe found some clever way to make the huge chandelier overhead fall down onto the monster.  But this day?  This day he decided to kick the beast in the tail and yell, 'Take that, dumb dragon!'
"The dragon, as you might suspect, was not impressed." 

"On still another road, a green-haired man wobbled by on peppermint-stick stilts, a fiery-plumed bird of paradise perched on his shoulder.  But he's not in this story, so don't pay any attention to him." 

Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent--Veronica Roth
April 2011 by Katherine Tegan Books
496 pages--Goodreads

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

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Divergent is one of those books that is action-packed and dramatic for the purpose of being action packed and dramatic.  It all felt very empty.  And SO IRRATIONAL.  Garg!  The world building is weak.  The characters are flat and do irrational, unexplained things.  They miss glaringly obvious plot "twists".  And yet this book has wormed its way into so many people's 5-star list.

First, the world building:  so many holes.  I get that Roth has this really cool premise that she wants to try out, but the cardinal rule of dystopias is that they are supposed to be extensions of current society.  They're supposed to explore the problems in our society.  That means your dystopian world has to be at least semi-plausible; we have to believe that we could get there from here.  But we get almost no explanation on how this post-civilization Chicago works.  What made human society fall apart?  War?  Internal conflict?  Tumblr?  I seriously don't see the entire country breaking up because of personality traits.  And what happened to the rest of the world?  For that matter, what even happened to the rest of the country?  What about people who lived in rural areas?  What exists outside Chicago's boundaries?  And while we're at it, how is everyone surviving in this city?  Where is the food coming from? Where are the farmers?  Where are the cows supplying hamburger meat?

Even the little world building we get doesn't make sense.  Everything about Dauntless is messed up.  They're supposed to be protecting the city, but no one patrols or guards or protects.  The Dauntless just jump off buildings, shoot muffins off people's heads, and perform other acts of recklessness chalked up as bravery.  And what the crap is up with Peter?  I get that Roth is going for the whole "corruption within the factions" thing, but, just what?  Stabbing your competition in the eye or tossing them over a cliff is a supreme act of cowardice, and he should have been banished.  You can't trust someone who will eye stab you.  It takes much more courage to admit to weaknesses than to pretend you don't have any, but the Dauntless are too focused on visible "bravery" and physical domination.

And why did all the transfers pick Dauntless in the first place.  We get Tris's reasoning and a bit of Al's, but why on earth did Will and Christina transfer?  This is never explained.  They're just there because Tris needs a group to train with.  Overall, the characters in this novel are not explored or fleshed out; they're just flat.  Tris, in particular makes no sense.  She's illogical.  Or stupid.  Allow me to demonstrate.  Warning:  spoilers.

• Hmm, Erudite wants to start a rebellion, but they need a way to control the Dauntless.  They also have simulation serums that alter what the brain perceives.   Oh, look.  A new serum from Erudite.  Don't worry; it's just a tracking serum that we're injecting ALL the Dauntless with.  It couldn't possibly be a very convenient mind control serum.
• I need to destroy the computer controlling the dauntless-wide simulation.  I could shoot the computer that's controlling the simulation.  No, I'll instead hand the gun to the person who's trying to kill me.  Don't worry, the power of love will save me.
• One of my brainwashed friends is trying to kill me.  I could disable him by shooting him in the arm or leg.  Nah, I think I'll shoot him in the head.

There is a lot, a lot of violence.  If you don't like action flicks with guns and punching, Divergent is not your book.  It certainly wasn't mine.  But action lovers who don't care much about character development or plot progression will probably like it.  It's kind of like The Maze Runner and summer blockbusters in that way.

I could not take the romance seriously.  And that's all I have to say about that, so I'll rant about other things instead.  Let's just conflate depression and cowardice, why don't we?  As if we don't have enough problems in this country with how we handle mental illness.  And while we're at it, let's just promote the idea that the best thing to do after being sexually assaulted is to not report it.  Because reporting=cowardice apparently.  Garg. 

By the end of the book I got at least a bit invested in what would happen to some of the characters (Uriah, Will Christiana,  all deserved larger parts).  I was slightly curious about the plot, but it had ceased to make sense so I didn't care much.  Divergent wasn't awful, but I'm not invested in the rest of the series.  

Review: Dodger by Terry Pratchett

Dodger--Terry Pratchett
September 2012 by Harper Collins
360 pages--Goodreads

A storm. Rain-lashed city streets. A flash of lightning. A scruffy lad sees a girl leap desperately from a horse-drawn carriage in a vain attempt to escape her captors. Can the lad stand by and let her be caught again? Of course not, because he's...Dodger.

Seventeen-year-old Dodger may be a street urchin, but he gleans a living from London's sewers, and he knows a jewel when he sees one. He's not about to let anything happen to the unknown girl--not even if her fate impacts some of the most powerful people in England.

From Dodger's encounter with the mad barber Sweeney Todd to his meetings with the great writer Charles Dickens and the calculating politician Benjamin Disraeli, history and fantasy intertwine in a breathtaking account of adventure and mystery.

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This book is a lot of fun.  Dodger is a hilarious swindler who would take offense at being called a thief; he just finds things that have been misplaced, or would have been misplaced soon anyways.  But he's good-hearted and skilled at what he does.

I love Terry Pratchett's style of narration.  Something about the straight-faced, understated, tongue in cheek humor just captivated me from the very beginning of the novel.  Maybe it's the word play, things like Dodger learning how to be a successful urchin by learning how to urch or a man giving Dodger a cursory glance with a good deal of curse in it.  It's not a style that works for everyone, but it works perfectly for me.  It's just funny.  I loved each time Mr. Dickens stole a title or line for his future books from Dodger.

Dodger is historical fiction in the same way that Leviathan is historical fiction.  Pratchett calls it historical fantasy.  Is it entirely plausible that all this stuff in this book (multiple assassination attempts, several heroics, being raised from rags to riches, etc) happens in just week?  No. But who cares?  This is the sort of book that throws plausibility out the window and says "wouldn't it be cool if.." Pratchett fudges dates and places to make it work out so all his historical figures can come together.  If you can accept that, the book is fun.  Otherwise, the craziness will bug you.  

My only question is why didn't we get more of the Outlander?  That was a serious let down.  It could have been so cool to have a *SPOILER* lady assassin after Dodger for most of the book.  Instead, Pratchett doesn't build up nearly enough tension and throws the Outlander in at the very tail end of the book with no explanation or development.  Most of the villains are like that too, more boogy men than fleshed out threats.

I will definitely have to give some of Pratchett's other books a try.  I really liked Dodger, but it's a book I'd hesitate to recommend.  I can't even pin down exactly what it was that made me like it, so I don't know what to identify in other readers that would make them like it.  It's an interesting read.

Review: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Between Shades of Gray--Ruta Sepetys
March 2011 by Philomel Books
344 pages--Goodreads

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously--and at great risk--documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives.Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

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Excellent.  Just excellent.  Between Shades of Gray is not an "Oh my gosh; this is so awesome!!!" book  It's a slow burning, sticks with you, love it the more you think about it type of book.  It has a lingering beauty in the tone, subject matter, and writing style.  It is honest about the horrors Lina faces without being depressing.  It is a story of suffering and a story of hope.

The Holocaust features prominently in WWII novels, but I had never heard of these Soviet prison camps and the deported Baltic citizens.  Seriously, how do people not know about this?  I guess it shows the emptiness of our "never again" attitude toward the Holocaust and genocides in general.  I would love to use this book in connection with a unit on Anne Frank (too bad I'm not teaching 8th grade this year) and then connect it to other, more modern genocides.

Sepetys is very honest in her portrayal of the characters; they are not demons and martyrs, but flawed people just trying to survive their very harsh circumstances.  They are very real.  In that light, I like Kretzsky's character.  We like to demonize our antagonists, but really no one is just black or white in this book or in real life.  Kretzsky and Lina and everyone else is made of spectrum of goods and bads.  I wish we could have seen more from his character, but this book is Lina's story, not his. 

There is some mature content in the descriptions of the NKVD's brutality.  It is accurate without being gratuitous, and I appreciate that. 

Between Shades of Gray is an excellent, excellent historical fiction.  I will be sure to read it again.  And the cover is just so pretty.  This cover, not the eyelash one.