The Rule of Three Eric Walters

In a world rife with Young Adult dystopic novels (The Hunger Games, Divergent etc.) this one easily sets itself apart.

Eric Walters is a former school teacher from Canada. Unlike so many teachers turned authors who turn out more of the same barf they taught in schools. I was NOT a fan of the required reading most schools use to promote literature but that's another blog post. After I finished this I read multiple other books by Walters and enjoyed every single one.

Adam Daley is an excellent example of a teenage boy thrust into a world where everything he thought was important is suddenly gone. When all computers and electricity fail his classic beater car is one of only a few that still run. His father, a pilot, was scheduled to return home the same night the power failed. With no phones and no news his family has no way of knowing if he's even still alive, but he has the ultralight they were building, and the help of Herb the neighbor of questionable morals but incredibly knowledgeable about how to handle an apocalypse.

As they turn their little area of town into a self-sustaining community in the heart of a world where the civilized veneer has been removed from everyone revealing the true animal nature of many, Adam somehow manages to stay true to the decent person he is.

Unlike so many dystopic novels that end up with people sharing memes about the rest of the world continuing as if nothing is wrong and ignoring the problems centered in the North American continent this book deals with that with one statement from Herb. If our allies knew and they were able they'd be helping. If our enemies knew and they could they'd destroy us. They aren't here. It's everywhere.

I can usually tell when I'm not the only one who will like a book if Mom, who's fairly picky about what Young Adult stuff she likes raves about something. She raved about this series. So far Books one and two are out. The Rule of Three is the first and it's followed by The Fight for Power. Both follow the same little community through the unspeakable danger of a post-apocalyptic world.

The Rule of Three: Will to Survive comes out on January 19, 2016, I'm looking forward to it.

The Darkest Part of the Forest Holly Black

Holly Black writes some of the best Young Adult "fairy" stories available. Over the years I've read a large number of her books and loved nearly all of them. So when this one showed up on the library shelves I snagged it. It more than lived up to her previous work.

Hazel and her brother are the children of artists who sometimes forget they have children leaving them to wander the forest surrounding their home town of Fairview. Unfortunately Faeries also wander those same woods. And Hazel and Ben don't necessarily get along with them.

Ben is, depending on your view, blessed or cursed by a fae as a young child to be drawn to music even if he doesn't like it. It gives him a certain power over them, to control them with music. It allows him to help Hazel save herself from a hag as a small child. And as small imaginative children are inclined to do they decide this means they were destined to fight the ones that capture and slaughter a few of the wayward tourists drawn to town by the prince asleep in a glass coffin. The bard and the knight. The fact that Hazel found an enchanted sword didn't hurt either.

Add in a changeling best friend and a quest to save a prince... Ends up being one of the best fantasy-based Young Adult books I've read in years. It took me less than four hours to finish. I've already turned it over to mom to read and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good fast paced read.

The Tension of Opposites Kristina McBride

This is one of those books you grab off the shelf at the library thinking "Eh it'll keep me busy for a few hours." And then end up devouring in an hour and a half.

Right off the bat I identified with the main character Tessa. She's shy, quiet and needs her best friend to pull her into social activities. Much like I was in High School. She's a 16 year old sophomore and seriously into photography.

And her best friend has been missing for two years.

The very first chapter involves her best friend calling her younger brother to arrange a plain clothes police officer to be in a particular location in two days. To arrest the rapist who has held her for two years.

The story then follows Tessa as she tries to reconnect with her damaged friend, while dealing with her very first boyfriend and a project that requires she step totally outside her normal boundaries.

While this is a fairly difficult premise to accept, unlike so many books about missing and returned teens, it feels a little more realistic to me barring a few things that since I have lived an incredibly sheltered life I'm really in no place to judge them. I loved the book from start to finish. Typical teen drama in parts. I love where Elle tries to bring down the queen bee cheerleader. I don't think she would have returned to quasi-normalcy as speedily as she did but since she's not the lead and I'm not a shrink I ignored that part.

It's difficult to describe the reasons why I loved this book without coming across incredibly callous. The easiest is to just say it's a wonderfully well written tale with horrific crimes entangled in the plot, and since they're secondary you can sort of ignore them to an extent. A good writer can let you enjoy a book without rubbing your face in the tragedies involved in the characters lives, the desperate need of Tessa to have her best friend back and the need Elle feels to put her captivity behind her just grab you. There is no way this book could have focused on Elle and been half as good. The best parts are the portions where Tess tries to assimilate the new Elle, a damaged wild child, with her sweet but crazy best bud Noelle. The way Elle's self destructive behavior pulls Tess in made me want to smack her at times, at the same time Tess takes far too much responsibility for what her friend is going through, and at the same time her obsessive loyalty is touching.

Tessa's romance with the new boy in school adds a light hearted semi-normallicy to her rather twisted life.

All in all I found this book to be a delightful read even with the obvious tragedy of decimated innocence through out.

A Friend At Midnight Caroline B Cooney

I loved Cooney's Face on the Milk Carton series as well as most of her other stand alone books.

So when I found A Friend At Midnight in the MVLS shipment at my library, that would be the books that run in cycles through the local library system, I figured I couldn't go wrong?

However me being me I wanted to know just what had happened to make Lily HATE her estranged father. So I read the ending which kind of spoiled bits of the story when I finally read it because having read ahead i felt eh it can't be that good I won't bother. So my mom read it first. And could not stop teling me how great she thought it was.

So a couple weekends ago I sat down and read it cover to cover. And loved it.
Lily's younger brother decides to live with their father after their parents divorce and her mom's remarriage and the birth of their half brother, whom of course shares a room with Michael, the younger brother.

A few weeks later as Mom and new hubby are taking older sister to college and not home Michael calls to tell Lily that Dad dumped him at the airport without any of his stuff, including his beloved stuffed bear, which you later find out he forced Michael to throw in the trash his first night with him and then to watch the bear be taken to the dump the next day.

What ensues is a 15 year old girl using credit card fraud and identity theft to rescue her little brother trapped in an airport and harassed by security.
Lily struggles over the next year to keep a promise made to Michael not to tell their mother and step father about what happened to him. She struggles to understand why her God never sends someone to help her.

I loved this book. It was sad, terrifying and enlightening by turns. You can't help but love Lily, mourn for Michael and kind of dislike their older sister. I recommend this book to any fan of young adult books!

Walk of the Spirits- Richie Tankersley Cusick

This is one of the best Young Adult books I've read in a very long time. And yes I know you're all shocked I'm posting a bout a book... In detail.

I've read Cusick's work before and always been fond of it one of my first Young Adult books (that I went out of my way to own) was her Fatal Secrets. Which I can get a new copy of for a penny through Amazon... (My copy is long since missing the last two pages, which are the best in the book, it's where main girl Ryan gets together with Jinx, her best friends younger brother). unfortuantely shipping is $4... Also the copy I have is the old library copy and the first one I read of it.

Any way. This is the story of a girl who moves with her mother to live in the appartment over her grandfather's garage. Her mom HATES her grandfather and as such won't allow her daughter to meet him.

The girl is assaigned to a study group where she is to come up with a project about the town's history. They decide to do a "Ghost Tour" places like New Orleans, Savannah and Gettysburg as well as many other cities have them, those are just the ones I've really looked into. I so want to go on a couple. But anyway, turns out the family has this little "gift" every other generation someone can talk to ghosts. And the screams the girl has been hearing for months are ghosts of Civil War soldiers and various others who want her to help them.

This is an incredible story and really well written. The end was a little hokey but Cusick's tend to be a little woozy towards the ends.

Loved it. Recommend it.


Posts coming soon:
Watchmen (seen movie read Graphic Novel, am now not just nerd also geek. Thank you)
Princess Ben, chubby Princess, Dragons, magic oooooh... GOOD BOOK
Ingo- haven't finished it yet but not liking so far so probably not a nice review. Apparently part of a series so someone must have liked it.

OMG- posting on a book!!!

A Soliary Blue- Cynthia Voight

This book was amazing!!!
I loved it.
It's kinda sorta the sequel to Dicey's Song and Homecoming. But about a boy Jeff.
His mother ditches him and his elderly professor father when Jeff is in second grade. It follows him through his life from then to the end of his senior year of high school. Through hating his father for driving his mom away to hating his mother and loving his father.
Great story.
A definite must read for everyone!

Black Unicorn- Tanith Lee

One of my college buddies loaned this to me this morning and I've already finished it.
It's very good. I love the pet cat thing called a "peeve". Very cute.
A peeve finds unicorn bones and gives them to a 16 year old girl who pieces them back together. Then, by accident her mother, a sorceress, brings the black unicorn back to life.
Amazing book well worth the effort to find it, followed by Red Unicorn and Silver Unicorn. Library loan here I come....

The Books of Fell- M. E. Kerr

This is one of those three-in-one books. Really handy actually it read like one long book.
Decent story line.

Teenage boy is in love with older rich girl. Rich girl lives in a house called Adieu. Rich girl's dad doesn't like him. She stands him up for prom and he ends up backing into their neighbor's car.

Neighbor invites him home to exchange insurance information (extra point for the kid, he drives an old Dodge).

Over the next few months boy gets to know older guy and older guy makes him a deal he can't possibly refuse.

He'll send him to a prep school, Gardner. He will be paid ten thousand dollars at the end of year one and another ten thousand at the end of year two.

Catch One: he'll be attending as Woodrow Thomas Pingtree, Junior (dude's kid) not John Fell.

Catch Two: there's a not so secret society on campus the Sevens. If he can get in, he gets another $10,000

Catch Three: He MUST NOT allow himself to be photographed Mrs. Pingtree must know nothing about it.

Catch four: He'll be spending an extra year in high school. Ping is a sophomore going on junior, Fell is almost a senior.

He agrees twenty thousand just for going to a fancy prep school? No problem.

Once he gets there things go to Hell in the proverbial hand basket.

Dark Whispers: Unicorn Chronicles book 3 Bruce Coville

This book was amazing. It "officially" hit stores today. I finished my copy over a week ago. I was amazed at how worth the six plus year wait.
When Song of the Wanderer book two in the series came out, I was a small chubby seventh grader. Now I'm a chubby 5'7" year three of college student.
And yet this book was just as important to me. I waited the years checking the Unicorn Chronicles website.
I read and reread the first two books. Then finally bought myself paperback copies of them. Now I want the matching editions of hardcovers.
Yes, this is the first hardcover that I wouldn't trade for a paperback if you paid me.
It again follows Cara Diana Hunter, who has informed the old queen that the Wanderer is weary, and then traveled across Luster to the cave of the last Dragon of Luster to bring the Wanderer home. She has reconnected with the father who "deserted" her though he has joined the hunt for the unicorns led by the ancient Beloved.
Now Beloved has one of the Queen's Five, the amulets that allow the wearer to travel freely between Earth and Luster "Luster take me home" "Luster let me go".
The old queen has faded and a new queen has taken her place, Amalia Flickerfoot, formerly known as Ivy Morris, Cara's grandmother. Cara is very special a hated hunter as well as the granddaughter of the Queen.
Now her grandmother sends her to discover when and where Beloved plans to begin the Last Hunt. As well as who the Whisperer is.
The book is really well written and Coville once again proves why he's in my top five favorite authors.
The only part I didn't like aside from Finder(a unicorn)'s death, was what he did with my adored bear-man, the Dimblethum.
I am waiting impatiently for the next one!

Hook a Fish, Catch a Mountain-Jean Craighead George

This is a terrific book. It's all environmental and fishing, normally not something I'd go in for. But the library keeps books on a shelf near the door and for a ten to twenty five cent "donation" *winkwink* you can take one home with you. Over the years I've collected beaten up Maggie Shayne vampire books, copies of Christine Feehan's Drake Sisters books, a copy of my beloved "Touch Not the Cat" by Mary Stewart and a copy of the slightly difficult to find Shad Run by apparently Howard Breslin. And like a good girl I always keep my eye out for books for the rest of my family. Louis L'Amours and Ralph Comptons and other westerns for Bis Sis Liz, Jonathan and Faye Kellermans among other mystery and romance writers for mom. And then there's Alan, baby brother (well not so baby any more, his High School graduation is on Saturday). He's not a big reader. Sure he rereads the Harry Potter books over and over again. He borrowed by three-in-one copy of the Lord of the Rings trilogy then fell asleep on it and drooled all over it, causing me to grab from aforementioned shelves all three as well as The Hobbit, all in the same edition from the same publisher, my OCD was very happy.
So a few months ago when a book by an author I knew he used to like showed up I ran out of there with that book so fast I think I left skip marks. He didn't want it. Like I said not a big reader.
My mom on the other hand remembered the woman's work from when she was a kid. She wanted the book so I gave it to her. I'm a sci-fi, fantasy vamps, weres, and Vladmar kind of girl I gave the book up with out a fuss. At least it had a good home where it could be read to death then put on a shelf for future generations to destroy.
Then tonight I realized I had *gasp* nothing to read, so I stole it from my mom's computer desk in the dining room. It took me only a few hours to finish. Not because it's a fairly simple children/ early teens book. I finished it quickly because it was amazingly good.
It's about a girl Spinner, who is a ballet dancer on a fishing trip with her father's family. They have a metal that goes to the person with the family record for biggest trout.
The entire first chapter is Spinner catching a giant cutthroat. It's huge. Her father rather than allowing her to release the fish as she had promised it he would as she reeled it in, he takes it to be mounted.
The next morning her cousin Al decides to find out why after so many years of no cutthroat trout being caught in that area there suddenly was one. The rest of the book is the two of them traipsing all over a mountain trying to find the answers to the mystery of FISH (what spinner called her trout as she was catching him).
An excellent story, which my mom has informed me she really wants Alan to read at camp this summer. (Every year we rent this cabin, and take a ton of books and read for days, well mom and alan fish but I just catch some crayfish do some swimming and lie on the dock or in bed and read until my eyes fall out. I go through a lot of AA batteries.)
I've read a lot of this woman's work I stopped because she killed one of my favorite characters, a hawk in another series. I think I might start again.

Gallows Hill- Lois Duncan

This is the story of Sarah a California girl whose mother begins an affair with a man who is separated from his wife. They move to his home town in the middle of nowhere so that they can be together.
The boyfriend has two children the older a girl, Kyra and her friend Eric con her into getting involved in a Holiday carnival. As a gypsy fortune teller. during the party she tells the fortune of a boy named Charlie. A chubby misfit. Originally, she makes up a story of a handsome older version of Charlie on a cruise ship with a beautiful woman, but the paperweight she's using changes and becomes a vision of him falling down the stairs after some one pushed him. The next day he has a broken arm.
This is a very good book. The actual main focus is on religious fanatacism, and reincarnation, almost the entire town is reincarnates of the victims of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, Charlie is Giles Corey, Sarah is one of the little girls who triggered the trials etc.
I loved it.

Werewolf Rising R. L. LaFevers

This is the story of a boy who after years of being picked on by school bullies, finally shall we say takes care of the problem. Everyone pats him on the back, except his uncle. His uncle cancels the plans for his 13th birthday, tickets for him and two of his buddies to a Seatle Seahawks game.

As his birthday approaches wierd things begin happening. He smells his aunt as she comes through the door, he's been a vegetarian for year but he sudden;y craves raw hamburgers. In the days directly surrounding his birthday his temperature spikes and he becomes very ill.

His uncle refuses to take him to the doctor or "to call the one person who can help" as his aunt begs him to. Finally someone shows up at their door, the man takes him away from his aunt and uncle and reveals to him that his problems stam from the fact that he is a werewolf.

This book is one of the best teen wolf books I've read in a long time it's actually better than Blood and Chocolate.

Walking Mary: James VonOosting

This is the story of Pearl a girl born the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor. It follows her through her life til she is sixteen.

She first meets Walking Mary when she is about six, Mary the town "witch" saves her from drowning.

Over the next few years they run into each other time and again.

Finally to cope with her father's abuse Pearl begins to emulate Mary. From the way she dresses to the walking to meet the train every time it comes into town to see if her son (killed in WW1), has returned home yet.

The story is similar to Ellen Foster in the content and yet at the same time this is a much better book. It's not as creepy. This is one of those books that while it would fit into High School curriculum very well it is still a good read.