I know you look forward eagerly to a new update on this blog, and will no doubt be gnashing your teeth and crying in abject sorrow because last week and this week are midterm weeks, which means that I haven’t had much brain power for anything not strictly school-related. This includes reading and, for that matter, scheduling reviews.

Luckily, the Internet provides us with content.

The other day, Marg wrote a post about the Book Blogger’s Hop. Here are the instructions.

Hey book bloggers! Every day I seem to find another book blog that I start following. In the spirit of the Friday Follow, I thought it would be cool to do a Book Blog Hop to give us all bookies a chance to connect and find new blogs that we may be missing out on!

I put my blog down on the list. Have you signed up? I’ve already found several blogs that look like ones I need to add to my feed reader promptly.

In other news, I have been swamped with review requests. (By which I mean, I have 3 that came to me unsolicited and I signed up to review two. I’ve decided to make spring break the week I spend reading these review books, because they all look awesome. More on all of them when the time comes.

This was the experience I had with The Bride and the Beast by Teresa Medeiros. It featured prominently on several lists of romances with a Beauty and the Beast theme, so I figured it would be something I’d like. And while I didn’t dislike it, I wasn’t really in love either.

Our story takes place in 18th-century Scotland, in the village of Ballybliss. Apparently, to live in Ballybliss, there’s a requirement that someone drop you on your head repeatedly as a child. Put another way, none of these people, with the arguable exception of our heroine, are smarter than a fifth grader.

Our heroine is Gwendolyn Wilder, the plump, bookish daughter of the former clan chieftain’s steward. Gwen’s three sisters are all skanky whores in the making, but of course, Gwen is too pure and innocent for such things. When the Dragon, who is reported to have moved into the clan chieftain’s former castle and who is, incidentally, our hero, starts making demands of the villagers for vast sums of money, they decide to eliminate their strongest link and send Gwen to be a virgin sacrifice. The dragon takes her in, keeping her prisoner in his castle because if she knew who he was she could tell the villagers and somehow ruin his unnecessarily convoluted revenge scheme.

I liked our leads well enough. Gwen is the sgtronger character of the two, because even though she is pretty much a typical example of a romance novel heroine, she doesn’t go around insisting people call her the Dragon. The Dragon, on the other hand, sorely tested my patience. His identity is patently obvious to any reader who read the prologue, and I didn’t really buy his motivations for deciding to put forth such a cheesy disguise. Granted, he does live in Ballybliss, so maybe he, too, was dropped on his head as a child?

The romance between Gwen and her hero is cute if predictable. There is also a secondary romance between the Dragon’s one friend, the “plodding son of a minor viscount” and one of Gwen’s sisters, who is less debauched than the others. I actually enjoyed that subplot more, because I love a good beta hero and Tupper was adorable. Much more adorable than the Dragon.

Ultimately, though, this book is quite forgetable. I am not likely to remember it in the future, so I don’t feel comfortable recommending it. I’m also not sure how well it fits with my Beauty and the Beast theme this week, since the Dragon isn’t very beastly, and, in fact, the story is more Cupid and Psyche than anything else. I give this one a C.

Other Opinions

• All About Romance
• Mrs. Giggles

This novel resembles the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale in several crucial aspects, but I wouldn’t call it a straightforward retelling. Marillier takes the story and makes it her own, and it works well. I loved it, and except for one quibble which is spoilerific and which I’ll talk about below, I’d recommend this wholeheartedly.

Caitrin is running away from home. Her father has recently died, and her scheming, opportunistic distant relations have moved in and taken charge. Cillian and his mother Ita are downright abusive, and eventually Caitrin just snaps and runs away. She travels west, eventually reaching the settlement of Whistling Tor. It turns out that Whistling Tor is cursed, but its chieftain has need of a scribe, and since that’s actually what Caitrin is trained for, she offers her services, since the alternative is continuing to run from Cillian and Ita. Whistling Tor is cursed, and even though she doesn’t really believe in the curse, she figures Cillian wouldn’t be foolish enough to risk it. Of course, Whistling Tor is cursed, and Caitrin is soon embroiled in trying to figure out how to break the curse and deal with the magic of the keep. She’s also drawn to Whistling Tor’s chieftain, Anluan, a complex man who has always felt that he was a prisoner at the Tor.

As with the other Marillier books I’ve read, I loved the characters. Caitrin is timid, and good at underestimating herself. But she’s stronger than she realizes, and it’s that strength that stands her in good stead. I liked how she takes her own advice to Anluan to heart about being brave in small steps.

Anluan is also wonderful. He’s basically a good man, trapped by the curse that afflicts his home. He’s given up hope that things will ever be any different, and he’s never really had to grow up and accept adult responsibilities. At least, not until Caitrin shows up and makes him think about what his duties are and makes him feel hope. The romance between Caitrin and Anluan is sweet. It develops gradually, and at a satisfying pace, and I definitely felt the chemistry between them. There’s no explicit sex, although there are sexual references throughout.

The rest of the cast was varied. I loved the various inhabitants of Whistling Tor, with one exception, and they certainly added color to the story. Some of them could very well have had their own books, and I liked that Caitrin came to care for all of them as much as she did Anluan.

The atmosphere is very Gothic. There are some downright spooky moments, and Whistling Tor certainly is exemplary of a Gothic castle. There are also lots of elements that the heroine must fight against, from Anluan’s initial hostility to the very real supernatural forces surrounding the castle.

The story is set in Ireland, during the time of the Norman conquest. It’s clear Marillier has done her homework, and she made the setting come alive for me. Now I’m even more anxious to read her much more famous Sevenwaters books, also set in the British isles.

So, with all that going for it, why doesn’t this rate an A? I’ll tell you why, but it involves a major spoiler, so please stop reading if you don’t want to know.

I hated Muirne, the eventual villain of the piece. She was the only character who doesn’t get even a bit of a sympathetic portrayal. She was basically an ambitious, power-hungry bitch who enjoyed making people miserable but remaining completely unnoticed. And of course, she doesn’t like Caitrin, and makes no bones about it. Given that both Caitrin and I distrusted her from the beginning, I found it irritating that no one else anywhere had ever suspected her of being so eeevil, especially since she doesn’t bother to hide her true motivations from Caitrin.

I guess I’m just tired of reading about shrill ambitious bitches who turn out to be the villain. Why can’t a woman be both ambitious and a decent person? It’s a cliche that bothers me, but might not disturb other readers.

The villain aside, I very much enjoyed this book. I love Marillier’s writing style, and I love the atmosphere and the sense of wonder she evinces in her books. This one rates a B+, and I can’t wait to read her Sevenwaters books!

Other Opinions

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Unlike Crazy Beautiful I find that I have a lot more positive things to say about Beastly now that I’ve given it time to settle. Flyn manages to successfully present the fairy tale in a modern setting, and Kyle/Adrian, the main character, is drawn very well.

Kyle Kingsbury is basically a little snot at the beginning of the book. He’s hot, he knows it, and he takes the opportunity to treat everyone like crap. Eventually, though, he picks the wrong person to humiliate when he snubs Kendra, a new girl who turns out to be a witch. She transforms him into a hideous beast, and, well, we all know where this is going. He’s got two years to make a girl fall in love with him. He convinces his father, a prominent newscaster, to move him into a brownstone in Brooklyn. His dad basically gives him an Amex card to do with as he will, hires a blind tutor, and he lives a pretty idyllic life, comparatively speaking, except for the beast thing. He eventually ends up changing his name to Adrian as well. And, of course, there is a girl for him. She’s nerdy, bookish Lindy, a scholarship student at his posh private high school. Unlike the traditional tale, Lindy isn’t pretty. And Lindy’s relationship with her father is much more complicated than it’s generally presented.

It’s hard not to like Kyle/Adrian, despite the fact that he’s such a brat at the beginning. His brattiness is explained–his father is too self-involved to pay much attention to his son, and anyway his dad is pretty much a grown-up version of his son. But Kyle/Adrian grows up over the course of the novel and realizes just how shallow and awful he has been. He learns to care about people–not just Lindy but Will, his tutor and Magda, his maid–seeing them for who they are and loving them for themselves and not what they can give him. And the message is delivered in a matter-of-fact manner that didn’t feel overly forced or preachy.

The other characters are also interesting. None of them are quite as well-drawn, in my opinion, as Kyle/Adrian, but I did have to mention Will, the tutor. He’s blind, and for the most part, Flyn got the blindness right. I didn’t even mind the end of Will’s story arc, which was hokey, because at the very least he was allowed to be a competent character who wasn’t a walking stereotype. I also loved Kendra, the witch, who takes an active part in the story beyond her initial curse. And Lindy was, of course, excellent. I could understand her motivations, and though I would have liked to glimpse the inside of her head, it wasn’t necessary and Flyn did a good job of portraying her evolving feelings for Kyle/Adrian.

There were also random intervals in which Kyle/Adrian talks with other transformed characters from other fairy tales in an online chat room. This was my favorite aspect of the book, as Flyn used these chats to subtly poke fun at fairy tale tropes. They were also quite funny, and, in at least one instance, surprisingly poignant. And I liked how Kyle tried to use the modern age to foil his curse. He creates a fake myspace profile and tries to meet girls online, only for them to turn out to be either too young, cops, or hideous old hags. Well, at least he tried, and I liked that Flyn went there.

I did have a few quibbles. The pacing starts out strong, but the middle dragged. For the most part I thought Flyn handled the fairy tales well, but I thought a few things were handled better than others. I didn’t really buy Kyle/Adrian’s obsession with his roses, for instance. And I also didn’t quite buy that Kyle’s dad would just hand over his Amex and say, “Sure, kid, go live by yourself with only a maid and a tutor for company as long as you’re out of my hair.” Maybe I could buy one of those, but not the other.

Overall, I was quite charmed by this book, and I felt that Flyn did the fairy tale justice. Apparently, Sleeping Beauty is the next fairy tale Flyn will tackle, and I look forward to reading it. As for this book, it rates a B-.

Other Opinions

Persnickity Snark
• Steph Su Reads
• The Ya Ya Yas
• YA Fabulous

P.S. I got this one from Bookshare.

Our beast is Lucius Wolfe. He snuck into his old school’s chemistry lab, stole some chemicals, and experimented with them in his parents’ basement. Naturally, an accident happened, and Lucius was badly scarred. He lost both hands and now has to wear hooks. He and his family have moved to a new town for a fresh start, even though Lucius has seriously damaged his parents’ trust in him.

The beauty is Aurora Bell. Her mom has recently died, and her dad has taken a job as a school librarian, and so Aurora and her father also end up moving to the same town as Lucius. The two of them catch each other’s eyes on the bus, and, without a single word being spoken, are suddenly fascinated with each other.

As I was reading this book, which was a fast, one-sitting read, I liked it. Both Lucius and Aurora are nice kids, and I liked watching Lucius slowly try to shrug off his loner persona and realize he does care for other people. I also liked the relationship between Aurora and her dad, which was very sweet. And while I did find the romance flawed (more about that below) Baratz-Logsted had me rooting for both these kids.

But…and you knew there would be buts… there were problems. First of all, for a book that’s supposed to be about how we shouldn’t judge other people by physical appearance alone, the romance seemed pretty shallow. Aurora was fascinated by Lucius’s smile. Lucius thought Aurora was pretty. They spent a lot of the book ogling each other from afar. There were a few conversations, but Lucius shows more actual friendship toward Nick the security guard than he does Aurora. So I’m supposed to believe these kids are in love? OK, granted, they’re in high school, and high school romances weren’t exactly sophisticated or full of depth, but still, considering the story’s theme I would have liked to know why it was these two were fascinated with each other aside from “He’s so mysterious/sad” and “She’s so beautiful and nice.”

Which brings me to something else. I couldn’t stand Aurora. From her Disney princess name to her sugary-sweet personality, she just seemed too perfect. Except, of course, at the end, in which she jumps to shrewish conclusions for the sake of the plot and allowing Lucius to save the day.

Lucius I found more fascinating. His motivations were much clearer, and I found his loneliness truly heartbreaking. I also thought his protectiveness toward Aurora was terribly endearing. Plus, he’s got a lot more to work through, and the development of his relationships with his parents was fun to watch.

I don’t know if Crazy Beautiful would have worked better for me if I’d actually been a teenager. I hate to make a pronouncement one way or another, since that way I run the risk of labeling all YA as unsophisticated, which it isn’t at all. But Crazy Beautiful could have had a lot more depth. If you like YA romances, and you don’t mind somewhat lackluster characterization, go for it. But I think there are better books for your time. C+.

Other Opinions

• The Book Vault
• Devourer of Books
• Juiciliciousss Reviews
• Presenting Lenore
• One Librarian’s Book Reviews

P.S. I got this from Bookshare

Basically, the premise of this series is the Dragonriders of Pern, only with lots more on-screen sexing and an excuse for menage a trois scenes between two hot specimens of beefcake and one lucky lady. Because, you see, dragons form telepathic bonds with male knights, only when the dragons find their mates, the men have to have a woman in the picture so that they don’t need to get their boy cooties all over each other.

Fire Drake is not an acception to this premise. Drake of the Five Lands returns to Draconia, which as you might surmise is the home of all these dragons and their partners. He’s come to deliver a message that the royal princes are in danger. He plans on making his pronouncement and getting the hell out of there, because he left Draconia under less than ideal circumstances, but of course that doesn’t happen. Drake must come to grips with his father, a man who never approved of him, and face the young dragon he left pining for him years ago. Complicating matters is Krysta, a guardswoman who intrigues him, but who also seems to intrigue his best friend and rival, Mace. Of course, the threat to the princes is soon realized, and Drake, Krysta and Mace must go on a quest to find the abducted prince, a quest that will ultimately bring them closer together and change all of their destinies.

What I especially like about these books is that they are pure wish fulfillment, escapist fun. D’Arc’s worldbuilding, while nowhere near original, is still good enough that I’d love to visit Draconia, hang out in the dragons’ lairs, fly on dragonback, and yes, find two studly men to make me feel really, really good. It would just be cool, and I would much rather read fantasy where the author has an attitude of, “Wow, this would be awesome!” than fantasy that tries to be so freaking serious all the time. And while, if I think about Draconian society and how it would actually work out in the real world, I find myself not buying the concept that two men absolutely must find their one true soulmate woman, while I am immersed in the story I don’t care, and, in fact, I find D’Arc’s handling of the menage a trois, where the two men have no interest in each other, to be better than most and so I buy it.

As for this book in particular, it’s really Drake’s story. Drake could be an obnoxious Marty Stu under different circumstances, but he suffers from enough self-doubt to make him relatable, though I did wonder why none of the other characters didn’t bonk him upside the head for being so whiny about how he didn’t deserve to be a dragon knight. Mace and Krysta were also fun to read about. Mace was a shade underdeveloped, but he was basically a nice beta hero, and I liked the rivalry that characterized his friendship with Drake, as it gave them more depth. And Krysta, being a warrior woman, embodies one of my favorite heroine archetypes. I wouldn’t quite go so far as to call her a kick-ass heroine, but I liked that she held her own and wasn’t in constant need of being rescued.

As for the plot, it wasn’t quite as tight as some of the others in the series. I got the impression D’Arc was making things up as she went along, and sometimes this worked, but sometimes I was left wondering where she was going with any of her plotting. There’s a pretty major story arc throughout the series that is no closer to being resolved, but I hope there will be more progress in the next book. The author’s influences are patently obvious, but her world is just a cool place, and I enjoy my time there. This story was no exception, and it rates a B.

Other Opinions

If any of you have read this series, let me know what you think of it!

Nonetheless, I find the process of child-rearing fascinating in a detached, I-don’t-really-know-if-I-really-want-to-do-that kind of way. Which was what led me to pick up Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman’s fascinating Nurture Shock: New Thinking about Children. The authors basically assert that much of the thinking parents have had about children in the last few decades might be more harmful than helpful. They back these assertions up by talking to lots of scholars, and there’s quite an extended section at the back on notes and resources.

Some of their premises are fairly counterintuitive. They say that praising kids for being smart actually encourages them to do less well than they might already. I found this a bit hard to swallow until I thought about it. I remember a teacher telling me once that I was good at math. This seemed like a patently false statement to my fourteen-year-old self. I was not good at math. I hated math! Math was hard! So maybe I understood the core concepts, but they didn’t come easily to me, so how could I be good at math? At the time I would have much rather done something I did excel at, like an English assignment. The result was that I hated classes where I actually had to study when I was in high school, because I felt I shouldn’t have to study. I was, after all, smart. This proved detrimental to me when I first attended college, and it’s only been in recent years, having returned to school, that I’ve picked up on better study habits. Maybe if someone had tried Bronson and Merryman’s suggestion, that of praising kids for specific things they did well and praising their effort at doing them, I would have been more successful.

Some of their other assertions made more sense to me. The authors talk about how teens release melatonin later at night than do adults and younger children, and that they would benefit from having school start an hour later. I know that I certainly would have. I also thought the section on the Tools preschool program was fascinating in its approach.

I found this to be a fascinating book and a surprisingly quick read. I’m not sure it will work for many parents, and I don’t know if I’d feel differently about what I’ve read if I had kids, but I think it provides lots of food for thought.

Final Grade: B.

P.S. The authors have a website, which looks very interesting!

P.P.S. I got this from Bookshare.

Other Opinions

• Five Minutes for Books

Colin Singleton, our narrator, is a child prodigy. He has a talent for anagrams, and a propensity for dating girls named Katherine. After Katherine Xix breaks up with him, he mopes around for a while until his best friend, Hassan, convinces him they should take a road trip. This lands them in Gutshot, Tennessee, where they stumble into jobs recording the town’s history.

By all rights, I should have found Colin annoying. He spends much of the book focused on Katherine, and on how it is just his destiny to be dumped by girls, yada yada yada. But I couldn’t dislike him, because his mind was fascinating. I liked how he just randomly spewed forth trivia, and had to constantly be pulled back on task. He’s so obviously a dork, but as a girl with a definite love for geeky men, I wanted to hug him at the same time that I wanted to shake him.

While Colin was fascinating, I loved Hassan. Hassan provides a nice foil, and I appreciated that he read like a real teenage guy. I also liked that he regularly called Colin on his bullshit, and that his word for when it was time to close a subject was ‘dingleberries’. He definitely reminded me of some of the guys I knew growing up, and I really want to know what happened to him.

The rest of the characters generally worked for me. I thought Colin’s eventual love interest was an interesting character in her own right, and not the manic pixie dream girl type I’d been sort of afraid would show up after having read Looking for Alaska. I also liked that the major landowner in Gutshot wasn’t a heartless villain. The only sour note was the meathead jock, who was predictably a jerk in predictable ways.

The plot is fairly character-driven, so not a whole lot happens aside from the initial road trip and a few episodic events that happen once Colin and Hassan get to Gutshot. The focus is pretty explicitly on Colin coming to terms with his relationships and growing up, and I loved it. By the end of the book, I was happy and satisfied.

I also have to mention the setting. John Green writes about the South with obvious affection, and I liked that he chose not to populate Gutshot with stereotypical rednecks. The place came alive for me, and while I’m not sure Tennessee in summer is the kind of place I actually want to visit, I enjoyed seeing it with the obvious love that Green has for the South.

John Green writes young adult fiction that transcends stereotypes about the genre. His characters are smart and they feel authentic. Their issues may not be the subjects of Lifetime movies of the week, but they are real. The books are ultimately about hope and self-realization, and, even for this reader, who is retreating further and further from her teenage years with every passing day, they are relevant. Not to mention they are excellent reads. If you haven’t tried John Green, you really should.

Final Grade: B+

P.S. I actually plunked down cash for this book.

Other Opinions:

Lots of people have read and reviewed this book, so I refer you to the most excellent Book Blogger’s Search Engine!

Yesterday I did my own personal readathon. All I did was read, something I haven’t allowed myself to do for quite a while, unless we’re talking about reading stuff for class. I figured it was just easier to immerse myself in books than deal with the RL stuff I’m worrying about, which largely involves things I can’t control. Reading provides an escape from those worries. Unfortunately, my impromptu readathon means I haven’t done any of the other things I meant to do Saturday.

One of the things I discovered about my massive TBR pile is that I enjoy certain themes. So on a whim I decided that the first week in March is going to be Beauty and the Beast week over at this blog. I’ll be reviewing several different takes on the Beauty and the Beast story. So far, I’ve got two YA novels and two adult fantasy novels, and I’m hoping to work in a romance with that theme if I can find one I like… which shouldn’t be difficult considering how much I enjoy that trope. In fact, I’d love recommendations from any of y’all!

And now we come to the list of books I’ve finished this week.

• Courting Disaster by Kathleen O’Reilly: (Review here.)
• The Mercy Room by Gilles Rozier, translated by Anthea Bell (Review here.)
• An Abundance of Katherines by John Green: John Green’s books make me happy. I’ve only got one more to read, and then I think I will happily join his legions of adoring fans. I’ll be reviewing this one tomorrow.
• Nurture-Shock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman: I find the process of child development fascinating, and I thought this book presented some interesting ideas, most of which were counterintuitive, but all of which made sense. I’ll review this one on Tuesday.
• Crazy Beautiful by Lauren Baratz-Logsted: This is the first of my Beauty and the Beast themed books, and I’ll review it next Monday. In brief: I liked it but it had a few flaws that were kind of eyeroll-inducing.

Right now, I’m reading:

• Empress by Karen Miller: This one I’ll be reading for a while since (1) it’s epic fantasy and (2) I’m validating it for Bookshare. So far I’m really liking it.
• Fire Drake by Bianca D’arc: This is one of those fantasy romance series that I love despite the fact that it’s not only cheesy as hell but the author’s influences are so obvious as to be transparent. This book has more of a complex plot than some of the others, and it took me longer to get into, but now I’m hooked.
• The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness: I do want to finish this one. I even started it last week, but then I got sick and I decided that a book where the characters spend all their time having their heads screwed with was not my idea of a comfort read. I will probably get back to it sooner rather than later, though, because I’m dying to know what happens to Todd and Viola!

This week I abandoned Bitterwood by James Maxey. I got all the way to chapter 3 this time before the patently obvious symbolism, the cheesy and trite dialogue, and the fact that all of the female characters so far introduced have the depth of cardboard got on my freaking nerves!

I hope the rest of you have an awesome Sunday and a great week!

What motivates people to acts of compassion? Why do people stand idly by while atrocities are committed? These are some of the questions that Gilles Rozier tackles in The Mercy Room. He doesn’t offer answers to any of these questions, which makes for a compelling, albeit quite dark, read that I still haven’t entirely processed.

A German teacher living in Nazi-occupied France is compelled to translate documents for the Germans. The teacher’s gender is never identified, which is a bit of a distracting storytelling device, but nonetheless an effective one. The teacher doesn’t resist hir orders, and one day, while s/he is waiting for the German officer to give hir more documents to translate, s/he stumbles across Herman, a Jewish former soldier. Compelled by his handsome looks, the teacher spirits Herman to hir home, hiding him for two years in a cellar.

The teacher is not a likeable character. Y’all know that I have to have likeable characters to root for in my fiction, but nonetheless I found hir compelling. Maybe it was just that I couldn’t believe any person with even an ounce of compassion could say or think the things that go through hir head. The teacher is obsessed with the fact that hir sister is sleeping with an SS officer. S/he has a loveless marriage which in the end results in hir spouse committing suicide, to which hir only response is along the lines of, “Wow, that was tacky.” And s/he humiliates Herman, by giving him a pair of hir underwear as well as a pair of hir spouses, so that he has to alternate between wearing men’s and women’s undergarments, and then justifies hir behavior by telling us s/he could have behaved worse.

I came away from this book with the sense that I wasn’t supposed to like these characters and that the story was really a vehicle for Rozier to explore some complex issues. The Hollocaust is a fascinating time in history, because it’s a time when people were both horrifyingly, monstrously cruel, and yet so many people showed great compassion. Yet, Rozier argues that even in compassion, people can be cruel, and it’s made me wonder about all the other stories I have read about people who helped the Jews and resisted the Nazis. What motivated them to do so? How did they react to having such absolute power over another human being? Those are chilling questions, and ones I won’t easily forget. I also appreciated the fact that Rozier delves into what it was like to be a random citizen of Nazi-occupied Europe. The motivations for the characters not doing more to resist made sense to me, and again I was left wondering what I would be willing to do if I ever found myself in such a situation. Sadly, the answer is that I don’t know.

I’m not sure how to grade this book. The writing was lovely and accessible in a way that I never seem to figure translations will be, and there were lots of exdellent ideas. But I’m not sure I’m inclined to reread it, because I don’t know if I can endure another period of time in the teacher’s head. So I think I’ll give this a B+.

P.S. I validated this for Bookshare