H: How To Ditch Your Fairy & Hounded

This may say more about my reading habits than about what’s actually available, but today’s books have concepts I haven’t seen some version of a million times…

How To Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier

Genre: MG/YA fantasy

Charlie (short for Charlotte) goes to a sports high school, and has a personal fairy, like most people she knows. Unlike Freedom's good-skin fairy, or Rochelle's clothes-shopping fairy (the perfect outfit's always on sale), fourteen-year-old Charlie has a parking fairy. Page 17 quote:

I'm always being borrowed by Mom, or one of her sisters, or her best friend, or Jan, or Nana and Papa, or just about everyone in our neighborhood, whenever they're going to the doctor's, or grocery shopping, or anywhere that parking might be a problem. Every single day of my life someone asks me to get in their doxhead car. I hate cars. I hate drivers. I hate their little squeals of joy when they find a parking spot. But mostly I hate my benighted parking fairy.

Each chapter begins with stats: how many days since she's been in a car, the number of demerits she's racked up for being late now that she's trying to walk everywhere, the public service hours she's done to work off her demerits, how many times she's spoken to Steffan (the hot new guy with a get-away-with-anything fairy). But when Charlie teams up with Fiorenze (every-boy-will-like-you fairy) who is also on a quest to get rid of her fairy, she finds herself in far more trouble than before.

I like this lighthearted book. It's out-of-the-box, but still within range of why-didn’t-I-think-of-that. I love that it’s set in our current world, but on a continent that doesn’t currently exist. Frankly, I’m surprised there isn’t tons of fantasy like this. After all, we have alternate histories. We have portal stories. We’ve told stories about Atlantis for at least a couple thousand years. I’d love to see more fantasy set in current times, but not having to fit itself into the way currently-existing places have actually developed.

Hounded by Kevin Hearne

Genre: urban fantasy

I usually write my own summaries because too often whatever the publisher decides to put on the back cover seems to have little to do with the actual plot. But in this case, I think the publishers came up with the best possible description of the book, so I’ll quote it:

“Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old—when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.

Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power—plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a sexy bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish—to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.”

This is probably the first story I’ve read where the protagonist is pretty much perfect and invincible (he’s witty, he’s cute, women of all ages fall for him, he wins most fights, he adores his dog, etc) and it actually makes sense. Usually irresistible, all-powerful fictional men who can do no wrong make me roll my eyes. But in this case, with twenty one centuries of experience behind him, as a druid who draws his power from the earth, it would just be silly not to make him pretty close to unbeatable, and it makes his weak moments that much more powerful. I think the author handled that extremely well. And it’s funny. Good stuff all round.

D: The Demon's Lexicon and Dragon Bones

I think this officially marks the highest number of blog posts I’ve ever made in a week, so yaaay for the A to Z Challenge!
 
Now on to two of my favorite "D" books:
 

The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

Genre: urban fantasy

General premise Nick and his older brother Alan have spent their lives running from magicians who want the charm keeping their mother alive. When Mae and Jamie arrive on their doorstep looking for help, Nick wants to kick them out, but Alan's attempt to help leads to his being marked by a demon. Now the only way to save his life is to fight the magicians hunting them.

And

 

Dragon Bones by Patricia Brigg

Genre: fantasy

General premise For most of his childhood, Ward pretends to be less intelligent than he is, so his father won't accuse him of treachery and kill him. When his father dies and Ward becomes ruler, he learns the family secret about the power available to him from the ghost that isn't a ghost. But Ward's also played an idiot for so long that he's now a target for nobles who think he's incapable of ruling.

 

I love both of them, but these two protagonists couldn’t be more different. Nick seems like a psychopath at first glance. I believe the author of The Demon's Lexicon said that her idea with Nick had been to write the hot, bad boy that is so common in fiction, without giving him a fairy-tale heart of gold (even though everyone around him wants to think he has a hidden, softer side). Unlike true psychopaths, Nick never lies (and therefore always keeps his word and never makes excuses), and he loves and protects his older brother Alan wholeheartedly. With Nick, what you see is what you get. At least, until you start to understand him. At which point what you see is still what you get, but now there’s nuance and shading to the stark lines of his personality and world view.

 

Ward, on the other hand, spends a good chunk of the book sacrificing himself for other people, and has cultivated a persona of being both nice and a little slow, so that no one ever actually knows what he’s really like. People don't think he's smart enough to have hidden his real self all those years, and he finds out the hard way that getting a reputation is much easier than changing one.

Both books have humor to balance dark circumstances, great sibling relationships and fascinating family problems. And Patricia Brigg’s unique take on the “family ghost” in Dragon Bones deserves special mention. Writing this reminds me how long it's been since I reread it. If I didn't have a bunch of blog posts to write (and a few letters to read books for asap - K, P, Q, X, Y, and Z, to be exact), I'd reread Dragon Bones right now...

Random Day: January Books

You know how they say if you have a question, ask; because probably ten other people have the same question and are just too embarrassed to admit it? Don't. I was in a class today, and a hexadecimal question cratered my brain. So I asked for clarification, and the instructor wanted to know who else was confused. Turns out the class has seven engineers and two math tutors. I guess I'm the comic relief.

Moving on...

I read some amazing books last month, and I wanted to bask in the euphoria a little longer, so rather than try new books, I just reread old ones that I already love. Silly; I know. On the other hand, I tried a new movie and wished I hadn't. The movie is based on a totally hilarious book, but it seems the screenplay writer didn't actually get the appeal of the book. I'm assuming it didn't last much beyond opening weekend.

So on to the stuff I did like!

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
Genre: YA

I know this is THE book John Green's been writing for something like a decade. But for me, THE John Green book will always be An Abundance of Katherines, a book I love so much that I hand-pimp it to anyone who talks to me for more than eight minutes, yet which I identify with so personally that I can't even write a blog post about it.

But I can see the brilliance of The Fault in Our Stars. I liked the characters. Yes, even the flawless love interest. I don't get the appeal of "manic pixie dream girls" who pepper stories written by men ( Zooey Deschanel, who is amazing, plays that role a lot. Weeds, 500 Days of Summer, and to a lesser extent The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and New Girl, from the 2.5 episodes I saw), but I do get the appeal of the hot, cheerful boy who always says unbelievably witty, brilliant things with perfect timing. That version of unrealistic love interest doesn't come up nearly often enough. In fact, the only other examples I can think of are all womanizing rakes from regency romances, a character trope I despise.

I'm babbling about Deschanel and regency rakes in order to avoid talking about The Fault In Our Stars. Because it's about kids dying of cancer. It's amazing. I cried and I laughed and I felt awful for laughing. I know many people have lived this story in their own painful, unique way. I think only John Green could have written about it like this.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Genre: literary/magical realism

Celia and Marco have trained their entire lives for an epic duel set up by their instructors, and the black-and-white Night Circus is the magical battle field. Despite their growing love for each other, leaving the fight is physically impossible, and only one of them can win.

This is one of very few books I've read that hurtled towards such a terrible ("terrible" as in "depressing", not "badly-written") end that I couldn't even begin to imagine how the author would resolve it. And then she did, and it wasn't tragic or ridiculous or eye-roll-inducing. It just made perfect sense. The world-building was amazing. And the magic seems to have no discernible rules, and yet feels completely believable.

Tangent: I've heard a lot about the tortured artists who supposedly make up the bulk of the writing world, the people who suffer for their craft and whatnot. I have to say Erin Morgenstern is my idea of what a writer would be if I were making one up. She's quirky and adorable and takes cool pictures and says cool things and does cool stuff. Authors tend to be very...normal. Which is not at all surprising. It just doesn't fit with the popular narrative. Oscar Wilde and J.D. Salinger and the like were so unusual that they've come to define what people picture when they think "writer".

The Future of Us by Jay Ashby and Carolyn Mackler
Genre: YA

It's 1996, and Josh gives Emma an AOL cd so she can log on to the internet. Except once it's installed, it logs them on to Facebook, fifteen years in the future. From the updates, they can see that 2011-Emma hates everything about her life (with good reason), and 2011-Josh is rich, successful, and married to the hottest girl in school. Emma's determined to change her future, but everything she does changes Josh's future, too, and he's not happy about it.

I'm so glad I've found another book by two authors! There's another I want to write about, and I couldn't think of any books to recommend along with it. I'll leave discussions of the merits/issues in this book to other reviewers, but I thought the concept was fascinating. I graduated from high school at the same time as the kids in The Future of Us, so the nostalgia factor totally works for me. I'm not sure who the target market is, though - one of my friends is in her early twenties, and was completely unmoved by the premise, which makes sense to me. I can only assume teenagers would feel even more so. But the book definitely reads like YA. On the other hand, I loved Ready Player One, and I certainly don't remember the 80s.

Okay, here's a list of all the books I reread this month:
The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells
The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan
The Demon's Surrender by Sarah Rees Brennan
Lion of Senet by Jennifer Fallon
Eye of The Labyrinth by Jennifer Fallon
Lord of the Shadows by Jennifer Fallon
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Among Friends by Caroline B Cooney

All speculative fiction or YA. Well, Among Friends would probably be sold as middle grade now. I'll have to do a post on Among Friends at some point. It's crazy, going back to that book 22 years after I first read it, and seeing how much my sympathies with specific characters have changed now that I have an adult perspective.

Secrets in our world

I recently watched a Decoded episode about the Culper Ring, the spy network George Washington used to help the USA defeat the British during the Revolutionary War. The Culper Ring was made up of regular people like tavern keepers, farmers, tailors...and women. Their spymaster apparently realized women had the perfect cover, because no one ever suspected them of being anything other than the socially-agreed-upon obvious.

One of the female members of the ring, Anna Strong, used combinations of wet laundry hanging in the breeze to signal whether a contact had arrived, and which of six coves he was waiting in. Another woman, possibly from an aristocratic family, may have been crucial in discovering Benedict Arnold's plan to hand over West Point to the British.

Secret groups fascinate me. More than the excitement involved, it's the idea that what we're aware of is only the surface; that our world is so much more intricate and messed up than we think. The people involved do view the world differently than the rest of us, because they know things we don't. Talk about a unique viewpoint. In urban fantasy, that alternate world view often involves knowledge of magic. In Holly Black's book, it's tightly meshed with the history of organized crime.

White Cat by Holly Black

Genre urban fantasy

How it starts The last thing Cassel wants is attention, but he's doing a terrible job at keeping a low profile. He wakes up teetering on the edge of his prep school dorm roof, wearing only boxers. Calling for help draws a crowd. The camera phones come out. So do the jerks urging him to jump.

General Premise Cassel's the only regular person in a family of curse workers - people who can hurt you by touching you with a bare hand. Curse working is illegal, pushing those with the talent into being con artists or working for the mob. Unlike his family, Cassel's determined to be normal, but he's already haunted by the hazy memory of killing his best friend. When his brothers get drawn into a murky plot, Cassel realizes that in order to learn the truth about himself and his friend's death, he'll need to become the con artist he's never wanted to be.

Page 5 Quote

The last time I was in the headmistress's office, my grandfather was there with me to enroll me at the school. I remember watching him empty a crystal dish of peppermints into the pocket of his coat while Dean Wharton talked about what a fine young man I would be turned into. The crystal dish went into the opposite pocket.

Magic in our world

Holly Black does a masterful job at weaving curse magic into our history and politics. She did a ton of fascinating research into con men and the crime underworld, adding even more depth. This is one of a handful of books where I read to the end, turned right around and read the whole thing again.

There's also the brilliant ads for these books, showing awesome public service announcements against curse-working. I've read the second Curse Workers book, Red Glove, and am anxiously waiting for Black Heart, coming out next year.

A few other books that weave secret magic into our world:

Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan
Genre: historical fantasy

Queen Elizabeth I made a pact with the faerie queen, allowing her to gain the throne and lead a flourishing England. But every conflict in England's royal and political courts affects the Fae court underneath the streets of London, and thirty years after the pact, Elizabeth no longer seems to be toeing the line. When the faerie queen sends disgraced courtier Lune to redeem herself by secretly influencing Elizabeth's spymaster, Lune's task is complicated by Michael, a member of Elizabeth's court and protege of the spymaster, even as the secrets behind the two thrones pushes the world towards war.

This book led not only to my fascination with Tudor monarchs in general, Elizabeth I in particular, and the spymasters who foiled (or instigated) all sorts of plots around her, but was also my gateway to many more books about the Fae.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Genre: urban fantasy

Aislinn's grandmother has always warned her to keep it secret that she can see faeries - especially from the faeries. But the one now stalking Aislinn can't be ignored. He's the Summer King, and he's convinced Aislinn is the queen he's been searching nine centuries for. Unfortunately, his attention is endangering Aislinn's brand new relationship - and her life.

I wouldn't have picked this up if not for Midnight Never Come, but I'm so glad I did. I love the Wicked Lovely books and short stories. Not that the two are anything alike, other than the Fae elements. Midnight Never Come is very much political/historical suspense with strong fantasy aspects, while the Wicked Lovely books are dark love stories set against a backdrop of Fae courts.

Of Blood and Honey by Stina Leicht
Genre: urban fantasy, historical

This book is a fascinating blend of recent Irish history and ancient folklore. Until I read Of Blood and Honey, I was far more familiar with the official English version of The Troubles than I was with the Irish account. Words can't express how impressed I was with this book. And Leicht is definitely not afraid to put her characters through hell. I'm not sure when the second book comes out, but you can see its gorgeous cover on Leicht's livejournal.

Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

Genre: urban fantasy

No faeries in this one, but the demons and magicians supply plenty of modern-day action, when we aren't being entertained by the two sets of siblings who are the main characters. I'd be embarrassed to tell you how many times I've reread this series.

Random Day: early December reading

I'm pretty pleased with my books this week!

Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon

Genre: crossgenre fantasy/historical fiction

Lord John Grey is on a mission to track down spies and traitors threatening the Crown. He’s furious when his brother enlists Jamie Fraser to help him translate secret documents. Fraser, Scottish laird and prisoner of the English after the Jacobite Rising of 1745, has as much reason to hinder their cause as to help them. Also, things didn’t end well the last time Fraser and Grey met.

I finished Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner, and it didn't disappoint. I adore Lord John Grey himself (especially as a secondary character in the Outlander series), but must admit I've been ambivalent about the series on his own life. Unlike the Outlander books, the Lord John books are mysteries a la Sherlock Holmes (for lack of a better comparison), and they've always left me vaguely puzzled when I got to the end and couldn't figure out all the jumps made to solve whatever he'd been sent out to handle. I loved being steeped in Gabaldon's rich descriptions of the Georgian era, but the plots I could take or leave.

Until now. The Scottish Prisoner is by far my favorite of the Lord John books. It's also a bit more...I believe the term we use in the USA is "explicit"... than I recall the others being, but I doubt blushing's ever killed anyone, so I'll be all right. They're supposed to be standalones, but involve a lot of names, relationships, and backstory. Hard to say how difficult the background details are to keep straight, since I've read all the previous books.

Now I'm reading
The Silence of Trees by Valya Dudycz Lupescu
Genre: Historical fiction

I'm not sure how I found this book. I may have clicked on an ad, or it might have been recommended on Goodreads or Amazon or something. The writing is so lush, the beginning so fairy-tale like, I thought I was reading something like Laini Taylor's Lips Touch.

It starts out with a dreamy girl sneaking out of her house against her parents' wishes, to consult the fortune teller in the woods just like all her friends have done. I was instantly enthralled.

And then someone mentioned the Nazis.

I'm still reading, but now I'm tense, with my shoulders hunched up around my ears, waiting for something horrible to happen. I went through a phase in high school where I read stacks of books about WWII. I got a good education in man's cruelty to man. It boggles the mind that people could do such horrible things to other people they knew, and have continued to do so, in Bosnia, in Rwanda, in Sudan, in Syria, everywhere. One person hurting another in secret is bad enough. Large groups hurting other large groups, out in the open...we should know better by now. We should be able to talk each other into doing the right thing. But we don't, and it's really depressing. So The Silence of Trees is gorgeously written, but I may finding it too sad to finish. We'll see.

One more book.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Genre: YA

I mentioned Lips Touch: Three Times, a book of short stories, magical in content and effect. But until I heard Laini read a short story at the Sirens Conference, I hadn't realized just how much her writing makes me swoon.

Sometimes you can feel how hard a writer worked to come up with a brilliant description or metaphor. But Laini's writing is so right and so effortless, which is of course incredibly hard to accomplish. For instance:

Page 29 He looked like an escapee from a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

Page 121 "There, there," he said, his voice ringing hollow of compassion. "He can't see it. It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry 'Monster!' and looked behind him."

Page 258 She had the dead eyes of a jihadist.

Laini looks like she belongs in one of her stories, with pink hair and a sweet smile. She spins magic and longing and anticipation into exquisite tales. It seems like an odd choice even to me, but I would describe her writing as "fearless". Such naked hope and unabashed wistfulness, building into either delight or crushing disappointment over and over, and no warning of which one's coming. I think the depth of longing her characters embody isn't something adults are comfortable admitting to feeling. Which is probably why her books touch us so deeply. And why her books are sold as YA.

For a proper review of the book, read Rachel Hanley's take.


So that's this week's selection. What are you reading?

Siblings!

Siblings aren't celebrated nearly enough. And when they are the focus of the story, rivalry comes up far more often than devotion. So, in honor of siblings with the kind of bone-deep love that fiction often assumes is only possible between young women and supernatural beings, or only runs one-way from mothers to their kids, I give you:

The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

I've looked all over Sarah Rees Brennan's site and can't find the reference, but I believe she said Nick was supposed to be that hot, dangerous guy women are always falling for - except he's exactly what he seems. No heart of gold, no nice-guy-faking-gruff-exterior-to-hide-pain.

Nick is one of the most fascinating protagonists I've ever read. I think it would be more accurate to say Nick presents as a psychopath than that he is one. Like psychopaths, Nick lacks empathy, doesn't care what others think of him, and can be charming (in his case, seductive) when he feels like it. Unlike psychopaths, Nick never lies, and he doesn't make excuses for his actions.

The only person Nick cares about is his older brother Alan. And while Alan will do literally anything for Nick, he's a warm, friendly people-person, and so is often confused and disappointed by the way Nick chooses to show his love (usually by calling him stupid and fleeing at the first sign of affection). I'm not making this sound like the witty, heart-warming, amazing book that it is. Sarah Rees Brennan does a much better job with her characters than I do describing them.

This isn't the only sibling relationship in the book. There's also Mae and her younger brother Jamie. Unlike Nick and Alan, who take care of their mother and can barely make ends meet, Mae and Jamie have rich, busy, absent, divorced parents. When it comes to familial affection, all they have is each other.

Genre Urban fantasy

How it starts First lines:

The pipe under the sink was leaking again. It wouldn't have been so bad, except that Nick kept his favorite sword under the sink.

Someone who could read that and not keep going has more willpower than I do!

General Premise Nick and Alan have spent their lives running from magicians who want the charm keeping their mother alive. When Mae and Jamie arrive on their doorstep looking for help, Nick wants to kick them out, but Alan's attempt to help leads to his being marked by a demon. Now the only way to save his life is to fight the magicians hunting them.

Ugh. I hate trying to summarize gorgeous books with a few sentences. This isn't consomme. You can't reduce books like this to something retaining the richness of the whole.

Siblings

I'm all for messed-up relationships in fiction, but occasionally you want the conflict to be somewhere else. You want the character to have a solid bond with someone who has a well-rounded life of their own, not just a cardboard cutout whose death (or whatever) motivates the main character into action. Mae and Jamie are friends as well as siblings, and it makes you smile to see them interact and protect each other. Nick and Alan are just as witty and entertaining, but the dangerous lives they lead have resulted in personality quirks making for amazing characterization.

Two more books with a strong sibling bond:

The Millionaires by Brad Meltzer
Genre: suspense

As you can tell by the size of his name versus the title of the book, Brad Meltzer is pretty hot stuff. He's currently hosting a History Channel show called Decoded. It largely consists of him standing in front of a black background with sciency-looking symbols moving around on it, explaining the mystery-du-jour to us, while his team (an attorney, an engineer, and a historian) tracks down crackpots with "proof" for their conspiracy theories and tries to pretend they're taking these people seriously. I think the engineer has the hardest time with this pretense - she spends most of the meetings failing at faking that wide-eyed awe that the historian does so well. She totally has my sympathies, because I couldn't do it, either.

Still, they've done episodes on the missing White House cornerstone, the Spear of Destiny (the spear that pierced Jesus's side on the cross, which megalomaniacs like Justinian, Charlemagne, numerous emperors and popes, and Hitler have supposedly owned at one time or another), D.B. Cooper, and General Patton's death, among other things. I'm perfectly willing to sit through conspiracy theories if they come cloaked in histo-tainment.

I read The Millionaires in college, thought it was great, and forgot about it until years later when I found myself breathlessly listening to a book review on NPR. It was Brad Meltzer talking about Replay. I immediately rushed to Amazon to buy the book, but it was sold out (pretty rare for a twenty-year-old book), and thanks to the review, remained sold out for weeks. I didn't even know that many people listened to NPR!

As it turned out, the most fascinating things about Replay were the premise and what Meltzer managed to see in it. Yes, in case you haven't guessed, author Ken Grimwood is dead, so I don't think it will get back to him that I was a bit let-down by what he did with his fascinating premise - a 43-year-old man keeps dying of a heart attack, going back into his younger self and reliving his life. Because he knows what's coming, he makes different decisions each time, resulting in consequences he hadn't anticipated. He's also running out of time. Each repeat goes back less far than the one before it, but he keeps dying at 43, and now he's desperate to figure out how to change his future, not just his past.

None of this has anything to do with siblings! Back to The Millionaires. Oliver and Charlie are brothers working at the same private bank, Oliver as a junior partner, Charlie in the back office. Charlie has a chronic disease requiring expensive medication, which is why Oliver is still stuck at a job he should have moved on from long ago. When Oliver realizes he's being sabotaged by the senior partner he trusted most, he succumbs to Charlie's urging and commits the perfect crime - stealing money no one knew was there. But it turns out they weren't the only ones with that idea, and soon they're running from the bank, a private investigator, and shady secret service agents who not only want the money, but want them dead.

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern
Genre: YA

This book really surprised me. Long after I forgot what happens in it, the family dynamic stayed with me. Jessie was doing well in school, both parents were present and active in their kids' lives, and her older brother genuinely liked and cared about her, just like she did him. There's room for all kinds of books, of course, but I wish there were more like this. It's okay to like your parents. Siblings can be fascinating without being a menace.







Other books featuring great siblings?