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A Tale of Two Castles Review
This was unlike any other fairytale Levine has created!
Very loosely inspired by Puss in Boots (and by inspired, it has cats, and that’s where the similarities end), Levine creates a distinct new kingdom where 12-year old Elodie sets off to apprentice herself as a mansioner. That’s the word for actor over there.
But apprenticenships don’t come for free at Two Castles so Elodie settles for work as an assistant to deducer, inducer, the all-seeing dragon masteress, Meenora. Her first mission is to protect Count Jounty Um.
Now, Jounty Um is a kind, generous man but he’s an ogre and everyone in town despises him for that fact. With the announcement that he’s to be engaged to Princess Renn and will someday become king, there’s threats everywhere especially as cats are known to force ogres to turn into mice to be eaten.
There are too many suspects to count and Elodie has no idea who to trust (or how to serve wine) including the Count and her Masteress.
While Elodie’s questioning of everyone can get a bit annoying at times, you can understand since she’s only been in town for three days and now she’s in the middle of a potential murder plot among royalty and magical creatures. Plus it strengthens her own journey of deducing and using common sense, and figuring out what she wants to do with her mansioning skills if she cannot do it the traditional apprenticenship way.
Plus the characters are all so lively and memorable from flighty Princess Ren to her greedy father, sweet Jounty Um, know-it-all Meenora and the charming cat trainer, Master Thiel. They all have a part to play or red herring to present in this twisty mystery that will leave you guessing and scratching your head.
As usual, the magic system is all of its own with its rules and expectations that everyone is supposed to know. Same with the town as Elodie stumbles about, trying not to look like a Laht bumpkin who gets robbed by cats in her first minute onshore.
A really fun read! 4 stars
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Author Highlight: Kody Keplinger
There are some authors who just get the teen experience. Keplinger is one of those authors which makes sense since she made her debut, The DUFF, when she was seventeen.
You may have heard of The DUFF movie, but the book, like always, is so so much beter. The movie just takes the phrase “Designated Ugly Fat Friend,” their plots are nothing alike.
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Perfect Scoundrels Review
Worlds collide in the thrilling conclusin to The Heist Society trilogy when one of their own becomes the mark of an insidious long con and tests the line between business and personal feelings.
And for once, Kat may not be able to steal it back.
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Aug Books
Huck: The Remarkable True Story of How One Lost Puppy Traught a Family-and a Whole Town-About Hope and Happy Endings by Janet Elder
As I’ve said multiple times. I’m a sucker for dog memoirs even if they’re a bit sad because, with all the variations, it harbors the same theme. Dogs teach us more about ourselves and the goodness of humans than we realize.
In this case, when Elder was diagnosed with cancer, she gave into her son’s desperate wish to have a dog of his own-Huck. Only for Huck to escape shortly afterwards, revealing a heartwarming tale of a community of strangers coming together to return a beloved dog.
What can be sweeter than that.Sound of Light (Marvel School of X novel) by Amanda Bridgeman
As you’ve already know from my book blog. I’m a DC girl and the only Marvel I really know any backstory/characters are the X-Men. So I had to pick up this book after watching Wolverine and the X-Men since it had Emma Frost, Polaris, Cyclops and my underrated fav, Dazzler.
Now, I only knew 80s Dazzler where she was supposed to cash in on the disco trend and has flashy powers (literally). Here, she has quite an upgrade with her powers are implied to be on level with nuclear reactors if she really let loose. As is, her power is being a light transducer which uses it in a variety of creative ways from distraction to performing to precisely aimed lasers.
It was also special enough for Mystique to kidnap her for months to drain her essence to use for a mutant-DNA steroid drug. Oh and Mystique posed as her during the months she was trapped and no one was the wiser so Dazzler (real name, Allison) has real trust issues.
Present day, she’s being immersed in a normal life, touring with her new band but S.H.I.E.L.D. is dragging her into their mess. With the new MGH drug on the streets, they want to know who’s selling and they believe she can be a liason between the mutant community and them.
She doesn’t want to help after quitting them but they bring up the fact that Cyclops and Magneto have been kidnapped. . . and her father. Three men that she owes her life to.
The problem with being a liason is that she’s not trusted by either community. The agents don’t trust her because she’s a mutant, the mutants don’t trust her since she left the X-men to join S.H.I.E.L.D. and Allison doesn’t trust anyone in general.
But she’s forced to ask for help from Emma Frost who has her own agenda-and makes a ragtag team with Sage, Polaris and Rachel Grey for an intersteller adventure.
(more…)#aconytebooks, #amandabridgeman, #annasortino, #awjantha, #beckyalbertalli, #blackflame, #broadwaybooks, #centaurrising, #comingofage, #cradle, #debcaletti, #disneyhyperion, #gennmcmenemy, #ginnyrorby, #girlunframed, #givemeasign, #hocuspocusandtheallnewsequel, #howtospeakdolphin, #huck, #janeyolen, #jarrettkrosoczka, #jennywilliamson, #jimmybeason, #josephbruchac, #juliemerberg, #kateinwaiting, #kimberlygriffithslittle, #marvelcomics, #memoir, #nativeamerican, #nativeamericansinhistory, #nicejewishgirls, #nonfiction, #penguinrandomhouse, #putnam'ssons, #rachelreads&reviews, #reycraft, #rockridgepress, #scholastic, #scholasticgraphix, #soundoflight, #sunshine, #thetimeofthefireflies, #voicesofthepeople, #willwight, #womenofmythology, #worldmythology, #YA -
Guardians of Ga’Hoole #11-15
Well this series was not what I was expecting and so it absolutely blew me away with how Lasky was willing to go there. I already talked about it in my previous posts but Lasky doesn’t shy away from showing the terror and violence evident in living as a wild animal. But she also humanizes them and elevates the material with its allusions to Shakespeare and Bradbury and more. It’s more than just owls that populate the world but puffins, crows, horses, wolves, polar bears and each have distinct relations to each animal group with their own heirarchies that apparently Lasky expanded into other series. It’s just so expansive and. . . well epic. Anything with animal warfare is just epic to me as it combines the unpredictability of nature with the corruptive ember that is the center of power in this world with ruthless animal instincts.
Just awesome.
It was a real treat to read this and after a month of rest from this, I think I’ll start the Wolves of Beyond.
Now onto the rankings:
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Guardians of Ga’Hoole #6-10
The second set of Guardians of Ga’Hoole books really leans into the World War II-esque/fantasy premise of the book by higghlighting the depravity of the Pure Ones and how one owlet manages to break free from the hateful ideology to help the side of good. That owlet is Nyroc, Kludd and Nyra’s sole son.
And yes, it vaguely feels like a rip-off of Lion King 2.
No matter. I enjoy that Lasky didn’t let reader demographics limit the amount of gore, violence or genocide she placed on these pages. Nor did she skim on the literary allusions to Shakespeare when it came to the wolf clan dynamics. Lots of elements are happening here and why she sometimes stumbles in tying them clearly, it all feels very grand. I just wish she had been able to transition POVs from Soren to Nyroc less abruptly as Soren is shoved to the sidelines once Nyroc enters the stage when I at least expected to them to share POVs.
This set also begins the Legend of Hoole trilogy which I’ll discuss below with the rankings:
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Guardians of Ga’Hoole #1-5
After reading pretty much all the Warriors books in the library, I decided to get into another animal-based series that ccombines fantasy, comprehensive world system and survival of the fittest mantra. Yes, I’m talking about Lasky’s Guardians of Ga’Hoole series as if the title wasn’t enough of a hint.
The series starts with Soren’s birth in a happy, loving family. Except for a mean older brother who shoves him out of the nest. Unable to fly, Soren is quickly snatched away by frightening elder owls who turn out to be the egg-snatchers of St. Aggie’s. St. Aggie’s a school training soldiers in a dehumanizing (de-owlizing) factory-like system, brainwashing them to believe in their might makes right philosphy and trimming wings so no one can escape.
Luckily, Soren makes fast friends with a few others like Digger and Agatha, and remembering his parents’ stories about the Guardians of Ga’Hoole, they break out and join the band just in time for the biggest fight of their lives. A rising danger known as the Pure Ones.
I enjoy how
Now onto the rankings!
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Warriors: Super Specials
This forway into the Warriorverse was limited as the library only had 4 super specials but each offered deeper insight to the clans, characters and forshadow future events (or retcon them depending on your perspective).
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The Legacy of Yangchen Review
After the unsteady state Yangchen left Bin-Er with her companion’s betrayal and the secret cover-up of one enemy allowing another advisary to take economic stage, Yee has a lot for the readers (and the characters) to balance. It’s all about diplomacy, geopolitics and deception and it keeps you at the edge of your seat the whole time. It’s all about heartwrenching conflict and death that leaves Yangchen struggling with her worldview and Kavik questioning his own choices of familial loyalty over the world.
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Extras Review
Three years after Tally unleashed the mind-rain, Japan is running on a reputation econnomy. Whether you’re a neofoodie, techhead, mangahead, reputation bomber or kicker, you gain money and privileges based on your face ranking.
Basically, Westerfeld predicted influencers and people being paid because they’re instagram/tiktok famous. Decades before it happened! Amazing and really surreal.
Aya is one of the extras whose face ranking is below the millions, a major bummer since her older brother is in the top thousand. Aya is desperate to be famous and thinks that kicking (slang for making a viral video) about the secretive Sly Girls group meg-lev surfing is the way in.
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But her big kick comes with the price of betraying the Sly Girls and ends up uncovering a bigger, even more dangerous story than Aya had ever anticipated.
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