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The Yard by Alex Grecian

Posted May 17, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: The Yard
Author: Alex Grecian
Publisher: Putnam Books
Genre: Historical Mystery
Pages: 422
How I Read It: ARC received from the publisher – The views expressed in my review are mine alone and I have received no compensation for these opinions.

Synopsis: 1889, London.  Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror is finally over, but a new one is just beginning…

Victorian London is a cesspool of crime, and Scotland Yard has only twelve detectives – known as “The Murder Squad” – to investigate thousands of murders every month.  Created after the Metropolitan Police’s spectacular failure to capture Jack the Ripper, the Murder Squad suffers rampant public contempt.  They have failed their citizens.  But no one can anticipate the brutal murder of one of their own…one of twelve…

When Walter Day, the squad’s newest hire, is assigned the case of the murdered detective, he finds a strange ally in the Yard’s first forensic pathologist, Dr. Bernard Kingsley.  Together they track the killer, who clearly is not finished with the Murder Squad…but why?

*Synopsis taken from the back of the book

My Review: It’s difficult for me to imagine a time when police work didn’t involve fingerprinting and the forensics we have today, but we all know that time existed.  The Yard takes us back to that time, with Jack the Ripper fresh in the memory of the public, and a lot of people calling into question the ability of the police.

This novel opens with the discovery of a body in a trunk at a train station.  The body belongs to Inspector Little, and no one knows why he is dead, just that it likely has something to do with his work.  Without the use of modern technology, even determining what weapon might have been used to kill someone is difficult, let alone tracing down the person who did the killing.

Due to his newness to the squad, Inspector Walter Day is tapped to head up the investigation into who could have murdered one of their own.  This gives Inspector Day the chance to prove himself and hopefully answer the question – is London really for him?  He’s joined by a doctor who has taken it upon himself to start studying the dead, an Inspector who vouched for him for no real reason, and a Constable who is pulled into the investigation for purely personal reasons.

This story is a mystery in the sense of wondering if and how the police will figure out who their killer is, and worrying about what else might happen along the way.  As the reader, we know who the killer is somewhat early on, but that didn’t make it any less suspenseful for me.  Something I thought very early on was…why leave this body in a trunk at the train station, where it’s sure to be found relatively quickly?  Why not throw it in the Thames?  But we’re dealing with a madman, and there are no real logical answers in that sort of situation.

I was fascinated by how the police work was done in this novel.  It seems pretty accurate, even for today – you get talented people looking into things, but it also comes to luck and the knack for being at the right place at the right time.  Whether any of this was accurate or not isn’t necessarily important to me.  I was entertained and I enjoyed the ride.  I didn’t want to put the novel down, despite the gruesome nature of some of the scenes.  An all-around lovely suspense story!

Read this book if: Most mystery readers will likely enjoy this.  And there’s a sequel out soon!

My Rating: 4/5 – Borderline amazing!

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The Manufactured Identity by Heath Sommer

Posted May 10, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: The Manufactured Identity
Author: Heath Sommer
Publisher: Tate Publishing & Enterprises
Genre: Psychological Mystery
Pages: 305
How I Read It: Copy received from the publisher – The views expressed in my review are mine alone and I have received no compensation for these opinions.

Synopsis: Months after his mysterious disappearance from a routine fishing trip, no one really expects over-the-hill Texas housewife Lory Latchley to find her missing husband – especially her husband.

The Manufactured Identity is clinical psychologist Heath Sommer’s ever-escalating immersion into the world of unlikely friends who each awaken to find their faithful companions missing without warning or reason.  Desperate to find meaning in their pain, they are thrust by the auspices of fate into a common thread of mystery and human frailty.

In the end, the fate of all may reside in the unstable hands of rookie pastor John Joe, but ultimately Lory and her unfound partners will uncover a truth so unnerving it makes even infidelity look palatable.

*Synopsis taken from the back of the book

My Review: The Manufactured Identity is an interesting look at a complex set of lives and marriages that have a lot more going on than you would think upon the first look.  The common thread among most of these relationships is that their partner has mysteriously gone missing, leaving behind a ton of questions and a lost sense of self in many cases.

I wouldn’t say that this was a confusing read, but at times, it felt overly complex.  There seemed to be two main stories going on, and I would have preferred if they had been broken out into their own books.  In a book that’s a little over 300 pages long, the large cast of characters made it difficult to focus on one element of the story long enough to really get into it.  As a result, I didn’t feel as sympathetic and emotionally attached to the characters as I would have liked.  In fact, there were several scenes that normally would get a strong response from me, but instead I just kept reading through, and that typically only happens when there’s too much going on.

The main story is really directly related to the title of the book, and I think that story itself deserves more attention.  I would love to see a book written from the perspective of the person who does the manufacturing of their identity.  This book shows us a lot about the people left behind, so it would be interesting to see more from the other side.

I enjoyed the overall plot, although I do wish it had been a bit longer to explore some elements in more depth.  The writing is decent and interesting on the whole, though I’ll admit I have mixed feelings about the depiction of gays in this book.  I wish there had been more focus on the idea that being involved with multiple partners, without their consent, is not cool and that’s where things went wrong…and not so much about how some of those multiple partners were of the same sex.  I’m not a religious person, but I’m a huge advocate for the LGBT community, so I didn’t really like this portrayal in the book.

This is definitely a book with a lot of psychological twists and turns, which gives you a lot to think about as time goes on.  There are also some things that could be triggers for people, so if you have difficulty particularly with sexual abuse, you may want to avoid this one.  The sheer wonder of what’s going to happen next will likely keep you going to the end!

Read this book if: People who enjoy this genre will probably like this one.  If you’re more into historical fiction or romance, it’s probably not going to be your thing.

My Rating: 3/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

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Bossypants by Tina Fey

Posted May 3, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: Bossypants
Author: Tina Fey
Publisher: Reagan Arthur Books
Genre: Humor
Pages: 277
How I Read It: Hard cover purchased by me.

Synopsis: Before Liz Lemon, before “Weekend Update”, before “Sarah Palin”, Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher.  She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.

She has seen both these dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey’s story can be told.  From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon – from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we’ve all suspected: you’re no one until someone calls you bossy.

(Includes Special, Never-Before-Solicited Opinions on Breast-feeding, Princesses, Photoshop, the Electoral Process, and Italian Rum Cake!)

*Synopsis taken from the book jacket

My Review: I picked this book up for two reasons: Tina Fey is generally pretty hilarious; and Bossypants is just a great title.  I’m pretty sure my siblings have been calling me that behind my back for years.

Typically, I’m a little reluctant to read books by comedians because I don’t love a whole book full of jokes.  I’m happy to say that this book is funny, but it’s funny things about Tina Fey’s journey from growing up in Philly to being the creator/head writer of 30 Rock.  Maybe this is because her background is not in standup, so she doesn’t feel the need to go over her shows with us.  Regardless of the reason, I really enjoyed the format and the little journey I got to take through her life.

One of my favorite things was the approach Tina Fey took on things that really bug me, specifically people giving random unsolicited opinions like you asked for advice on the topic.  She is clearly not into it, but takes the time to mock it, and that makes me wish I had her kind of wit so that I could come up with a funny, yet poignant, retort to those kinds of comments.  Alas, I will have to just keep thinking and being polite in the meantime.

This book was exactly my humor style, which I figured it would be since I like Tina’s other work, so it makes sense that I’d like her book.  After reading it, I feel a bit like I know her – not because I think this book is overly personal on her part, more that she seems so relatable and easy to get along with, she just seems like my kind of person.

As is the case with a lot of these types of books, if you like the comedic style of the author, you’re probably more likely to enjoy the book.  So if you’re into Tina Fey, or think you might be, go pick the book up!

Read this book if: I think people who enjoy Chelsea Handler’s writing would like this one.  It’s got the same feel to it, and is definitely funny.

My Rating: 3.5/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

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Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

Posted April 26, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: Firefly Lane
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Pages: 513
How I Read It: Paperback purchased by me.

Synopsis: In the turbulent summer of 1974, Kate Mularkey has accepted her place at the bottom of the eighth-grade social food chain.  Then, to her amazement, the “coolest girl in the world” moves in across the street and wants to be her friend.  Tully Hart seems to have it all – beauty, brains, ambition.  On the surface, they are as opposite as two people can be: Kate, doomed to be forever uncool, with a loving family who mortifies her at every turn.  Tully, steeped in glamour and mystery, but with a secret that is destroying her.  They make a pact to be best friends forever; by summer’s end, they’ve become TullyandKate.  Inseparable.

Spanning more than three decades and playing out across the ever-changing face of the Pacific Northwest, Firefly Lane is the poignant, powerful story of two women and the friendship that becomes the bulkhead of their lives.

For thirty years, Tully and Kate buoy each other through life, weathering the storms of friendship – jealousy, anger, hurt, resentment.  They think they’ve survived it all until a single act of betrayal tears them apart…and puts their courage and friendship to the ultimate test.

*Synopsis taken from the back of the book

My Review: I don’t think I’m going to be able to come up with anything to say about Firefly Lane that hasn’t already been said before.  This is the story of two girls, who really meet purely by chance, and against the odds, manage to forge a friendship that lasts through to their adulthood.  And although the events in the story are absolutely fiction and somewhat exaggerated, the closeness of the friendship is something I think all women need.

Something that struck me about the beginning of the book was just how spot on the author was with how most girls feel at 14.  Kate has a loving family, but doesn’t seem to know how to make new friends in the town she grew up in.  I remember a time in my life where it seemed like it didn’t matter what I did, none of it was the right thing to fit in with anyone at school.  Tully seems to have the perfect mysterious life, and all the popularity Kate wants, but she’s hiding the truth of her family situation, which is ultimately destroying her.  It’s easy to forget what your early teens were like, but let’s face it – that’s not an easy phase in the life of a girl.

Kate and Tully are a bit older than I am, so I don’t have the memories of the 70s that they have, but I did really enjoy the little references to where they were when certain events happened.  At the very least, I do this with my own life – there are certain things events mentioned throughout the novel that we’ll all probably remember for our whole lives.  Luckily, however, I do not have a great memory of the hair styles from the 80s…any time I read a novel from that time period, I count my blessings that I was a teenager during the 90s!

As we go through the novel, Tully and Kate inevitably start choosing different paths – Tully decides to pursue her career at the cost of almost everything else in her life, while Kate decides to get married and start a family.  I don’t think it would be surprising to anyone to hear that these vastly different lives put a strain on their friendship…that’s just how life goes.  Still, these two remain friends when it matters the most.  Because, really, what good is a friendship when you’re only there for each other during the good times?

One thing that I found to be a little difficult to believe was Tully’s continued inability to see Kate’s point of view when it came to dealing with her kids.  I don’t have kids personally, but there were quite a few situations where I thought “whoa, Tully, are you INSANE?”  I think we all mature at different rates, but most women are probably close to the same page when they hit their late 30s, so I found that point a little off.

Otherwise, I thought this was a wonderful look at friendship as a fluid thing throughout the lives of these two women.  I’m lucky enough to have a really close friend of my own, someone I talk to daily despite the fact that we don’t live in the same state, so reading about Tully and Kate reminded me of the closeness of my own friend.  We don’t have the ups and downs that these characters had, but I hope that all women have a relationship like this.

Read this book if: This would be a lovely book club read, and I think a lot of women would like it.

My Rating: 4/5 – Borderline amazing!

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The House of Velvet & Glass by Katherine Howe

Posted April 19, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: The House of Velvet & Glass
Author: Katherine Howe
Publisher: Voice
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pages: 418
How I Read It: Hard cover purchased by me.

Synopsis: Katherine Howe, author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, returns with an entrancing historical novel set in Boston in 1915, where a young woman stands on the cusp of a new century, torn between loss and love, driven to seek answers in the depths of a crystal ball.

Still reeling from the deaths of her mother and sister on the Titanic, Sibyl Allston is living a life of quiet desperation with her taciturn father and scandal-plagued brother in an elegant town house in Boston’s Back Bay.  Trapped in a world over which she has no control, Sibyl flees for solace to the parlor of a table-turning medium.

But when her brother is suddenly kicked out of Harvard under mysterious circumstances and falls under the sway of a strange young woman, Sibyl turns for help to psychology professor Benton Derby, despite the unspoken tensions of their shared past.  As Benton and Sibyl work together to solve a harrowing mystery, their long simmering spark flares to life, and they realize that there may be something even more magical between them than a medium’s scrying glass.

From the opium dens of Boston’s Chinatown to the opulent salons of high society, from the back alleys of colonial Shanghai to the decks of the Titanic, The House of Velvet and Glass weaves together meticulous period detail, intoxicating romance, and a final shocking twist that will leave readers breathless.

*Synopsis taken from the book jacket

My Review: In her second novel, Katherine Howe brings us back to Boston with a story that has a similar structure to that of her debut.  Our main characters are in the Bostonian upper class just after the turn of the century, and on the cusp of the United States entering WWI, with segments of the story taking place a couple of decades earlier in Shanghai, as well as the last day aboard the Titanic.  The story starts with Helen and Eulah enjoying a day on the ill-fated ship, oblivious to what awaits them, and then cuts to the present day of the novel: Sibyl at a séance on the anniversary of the sinking of the ship that took her mother and sister with it.

While the story does have a bit of a fantastical element to it, it’s mostly a look at grief, addiction, and the trappings of life during this time period.  In searching for more answers about what has happened to her mother and sister, Sibyl quite accidentally discovers that she can see visions in a mystical ball of glass given to her by a medium, known as a scrying glass.  One catch: she has to be high on opium to see these visions.

As the reader, I was watching this with a lot of trepidation, knowing that opium is very addictive and also realizing that the troubles associated with the drug weren’t widely known at the time.  Although Sibyl doesn’t start using opium with the intention of making herself feel better, it was interesting to me to watch her become addicted to her quest for more knowledge.  It really seemed like the need to know was the real problem for Sibyl, rather than the opium itself, but the two go hand in hand in this particular case.  Grief can take on all kinds of manifestations, so I found this particularly difficult to read given that we know what Sibyl is really running from, and knowing that there’s no real escape from your feelings.  For quite a bit of time, we’re all wondering if what Sibyl sees is real, or simply an opium dream.  Eventually, Sibyl learns the truth of what she is seeing, and it opens up a whole new world of family history for her.

The story does start out a bit slowly, building up the lives of all of our characters before getting into the meat of the novel.  Because this is a tale of grief, I think it was important to follow the Allston family down their paths and learn how they were each coping with their tragedy.  This added connection to the characters made them much more interesting and sympathetic to me as the story went on.  And although this novel is a work of fiction, the presence of actual historical characters and events made it more interesting and added realism to the story.  When I think about the fact that so many people believed in séances and that kind of mysticism at the time the novel was set, the whole thing seems like a very plausible story for how these people might have dealt with the aftermath of losing their family members in such a tragedy.

While this novel didn’t touch me quite as much as the authors first book, I did enjoy it and I thought it was a pretty good historical fiction piece.  It did what all good novels do – left me wanting more and hoping I get to see these characters again in the future.

Read this book if: I think people who enjoy historical fiction with a little bit of fantasy or magic thrown in will enjoy this one.

My Rating: 3.5/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

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Red is for Rage by Connie Corcoran Wilson

Posted April 9, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: Red is for Rage
Author: Connie Corcoran Wilson
Publisher: Quad Cities Press
Genre: Horror
Pages: 258
How I Read It: Review copy provided by the publisher – The views expressed in my review are mine alone and I have received no compensation for these opinions.

Synopsis: In Book Two, we learn more about the exact nature of Tad’s paranormal power, Tetrachromatic Super Vision. Can this keen sight help Tad find Stevie Scranton? Will Tad suffer another breakdown from reliving the crimes of serial killer Michael Clay (aka, Pogo, the Killer Clown), as he did when only eight years old? Can Tad learn to harness his special sight to help his loved ones?

When Stevie Scranton goes missing, best friend Tad vows to do everything he can to find him. Even if Stevie is dead, Sally and Earl Scranton, (his parents), and Shannon, (Stevie’s older sister), crave closure. Tad enlists the help of retired policeman Charlie Chandler and a team of volunteers, including Charlie’s old partner, Evelyn Hoeflinger. This rag-tag team of detectives continues searching for Stevie Scranton, the runty misfit of Cedar Falls’ Sky High. In their search, they discover a monster every bit as dangerous as Pogo and must confront him in order to save Stevie.

Tad sees auras around others that tell him whether they are good or evil. The truly evil are surrounded by a khaki aura (THE COLOR OF EVIL). At night, Tad suffers vivid nightmares that depict the crimes of the evil-doers. Michael Clay (the serial killer Pogo) escapes custody. On the loose again, Pogo’s actions restart the vicious cycle of violent nightmares. Pogo poses a threat to the entire town of Cedar Falls, but he is especially a threat to Tad McGreevy.

Pogo has one main goal: kill Tad McGreevy so that Tad cannot disclose Clay’s location. Pogo doesn’t realize that, up until now, Tad has been unable to harness the paranormal ability he possesses. Now, Tad McGreevy must try to learn to use his unique gift. Stevie Scranton’s fate hangs in the balance. Tad’s power, if precognitive, could save everyone he loves.

Jenny SanGiovanni returns from her father’s home in Boulder, Colorado, to finish her senior year with her old classmates. She brings home a new set of problems. Jeremy Gustaffsson, the fifth-year senior boyfriend in Jenny’s junior year, graduated. But Jeremy is still in town, still obsessed with Jenny, still dangerous. When Jenny broke up with Jeremy, it made Jeremy mad. Bad things happen to good people when Jeremy Gustaffsson gets angry and descends into a red rage.

All Jenny’s cheerleader friends from her junior year are back. Many, like Janice Kramer, Heather Crompton and Melody Harris, have problems of their own. Jenny deals with adolescent issues such as self-esteem and self-worth, problems that tax her soul. But Jenny is not alone. Another Sky High student is driven to the brink. Will that individual plunge into the abyss of despair?

And what of the adults? What has the stress of Stevie’s nine-month ordeal done to Earl and Sally Scranton’s marriage? What problems confront the other adults in Cedar Falls as three evil-doers rise up to create chaos and do them harm?

RED IS FOR RAGE and rage runs rampant in this small Iowa town in the year of our Lord 2004.

*Synopsis taken from Goodreads

My Review: Red is for Rage picks up a few months after the end of the events in The Color of Evil, continuing the story of our main cast of teen characters, as well as the adults in their lives.  The overall number of characters we follow in this book seemed to be smaller than that of the first one, which made the story more enjoyable for me.  One of my big complaints when reading The Color of Evil was simply that there were too many people to follow, making it difficult to tell what storylines were important to the overall book.  The reduced character list in this one made it much easier to stay engaged with the main plot, and also helped give some better insight into the characters.

We see a lot more of Stevie Scranton in this book – he had gone missing pretty early into the first one, but has a much larger presence in Red is for Rage, which made him into a much more sympathetic character.  Several larger plot lines hinge quite a bit on Stevie’s childhood and his recent past, and I really appreciated the opportunity to learn more about him as the story progressed.

Michael Clay/Pogo the Clown had a smaller role in this book than he did the first one, which made a lot of sense because his actions are important, but don’t really provide the main plot in this book.  Tad understandably continues to worry about the whereabouts of the crazed man, but he manages to continue working through the things he sees, and I was definitely pulling for him to have a normal life.

I did have one big complaint about this book, and it was the way the gay community seemed to be portrayed as having a lot of similarities with the characters who were pedophiles.  There’s a lot of misinformation about the LGBT community out there, and one of the more harmful pieces of that misinformation is the idea that a lot of gay men are, by default, interested in young and underage boys.  I don’t think the author truly meant any harm by the way the story went down, but I think it’s dangerous territory to insinuate these kinds of links.  I wish there had been more positive portrayals of gay men in this story, instead of the use of the word “gayborhood” and the convenient plot device that some characters ran into a pedophile at a gay bar and went home with him.  There was also some verbiage that seemed to be saying that being gay is not normal.  This could have been me misreading the way the plot point was portrayed, but I do want to make it clear that abusing children is not normal, and that still does not have a link to the gay community.  Should this series continue, I hope the author does a better job of drawing the distinction between the villains of the story and the average gay man you meet on the street.

Other than that, it was a good continuation of the story from the previous book, and I think people who liked that one will enjoy this as well.

Read this book if: Readers who were fans of the first book will probably want to pick up this sequel, and again fans of the horror genre might enjoy it.

My Rating: 3/5

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The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

Posted April 5, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: The Cruelest Month
Author: Louise Penny
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Genre: Mystery
Pages: 320
How I Read It: Paperback purchased by me.

Synopsis: Welcome to Three Pines, where the cruelest month is about to deliver on its threat.  It’s spring in the tiny, forgotten village; buds are on the trees and the first flowers are struggling through the newly thawed earth.  However, not everything is meant to return to life…

When some villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a séance at the old Hadley house, one of their party dies of fright.  Was this a natural death, or was it murder? Brilliant, compassionate Chief Inspector Armand Gamache is called to investigate, and the case will force him to face his own ghosts as well as those of a seemingly idyllic town where relationships are far more dangerous than they seem.

*Synopsis taken from the back of the book

My Review: Any time I read one of Louise Penny’s novels set in Three Pines, I fall in love with the village all over again.  And then I feel terrible that all of these awful things keep happening there!  Despite these murders, it’s the kind of village I’d like to spend some time in, although I’m not quite sure I’d fit in.

This time around, a woman called Madeline, who is adored by pretty much everyone, dies of fright at a séance.  Initially, everyone believes it was just a tragic accident, but the arrival of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache gets the villagers to realize that maybe her death was more of an intentional thing after all.

Gamache himself is dealing with some personal/professional drama because of a case from a few years back, which is starting to resurface.  Those things were particularly heartbreaking for me because I absolutely adore Gamache and I really hate seeing anyone deliberately hurt him.

For me, reading these novels is all about the characters and their interpersonal relationships with each other.  Sure, there’s a mystery afoot that needs to be solved, but I’m equally interested in the interactions between Gamache and his number two man, Jean Guy; the way the relationship between Peter and Clara changes as she becomes more successful; and pretty much any time anyone interacts with Ruth, it’s a hoot.  These characters are all like living, breathing people, and Louise Penny really makes it seem like if you’re lucky enough to find Three Pines, these people are waiting for you.  I would love to stay at Gabri’s B&B!

The scene of the murder is the scary old Hadley House, which is a pretty terrifying place for several of the characters because of their history in the house.  Readers who have been following the series from book one will probably also have some lingering feelings about it – it’s a little like reading about the Amityville house, or some other famous scary place like that.  It made for a really good murder setting, and the creep factor is increased as the mystery becomes more intricate.

I always feel like the plot is really believable in these novels too, it’s never that something incredibly outrageous happens that requires suspending a lot of disbelief.  The beauty is that the story itself is just so lovely that I don’t think I’d care even if they did all get to that level.  In my mind, that makes for almost a perfect mystery!  Plus this was a great time of year to read it, because it’s spring, and April isn’t far off, so it was very seasonally appropriate during my reading.

Read this book if: I will never hesitate to recommend Louise Penny to someone, so definitely pick it up if you like a nice murder mystery.  The character background from the other novels is helpful, but not necessary, and I also like that.

My Rating: 4/5 – Borderline amazing!

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The Conjuring Glass by Brian Knight

Posted March 29, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: The Conjuring Glass
Author: Brian Knight
Publisher: JournalStone
Genre: YA Fantasy
Pages: 216
How I Read It: Review copy received from the publisher – The views expressed in my review are mine alone and I have received no compensation for these opinions.

Synopsis: When thirteen-year-old orphan Penny Sinclair moves to the small town of Dogwood to live with her godmother, she expects her life to become very dull. She doesn’t expect to find a strange talking fox roaming the countryside near her new home, a kindred spirit in her new friend Zoe, or the secret grove where they discover the long hidden magic of The Phoenix Girls.

Learning to use magic isn’t easy, though; Penny and Zoe get their magic wrong almost as often as they get it right. When something sinister threatens Dogwood, their often accidental magic may be the only thing that can stop it.

*Synopsis taken from Goodreads

My Review: Penny is a pretty ordinary girl whose life is turned upside down when her mom dies tragically.  We first see her a few months after the event, when she’s en route to live with her godmother, Susan, who she’s never met before.  It all sounds pretty traumatic, especially when you think about the fact that being in your early teens is hard enough without all that change and horrible things outside of your control.

Being the new kid at school is never easy, and I can imagine it’s even worse in a small town since everyone is so much more familiar with each other.  Penny is lucky enough to meet Zoe, who is also new, so they have that bond to start their friendship, which continues to grow as Penny discovers that Zoe can also see Ronan the talking fox.

As the girls learn to trust Ronan, he leads them to the magical grove where they begin to uncover the secrets of the Phoenix Girls, a group that we slowly learn more about as the book unfolds, but remains largely shrouded in mystery to the end.  In order to be a Phoenix Girl, you have to have magical talent in some way, but finding other people with that talent will prove to be a challenge in itself.  In the meantime, Penny and Zoe begin practicing the new magic they learn about, and eventually have to face an evil threat they never knew existed.

This is a YA book, but I would say it’s pretty young on the scale, as the main characters are 13 years old.  I kind of think of it as a new magic related story for a generation of kids who didn’t grow up with Harry Potter.  It was a fun story, and although it’s the beginning of a series, it didn’t leave you on a huge cliffhanger, which I like.

One of my favorite elements of this story was the female empowerment of it.  Penny and Zoe have Ronan’s help in small ways, but they are the ones who figure out how to do their spells and learn new ways to use their magic.  I think it’s a great message for younger girls to read about, with lessons that apply not only to magic, but to life in general.  It’s great for girls to learn to rely on their female friends when they need help!

I really enjoyed this story and I look forward to the future books in the series…there are so many secrets, both with Penny’s family and the Phoenix Girls themselves, that I’m excited to see what happens next!

Read this book if: I really think this is a great book for younger teens and would recommend it to any of them.

My Rating: 3/5 – Two thumbs up, fine holiday fun!

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The Color of Evil by Connie Corcoran Wilson

Posted March 22, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: The Color of Evil
Author: Connie Corcoran Wilson
Publisher: Quad Cities Press
Genre: Horror
Pages: 279
How I Read It: Kindle edition purchased by me.

Synopsis: Tad McGreevy has a power that he has never revealed, not even to his life-long best friend, Stevie Scranton. When Tad looks at others, he sees colors. These auras tell Tad whether a person is good or evil. At night, Tad dreams about the evil-doers, reliving their crimes in horrifyingly vivid detail.

But Tad doesn’t know if the evil acts he witnesses in his nightmares are happening now, are already over, or are going to occur in the future. He has no control over the horrifying visions. He has been told (by his parents) never to speak of his power. All Tad knows is that he wants to protect those he loves. And he wants the bad dreams to stop.

At Tad’s eighth birthday party (April 1, 1995) in Cedar Falls, Iowa, the clown his parents hire to entertain Tad’s third-grade classmates is one of the bad people. Pogo, the Killer Clown (aka Michael Clay) is a serial killer. So begins 53 nights of terror as Tad relives Pogo’s crime, awakens screaming, and recites the terrifying details to his disbelieving family. The situation becomes so dire that Tad is hospitalized in a private institution under the care of a psychiatrist–who also does not believe the small boy’s stories.

And then the police arrest Pogo, the Killer Clown.

Flash forward to the beginning of Tad’s junior year in high school, 8 years later. Tad is 16 and recovered from the spring of his third-grade year. When Michael Clay was caught and imprisoned, the crime spree ended and so did Tad’s bad dreams.

Until now, in the year of our Lord 2003, when evil once again stalks the land.

This is a terrifying, intense story of the dark people and places that lurk just beneath the surface of seemingly normal small-town America. As one reviewer says, “Wilson nails the darkness beneath the surface of small-town Midwestern life with an intense story based on fact.”

Tad must wage a silent war against those who would harm the ones he loves. A battle to the death.

*Synopsis taken from Goodreads

My Review: There are times when, as a reader, I make a conscious decision to step outside of my normal reading box and pick up something totally uncharacteristic for me.  I was approached about reading this series, and although I knew it wasn’t entirely my bag, I decided it would be fun to try something a bit different.  I looked at the synopsis and figured that since it’s been awhile since I tried some horror, it could be interesting to try it again.

As I was reading, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that I didn’t like the book, but for an entirely different reason than not being a big fan of the genre.  See, I was mentally prepared for this to be a thrill ride, and a bit gory.  I knew going into it that I was going to have to steel myself for all that, and I did.  But there were some other elements of the story that I had a difficult time with, and I really thought they would pass, but the final chapter came around and I had the same complaints as I had at the beginning.

First and foremost, I will mention that the “horror” or gore aspect of this is not exaggerated.  I’ve seen some things billing this story as YA and I have to vehemently disagree with that categorization.  There are a ton of violent deaths, blood, and just overall ickiness.  Some of the characters are teens, but I don’t think this is appropriate subject matter for your average YA reader at all.  So, if you’re a parent and your teen wants to read it, I would advise reading it yourself first and then deciding if you think it’s okay.  I’m pretty liberal and there’s no way I would let someone under the age of about 17 even think about this one.

The story starts out interestingly enough, basically at Tad’s 8th birthday party.  We get the introduction of Michael Clay, aka Pogo the Clown, and that’s where my annoyance started.  I think that a murderous clown can be a good character, and could be a base for a unique story, but this screamed John Wayne Gacy to me from the start.  There were just too many similarities for my liking, taking it from a story sort of about this kid with supernatural abilities, to a “what if Gacy had escaped and continued his spree?”  Gacy himself went by the name Pogo the Clown, was known as the Killer Clown, created art from within prison after he was caught, killed 33 known victims, and buried a majority of them in his crawl space.  Granted, I have a bit of a fascination with the psychology of serial killers, so it’s possible that I went into this knowing more about Gacy than the average reader.  However, the author had to have known that someone would see the parallels.  I think I would have enjoyed it more if this clown had been more original, and a new take on that ever creepy scenario, instead of rehashing a crime from the 70s.

I also felt like there were too many characters and too many things going on.  We’ve got three main issues in this one: Michael Clay; a psychopathic and obsessive teenager; and a missing kid.  I think that the book would have been a lot better if it had focused on just one of these topics instead of all three.  It also would have benefitted from a smaller cast of secondary characters and explanations behind so many things.  For example, there were a few times in the book where the history of a particular neighbor or house was explained, with no need for the information or no further mention of that person.  It became confusing at times, because these segments would be kind of like tangents off the main story, and I felt like they detracted from the overall cohesiveness of the story.  Additionally, there were several scenarios where the wrong character name was referenced, almost as though the character had initially been called by a different name and renamed during another draft, but some pieces were missed.  This also confused me a bit because I would think “oh, is there a third person in this scene?”

There was also a lot of repetition, which I could understand if this was a 600+ pager, but at under 300 pages, I didn’t feel like I needed to be told about Tad’s “special power” multiple times.  It fit at the beginning of the novel as it was happening, but over time we would be introduced to a new character, who would then explain Tad’s situation again.  Or, the character of Jeremy repeated over and over again that “he and Jenny were in love and no one could do anything about it, especially her wimpy step-dad, he wasn’t her real dad anyway…”  The level of repetition seemed more fitting to a middle grade book, with the exception of the subject matter in this one.

And finally, I really felt like most of the adult characters were kind of disgusting in one way or another.  I completely understand that all humans have their flaws, but it didn’t seem like there was a decent parent among them until really awful things started happening to their family and friends.  At one point, the scene is a pretty terrible one taking place on Halloween night, and the inner monologue of one of the police officers is essentially complaining about how her costume is going to waste.  I’m sorry if it’s a bit critical of me, but if you don’t want to fight crime on a holiday, you should probably be in a different line of work.

I will be reading the sequel to this book, although I’m definitely going to take a bit of a break and not dive right into it.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed that some of my issues will be less prevalent in the next book, or that I won’t be as bothered if they do exist.  I am curious to see what will happen to resolve the threads of story that were left open, and in a way I will be interested to see what heinous crimes come next in poor Tad’s nightmares.

Read this book if: I think fans of the horror genre might enjoy it.  I had a hard time though.

My Rating: 2.5/5 – Did I fall asleep?

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Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Posted March 15, 2013 By dorolerium

Title: Requiem
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: Harper Collins Children’s Books
Genre: YA Dystopia
Pages: 391
How I Read It: Hard cover purchased by me.

Synopsis: They have tried to squeeze us out, to stamp us into the past.

But we are still here.

And there are more of us every day.

Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings.

Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it.

But we have chosen a different road.

And in the end, that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose.

We are even free to choose the wrong thing.

Requiem is told from both Lena’s and Hana’s points of view. The two girls live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.

*Synopsis taken from Goodreads

My Review: If you’ve been reading the Delirium series from the start, you’ve probably been dying for this final book to come out.  I’m such a fan of this series, and of Lauren Oliver as a whole, so I’ve been recommending the series to pretty much anyone who would listen.  And I couldn’t get it open fast enough the day it came out.  Fortunately, I had just finished a book so I was completely ready for the wonderful world that Lena and Hana live in.

Prior to reading this novel, I knew the perspective was going to alternate from Lena to Hana, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.  I didn’t love the way Pandemonium flowed, which alternated from Lena’s present to her past, so I was worried I would have similar issues with this one.  However, for whatever reason, it worked really well for me as I was reading.  Lauren Oliver does a great job of weaving the stories so they contribute to the novel as a whole, each growing closer together in time until they come together.

As the reader, we’ve essentially been following Lena’s story from the start, and at the beginning of the novel, hers picks up pretty closely to where it left off in Pandemonium.  Since leaving Zombieland and coming to the Wilds, Lena has been slowly becoming a part of the revolution, whether she wants to be or not.  To a large extent, she seems to just want happiness, but no one can really survive in the Wilds on their own, so the few people who aren’t interested in the fight sort of get brought into it anyway.  She’s also dealing with an internal struggle of her own – how does she deal with the return of Alex when she’s got Julien, who is new to the Wilds and in some ways, only came along with them because of his feelings for Lena.  In a sense, Lena is to Julien what Alex was to her.  She would have gone along with the cure had it not been for meeting Alex, and we as the reader don’t really know what Julien ultimately would have done had it not been for Lena.

Hana’s story is somewhat new to us, although if you read the short story Hana, you’ll see some of the same information.  We pick her thread up after she has had her procedure, in the weeks leading up to her marriage to Fred Hargrove.  I really enjoyed the differences in how Hana thought about things versus Lena – Hana mentions feeling guilt for some of the things she did that previous summer, and expresses fear that perhaps her cure didn’t quite work, but everything with her is a bit muted.  I felt like we really knew Lena this whole time, because although she’s grown, she didn’t get cured and she remains herself at her core.  Hana, on the other hand, is a bit unpredictable because she knows she’s supposed to act in specific ways as a result of her cure, but there is that leftover something else underneath, so you never really know which side is going to win.

My emotions were running pretty high throughout most of the novel, and I don’t think I’ve cried that much during a book since reading the last in the Harry Potter series.  The story as a whole is just fantastic, and I loved pretty much every minute of it.  As is the case with all good series, I’m left wanting more, and I’m hoping that Lauren Oliver will write another series based on these characters.  If nothing else, we end not quite knowing what happened to several people, and I would love to find that out some day.  And there’s the ever present question – regardless of the ultimate outcome, how do you rebuild your society after any of these events?

Read this book if: This was a fantastic end to the series and I cannot recommend it enough.  If you haven’t started the series yet, now is a perfect time!

My Rating: 5/5 – Did I say cool? Make that awesome!

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