The Riverman by Aaron Starmer

Lately, I’ve been reading more for research than for pleasure; that is, I look up the best selling self-published books and try to figure out what makes them sell.  I can’t say I’ve been terribly impressed by the quality of most of these books, but they’ve earned their authors plenty of cash, so bravo for them.  I hope that I will be clever enough to manage the same thing.  That said, I have managed to squeeze in some legitimate reads including The Riverman by Aaron Starmer.

The Riverman is a middle grade novel with a male narrator, twelve-year old Alistair Cleary.  I love this kid – which is most likely why I enjoyed the book so much.  He is sweet and sincere and well meaning boy trying to navigate the world between being a kid and being an adult.  That world becomes much more complicated when a neighbor, Fiona Loomis, shows up at the door with an incredible story and a request to write her biography.

At first, Alistair is reluctant to get involved in the project.  Fiona is pretty weird (wonderfully weird) after all, but as Fiona tells her tale, Alistair finds himself irresistibly drawn to both the story and the storyteller.  As Fiona tells it, she and a select handful of children, all of whom have disappeared, have access to an alternate universe of their own making, a world where everything would be perfect were it not for the presence of The Riverman, a stealer of children’s souls.

And while Alistair isn’t entirely sure that he believes the story Fiona has to tell, he is certain that she needs protection and that he is just the one for the job.  With his friendships with other boys deteriorating, Alistair’s feelings for Fiona grow providing his life with a meaning he hadn’t realized he was missing – which makes her well-being that much more important. 

Suffice it to say the story comes to an end with a fair amount of excitement, some missteps, and a really sweet exchange between Alistair (did I mention I love that kid?) and Fiona.

LAME FACTOR:  I can’t say I’m big on series books, but I’m actually going to read the next one.  Definitely a zero of five.

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR: Boys will be boys.  Kids will be kids.  There’s nothing that bad in here and if your parents think so, they don’t know what you’re up to.

BRAIN POWER:  While the story is very well written, it is a middle grade book so no problems.

The Scorpio Races

So, as usual, I have been reading plenty of books and blogging about zero of them, mostly because I’ve become obsessed with getting my own book published.  It is a slow, soul-sucking process which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.  Happily, I’m not particularly sensitive, and press on in spite of all the rejection.

Anyway, in the past three weeks I’ve finished three books and thought I should blog about at least one of them.  All three, Legend by Marie Lu, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, and The Riverman by Aaron Starmer, were quite good in their own way, and I would recommend them all.

In all fairness, though, I should start with The Scorpio Races because Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver was the first YA book I’d ever read (having been born in the olden days, I only had children’s books or adult books available to me) and started me on a seemingly never-ending binge of YA reading.  It is her work, in fact, that inspired me to even think of writing my own book.

The Scorpio Races is set on what appears to be a British/Irish sort of island in an indeterminate time period that seems to be the past – but if you’ve ever been on a British/Irish sort of island, you will realize that this is often the case.  Much like Shiver, the story is told from alternating points-of-view.  Puck (Kate) is the heroine of the story.  She’s a little grumbly and a lot brave, motivated to take on the terrifying challenge of racing her gentle horse against men riding killer water horses because she believes it may prolong her eldest brother’s leaving the family home.  Oh yeah, also because her parents are dead, her young brother is just a tad off, and they risk getting kicked out of the only home they’ve every known. In light of all that, prize money seems pretty tempting.

Sean Kendrick serves as the other narrator.  All angles and silence, Sean loves the island, but he loves the horses even more, particularly his water horse, Corr.  Like Puck, Sean is also motivated to win the Scorpio Races in order to sort out his own variety of issues; that is, until Puck comes along putting a new spin on both winning and on being alone.

As usual, I found the characters extremely well-written, original, and multi-dimensional.  The story, which revolves around the Celtic myth of the Capaill Uisce, water horses who rise from the ocean only to get extraordinarily cranky with anyone who tries to stop them from going back, was also quite original.  The setting, which is complex and multilayered, is generally one of my favorites anyway (i.e., anything Celtic and rainy) so I was pretty predisposed to enjoying that aspect of the story.

All in all, The Scorpio Races definitely doesn’t disappoint in any way and, as with all Maggie Stiefvater’s works, I highly recommend it.

LAME FACTOR:  Maggie Stiefvater doesn’t have a lame bone in her body.  0 of 5.

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR:  I can’t think of any reasons why they would.

BRAIN POWER:  I’m clearly prejudiced, but this is a great author who uses real words, beautiful sentence structure, and metaphors the rest of us couldn’t even begin to imagine.  Your brain might actually grow.

THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN by Holly Black

Because you have waited patiently, I give you a video:

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

I can understand where you may have thought I’d given up on this blog.  But no!  I was just trying to build the suspense.  Or maybe I’ve just been very, very busy trying to write my own book - which I’ve managed to do.  Personally, I would give my own book a 0 on the lameness scale.  Hopefully I’ll be able to find an agent who feels the same way.

While I was writing, I definitely did not stop reading.  As a matter of fact, I read so much, that when I finally sat down to write a new entry, I couldn’t remember half of the books I’d finished.  Maybe that speaks to the quality of the books – but I suspect it has more to do with an overfull brain.

The one book that really stands out enough for me to remember is The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black.  In fact, I thought it was so great, I immediately read it a second time so that I could absorb the really good parts – most of which involve a lot of blood.

Just when you thought there was no room left for an actually decent vampire book, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown comes along with great writing, a totally original plot, and fascinating characters.  I picked the book up after reading Holly Black’s Doll Bones, a book I assigned my students as a summer assignment, and I was far from disappointed.

Tana is a girl who doesn’t back down from a difficult situation – in fact, difficult situations seem to drive her to act.  Waking up after a long, alcohol soaked evening, Tana finds her friends are not quite in the condition in which she remembered them.  She also finds her sometimes ex-boyfriend, Aidan, tied to a bed on his way to changing after having been bitten by a vampire.  In the corner there sits the most absolutely interesting male vampire character I’ve encountered, Gavriel who possesses a mixture of old world charm and serious bloodlust.  He is a vampire, after all.

When vampires lurking in the house threaten to break down the door, the easiest – and safest – move would be for Tana to jump out the window and make a run for it while the sun is still up.  Tana’s no wuss, though, and she’s not about the leave Aidan – jerk or not – behind; nor is she going to leave Gavriel – dangerous or not to the mercy of vampires who don’t seem to feel any sort of kinship with him.

And so begins an intricate and blood soaked journey in which Tana voluntarily enters a coldtown, a place where vampires, vampire wannabes, and masochists reside, living and dying off of one another’s twisted desires.

It all sounds pretty gross when I look it over, but believe me, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a super engaging read.

LAME FACTOR:  Have I not made it clear that it is a zero of five?

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR:  Uhh…maybe?  There is quite a lot of “bad” behavior, but nothing overly shocking.  Did I mention there’s lots of blood?

BRAIN POWER:  Holly Black is an excellent writer and this is a well-written story with strong, but not overwhelming, vocabulary. The story is worth the struggles of your little brain.  

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

This summer I went to France and Gatlin, SC.  OK, so I literally went to France, but mentally spent my five weeks there in Gatlin, the small southern town setting of the Beautiful Creatures series.

Reading each one of these 500-page volumes was like being sucked into another world and I found it hard to tear myself away from Ethan and Lena each time my mother-in-law called me down for yet more food.

One of the best things about this series is its narrator: Ethan Wate.  That’s right: two women wrote a book with a male narrator.  Sometimes I get sick of being inside the mind of teenage girls - ugh - so reading a story from a male point-of-view was a change very likely to keep me awake.

Ethan is, above all things, a nice guy, which is pretty cool. He is also bored - and who hasn’t been there?  Spending the summer in a town that doesn’t even have a post office, I can relate.  Anyway, Ethan’s family has lived in the same town for generations, so there isn’t much he doesn’t know or doesn’t expect - that is until Lena Duchannes comes along.

Dark and mysterious, Lena is the complete opposite of the fake blonds populating Gatlin; that isn’t why Ethan is first drawn to her, however.  Lena and her scent of lemons and rosemary, he soon realizes, is the same girl he has been dreaming about - literally - over and over again. 

As is often the case, even with true love, things don’t get off to a smooth start.  Lena seems less than enthusiastic about Ethan and the situation doesn’t get much better when she blows out a window in their English classroom - very cool.

Lena and Ethan seem to be fated for one another, however, by ties way older than themselves, so they manage to get over their issues.  Well, most of their issues, and Ethan might actually find himself wishing he were bored again.  Lena, it seems, is a Caster, a sort of powerful witch-like girl from a long line of people with supernatural powers.  That would be cool if Lena’s abilities were limited to awesomeness like blowing out windows to scare snotty girls, but it also involves things like being “claimed” - finding out if she will spend her life as a light (good) or dark (not so good) Caster.

In addition to likeable characters and an interesting plot, the setting of Beautiful Creatures is extremely engaging.  I’ve always been interested in the South, especially the spooky and superstitious aspects.  Beautiful Creatures definitely provided me with my fill of spookiness and superstition.

Happily, having finished the sequel, Beautiful Darkness and now half way through Beautiful Chaos, I just discovered there is another one coming out soon.  That is definitely a good thing because, to be honest, I’ve already read the end of the Beautiful Chaos and I want answers.

LAME FACTOR:  A big ‘ole 0 of 5 for lameness, y’all.

YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR:  For technical reasons that you will discover, Ethan and Lena are very well-behaved, so there is nothing to worry about - unless, of course, your parents have a thing about the paranormal.

BRAIN POWER:  Beautiful Creatures is well-written and easy enough for a fairly good reader.  No excuses.  

A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

I’m not sure how I felt about A Discovery of Witches. One day, I really liked it and wanted to read ahead to see what would happen. The next day, I thought the story was too bogged down in unnecessary details. I definitely don’t need to know exactly what everyone eats or how the characters take their tea. In the end, things balanced out, more or less, and I would say I like the story more than not. Like most of the books I read these days, A Discovery of Witches involved paranormal creatures; in this case, witches, vampires, and some weird hybrid, daemons. The main character, Diana Bishop, is a witch who wishes she wasn’t. That’s not much of an option as, not only is she a witch, but a super powerful one descended from a long line of witches (you might recognize the name Bishop from the Salem witch trials). Blaming her parents’ deaths on witchcraft, Diana casts aside her magic skills – as best as she can – and concentrates on developing a career as a history professor. Her normal life rolls along pretty well until, while doing research at Oxford one day, she calls forth a very special book: an enchanted book, presumed lost, that appears from the stacks and opens easily for Diana. And that’s the point; it opens easily for Diana, but not for anyone else. Enter every paranormal creature in a 100-mile radius. Jealous witches, menacing vampires, and jittery daemons appear from every corner. Diana, not having educated herself in the ways of the paranormal, can’t figure out what’s up. A bit freaked out by the sudden attention, she is particularly surprised by the arrival of a handsome (aren’t they always?) vampire who literally sends chills down her spine. If you can’t figure out what happens next, you really aren’t reading enough. Clearly, the witch and the vampire fall in love, defying all of the rules of witch-vampire relations and setting off cataclysmic events that will undoubtedly require another book or two to resolve. Shortly thereafter, fearing for the life of his love, Matthew, our handsome vampire, whisks Diana off to his chateau in France (there aren’t any poor vampires either) where chaos ensues. The story is pretty predictable – but maybe that’s just because I’ve read a tremendous number of these types of books. That, however, wasn’t a problem as I thought the story was relatively engaging. The real issue was the overuse of detail. I love a good detail that helps me get a clear picture of the story, but sometimes it felt like way too much. I guess that’s what happens when the author is a history professor. Overall, however, A Discovery of Witches was a decent example of this genre and, if you’re a lover of series books (doesn’t anyone write just one book anymore?) then you’ll be happy to know that book number two is out and number three seems to be on its way. LAME FACTOR: I’ll have to give it a 1 out of 5 for too many details about wine cellars. OK; so not that specifically, just too many details in general. YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR: These characters are very well-behaved, so unless your parents are opposed to the paranormal, they’ll be fine. BRAIN POWER: The book is well-written and definitely targeted towards older – and better – readers.

Immortal Beloved by Cate Tiernan

Nastasya - or Nasty as she is known to her friends - isn’t exactly the type of character I generally enjoy. Think back to my love for Grace of Shiver and you’ll see why. Whereas Grace was intelligent, independent, and sensible, Nasty is a bit of a jerk. Well, more than a bit, actually. Nasty is a hard drinking, party girl whose personality displays all the superficiality I usually hate in girls. But then I guess you’re bound to get bored after you’ve been alive for two or three or even four hundred years. Eventually, as Nasty has discovered, the good girl thing isn’t so interesting anymore. With her band of equally empty friends, Nasty has spent the last several hundred years drinking her way through the decades, concerning herself only with filling up the hours which, I have to admit, must start to seem pretty long after awhile. Happily, though, Nasty isn't nearly as empty-headed as she first seems. Having survived some horrendous tragedies over the centuries, including the loss of her family, Nasty has developed coping mechanisms that include drowning herself in alcohol and, generally, try not to think too deeply about anything. And then it all catches up with her. Witnessing an incredible act of mindless cruelty on the part of one of her friends, Nasty has an “I-can’t-take-this-anymore,” moment and splits without letting anyone know where she is headed: River’s Edge, a sanctuary for immortals looking for guidance. River’s Edge is a sort of home for lost immortals and is directed by the ever wise, River, herself an immortal who really seems to have her act together. At first, Nasty fluctuates back and forth between wanting to turn over a new leaf and wanting to return to a life where numbness covers up painful memories. I once again found her behavior a bit irritating, but I think that, in reality, her feelings would be fairly normal. Among the perks of living at River’s Edge - you know, aside from things like not waking up and vomiting every morning - is the incredible Reyn, a Scandinavian god of a man who instantly has Nasty’s attention. He’s anything but charming, but what he lacks in manners, he seems to make up for in extraordinary good looks. Who needs talking anyway? In the end, I found Immortal Beloved to be an extremely entertaining story with the added bonus of a good lesson about how to best live one’s life. It was such a good story, in fact, that I began the sequel, Darkness Falls, right away. Stay tuned for that one. LAME FACTOR: I would give it a 1 out of 5 for Nasty’s often annoying behavior, but I suspect I’m the one who is lame. That said, it realistically deserves a 0 of 5. Summer reading book, anyone? YOUR PARENTS WILL FREAK FACTOR: Well, they might, just a teensy bit. There are many references to bad behavior, but nothing too graphic, and the character does learn her lesson. There is also some paranormal mumbo-jumbo and violence. As long as you don’t use it as a “how to” book, everything will be fine. BRAIN POWER: Immortal Beloved is very well-written, but nothing you can’t wrap your little head around.