Royal Bastards (Shelf Control #8)

Title: Royal Bastards
By:  Andrew Shvarts
Published: May 2017
Target:  Young Adult

Synopsis (via Goodreads):   Being a bastard blows. Tilla would know. Her father, Lord Kent of the Western Province, loved her as a child, but cast her aside as soon as he had trueborn children.

At sixteen, Tilla spends her days exploring long-forgotten tunnels beneath the castle with her stablehand half brother, Jax, and her nights drinking with the servants, passing out on Jax’s floor while her castle bedroom collects dust. Tilla secretly longs to sit by her father’s side, resplendent in a sparkling gown, enjoying feasts with the rest of the family. Instead, she sits with the other bastards, like Miles of House Hampstedt, an awkward scholar who’s been in love with Tilla since they were children.

Then, at a feast honoring the visiting princess Lyriana, the royal shocks everyone by choosing to sit at the Bastards’ Table. Before she knows it, Tilla is leading the sheltered princess on a late-night escapade. Along with Jax, Miles, and fellow bastard Zell, a Zitochi warrior from the north, they stumble upon a crime they were never meant to witness.

How I got it: Free on Bookbub! Again, maybe time to limit the Bookbub browsing.

When I got it:  August 2017

Why I want to read it:  I think it’s the idea of the outsiders being the heroes and the main characters in this novel are definitely outsiders. I have always cheered for the underdog and this story is about a time when birthright mattered. There’s something about marriage making things legitimate that is so foreign in our modern world that exploring the whys of it has always been fascinating to me. A child’s life was so different back then through no fault of their own. I’m also interested to read the legitimate vs. illegitimate dynamics.

But it started so well!

 I love summer for the unlimited reading time! So I’ve been very good about chipping away at the Shelf Control pile. Unfortunately I seem to be acquiring books at a greater rate than I am chipping. Maybe time to get off Book Bub? Not sure I can do it.

See my shelf control post for the summary.

Why I (sort of) recommend it:

So another bit of a let down with this one. It starts out so strong. The characters are well defined. I love how different they are and how they all come from different family backgrounds. As they are work to figure out the puzzle and sneak into the various buildings to do so, I found I couldn’t read fast enough. They had a great friendship and the author created some wonderful dialogues between them. I really got a feel for these boys and loved their banter. Then for some reason, the book took a turn that made me almost wonder if I was still reading the same book. Once the adults came into the picture and started describing the town’s secret, I found myself plodding through. Even though the boys were still integral to the plot, I found the focus shifting from their dynamic to the “intrigue” and it didn’t work for me. I purchased the other three books in the series when I was still caught up in loving the characters and the “Stranger Things” feel of the novel. I now find I’m not that interested. I may give the second one a go but we’ll see.

Rating: Three stars

Recommended for 10+. Boys may particularly relate to the character dynamic.

Town Secrets (Shelf Control #7)

Title: Town Secrets
By: Scott Gelowitz
Published:  2014
Target:  middle readers

Synopsis (via Goodreads):    A centuries-old organization within the tiny town of Grayson protects many secrets – from unknown scientific discoveries to the truth about the mythical island of Atlantis, along with information that ties it to historical events from around the world, such as the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Thirteen-year-old Adam McTaggart and his wise-cracking friends learn some of these secrets and discover that their boring small town is much more exciting than they had always believed it to be. But someone is coming, looking for an ancient power protected by the secret organization, and they are destroying towns as they draw near.

Can Adam and his friends learn all they need in time to protect the biggest secret of all before it’s too late?

How I got it: Free on Bookbub! I love Bookbub.

When I got it:   June 2018

Why I want to read it:  Sounds very “Stranger Things”; group of boys, mysterious town goings on, strange powers etc. It has excellent ratings on GoodReads so I’m curious to see if it holds my attention. And besides, I need a good “boy book” after my misadventures with Warcross and Keeper of the Lost Cities, which I really must review on of these days.

Love at First Site? Sigh…

Continuing to chip away at my Shelf Control pile.  Read this one in a day.

See my Shelf Control post for the summary.

Why I (sort of) recommend it:

So I was quite eager to read this book as it sounded like it was along the same lines as Ready Player One and Silence of the Six, both books I enjoyed immensely. I should have approached with caution though, as Warcross features a female lead and experience has taught me that a female lead in a YA book (regardless of genre) means romance of some sort. I don’t dislike all romantic elements but they have to be well done and not gratuitous as so often happens. I find authors tend to rush any elements of romance and thus it feels forced and thrown together. That’s what happened with Warcross. I liked Emika and Hideo and given time and attention their relationship might have worked for me, but I never understood how an international Japanese billionaire would fall instantly for a street rat nobody from the US. It was never explained. Hideo was known as a very private man and one of the first rules of meeting him was not to ask about his family. Yet in no time at all he’s introducing Emika to his parents and talking about his brother. Lu also did not take the time to establish and build Emika’s connection with her teammates either. They too took instantly to Emika.

The world of the Warcross game was vivid and very enjoyable, and the imminent threat to Hideo kept me reading. I was especially curious about Zero and was sure I knew who he was. Turned out I was wrong but somehow I still think my guy is involved in the conspiracy.

This book should have been told in two or even three novels. There’s enough material there and I would love to have seen the relationships and characters more drawn out and developed. There’s nothing like a slow burn to make the out come far more satisfying.

My final beef with this book is that it ended at 89% on my Kobo. There I am, thinking I still have 10% to read and expecting a wrap up when boom, no ending at all. The final 10% of the “book” is an excerpt from Legend. Why that is needed I don’t know? I felt cheated.

Not sure if I’m going to seek out the second book or not. Seems to be a trend for me with Marie Lu books. I loved Legend but never finished the trilogy and Young Elites has been awaiting me for ages. The sequel to Warcross (Wildcard) comes out soon though, so I may give it a go.

Rating: Three stars

Suitable for teens. I would advise caution as there’s quite a bit of violence and some fade to black sex.

Tracking That Elusive Memory

So when I first started to make a list of the books I adored when I was a kid, I had no trouble rattling off a dozen very quickly. My problem was those I could vaguely remember loving but couldn’t remember titles or authors; I just had fleeting memories of what they were about. My brother had the same problem when he tried to tell me about his favourite. He could remember vague details, like three brothers, 1800’s and Utah. Well it appeared that was enough info to go on as after a little research, I tracked down The Great Brain.  The internet is a wonderful think.  You can find just about anything if you know how to look.  So I went looking for my own favourite.

My memory is of a picture book involving a little girl whose father brings her a doll back from all his international trips. That’s it, that’s all I could remember, other than the fact I read it over and over (and over). But it was a one-shot and not one that continued to be printed and reprinted over the years. I think reading a series or a lot of books by one author tends to cement those books more in our memory.

Anyway, it took some digging, but I found it!  At Forgotten Books and Stories of all places.  What a fantastic website.

The Surprise Doll was written by by Morrell Gipson and first published in 1949. In my scouring of the internet I also discovered that I was not the only one who loved this book as a kid. It was actually rereleased with a 60^th anniversary edition in 2009 and there a fond memories from many found on GoodReads.

Mary’s father is a sea captain and he brings her doll back from each of the countries he visits. Each has a feature just like Mary (nose, hair etc.). Soon she has one doll for every day of the week but Sunday. When dad says she has enough dolls, she decides to find that Sunday doll herself and goes to a doll maker in town. He agrees to make the Sunday doll and the result delights Mary as it is a combination of all the dolls and looks just like her. I loved the message that we were all a combination of our ancestors from all over the world. I think this book also sparked my interest in travel, as the dolls came from Sweden, China etc. all very exotic places my 7-year old self resolved to see one day.

As we are discovering with all books from “the past”, The Surprise Doll would probably pose some problems for the politically correct modern audience, as Mary is of European descent with blonde hair and blue eyes. All young girls wouldn’t be able to relate to her. While I see that side of it, I still love the simplicity of the story and was very glad I was able to track down a copy. It now sits proudly on my childhood shelf.

A School for Unusual Girls (Shelf Control #6)

Title: A School for Unusual Girls
By: Kathleen Baldwin
Published:  2015
Target:  teens

Synopsis (via Goodreads):    It’s 1814. Napoleon is exiled on Elba. Europe is in shambles. Britain is at war on four fronts. And Stranje House, a School for Unusual Girls, has become one of Regency England’s dark little secrets. The daughters of the beau monde who don’t fit high society’s constrictive mold are banished to Stranje House to be reformed into marriageable young ladies. Or so their parents think. In truth, Headmistress Emma Stranje, the original unusual girl, has plans for the young ladies—plans that entangle them in the dangerous world of spies, diplomacy, and war.

After accidentally setting her father’s stables on fire while performing a scientific experiment, Miss Georgiana Fitzwilliam is sent to Stranje House. But Georgie has no intention of being turned into a simpering, pudding-headed, marriageable miss. She plans to escape as soon as possible—until she meets Lord Sebastian Wyatt. Thrust together in a desperate mission to invent a new invisible ink for the English war effort, Georgie and Sebastian must find a way to work together without losing their heads—or their hearts…

How I got it: Free on Bookbub! And if you don’t have Bookbub, what are you waiting for. It’s free books in your in-box!

When I got it:   June 2018

Why I want to read it:  Boarding schools for one. We know how I feel about boarding school stories. Strange paranormal goings on and an historical setting. All combined to make me download it at least. Now, it’s a female lead so we’ll have to see how that goes, but I’m going in with an open mind!

Telling It Like It Is (My Time with Judy Blume)

I often wonder about the censoring that occurs in the schools. Luckily I don’t often encounter it as Canada tends to be quite open-minded but I sure there’s still more than necessary in other countries around the world. Still, as a teacher, I tend to err on the side of caution as what I might think is perfectly fine may present a problem for some parents and families.

I have no idea what rules the schools had when I was young but I don’t remember not being allowed to read something. Then again, I probably wouldn’t know if something was kept away from me. My parents were very liberal when it came to books and as a preteen, I received the Judy Blume boxed set one Christmas.  I had read Are You There God It’s Me, Margaret, which all my friends were talking about, and I was dying to read the rest of her books.  I had no idea that they would shortly become some of the most contested and maligned children’s books to date.

Judy Blume was a pioneer in her time (70’s); writing honest novels for kids and teens, tackling racism, handicaps, death and weight problems as well as puberty and first love. Once the 80’s hit and censorship skyrocketed she faced a constant battle against those who felt her books were inappropriate. She spoke out long and hard against censorship and for a child’s right to knowledge.

I knew none of this, but I did know I was reading about things that no one talked about. And of course I shared the books with my friends and we would have “clandestine meetings” to talk about them.

Are You There God It’s Me Margaret, the first of her novels that we got our hands on, openly discussed bras and periods and questions of friendship. All things we wondered about but never openly talked about. Girls today receive a thorough grounding in all areas of sexual education. Way back in the day though, once we hit grade 5, us girls were taken to watch “the film”, a brief outline of what we could expect when we “became women”. Of course they would encourage us to ask questions, but nobody ever did. The remainder of our sexual education came from Ms. Judy Blume.

Then Again Maybe I Won’t gave us an insight into what happens to boys when they hit puberty, something no one ever talked to us girls about. I went on to read (and own) all of Blume’s books, but it’s Forever that I remember most vividly. Forever dealt with first love and losing virginity. The raciest topic yet. I remember passing Forever back and forth during band practice one day when I was in grade 7. One of the older girls had it and was sharing with us. We were hiding it behind our music and pointing out the “good parts” (Have you seen page 113!).  It was about sex and we were pretty sure we weren’t supposed to be reading about sex, so the forbidden fruit attraction was definitely a draw. As an adult, I now realize what a frank and thoughtful insight that novel is into first love. My twelve year old self just recognized good characters I could root for. In very true-to-life Blume fashion, there was a realistic rather than a happy ending, which I appreciate now.

Fiction reading is an invaluable source of information for children and teens, and well written material should always be celebrated. I applaud Judy Blume for her courage in writing the truth and thank her for playing such a pivotal role in my childhood education.

Would Chaos Reign?

I’m on a roll! This is the Third Read from my Shelf Control pile!

Now I’m wondering how long it’s going to take me to read Warcross. Well I do have the other two books in this series to finish first, so we’ll see.

See my Shelf Control post for the summary.

Why I recommend it:

There were so many things I loved about this book, but most of all I loved Adam, our protagonist and narrator. He’s 17, talented, a bit of a geek, good to his family and totally lovable – not to mention an incredibly bad-ass pilot. When everything run by computers stops working, Adam finds his old clunker of a car to be an invaluable commodity, that and the ultralight aircraft he’d just finished building with his dad. As his community starts to come together to survive, he finds that his skills are in high demand and that he has a knack for observation.

I found the way the situation plays out to be totally believable also. The author talks about rioting and looting, and fighting for resources. Killing becomes inevitable as the animalistic nature of humans takes over and surviva

l of the fittest reigns supreme. I even enjoyed the action sequences and got a very vivid picture of how the scene was playing out. I’ve also learned a lot about The Art of War from, of all places, the old neighbour next door. Herb is Adam’s mysterious neighbour. A dithering old man who becomes the next best thing to Jason Bourne once the computers go down. I’m dying to know his story. And after finishing the book I still don’t know his story, but my curiosity and connection to the characters certainly sent me scurrying for books 2 and 3.

One thing I did find a bit confusing was the locations. I was delighted to find out that Eric Walters was a local boy (local to Southern Ontario), and even more delighted to recognize neighbourhoods and streets from the Greater Toronto area. I could picture Adam landing on the 403 and glimpsing the abandoned buildings of Toronto in the distance. Yet Walters never fully committed to the Toronto location, and I’d love to know why. At one point Adam remarks that his father is half way across the country (in Chicago) so that threw me. I would love to have seen a Canadian setting, if only to see something new; and who knows, maybe non-Canadians would learn something about Canada?

Rating: Four stars

Suitable for teens. I would advise caution as there’s quite a bit of violence and killing, but not gratuitous.

My First “Gripping Psychological Killer”

An Ode to Lois Duncan

I think I was 14 before I discovered that I could buy books at school. I don’t remember what the program was called, but it was very similar to (if not the same as) the Scholastic program I run at my school now; flyers come out, you pick the books you want, mum provides a cheque and the books come to your classroom. One of the books that I ordered (and that arrived so promptly) was something called Summer of Fear, and it had quite a disturbing cover, as you can see. I was past my Nancy Drew phase and well into Agatha Christie by this time and looking for mysteries in any form. This sounded very mysterious; a visiting cousin, that even looks a little like our heroine, starts to gaslight her. Everyone loves said cousin, so no one believes our heroine. Great fun!!

Summer of Fear was my first; my first Lois Duncan. After reading it, I then, in true obsessive fashion had to find everything the woman had ever written. Killing Mr. Griffin followed Summer of Fear, then I Know What you Did Last Summer.   Then everything else she had written.  All psychological thrillers before “gripping psychological thrillers” were a thing, or even a genre. I had all of Lois Duncan’s books (and still have them) and even hooked my brother on them. He used to snatch them from me as soon as I finished them. Now, again, this was the 80’s so there was no Amazon to tell you when the next one was coming out, no author website to keep you up to date on the author’s life. All I knew was that around 1990, new Lois Duncan books stopped. I looked every time I went into a bookstore but by then I’d moved onto Stephen King, so I wasn’t too concerned.  I never thought to look in the adult section though. Maybe I should have after finding Judy Blume there. But this wasn’t like Judy Blume.

              It was ten years later that I found a new Lois Duncan on the adult shelves. It was called Who Killed My Daughter. I can still remember reaching up to take it down to read the back, not believing that it was a true story. Seems there was a very good reason Lois Duncan stopped writing. She became somewhat obsessed with finding her daughter’s killer yet years later the case remains unsolved.  Of course before the internet there was no way of knowing what had happened. Now, I can go to her website and read all about her career and what it felt like to try and write about teen killers when her own daughter had been killed. Back in the late 80’s I just knew there were no new Lois Duncan books.

Lois Duncan died two years ago, the mystery of her daughter’s death unsolved. I can only imagine what impact it must have had on her writing. To this day I have a love of the “gripping psychological thriller” which I attribute to her. I can go back and read Killing Mr. Griffin and enjoy it as much today as I did as a teen. A good indication of the legacy left by this gifted writer. I only hope she has found the peace she wasn’t able to find after the death of her daughter.

Warcross (Shelf Control #5)

Title: Warcross
By: Marie Lu
Published:
Target:  teens

Synopsis (via Goodreads):    When a game called Warcross takes the world by storm, one girl hacks her way into its dangerous depths. For the millions who log in every day, Warcross isn’t just a game—it’s a way of life. Struggling to make ends meet, teenage hacker Emika Chen works as a bounty hunter, tracking down players who bet on the game illegally. When Emika hacks into the game illegally, she’s convinced she’ll be arrested, and is shocked when she gets a call from the game’s creator, the elusive young billionaire Hideo Tanaka, with an irresistible offer. He needs a spy on the inside of this year’s tournament in order to uncover a security problem … and he wants Emika for the job. In this sci-fi thriller, #1 New York Times bestselling author Marie Lu conjures an immersive, exhilarating world where choosing who to trust may be the biggest gamble of all.

How I got it: Whenever I go away on holiday I figure I need books to read while I’m away. Never mind that I have more books than I could ever hope to read over a lifetime of holidays, for some reason going on holiday means I can buy more. Addiction remember? And again, digital is waaaaayyyyy too easy.

When I got it:   July 2018

Why I want to read it:  There are a couple of reasons I’m eager to read this one. First is that it’s Marie Lu and I thoroughly enjoyed her Legends series, though her Young Elites series has remained untouched on my Kobo for a while. Second, well Silence of the Six has set me off on a hacking/cyberterrorist kick, and this book showed up on the “if you liked this, you might like this” screen on Amazon. So now it’s on my Kobo and next in line.  Also sounds like there’s a little Ready Player One in there, which can never be a bad thing.