We're an Open Book
When I finished reading Max Barry’s 2013 novelLexicon I went to Barry’s site to learn more about him. From what I can tell Barry seems to have a thing for writing and satirizing the culture of corporate America and marketing. I had mixed feelings about the female characters in Lexicon, so the synopsis and title to Jennifer Government caught my eye….
Publication Date:
Pages: 240
Genre: Contemporary
Publisher: Arthur A. Levine (Scholastic)
The Great Greene Heist caught my attention during the #weneeddiversebooks campaign when John Green promised 10 signed copies of TFiOS to any bookstore who hand sold 100 copies of The Great Greene Heist. The synopsis felt Curseworker-ish (sans magic), which was enough for me to delve into reading my first Middle Grade as an adult.
13-year-old con artist Jackson Greene is cleaning up his act. After the Kelsey Job, or the Mid-Day PDA as his friends have dubbed his last con, Jackson is hanging up his cons for good. That is until he gets recruited by his best friend Charlie de la Cruz to rig the school election for his sister Gabby, the girl whose heart Jackson will do anything to fix.
The atmosphere in this novel felt very campy and sort of like a satire. I don’t know if this is a typical of middle grade or if it’s just this novel. The students exist in a school where they are never in class, principals easily accept bribes and all clubs have a budget that the school council president controls. As I read this I imagine it as more as a cartoon or Nickelodeon sitcom than real life.
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Hey, did you read Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus? Did you fall all over the magical aspects, charming side characters and nonlinear narrative? Well, I did and if you need something to fill that hole I highly suggest TheGolem and The Jinni. I grabbed this off my library’s Overdrive after seeing so many people reading it on vacation and it was just my kind of book.
Drenched in Kabbalah and Arabic folklore Wecker’s debut novel is the unlikely story of two creatures believed to exist only folklore finding their way in the immigrant neighborhoods of 1890’s New York.
The Golem is a newborn woman made of earth, who is quickly abandoned as soon as she is bought to life. Hiding out in the Jewish populated Lower East Side, her only solace is trying to meet the wants of others without revealing herself first.
Once free to roam the deserts of Syria, the Jinni is now selfish, arrogant creature made of fire and smoke, who is bound to human flesh, and has inexplicably awoken in New York City’s Little Syria.
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Synopsis : As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.
For 10 years the Valorians have ruled the Herrani, a race of people enslaved in their own land. At a slave auction Kestrel, a member of the Valorian upper class, wins the Herrani of her choice and in that moment of winning she will also lose everything and she doesn’t even know it.
The story follows Krestel as she makes her way through high society and how it often clashes with her candor and affinity for music and art. She is also at war with her growing feelings for Arin the Herrani slave and the truth he is making her see.
Honestly, I think Krestel had a bit too much going on conflict wise. She’s at a crossroads she can either get married or become a solider but wants to do neither, she likes music but that is not thought highly of by her people. She struggles with what how to treat Arin in addition to feuds with fellow Valorians. I think I would have preferred to focus on one of these conflicts.
The big winner in this book has to be the forbidden romance that forms between Kestrel and Arin , overall that was what kept me reading during the somewhat slow build in the novel. I don’t want to give to much away about Arin, but his character development in the book was one I enjoyed reading. I wish that the novel focused more on him.…
At first these two books seem worlds away, one a much-praised modern literary classic the other a backlist YA contemporary climbing its way up the NYT bestsellers list with a film release weeks away.
I found myself reading both books at around the same time and the more I thought about writing the individual reviews, the more I realized these books have a lot in common. Both main characters, Kathy H. in Never Let Me Go and Mia in If I Stay, are young women trying to figure out their future. While Kathy’s path has been laid out since birth Mia gets the opportunity to decide hers.
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At first these two books seem worlds away, one a much-praised modern literary classic the other a backlist YA contemporary climbing its way up the NYT bestsellers list with a film release weeks away.
I found myself reading both books at around the same time and the more I thought about writing the individual reviews, the more I realized these books have a lot in common. Both main characters, Kathy H. in Never Let Me Go and Mia in If I Stay, are young women trying to figure out their future. While Kathy’s path has been laid out since birth Mia gets the opportunity to decide hers.
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- Release Date: March 1, 2013
- Pages: 289
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Publisher: Arthur A. Levine (Scholastic)
June Costa is the best artist in Palmares Três, the lush futuristic pyramid city built a midst a post post-apocalyptic South America. June’s art has always been about expressing herself and the things she loves, but her street art takes on new heights when she teams up with Enki, the 17-year-old reigning summer king of Palarmes Três who, as dictated by tradition, will be sacrificed at the end of the year.
The Summer Prince is a fairly complex novel, there is just so much going on in this world and society I don’t even know where to begin. The world building can be a bit tough to get into, especially for someone like me coming from a Western world. Johnson’s world is so far from anything analogous to American society. The driving force of this novel is the tradition of the summer king; Palmares Três matriarchal society elects one boy to serve as the summer king alongside the Queen and he is sacrificed at the end of the year. The reasoning behind this tradition is a little fuzzy in the book, but this is based on some ancient South American traditions.
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