young adult fiction

Aug 29 2011

Breath of Angel by Karyn Henley

 

As regular readers of this site know, I am intrigued by imaginative young adult fantasy and almost anything that deals religious and mythological themes.  So I was intrigued by Breath of Angel.  Here is the book trailer for the visual among us:

Here is the publisher’s description for the textual:

When Melaia, a young priestess, witnesses the gruesome murder of a stranger in the temple courtyard, age-old legends recited in song suddenly come to life. She discovers wings on the stranger, and the murderer takes the shape of both a hawk and a man.

Angels. Shape-shifters. Myths and stories—until now.

Melaia finds herself in the middle of a blood feud between two immortal brothers who destroyed the stairway to heaven, stranding angels in the earthly realm. When Melaia becomes a target, she finds refuge with a band of angels attempting to restore the stairway. But the restoration is impossible without settling an ancient debt—the “breath of angel, blood of man,” a payment that involves Melaia’s heart, soul, and destiny.

This seemed like it had a lot of potential.  And upon reading the first book in this series, I think it did/does. But for me, the story never lived up to the potential.  The first chapter is so well done that you want that kind of suspense and tight story telling to last – but it doesn’t. Instead the story seems to lose its power as it continues and never really regains the power it showed in that great start.

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By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Aug 24 2011

The Dragon’s Tooth: Ashtown Burials #1 by N.D. Wilson

There is always a certain amount of excitement mixed with nervousness when a favorite author starts a new series. What if I don’t like it, or worse, what if it isn’t any good?

It is with just such excitement and a tinge of nervousness that I approached The Dragon’s Tooth N.D. Wilson’s first book in a new series called Ashtown Burials.  The publisher was kind enough to send me a copy, so I dived in and read it in a couple of days. The excitement stayed and the nervousness went away.  It was a fast paced, imaginative and action packed adventure.

Here is the publisher’s introduction:

For two years, Cyrus and Antigone Smith have run a sagging roadside motel with their older brother, Daniel. Nothing ever seems to happen. Then a strange old man with bone tattoos arrives, demanding a specific room.

Less than 24 hours later, the old man is dead. The motel has burned, and Daniel is missing. And Cyrus and Antigone are kneeling in a crowded hall, swearing an oath to an order of explorers who have long served as caretakers of the world’s secrets, keepers of powerful relics from lost civilizations, and jailers to unkillable criminals who have terrorized the world for millennia.

Wilson’s 100 Cupboards series started slowly and involved world building and a more literary style – at least in my opinion. The pace felt slower and the descriptions and detail more complex and layered.  Dragon’s Tooth, in contrast, starts off with a bang – shotgun blasts bring the first chapter to a close – and the break neck pace basically continues for the rest of the book.

That is not to say there isn’t complexity and vivid descriptions, but Wilson fills in a complex fantasy backstory as the plot rockets forward rather than setting the scene and then launching the adventure. As the action happens readers begin to get a glimpse into what has brought Cyrus and Antigone to this point and how their family history has led them to this seemingly impossible scenario. Chapters give you a chance to catch your breath but you want to immediately plunge back in and find out what will happen next. Of course, you race to the end only to be faced with the unanswered questions and the inevitable wait for the next book in the series.

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By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , ,

Jul 18 2011

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Amidst all the discussion of darkness in young adult fiction, here is a book that tackles difficult subjects and certainly contains elements of darkness but that I would recommend highly. It is not that Between Shades of Gray is a job to read, in many ways it is not, but it is important to read and deal with the history it so eloquently portrays. It covers events that many in the world would just soon forget but in the process helps us remember what really matters.

Here is the publishers description:

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously – and at great risk – documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

Obviously, concentration camps and atrocities make for uneasy reading. And they are not the subject of easy conversations with young people. Even adults have a hard time getting their heads around the level of violence and ofter prefer not to think about the depths humans can sink to. But Sepetys has managed to walk that fine line between over-playing the violence and degradation and humanizing it to the extent it loses its power to revolt us and force us to think about its implication. This is a story with appealing and deep characters and an emotional strength despite its difficult subject.

There is an attractive side to the horrors man commits against man – the integrity, devotion and love shown in the most ugly of circumstances. The Vilkas family has done nothing wrong and yet they are separated and shipped off to work/death camps; treated as less than human for no other reason than their nationality. But they find a way to hold on to love and hope; to show compassion and to learn to love others even in the filth and pain of their circumstances.

Lina uses her art to process what she is experiencing; to try and makes sense of the world and record it for posterity. She is forced to mature beyond her years but she finds a way to see the kernal of humanity despite the brutality.

Am not usually one to offer literature as didacticism but this story is a powerful way for adults and young adults to conceptualize and begin to understand the monstrous tragedies Stalin perpetrated and at the same time the incredible ability of humans to survive and the importance of what are too often abstractions: love, truth and freedom.

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Jul 16 2011

Alex Van Helsing: Vampire Rising by Jason Henderson

My reading in the young adult genre or age group has mostly been focused on fantasy with a mythological and/or fairy tale perspective. Jason Henderson‘s Alex Van Helsing series fits into that, kinda. After all it uses the Van Helsing legend as a touchstone and vampires are part of mythology.  And yet it has a much more contemporary feel to it than most books I read. The literary and mythological background is there but the focus is much more on action and adventure than myths and legends.

But with the second book in the series coming out at the end of the month I decided to start with the first book: Alex Van Helsing: Vampire Rising. It turned out to be a rather uneven start. Some promise with the style and characters but a plot that moves in fits and starts.

Here is the publishers blurb:

The Van Helsing name reborn

Fourteen-year-old Alex has no idea that he’s descended from the world’s most famous vampire hunter, but that changes fast when he arrives at Glenarvon Academy and confronts two vampires in his first three days. Turns out Glenarvon isn’t the only school near Lake Geneva. Hidden deep underground lies an ancient university for vampires called the Scholomance. And the deadly vampire clan lord known as Icemaker? You might say he’s a visiting professor.

When two of Alex’s friends are kidnapped by Icemaker, it’s up to Alex to infiltrate the Scholomance and get them back—alive. Assisted by the Polidorium, a top-secret vampire-hunting organization with buried ties to the Van Helsings, Alex dodges zombies, bullets, and lots—and lots—of fangs on his way to thwarting Icemaker’s plans and fulfilling his family destiny.

More thoughts below.

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Jul 12 2011

The Great Mogul Diamond (The Dopple Ganger Chronicles) by G.P. Taylor

When I first heard about The Dopple Ganger Chronicles by G.P. Taylor I was intrigued. Part graphic novel part young adult action story? Interesting, no?  So when Tyndale publishers offered a review copy of the third book in the series, The Great Mogul Diamond, I jumped at it.

Here is the publisher’s blurb:

Everything was going so well for a change. Sadie and Saskia Dopple, those troublesome twins, had been adopted by the wealthy writer and recluse Muzz Elliott. And their friend Erik Morrissey Ganger was finally on his way to becoming a full-fledged private detective. But when an anonymous note threatens someone they love, the twins are off on an express train to danger. Suddenly they find themselves awhirl in a series of crimes—stolen right off the pages of Muzz Elliott’s own mystery novels. The twins need to figure out who’s behind this twisted plot soon, or Muzz Elliott will be framed for her own greatest literary invention . . . the theft of the Great Mogul Diamond. Meanwhile, Erik speeds through the countryside in an unbelievably cool car with private eye Dorcas Potts, racing the clock and attempting to outwit a gang of robbers. At the end of the road (if he ever gets there), he and the twins will have to get their hands on the diamond first in order to save Muzz Elliott. But not even this car is fast enough to escape the nagging doubts in Erik’s mind . . . What do you do when you aren’t sure what’s right? Sadie, Saskia, and Erik face this question head-on in the third installment of The Dopple Ganger Chronicles, by New York Times bestselling author G. P. Taylor.

It turned out to be a quick, unique  and entertaining read. The graphics made it visually interesting and the story was well paced and had enough suspense and twists and turns to keep the reader plugged in.

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