Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Oh this is such a lovely book in so many ways. To start, there’s this cover with the attractive keys on it. There’s also an appendix filled with wonderful illustrations and a list of characters by the castle librarian, who basically the best character ever. There’s love, there’s mystery, there’s intrigue, and there’s a big fucking castle where it all takes place. 

Kristin Cashore’s first book, Graceling, is one of my favorite YA novels EVER, and it introduced the character of Bitterblue, who at nine years old becomes the queen of her country (Monsea) when SPOILER ALERT: her insane sadistic father is killed.

Bitterblue follows the now-18-year-old queen through the challenges of trying to be a good monarch to a broken (and barely healing) country, in the midst of lies and deception and mysteries and a past that never really goes away. At night, Bitterblue escapes the drudgery of day-to-day queening (and really, there is a LOT of paperwork involved) by sneaking out and seeing the streets of her city. She meets a boy with purple eyes. He’s pretty awesome. 

This is a stand-alone novel, but I think it is best enjoyed if you read Graceling first, because Po and Katsa are back in a MAJOR way, and you won’t feel the ~*~*~ if you don’t already know them. That said, as much as I loved Graceling, I think Bitterblue is a better book. Bitterblue is far more complex, the writing is stronger (in my opinion - I prefer the florid descriptions of castle life and art to the very sparse and simple style of Graceling, but your mileage may vary). It’s also a pretty long book, which I really appreciated - I waited for over a year to read this book, and I was glad to be able to spend a long time in Bitterblue’s castle, and to visit a lot of new and old characters. 

This book deals a lot with truths and secrets. Cyphers, codes, and keys are all integral to the story. These are all plusses for me, since there’s nothing I love more than a good mystery, particularly if I get to hear the full story in the end. I would be the tuning in every Friday night to watch a Robert Stack in a show called Solved Mysteries. Don’t get me wrong - not everything in this book wraps up neatly or is perfectly resolved, but the big questions are answered. 

Recommended for any and all fans of YA, fantasy, strong female characters, good books. 

The Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins

Well, you’ve already got an impression of how I feel about the first book. Since then, I’ve read the other two books and seen the movie, and I feel like we have to get a couple of things out of the way if we’re going to talk about this together: 

1. Peeta Mellark gives me swoony butterflies
2. Since I assume that 99% of you have read these books, I’m not going to really bother so much with the plot description and you can expect mild to heavy spoiler pods throughout. Proceed will caution.  

Let’s start with The Hunger Games itself. It was an amazing read. The writing felt very tight and crisp and there were a few moments, such as when Peeta makes his Big Declaration in the interview and when Katniss steps on the platform to be raised into the arena, that I will never forget. There were wonderful little touches of humor, like Peeta’s bread jokes, and even the stretches where basically nothing happens (you seriously cannot convince me that Katniss nearly dying of dehydration in the arena over many, many pages were necessary) were still tense and exciting. 

Katniss herself reminded me a lot of my two other favorite K-named kick-ass YA heroines: Katsa from Graceling and Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone. All three of these girls are tough, they’re smart, and above all, they’re survivors. I want them to start a K-Name Action Girl Club and drive around in a van solving mysteries and fighting crime. 

Peeta’s Everlasting Love for Katniss came across as a bit schlocky, sure. But since I feel that way myself about Peeta, I’m not going to judge him. I know what it’s like to be held in the thrall of a charismatic fictional character.

Eh, we can talk about Gale later. Let’s talk about Catching Fire. 

Here’s where I felt like we started to get in trouble. It became evident to me that Suzanne Collins had a great (if not necessarily original) premise, she wrote it brilliantly, and then … tried to do the same thing for Catching Fire. When we get to the Big Twist in the middle of the second book, that (AND THIS IS A BIG SPOILER) Katniss is going back to the arena, I actually groaned and rolled my eyes. Seriously? That smacks of Plot Device. 

That said, since Collins is so good at writing Hunger Games, the second book was still pretty exciting. The clock arena was fascinating. There was more Peeta. We got to know some of the victors from previous Hunger Games, and that ended up being really satisfying. 

And then came Mockingjay. Oh dear. 

It was a clusterfuck, to say the least. It was bloated out with too many characters. Katniss basically threw a series of fits until the end, I got REALLY tired of the “Katniss thinks she fucked up but ACTUALLY, she really impressed everybody,” and the big speeches were totally hokey and occurred about once a chapter. Collins started to get pretty heavy-handed with the Goosebumps-style cliffhanger chapter endings, and I started rolling my eyes at each one. 

Collin’s writing, in addition to getting sloppy, gets to be tiresome and obvious. Someday, in the future, seventh graders of The Republic of New Breadia will have a field day dissecting Collin’s obvious symbolic names. Katniss is a hardy tuber, Primrose is decorative and useless (you will not convince me otherwise), Gale is enigmatic like the wind, Rue is symbolic of regret, Peeta is warm and delicious and will envelop you like pita bread, President Snow is chilling, and by the time we get to Coin, I’m just like, I GET IT. YOU CAN STOP NOW. There are exhaustive passages that reiterate that Katniss is the Girl on Fire, from the Coal District, which causes a Spark of Hope, which cases a Wave of Fire, which is symbolic of hope, and also she has wings like a bird, and must fly but cannot risk being shot down and seriously, can we fast-forward to more Peeta?

Okay, that was a lot of bitching. I still liked a few things about Mockingjay, and The Hunger Games as a series, and I will put them in a convenient bullet list for you.  

• The relationship between observers and the observed, and the manipluation of media, is obviously a theme through the whole series, but I liked seeing how it worked (and spectacularly failed) on the rebel side.
• There was no Good Side and Bad Side. The Capitol has some really good people, and the rebels have some really bad people. That’s what life is like! 
• Big Ol’ Spoiler: Katniss ends up with Peeta. Gale guessed that Katniss would end up with “whoever she can’t survive without,” and I think her choice was in no small part motivated by a survival instinct. I think that Collins sort of shortchanges Gale’s character in the end, to give us an easy reason to dismiss him, but he was never a real contender in my mind. 
• Katniss spends most of the books trying to save the world and doesn’t spend too much time dwelling on boy trouble. 
• People are profoundly affected by trauma and are never the same afterwards, particularly the Hunger Games victors. You don’t just get over that shit. 

So that’s it. TL;DR: The Hunger Games is a fantastic book. The series starts a steep decline in quality after that, but who are we kidding, you’re going to read them all anyways and probably in record time. 

OMG RYAN I KNOW RIGHT?!

(Source: ryangoslingyoungadult)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor

Finished it on Friday, gave it the weekend to marinate. I still feel pretty much the same. EXPERIMENT: INCONCLUSIVE.

Karou is basically the 17-year-old we all desperately longed to be. She has bright blue hair, tattoos, she lives by herself in a flat (“SHE LIVES IN A FLAT,” thinks my 13-year-old self in a boring old house) in Prague (IN PRAGUE) and she’s totally talented at art, and she has the coolest best friend ever and she’s already pretty awesome, but it turns out she has this even cooler secret life in which she runs errands some monsters. Really! They are a grotesque (meaning a combination of human and animal characteristics) (thanks, Liberal Arts Degree!) band of creatures who call themselves chimaera, and they are the only family Karou has ever known. She goes all over the world and collects teeth for them. TEETH. You’re hooked now, admit it.

Akiva is … SIGH. Akiva is hot and broody and unbelievably sexy. He is literally a fucking angel, and so physically perfect that we border on some Cullen-esque florid descriptions. In fact, in his earlier dealings with Karou veered perilously close to Twilight territory, and I was almost like WHOA GIRL WHOA but there are a couple of pretty important distinctions:

1. Karou is a total badass and she can take care of herself (I TOLD YOU SHE WAS AWESOME)

2. There is a giant, complicated backstory that I cannot reveal because it is like 90% of the book. Sorry.

So we’re here because of the romance, and let me tell you, there where moments where I had to put down my Kindle and swoooon dramatically. It’s YA, so there’s nothing too graphic, but the burning gazes and meaningful forehead touches are pretty swoonworthy. I PROMISE.

In the background, we have some heavy-duty worldbuilding going on here, and it is rich and ornate and totally fabulous. Sometimes we get a bit of backstory overload, but the story is beautiful, and the secondary characters are wonderful and richly-made. The book feels a lot denser than it is - we cover a lot of territory in a relatively short book. The way that the magic works and the gradual reveal of what it does and why is intriguing and ultimately satisfying. Still, I was left absolutely wanting more (the book literally ends with “To be continued”) but you better believe I will be pre-ordering the second book as soon as it appears.

The love story is glorious and epic and feels like a grand myth, in the vein of Cupid and Psyche or Orpheus and Eurydice. That said, I’m not sure how I feel about some of the mechanics of it, and when you figure out what I’m talking about you’ll know exactly what I mean. It’s sort of accepted as fine in the book, but I’m really not sure I’m fine with it. It’s weird. Just read it, then we can talk about it.

Overall, a superb YA, and an excellent example of both a love story and a fantasy story. I wish I could be more specific in this review, but you’ll just have to trust me here. 100% worth reading.

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

Sorry for the long absence, it took me quite a bit longer to finish this book than it normally does.

SO. This is a YA classic, and Robin McKinley even won a Newberry Award for the tale of Harry Crewe and the nomadic desert people of Damar. It’s pretty universally beloved, and I thought it was pretty dope, although I did have a few complaints.

Long story short, Harry is stolen away by the king of the Hill People, Corlath, because he can ~*~sense~*~ a mysterious ~*~power~*~ in her. She lives with them in their tents, she trains to be a bad-ass warrior, learns to ride a horse and speak the language, and basically she comes of age.

Of course, there is a Great Evil force on the way, and Harry learns to wield the eponymous Blue Sword. Guess what? She saves the day.

That’s all pretty cool. Robin McKinley does an amazing job creating the world of Damar and the society of the Damarian people, and there are tons of beautiful desertscapes, a cool Hill City, and by the end I felt like I had a pretty good handle on their culture.

Now, here’s my complaint. I get that Harry ~*~belongs~*~ to the Hills for some mysterious reason, and she is ~*~gifted~*~ with special Hill powers. The thing is, I am not super fond of the convention in YA that because a young person is ~*~destined~*~ to be a hero, everything comes easily to him or her. Don’t get me wrong, Harry has to work to be a hero. But when after two months of training, she’s knocking down people who have spent their entire lives training to be warriors? I am nonplussed. Y’all remember Sabriel? She studied her necromancy for years, and she STILL got the shit knocked out of her a few times before saving the day. I think it’s awesome that Harry is a strong warrior and capable of so much, but, like, where’s the struggle?

That said, this is a wonderful YA novel and I would recommend it to everyone. Robin McKinley isn’t really known for her novels about grueling strife and hardship. She’s great at strong female characters and wonderful imagined worlds, and that’s what you get.

NEXT UP! Sorry, I didn’t mean to do two McKinleys in a week, but that’s just how it ended up. I know this is ROMANCE Club, not YA Club, and so I promise that the next review will be for a book that involves no-holds-barred P-in-V serious action. In fact, since it’s Jeaniene Frost, there might be P in other places as well. Stay tuned!

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (Capsy Canadian)
So I kept hearing about this book in various places and then noticed that it was available at the library (PAPER BOOKS!) so I went for it. Dudes, this book was GREAT!  It’s like if Groundhog Day had a baby with Mean Girls, with a dash of Sarah Dessen for good measure. Sam is super popular, and her boyfriend is super popular too, and it’s her senior year and well, the world is her oyster. And she knows it. She’s not actually super likable at first, honestly. But then there’s a car accident. And she wakes up the next day BUT IT’S THE SAME DAY. So she keeps living the day over and over, trying to figure out what she’s been doing wrong.  Mostly what she’s been doing wrong is being an insensitive brat and dating a tool, instead of the BEAUTIFUL BOY WITH LEAF GREEN EYES WHO CLEARLY LOVES HER. Seriously this kid is dreamy, and clearly I am a total pedobear because he’s what, 17? 18?
Anyways, the book totally made me cry, like BAWLING, but in a most excellent way to two huge thumbs up for me.