Book Review: A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce
When her father dies, Charlotte Miller is given the responsibility of the family mill, and will do anything to keep it running. The mill and the family that runs it is rumoured to be cursed, and while Charlotte doesn’t believe that, it’s easy to see that her family has had bad luck. With no grown sons in the family for generations, the mill constantly seems to be under hardship. When her estranged uncle becomes her guardian, the pressure to sell the mill begins to be put on Charlotte. When she discovers an unknown and massive debt of her father’s, things seem direr than ever. When a stranger arrives in town promising he can help, Charlotte makes a deal against her better judgment. As her debts grow deeper, she tries to learn the truth about her family’s curse. Charlotte will do anything to protect the mill, but to what price?
A Curse Dark As Gold is a retelling of the story of Rumpelstiltskin and the Miller’s Daughter, set in a fictional world that is reminiscent of England during the Industrial Revolution. This story has many differences from the original tale, removing the boasting father and the cruel king. It also looks at Rumpelstiltskin in a different and deeper light. The story centres around Charlotte, who is a strong young woman that carries the family mill after the death of her father. While the central romance in the story was forgettable, there was a strong heroine who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it. I found the story to be a bit slow moving but it was still well written. I liked how the writer created an original world that is similar to the 1700’s, only with magic. As a fairy tale retelling, this book is a unique and well thought out take on the original story. I liked how the author questioned the characters motifs and tried to look at them in a different way. She also looks deeper at the story and at all the things the Brothers Grimm don’t tell us. It’s a retelling that is well executed and adds a lot to the original. Fans of fairy tales will enjoy this new take on a classic, which looks deeper into the hearts of the old characters. A Curse Dark As Gold is a story about desperation and the power of the past that will stay with even you after the last page.
4/5
Book Review: Bumped by Megan McCafferty
In 2036, twins Harmony and Melody reunite after being separated at birth and raised in two different worlds. Harmony was brought up by a religious family in Goodside, raised from a young age to hopefully become a wife and mother before she finishes her teenage years. Melody’s parents are University professors who have lead her to become a top paid professional surrogate. A newly discovered virus causes sterility by the time teens turn approximately eighteen, so girls like Melody are paid to become pregnant. When Harmony shows up at Melody’s door, it seems like these two twin sisters couldn’t be more different. Now that both girls are sixteen, more pressure than ever is being put on them. For Harmony it’s to wed and have children, and for Melody it’s to become pregnant so she can have a free ride through college. While their lives couldn’t be more different, the one thing Harmony and Melody have in common is that their paths have already been chosen for them.
This is a funny little book, but probably not as appealing for fans of dystopia. Megan McCafferty is also the author of Sloppy Firsts, and this book is exactly as you would imagine a dystopian novel mashed with Jessica Darling. Thematically, this book is similar to many other dystopian fantasies, focusing on the importance of free choice. The style, however, is lacking the seriousness of most dystopia. I’d best describe this book as quirky, with all the silly slang and the style of writing. The main characters are twins, Harmony and Melody. Apart from the horrible choice of names, I liked them and the alternating points of view. While a lot of the characters felt like caricatures, I also liked Zen, who just wants to help people. The story was well paced and easy to get caught up in, and there were a few surprises along the way. Overall, I thought this book was entertaining, but it’s so different from other dystopian fiction that I’d say it’s more for fans of books like Sloppy Firsts. I enjoyed it enough that I will probably pick up the sequel eventually. While it didn’t have the depth of so many other YA dystopian novels, I still thought it was an interesting read.
3/5
“Faith is accepting what makes no sense, what we cannot prove, but know down deep in our souls is real.”
Book Review: The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
When Mrs. Olinksi returns to teaching ten years after she became paraplegic in a car accident, she uses a uncustomary method when choosing the four sixth grade students to represent her class in the Academic Bowl. Mrs. Olinski could have picked anyone, but instead she chose Nadia, Noah, Ethan and Julian. Nadia has an interest in sea turtles and is the owner of a genius dog. Noah is a know-it-all who recently became the best man at a wedding at the last minute. Ethan is the overlooked younger brother and is enchanted with the musical The Phantom of the Opera. Julian went to boarding school in England and doesn’t fit in upstate New York. However, it is he who brings everyone together when her invites his three classmates over for Saturday afternoon tea. Together, they make the best Academic Bowl team their school has ever seen, nicknamed the Souls. No sixth grade team has ever qualified before, beating the eighth graders, and the Souls go on to conquer the competition. Together, the Souls compliment each other and make the perfect team. When Mrs. Olinski returned to teaching she had fears about how much sixth graders may have changed over the past ten years. But did she choose them or did they choose her?
This book came out when I was a kid, and I remember constantly hearing it praised. However, I never read it, mainly because back then I usually read mainly adventure and fantasy books. I finally read it on vacation this year, while we were driving through Georgia. At first, I wasn’t too interested in this book and didn’t like the section that was from Noah’s perspective. I didn’t like how the narration switched from third person to first person is each of the Souls’ chapters. While I still feel that a third person narration for the whole book would have worked better, things picked up and I ended up loving the story. Structurally, it felt more like a short story than a novel to me, perhaps because the plot mainly focuses on a small part of each character’s background and on the competition. We get to see a part of each character’s journey and how they know the answers to certain questions. I liked the characters, especially Julian, and how they reacted to certain things life throws at them. However, as I said before, each of their sections would have been more enjoyable if told in the third person. The moment I knew I loved this book was when Julian creatively invited everyone to his tea party. I thought that the story and the characters were unique and memorable. To be honest, this is a very simple story and I’m not sure if I would have appreciated it when I was nine or so, since I preferred books with lots of excitement. Now, I can appreciate books like this one that might not be action packed but are sweet stories about friendship. The View from Saturday is a charming book about what really makes a team.
4/5
“By the time they get to 6th grade honor roll, students won’t risk making a mistake, and sometimes to be successful, you have to risk making mistakes.”
Book Review: Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
In Transylvania, an enchanted forest brings fear to the villagers in the nearby valley, who arm themselves with amulets and garlic as protection against the Night People and the witch of the forest, Draguta. Unknown to anyone, the five sisters of the castle Piscul Draculi travel into the Other Kingdom every full moon, where they spend the night dancing with the magical creatures in the other realm. When their father must leave to recover from his illness, things became difficult for the sisters. Jena is the second oldest and the practical one, but she is having difficulty coping with the many challenges sent her way. Her elder sister is drawn into a forbidden romance that seems to be doomed from the start. Her cousin wants to rid the forest of the magic and seek revenge against Draguta, who took his brother from him. With her best friend Gogu, a frog that can communicate only with her, Jena will have to protect her family, Piscul Draculi and the entire forest.
What an amazing book! I’ve been reading a lot of fairy tale retellings lately in order to write this list, and this book was by far the best in YA that I’ve read. While reading fairy tale retellings, a common problem I found was that the books dragged on and felt a bit boring at parts, even if they were creative and had great world building. Considering these novels are usually based on stories that were written in four or five pages, it makes sense for them to feel slow moving when adapted into a 300-page book. Wildwood Dancing didn’t have this problem at all. It was well paced and impossible to put down. This book is basically what every fairy tale retelling should be; it was a creative take on the original that added so much to the original story. Set in Transylvania, the author utilized Romanian folktales, including the Night People, which we would call vampires. Wildwood Dancing is actually a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, but with so much more added to the story. Jena is the second oldest sister and the heroine of the story, and I loved her character. She’s the practical one who becomes head of the family, and she felt like a fully-fledged person, which doesn’t always happen in retellings of fairy tales. I do wish we got to know her four sisters better, but I thought Cezar was a villain who could be so frustrating but I pitied him at the same time. The prose was beautiful and made me wonder why I’d never heard of Juliet Marillier before now. The plot was well planned out, with unexpected twists that took me by surprise. Wildwood Dancing introduces a magical world that is enchanting and easy to submerge yourself in. As a fairy tale reimagined, this book really has it all. With adventure, a magical world, forbidden romance, dancing sisters, vampires and a magical frog, Wildwood Dancing is a book that can keep you up all night, whether it’s a full moon or not.
5/5
“If a man has to say trust me it’s a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you do without words.”
Book Review: Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty
This review will contain some spoilers pertaining to Sloppy Firsts, the first book in the series.
It’s the summer before senior year and Jessica Darling is at a special summer camp for gifted youth. Jess’ writing for the school paper earned her a place, but in all honesty she’s only attending to help herself forget about Marcus Flutie. While Jess still doesn’t think she is a writer (no matter what her teachers say) the summer has helped her make a major life decision about her future. To Jess, deciding which college to go to is the biggest decision she will make in her young life, and she has finally settled on Columbia. But when school starts again and the unthinkable happens on September 11th, Jess isn’t sure if New York is safe anymore. As Jess and everyone else tries to move on and go back to normal, Jess is surprised by how quickly that happens. The Clueless Two are the same as always, although Sara managed to lose some weight and Manda found an unlikely new boyfriend. And, surprisingly, the one person that Jess wants to forget seems to be trying to set her up with the new and improved Len Levi. As senior year comes to an end, Jess will have to decide what she wants for her future, and who she wants to spend it with.
The second book in the Jessica Darling series takes place from the summer of 2001 to Jess’ graduation in 2002. I am often wary of sequels, but there was no need for that with Second Helpings. I liked this book even better than the first. A semester has passed since Sloppy Firsts ended, and Jess is still not talking to Marcus Flutie. Let me just say, I love Hope. We learn that she was okay with Jessica lying to her and liking Marcus, and actually wants them together. She’s the character we see the least of, but I love her to death. I also love Bridget, a former member of the Clueless Crew. While at first we see Bridget as just an insecure and beautiful girl, but we get to see her as a real person in this book. It was also sad to see how much Scottie has changed since the beginning of Sloppy Firsts. Jess is pretty much the same as ever, although a bit more sex obsessed in this book. This book was a smoother read than the first book, and it never felt like it was dragging along, unlike Sloppy Firsts. There were a lot of fun additions to this book, such as Gladie. This book takes place during the 2001 school year, and 9/11 occurs early on in the book. Jess is shocked and terrified when she finds out what happens, but it is one of the rare times that she is speechless. It wasn’t as heart wrenching as it could have been, but this book was more emotional than the last. I do think that some things were predictable, such as the identity of the writer of Pineville Low, but I suppose it makes sense that Jess doesn’t catch onto these things at first because she is pretty self involved. I’m interested in how Jess will change in the third book and what her college life will be like. Overall, this was an entertaining and quick read full of fun and drama.
4/5
“You, yes, you, linger inside my heart, The same you who stopped us before we could start.”
Book Review: The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick
When sixth graders Cassidy, Emma, Jess and Megan are brought together by their mothers to form a Mother-Daughter book club, they have no idea that this is the start of something important. Instead, each girl is less than enthusiastic about being forced into monthly meetings. While Jess and Emma are best friends, Cassidy is the weird new girl and Megan is friends with the mean Queen Bee. The girls live in Concord, Massachusetts, which is the inspiration for the book they will be reading this year: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. As they read about the March sisters, the girls discover their passions and grow closer with each other and their mothers. As the girls struggle through middle school, dealing with everything from crushes to cliques, the book club brings them together and even changes them.
While this is the first book in the Mother-Daughter Book Club series, it’s actually my third book, since I started with the two most recent books in the series. This book is told in alternating points of view from each of the four girls in the book club. They’re all very different and each dealing with their own problems: Emma is teased for wearing the wrong clothes and has a crush on the coolest guy in school, shy Jess’ mom has left to pursue her career as an actress, Cassidy misses her father and wishes her mom would let her play hockey and Megan is friends with the wrong people and has a mother that wants her to be someone she’s not. It was strange to see the girls when they were younger, especially since Megan was so mean and unlike herself. It was interesting to see the girls as eleven year olds, who haven’t yet become the people they are going to be. With lots of drama to keep things interesting, the book takes place over a yearlong period. The discussion of Little Women wasn’t too sophisticated; you don’t have to read the book to follow the plot in Mother-Daughter Book Club (although there were some spoilers.) I liked how the author incorporated different aspects of Little Women into the story. I know I would have loved these books when I was younger, especially since they talk about books I loved at the time. With Mother’s Day approaching, I was thinking about how so many books portray a negative relationship between mothers and daughters. While the girls do not have a perfect relationship with their moms, it was realistic and overall positive. I really enjoy the books in this series, even if I’m a decade older than the characters. They deal with themes related to growing up while relating their struggles to the books they’re reading. Even over a hundred years later, the lives of the March sisters are still relevant for another group of girls growing up in Concord.
4/5
Book Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth
This review will contain spoilers for Divergent, the previous book in the series.
Tris Prior lives in a futuristic Chicago where everyone is separated into different factions based on their defining characteristics and what they value the most. Abnegation for the selfless, Amity for the peaceful, Candor for the honest, Dauntless for the brave and Erudite for the intelligent. While Tris was raised in Abnegation, selflessness never came easy for her and she craved the freedom she couldn’t find in her faction. Tris became a part of Dauntless, and her initiation day took an unexpected turn when the Erudite attacked using the Dauntless as an army. Now, the factions are at war with each other, and something in Tris’ brain makes her important. With her family torn apart, Tris has to deal with overwhelming guilt towards her actions in the past. Her selfless bravery means that she is constantly putting herself in danger. As Tris struggles with her role in the war, she will have to embrace the different characteristics of each of the factions.
This is the long awaited sequel to Divergent, taking place not long after the events in that book. I read Divergent last year and while I enjoyed it as a whole I thought the ending wasn’t as strong as the rest of the book. Insurgent was action packed and full of excitement. The stakes are higher than ever for Tris, who will do anything to protect those she loves. Tris is divergent and has characteristics of three of the factions: intelligent, brave and selfless. That makes her reckless and her actions can be sometimes frustrating, but I loved her character. In this book Tris is dealing with the consequences of her actions in Divergent. This means dealing with guilt and grief while still struggling with the ongoing war. I can be picky about couples in books, but I love Four and Tris together. At times they don’t make it easy, but I kept rooting for those crazy kids to work it out. One of the problems I found with Divergent was that the pacing didn’t feel right, and I felt the same way about Insurgent. I also found the plot a little difficult to follow, but at the same time some things took me by surprise, and I’m usually pretty good at predicting what will happen in books. In this book we get to see more of the other factions and even the factionless. Overall, I thought this book looked deeper into the themes and world established in Divergent. While I didn’t enjoy it as much as Divergent, fans of the series will enjoy being able to look closer into Tris’ world.
3/5
“We both have war inside us. Sometimes it keeps us alive. Sometimes it threatens to destroy us.”
Book Review: Sweethearts by Sara Zarr
Jennifer Harris was once the lonely, lisping overweight girl in the playground, who the other children teased. She only had one friend, and that was the other school outcast, Cameron Quick. On Jennifer’s ninth birthday, a shared traumatizing experience between the two children bonded them forever. After Cameron left Sault Lake City without warning, other kids at school told Jennifer that Cameron had died. Slowly, the person that Jennifer had been disappeared along with Cameron Quick. Now seventeen, Jennifer only goes by Jenna, and her name isn’t the only thing she’s changed. Jenna has friends, is thin, and even has a boyfriend. She never lets her emotions get the better of her like she used to, and she certainly doesn’t talk about who she used to be. But when Cameron comes back into her life, he brings Jenna’s past with him. Cameron was the one person who knew Jenna at her worst and loved her anyways. One thing is for sure, Cameron is definitely not dead and neither is Jennifer Harris.
This is the second book I’ve read by Sara Zarr, the first being her most recent novel, How To Save A Life. This book was written three years before How To Save A Life and you could definitely tell. The writing style wasn’t as smooth, and the plot was a bit sloppy. There was so much build up to what happened eight years ago to Cameron and Jennifer, and the revelation was a bit of a let down. I also didn’t understand why Jenna’s mother didn’t tell her that Cameron was really alive: I didn’t understand her logic at all. I wasn’t interested in the drama surrounding Jenna and her friends and I couldn’t relate to any of the characters. Nor was I interested in them, to be honest. Cameron felt more like a symbol of Jenna’s abandoned past than a real character. It was interesting to compare this book to How To Save a Life and see how Zarr has grown as a writer. The book was short and a made a quick read that was entertaining. I liked Jenna’s relationship with her stepfather, even if I disliked her mother. While I know some people will be disappointed with the ending, I thought it was realistic. Overall, it was interesting to see how Sara Zarr has developed since writing this book. While I preferred How To Save a Life, Sweethearts book was an emotional story about how you can never truly run away from your past.
2.5/5
“Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.”
Book Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Life in New Beijing is difficult for anyone, with the life threatening plague taking a hold of the nation. Things are even more difficult for Cinder, a mechanic and a cyborg. Living with her hateful guardian who uses her, Cinder feels like she doesn’t belong anywhere. When Prince Kai asks for Cinder’s help in fixing his android, she feels even more ashamed of her secret. With the plague sweeping through the world, Cinder might be more important than she ever thought. When she learns she is immune to the disease, Cinder becomes one of the most important people in New Beijing. With the world in distress as the incurable illness sweeps over everyone, things become even worst when the Emperor dies. With New Beijing in peril, the Lunar Queen has taken advantage of this weakness and is looking to become Empress or start a war. As Cinder tries to discover more about her past, she has to learn to accept who she is if she is ever to be with anyone, including the Prince.
Cinder is sci-fi meets fairy tale, when the story of Cinderella is told about a cyborg in New Beijing, in a world stricken by disease and threatened by the people of the moon. If you’re not into science fiction, this all might sound a bit ridiculous, but it works. Some fairy tale retellings make me feel like I should have thought of the same thing. I would never have thought of the plot for Cinder, and I have to admit I was a bit skeptical about it at first. One of the most original fairy tale retellings I’ve ever read, it was interesting to see how the original fairy tale was adapted into this story about a futuristic earth full of cyborgs and moon people. The story was exciting and well paced, and I thought that the plot was the strongest part of the book. The main plotline is centred more around the Lunar Queen than the Cinderella aspects of the story, so it is really more of a loose retelling. Things were fairly predictable, and this kind of sucked a lot of the fun out of reading, for me. I loved Cinder’s spunk and independence, but I still felt detached from her as a character. At the moment, I feel like it would have been smart to make this a book that stands alone and not part of a series. I wonder if it will work as well in the sequel, without the Cinderella plotline. Overall, I thought that this was an entertaining and unique book. Marissa Meyer took a big risk is retelling Cinderella in a way that has never been done before, and I think that based on this book’s popularity, it paid off.
3.5/5
Book Review: Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
When the Lady Saren refuses to marry the man her father has chosen for her, Lord Khashar, she is locked inside a tall guarded tower with her maid Dashti. With no light and mountains of food, the girls are to remain inside the tower for the next seven years, or until Saren changes her mind. While Saren is stricken with grief over losing her life, Dashti is just happy to have enough to eat and writes about their days in her diary. When the Khan, the man Saren chose to marry instead of Lord Khashar, comes to speak to Saren from afar, she asks her maid to pretend to be her. When Lord Khashar arrives, Dashti begins to learn why Saren chose to be locked in a tower for seven years rather than marry him. As Dashti tries to protect herself and her Lady, she will have to rely on her bravery and skills if she wants to save not only Ladu Saren, but everyone.
This book is a retelling of The Brother’s Grimm’s Maid Maleen. It is told through diary entries by Dashti, a Muller maid, who occasionally draws pictures of the things around her. I wasn’t familiar with the original story, but I love fairy tale retellings for bringing new life to old stories. Dashti is a strong, resourceful and unlikely heroine, who meets her unfortunate situation with optimism. I never warmed to Saren, who is Dashti’s complete opposite. I thought she was cowardly and selfish, and I wished we got to see her bond more with Dashti during their time in the tower. However, she becomes stronger towards the end of the story. Together, the girls are locked in the tower for over two years. You would assume that this would make a boring book, but the story was well paced with plenty of excitement and romance. The romance in this book was well developed and just sweet. One of the book’s greatest strengths is the world the author created, with the story set in a land reminiscent of Asia. Shannon Hale writes lyrical prose that helps her make an old story feel new again. As a fairy tale retelling, this book provided a new take on the old story that makes it worthwhile for lovers of updated fairy tales. While I’m not always a fan of epistolary novels, it worked well in this story. Book of a Thousand Days contains many of the things that make people love fairy tales: magic, love, royalty and true heroes.
3.5/5
“Mama used to say, you have to know someone a thousand days before you can glimpse her soul.”
Book Review: Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson
In the last three months, Amy Curry’s life has changed in ways she never saw coming. After the death of her father, it felt like she needed her family more than ever only to have them leave her. Now that her junior year is over, Amy is about to leave Southern California for Connecticut, where her mom is waiting for her in their new home. Some last minute changes result in Amy taking an unexpected road trip instead of flying out, so that the family car can be in Connecticut as well. Amy’s mom has planned the whole trip, including picking the driver. Roger is the son of an old family friend who is spending his summer with his dad in Philadelphia and needs a ride. The route Amy’s mom has planned is supposed to take four days, but Amy and Roger have a different idea. Instead of relying on the well planned out route they never chose, they decide to go on a few detours, completely abandoning the set route and taking much more time than four days. Visiting fifteen states in total, Roger and Amy see America in a way they never have before, from the loneliest road in America to a young Southern gentleman with a passion for shrub art. As they get to know each other while they put miles between them and California, they realize that it’s life’s detours that make the moments worth remembering.
Summer is slowly approaching and soon everyone will be looking for the perfect summer read. Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour definitely meets the criteria: romance, road trip adventure, playlists and summer. This book is interesting in a lot of ways, one being that it includes copies of receipts, snapshots, e-mails, playlists, scraps of paper and notes from Amy’s travel journal. This all worked well, especially since you can learn so much from a receipt or a report card. I love playlists being included in books about road trips, since music is always what I remember most about any road trip. Plus, I like the music featured in this book. If you want to look at the playlists in the books, you can see my scans here. The writer actually did the trip Amy and Roger do in this book, spending a whole month to do it. This showed in the book, with all the little details included.
As the book begins, Amy has a lot of issues and the fact that she’s supposed to spend an entire road trip with someone she doesn’t know isn’t helping things. However, after being in a car together for hours on end, her and Roger get to know each other very quickly. Both begin their journey with issues of their own, and although a road trip doesn’t magically fix all of their problems, it does help them see what they need to do to change things. I liked how different things worked its way into the story and the role those things played, like explorers and sharing music. In a road trip to a lot of unexpected places, Amy and Roger meet a number of interesting people, from a boy named Muz who asks them to deliver a message to a Virginia Dairy Queen, to a boy in a band named in honour of The Wizard of Oz. And, for the record, let me say that Henry Gale sounds like the greatest band to ever grace the world. Everything was well paced and always interesting, including the flashbacks of Amy’s life before the trip. I thought the characters felt real and I definitely liked Amy. I liked Roger for the most part, although midway through I felt annoyed with how he was so caught up in his ex. I still liked his relationship with Amy and seeing them come to know each other, state by state. I adored Bronwyn, but her generosity was a bit unbelievable to me. Overall, Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour is a book about self-discovery and the unexpected trips we take that make us who we are. Difficult to put down, this book is perfect for anyone who ever has the slightest urge to pack their things and drive anywhere without knowing exactly where they’re going.
4/5
“The thing about Magellan is the thing about all these explorers. Most of the time, they’re just determined to chase impossible things. And most of them are so busy looking at the horizon that they can’t even see what’s right in front of them.”
