The Little White Horse

by Elizabeth Goudge

I've gone about this completely in the wrong order! A few weeks ago I watched a little movie called The Secret of Moonacre. I learned that it was based on a book titled The Little White Horse (the movie's title is superior in my opinion, although not sure if would work for the book). Then I learned that the book was one of J.K. Rowling's favorite childhood books. I then decided that I needed to read it.

Alas, though I can see why this was a favorite book of Rowling's childhood, it does not really do it for me as an adult. Much of the plot comes across as silly and entirely too unrealistic. **Spoilers** The characters decide to just go tell their enemies to stop being evil and it (eventually) works, Robin and Maria agree to marry in such a bizarre way (and then they get married at age 14!), and various other details are almost laughable. There is no suspense except for one brief chase scene (which was probably my favorite part of the book). Interesting characters and I liked the bare bones of the story, but this is a kids' book, and it doesn't really work unless you are one.

The Nightmarys

by Dan Poblocki

Well I've done it again! I've let a month go by before I actually write this review and I can not remember much of what I had to say about this book.

I can't actually remember it much at all. Which, is one reason I only gave it two stars. The story is kind of interesting at the time, but it's not memorable.

I actually liked this book less than Poblocki's other book The Stone Child. Where The Stone Child had a nice creepy vibe to it, I felt like The Nightmarys was trying too hard. The creepy parts sometimes just came off a goofy to me (a graffiti dragon with swirling eyes peeling itself off the wall and chasing the boy is a good example.)

It just didn't grab me. Maybe middle-grade 'scary' books are not my genre.

Mockingjay

by Suzanne Collins

Sigh.

I don't quite know what to say about this book, or what to rate it. Realistic? Perhaps. Engrossing? Yes. Satisfying? Not really.

And with that I must warn you that *spoilers* will follow. I do not know how to discuss my feelings on this book without them.

I close the final chapter in the Hunger Games trilogy feeling depressed. I know it's a dystopian novel, but I still hoped that there would be hope at the end: hope for a better life, hope for freedom, hope for the future generations. And while there was a tiny glimpse of that, as a whole the book was filled with doom and despair and a tragic resignation to mankind's tendency towards hate.

Lots of characters die. Many that we care about. Many in gruesome ways. One in particular that left me shocked and nearly made me want to put the book down right then.

The sweet romance between Peeta and Katniss is absent. Katniss feels cold and detached throughout most of the novel. It's hard to read. And even harder to connect to her. The passionate, spirited girl we feel in love with in The Hunger Games is not to be found in this book.

I kept hoping that despite the despair and horror of the beginning of this novel, that by the end the characters would find reason to move on. They would pledge to make things better. To right their wrongs and not make their children suffer through the world they did. Instead we see the rebels squeak out a victory by becoming almost as villainous as the Capital, and proceed to contemplate another Hunger Games as punishment for the Capital. Have they learned nothing?

I miss J.K. Rowling with her sweeping, victorious ending that honored the sacrifices of the fallen with a solid, strong hope for the future. There was sadness, but it was tempered with moments of joy, and hope.

I miss Stephenie Meyer with her golden, perfect ending were everyone is loved and happy and left with the feeling that they can conquer whatever comes next.

This book was not the satisfying ending I'd hoped for. There is no joy here.

Sisters Red

by Jackson Pearce

Was this book well written? Definitely. Was it fun? Not really. And therein lies my main problem with Sisters Red. I read Pearce's previous book and enjoyed it's fun style. This book is almost it's exact opposite.

Sisters Red is the tale of two sisters, Scarlett and Rosie, who narrowly survive a werewolf attack that killed their beloved grandmother. Scarlett is severely scarred in her efforts to protect Rosie and from then on harbors a desire to hunt down these werewolves, Fenris as they are called in the book. Rosie feels indebted to her sister, and therefore fights along with her, even though she secretly wishes for something more. To complicate things more, Scarlett's hunting partner, and only friend Silas is back, and he's falling for Rosie.

This book is dark, and there's not much relief from that throughout the book. Hope is lacking. The Fenris are evil, lurking creatures who are a danger to everyone. Scarlett's pain over her grandmother's death, feeling of obligation to kill the wolves, and despair at her ruined face consume half of the narrative. The rest is taken up by Rosie's narration, and her desire over wanting to do something else but hunt warring with her sense of debt to her sister. Never mind that she finds herself having feelings for Silas and worrying about if she should acknowledge them.

Pearce is a talented author to make you feel so terrible about the sisters' predicament. However, there was very little resolution at the end. There are countless wolves, and despite the group's efforts, it all seems very futile. Did they even make a difference? Is there a hope for relief for these traumatized girls? At of the end of this book it doesn't seem like there's much. However, this does appear to be a series - perhaps hope will be more evident in the next entry.

The Devouring

by Simon Holt

The first half of The Devouring was creepy in a good way. Lots of slightly sinister, psychological stuff happening. The second half, however, was icky. Way too many gross-out, gory events. I was not intending to read a horror novel when I picked this up!

The Devouring is the story of Reggie, a teen girl who loves horror books and movies (as does her best friend Aaron). Reggie's mom left her family last year, and since then Reggie has had to take care of her little brother Henry a lot of the time. One day Reggie finds a mysterious hand-written book called "The Devouring". It tells the tale of the Vours - mysterious beings that feed on fear, and possess the bodies of people on Sorry Night - when that are at their most afraid. Reggie thinks it's an odd, but interesting tale, made up by some crazy person. However, for fearful Henry (whom she reads the story to), the Vours are real, and something to be very afraid of. Unfortunately for them all, it's Sorry Night; and Henry's right.

As I mentioned before, the first half of this book is a psychological thriller. The spooks are all from the dark, or flickering lights, or strange voices, or cold mysterious places. However, at the halfway turning point we are taken into an alternate world - a fearscape, as the book calls it - a world that is filled creepy clowns, swarms of spiders, all sorts of gruesome weapons and their resulting damage. Ick.

*Spoilers* I have a few other complaints that can't be explained without spoiling things, so be warned. When Reggie and Aaron first go to Eben and show him the book and mention that Henry is acting strange, he chastises them for fooling around with the book, but also shrugs off Henry's weird behavior. At the end of the book we learn that Eben knows all about the Vours and has been fighting them for years. Didn't he realize Henry was a Vour? And why didn't he tell them? If there is a reason for this - the author should have explained it, because left unexplained it just seems like a mistake. Also, Aaron just deduces all the answers to the puzzle of what the Vours are, where Henry is, how to get him back, etc. really suddenly! Reggie falls asleep and when she wakes up, he's found no info in his Internet search, but concludes that Henry is trapped in his own fearscape and Reggie went there because she ate the Vour and is now partially Vour, so she can go there by touching Henry. Ta-da! And "fearscape"? - just a little hokey. *End Spoilers*

In short, interesting premise, gross end of the book, annoying non-concluded ending.

Be a Genie is Six Easy Steps

by Linda Chapman and Steve Cole

Cool concept, but definitely not for grown-ups.

There are some kids' books that can be read by adults and enjoyed. Harry Potter, Fablehaven, and 100 Cupboards are some notable ones. Some however, are clearly written just for kids and adults will just be bored by them. This is one of those.

This book is the story of 4 new step-siblings who are forced to move from their beloved London to a small town when their parents marry and open a book shop. So when they find a book that claims it will teach them to be genies, they immediately conclude that if they become genies they can wish their way back to London!

(*Some spoilers*) The front flap of this book promises a sinister presence that follows the children on their path to become genies. This promise is sorely realized by some mildly creepy people who turn out to not be creepy at all (it's all just a big misunderstanding! Let's all be friends! Which, in my opinion, is kinda lame. A book without a satisfying villain is no fun at all.) Also, the bookworm that acted as the book's spokesperson annoyed me. I really never understood why the kids loved him so much!

Maybe if I was a kid I would have liked this book. As an adult, it's just too childish.

The Line

by Teri Hall

This book would have been good.

The Line is the story of a girl named Rachel who lives on "The Property" with her mother and the owner of the property, among some other help. Rachel's mom serves as the housekeeper and Rachel has spent most of her growing up years by herself, with her mother as her teacher. The Property is situated right by The Line - an invisible border that separates the U.S. from Away - a place where it is rumored that frightening creatures and humans with alarming powers live. Rachel is curious about Away, so one day when she discovers a cryptic message that appears to have come from the other side, Rachel is eager to see what else she can discover.

Unfortunately, this book is a set-up for a series and it does not have an ending. What happened to each book in a series having a story complete unto itself and the ability to be read on it's own? I really don't like this new style of series, and unfortunately again, the only way to know if it's like that is to read it to the end. While I was a little irritated at the 'non-ending', the story is interesting (it's got a The Village mixed with The Hunger Games feel to it - mysterious creatures that exist beyond an non-traversable barrier and an oppressive government to keep it that way), so I will probably still keep my eyes peeled for the second entry.

Gone

by Lisa McMann

I still don't understand why this is the final book to the Dream Catcher series. The story seems far from over, and this book didn't exactly leave you feeling satisfied.

The story is interesting, but I don't think it is worthy of a book to itself. The story of Janie discovering her dad, learning about him and about her gift, and deciding what she's going to do should have been a story running parallel to something with a little more suspense. The last book was chock-full of it! Janie puts herself in great danger to nail a sexual predator at her high school. This book? Janie goes to a tiny house in the woods and to the hospital a lot. Oh, and she talks to her alcoholic mom some more. It just lacked punch.

It didn't do it for me. There needed to be more meat to this book and there wasn't, which I think adds to my feeling that this story should not be finished so soon.

Betrayals

by Lili St. Crow

This book is the sequel to Strange Angels, a book whose story I enjoyed but I had some reservations over the method of telling.

I have largely the same complaints for the sequel.

Again, Lili St. Crow seems to have a small vocabulary when it comes to words to expresses anger or shock. The only ones she can think of would get bleeped out on cable television. This is frustrating because these aren't words I enjoy hearing - even in my own head, and also because I think it shows a real lack of creativity. Seriously, not EVERYONE in the world uses those words in every sentence. It's crude, and sounds uneducated. I realize these are teenage characters, but I have a hard time believing that all teenagers have such a foul mouth as Dru and Graves do.

Second - the smells! Ms. St. Crow focuses way too much on the way things smell and not enough on other senses. Many sequences are hard to understand and picture in your head because the only information you have is what things smell like. (And yes, Christophe STILL smells like apple pie!) Oh, and by the way, it's mentioned quite a few times that Graves smells like cigarette smoke, as if this is supposed to be a nice thing - um, ew!

Unfortunately, I'm giving this book one less star than it's predecessor. I just didn't find the story as interesting, and it was often confusing! There were a few chapters that I wasn't really sure what was going on and it felt like the author was being intentionally vague.

Will I read the third installment? Probably only if Dani assures me that it's better than this one!

Pastworld

by Ian Beck

I picked this book up on a whim at Powell's the weekend before Thanksgiving. The front flap description sounded interesting. It sounded like shades of Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix and the Stoneheart Trilogy by Charlie Fletcher. Both of which I enjoyed. So I decided to give it a shot. Unfortunately, this book doesn't quite live up to its potential.

Pastworld is a sort of amusement park/historical preserve of 1890s London. The actual story takes place in the future, even though all the events take place within the park of 1890s London, so it's almost like it's set in the past. Confused yet?

The characters don't really do much and thus read as unimportant, even though they are the "main" characters. Eve, who is essentially one of the most important characters of the book does nothing but run away and join the circus (yes I'm serious), where she finds she has an amazing knack for tight-rope walking! (Forgive me if this does not qualify as an interesting character to me).

Bible J is an interesting fellow to some extent but he's given virtually no background and no believable motivation for anything he does.

The Fantom I had high hopes for. From the first page he is mysterious and sinister and all the things a great villain should be. Shortly after though he becomes nothing more than a cardboard murderer who has a penchant for cutting hearts out (and with a little too much detail from the author on that aspect - yuck!)

And the ending!! It was the most bizarre ending. And I'm going to **spoil** it, so reader beware: The "twist" is not fully explained. We learn that Eve and The Fantom were created for the park, but we don't learn much about how and what they actually are. Certainly not mortal since the Fantom jumps off buildings but never dies and Eve was created to be killed and then resurrected. I want to know how this is supposed to work! Also, we're left not really knowing what happened to the Fantom - he just gets away and...that's the end?! The author tries to make it sound like he won't come back, but judging from what we just learned about his nature and origin, doesn't it make sense to assume that he WILL come back? No one is concerned though, so book over! And randomly, Eve is pregnant. Why would they even create her in a way that she could reproduce when her whole purpose was to just die over and over? And did she and Bible J ever even kiss? Where they heck did this come from? It felt oddly out of place in the book. So in the end I was left unsatisfied. **end of spoilers**

It gets two stars because I like the concept and for the first half or so it seemed promising. Second half get 1 star or less - could have been so much better!

Fire

by Kristin Cashore

This book gives me really mixed feelings.

I love the premise. Fire is a human "monster". Basically this means she has brightly colored hair and has the power to read others' minds and control them if she wishes. She's also extremely beautiful. She's also the last of her kind. She's always refused to use her power to manipulated people because of the way she saw her father do it. However, soon the kingdom needs her help to uncover whose plotting against the crown. Fire must decide if she will consent to use her power and how far she will go.

Unfortunately, my enjoyment of this book is marred by a few things:

One - Fire (much like Katsa in Cashore's previous book Graceling) refuses to marry. It seems that Cashore has some hatred towards marriage and wants to make her readers agree with her. Not only this but there are many similarity between Graceling and Fire - she should have just named is "Graceling 2.0!"

Two - Fire is (kinda) in love with (and sleeps with) this guy whose a total womanizer. Not only that, but he proclaims his love for her on one page and then a few pages later we learn that he's fooling around with somebody else! (***SPOILER: And then a few pages later we learn that he's gotten TWO women pregnant!) I'm supposed to LIKE this character? What a jerk. (SPOILER AGAIN - I was actually kind of revealed when he died! END OF SPOILERS***)

Three - Fire is totally over-dramatic and self-absorbed. She can't seem to see beyond her own self-inflicted problems to realize there are bigger problems out there. She's so concerned that her power COULD be used for evil that she can't see past her own nose to realize she SHOULD use it to save peoples' lives!

Fire Study

by Maria V. Snyder

I have to say I was a little disappointed in this book. As the third book in the Study series it left a lot to be desired. In Poison Study and Magic Study I really enjoyed the character of Yelena - she was strong, fierce, confident, and passionate. Often she jumped into situations without thinking them through, but she thought well on her feet. For most of Fire Study Yelena was a different person. She doubted herself at every moment, she gave up too soon, she was afraid, despairing and seemed to be in a constant state of confusion. I wanted the old Yelena back!

One particular personality trait the manifested itself in Yelena this book was an awkward sort of pacifism. Yelena, the girl who from the onset of the series was a murderer - the girl who spent half of the first book training on how to fight, the girl who always carries a knife strapped to her thigh suddenly doesn't want to harm anyone. The vilest, evil creature is right in front of her - the man who kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed at least 12 girls in the previous book - and after magically shredding his brain and essentially killing him, she feels guilty. Others seem to disapprove of her actions. Funny, I was cheering her on when she did it. Throughout most battle sequences Yelena narrates how she incapacitates one person after the next and then frets as she takes down the next that her blow might have killed the poor guy who was just trying to kill her! I don't want her to be bloodthirsty, but it just seemed weird that she was SO traumatized by the deaths of the creeps who were out torturing and killing people. Get over it girl!

In connection to this, I thought Yelena's new found reluctance to swat a fly made it hard to believe her relationship with Valek. He's supposed to be the most lethal assassin out there, who kills threats first and then asks questions and HE'S the man Yelena loves? If she's now so concerned over NOT killing people, why would she love a man who has killed so many with no apology? It just didn't make sense.

Lastly, I thought the book did not flow well. The first half of the book was rambling and confusing. It was sometimes hard to know or remember what was going on, even though the author repeatedly reminded reminded reminded the reader of what had happened in the previous book through Yelena's odd sounding paragraph-long asides to the reader. It was awkward and annoying because I had just read the previous book - I remembered what had happened well enough and didn't need to read summary after summary of what I'd read a few weeks ago.

Thankfully, on the plus side, the last third of the book did improve. The condescending remembers were fewer and Yelena started to act more like the character I remembered from the previous entries. The characters finally had a plan and a purpose. It reminded me why I liked the first books and finally added something worthwhile to the story. I just wish somebody had edited down the beginning!

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

by Carrie Ryan

Sigh. This book had such potential, and I was so primed to love it after the first 3 chapters and then it was just sort of a victim of itself.

The biggest problem was that it seemed the author couldn't quite decide what kind of book she was writing. Is it horror? Romance? Mystery? Suspense? It tried to be all of these things and then failed to be any of them well.

Initially, this book reminded me of The Village - a group of people live in a pioneer style village surrounded by an intimidating forest filled with disturbing creatures. In The Forest of Hands and Teeth those creatures are basically zombies: a horde of the undead - mindless and hungry for flesh. They are called "The Unconsecrated". Young Mary has recently lost her father to the forest (we never actually find out how he got into the forest in the first place). Then, at the very beginning of the book, she loses her mother as well. Mary is orphaned, and her older brother kicks her out of the house. Mary is then forced to join the Sisterhood - a type of nunnery.

At this point the story becomes a mix of romance and mystery. Mary tends to the sick Travis and begins to develop feelings for him. At the same time, she uncovers mysterious happenings at the church that begin to suggest that there is life outside the Forest and that the Sisters are trying to hide it. Honestly, this is the kind of story I was hoping for. Soon though, our genre shifts.

The Unconsecrated breach the village and Mary manages to escape with her friends Travis, Harry and Cass, as well as her brother Jed, his wife Beth, and a small boy named Jacob. The group has no choice but to set off down the narrow fenced-in path through the forest in hopes of finding civilization on the other side. Now our book becomes more of a horror/suspense novel and mostly stays that way til the end. I'm disappointed.

But more than just the author switching genres partway through - she also drops multiple story lines! At the Cathedral, Mary finds mysterious rooms, overhears whispered conversations, finds a girl from outside the village, and NONE of that gets explained. Ever. Mary doesn't even seem to speculate or wonder about it again.

Also, the romance falls flat because you're not ever quite sure who you should wish she ends up with. She loves Travis, but then she likes Harry after all and is mad at Travis, then she loves Travis again. Then Travis makes her mad, and she misses Harry. I think we were ultimately supposed to like Travis the best, but I liked Harry!

(*SPOILERS*) And then, the end! The end of this book was just terrible! I refuse to call it and end. It felt as if surely the last 10 chapters of the book had been misplaced! We find out the outcome for 3 of the 7 characters (2 because they die). The rest are either just assumed dead or left sitting helplessly in the forest with virtually no food, water or hope for making it out. What is up with that?!

This is how it should have ended - Travis doesn't get bitten. Jed sacrifices himself to the Unconsecrated to help them escape instead of Travis. Travis, Mary, Harry, Cass and Jacob find the path out of the forest and to the ocean. (And the path actually goes all the way to the coast - none of this lame running through the forest and down the cliffs aimlessly in the dark to escape the Unconsecrated). The village has better defences against the Unconsecrated, or perhaps they find that the Unconsecrated are confined to the forest by some ancient spell, or maybe the village has found a cure for the Unconsecrated. Any of those would be better than the non-ending the author came up with. (*END SPOILERS*)

Disappointing. It could have been great. As is, it's just mediocre.

The Amaranth Enchantment

by Julie Berry

I checked this book out from the library a few months ago, but didn't get around to reading it before I had to return it. But it still seemed interesting to me, so I decided to give it another try.

I did get around to reading it this time. However, I'm kind of wishing I hadn't bothered. This book wasn't the most terrible thing I've read, but I really didn't like it much. The characters were either flat or just uninteresting. All the good plots were unexplored and the ones that made up the bulk of the book were silly and frustrating.

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers galore to follow! Read on at your own risk!

When Lucinda was a young child her parents left for a royal ball and never came back. After their deaths she was forced to move in with her aunt and uncle. While her uncle genuinely cares for her, her aunt seems to harbor an unexplained hatred toward her. On one particularly eventful day her uncle's jewelry shop gets a visit from the "dreaded Amaranth witch", the crown prince and a common street thief all of whom play a part in the events of the rest of the story. However, things in Lucinda's life go from bad to worse when Lucinda's uncle dies and her aunt kicks her out onto the streets. She has no choice but to seek help from the Amaranth witch.

Now doesn't that sound like a great villain? The Amaranth Witch. In fact, we are even told on the flap and in the text of the novel that she is "dreaded". I was SO disappointed when it turned out that this witch was not the teeniest bit scary. Not evil, not fierce, not even self-confident. She is little more than a whining, crying middle-aged lady. Why in the world do people dread her when she isn't even the slightest bit intimidating to a 15-year old homeless girl?

Secondly, Lucinda is STUPID! Through the whole book she was doing things that she really shouldn't have, and then, of course getting caught and in BIG TROUBLE. First, she lets the thief Peter stay in her house the night he bangs on her window (he steals from her). Then, she decides the best way to get the witch's (Beryl's) stone back is to pay Peter to teach her how to STEAL it from the prince (she gets caught, thrown in prison and nearly executed). Next, she decides to go see the prince after she escapes prison (she gets lucky on that one). But then, when the prince pardons her and asks her NOT to come to the royal ball, what does she do? You guessed it! She goes to the ball. With Peter. They cause a commotion, she has to run away in fear, the fact that there were only 50 pages left in the book is probably the sole reason that incident ended up working out all right in the end.

Oh, and by the way, Beryl's not the villain. We knew that pretty early on. The real villain is not revealed until at least two-thirds of the way through the book. And then when he is, he's supposed to be this great scary menacing thing. We just learned his name! That's not the way to create fear of a character! Big ol' meany's catching up to Lucinda and I'm thinking, "Meh, she'll be fine." He's setting fire to her house and I'm wondering when the goat's going to take him down. Seriously, he's not scary.

And then, to top it off - the back and forth of Beryl. She's not from our world but she can never get back to hers (sniff). But wait, then all of a sudden she did get back to her world! Lucinda is noble and tells her to stay. "I'll just go back to face my big bad villain, and oh, thanks, I'll take your stone that you gave me even though we both know that's what big baddy is after!" Why didn't she just leave it?! It's because she's stupid. So is Beryl. Ugh!

But then, of course, Lucinda's in trouble - "Beryl, help me!" So Beryl comes back. (Nice of you to figure this out after all those years Beryl.) How to get rid of baddy? Can't kill him. Why not? Because he's not from this world either. The only way to get rid of him is to send him down a magic well. Yup. But somebody has to go with him - sacrifice himself or herself to make sure he goes. Can you guess who? I bet you can.

There was one slightly redeeming plot point at the end of the book that I found interesting. It wasn't ever explored properly though to make up for all the things that annoyed me. Disappointing book.

The Penderwicks

by Jeanne Birdsall

I picked up this book on a whim at a local used book store. It sounding interesting, and I liked the cute cover on the British edition (seen here).

The Penderwicks almost defies description. Not much happens in this book, but it has a sort of sweet sleepy quality. Usually I am drawn to books with lots of fantasy, supernatural elements and action - things not at all present in this book. Even so, I did not dislike it - but I didn't really love it either.

The story is simple, and much more realistic than I am used to in the books I read. The characters are charming - all four of the Penderwick sisters are very distinct. Rosalind is the strong practical one, Skye the impulsive tomboy, Jane the imaginative writer, and Batty the playful youngster.

The "villain" of this story isn't quite as villainous as I'd prefer a villain to me. Sometimes you can't really blame her for being so mad, and then she has such a sudden change of heart at the end that it makes the whole thing seem weird.

There is a sequel to this book, and while I like the characters, I don't think this book has interested me enough to want to go pick up the second one.

The Midnight Twins

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Don't have a lot to say about this book. I never really was sure where it was going - it felt very aimless to me. I had a hard time keeping the main characters apart - twins names Mallory (Mally) and Meredith (Merry). I still can hardly remember which is which, who did what, and if it actually matters. The evil character seemed very cardboard - simply evil for no reason whatsoever. I want the evil characters to have a past or trait that makes them act the way they do. This one was just all of a sudden a "bad guy" - in fact, a very twisted character with absolutely no explanation as to what his story was. Also, the girls are supposed to be 13 in this story, but read more like 16-year-olds to me. I found myself confused a lot. This is supposed to be the beginning to a new series (trilogy I believe) but it wasn't fun or intriguing enough to make me interested in the sequels.

Watcher in the Woods

by Robert Liparulo

This book is the sequel to House of Dark Shadows. I liked the first book even though it left you with a total cliff-hanger. So I was eager to pick up the second book and continue the story.

This book starts up right where the first left off and does reveal some new details to the story and hints about the origin of the house. However, many more questions are posed than are answered. And once again, this edition to the series ends with another non-ending. The book as a whole felt more like a long chapter ripped out of the middle of the actual book. It reminded me of The Spiderwick Chronicles in that way - each book must be read in order, and you have to read them all in order to have a complete story. Unlike Harry Potter, or the Twilight series (where each book is a separate story that contributes to the overall saga) this series is one story broken up into multiple books. It is an interesting concept, but I wish there was some resolution at the end of each. The third book, Gatekeepers came out in January, so I'll see how the story continues soon!

Thornspell

by Helen Lowe

You know those signs some factories have that say, "57 safe work days" or something of the sort? I've always thought it must be kinda pitiful the day they have to change it to "0 safe work days" since somebody got hurt the day before. Now I need a sign that says something like, "89 days since a dud book". Unfortunately, today is the day mine reads "0 days" because this book was a dud!

I picked up Thornspell by Helen Lowe at the library. I found it online and read some reviews (all positive) and i just thought it looked fun! So I put it on hold and was able to pick it up and get started on it this week. And that's were the fun ended.

I think the concept for this book is really cool. It's a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, told from the perspective of the prince. I thought the prince really lacked personality though, and I found it very hard to be interested in his story at all. Plus, he has a horrible name - Sigismund. I found myself just glossing over it as I read, or reading it as "Sigmund" or "Sigsimund" instead. Granted "Sigsimund" would be weird as well, but it does seem to flow better.

Another thing I didn't like was the magical element of the story. Now I love magic in books, but in this book it just didn't make sense! She talked about currents and paths of energy or power, and alternate universes, and it all just seemed like a jumbled mess. There was no explanation as to what kinds of magic they used and how it worked so I felt like almost out of the loop the whole time.

Now when I got to around page 200, it seemed that things were going to finally get interesting. But once again the story just fizzled out. It seemed like the author was trying to write this grand epic conflict of good and evil, and it was all just a bit contrived. The villain wasn't that villainous, the hero not that heroic, and everyone else was just sort of there with no obvious purpose. And then there was the big reveal of the mystery girl who we met at the beginning - too bad I'd seen that twist coming a mile away.

Sigh. I hate being disappointed by books. Hopefully I will enjoy my next selection more!

The Nixie's Song

by Toni DiTerlizzi and Holly Black

Earlier this year I read the Spiderwick Chronicles series, which is made up of 5 cute little hardback books with shiny bright covers. And yes, while it is totally true you can't judge a book by its cover, I still do just covers against other covers! Some books that I love have really lame covers, and some books that I've hated have had pretty covers. They don't always give an indication of how the book will be, but they are fun to look at nonetheless.

Anyways, this book is the start to a new series, entitled, "Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles". It basically is about some kids who read the original Spiderwick Chronicles books and go out looking for fairies and such and find them and then get into some trouble of their own. And like the original Spiderwick Chronicles, each book reads more like a long chapter. The end of this book just leaves you hanging right in the middle of the story so you really have to read the whole series to get the whole story. This series is supposed to be three parts, which I suppose is good - it was an okay start, but in my opinion, not as fun as the original series.

Magyk

by Angie Sage

I had really high hopes for this book when I picked it up. I'd seen it in the book store many times, and had been wanting to read it for a while. It's been described as combining the magic of Harry Potter with the cunning characters of Artemis Fowl. I love both of these series and was hoping that this book truely would have a slight flavor of both.

However, I really didn't like it! It started out kind of interesting - with the seventh son of a seventh son pronounced dead soon after birth (but it's always pretty obvious that he's not really dead, but kidnapped) and his parents taken in a baby girl found in the woods. The book then zips forward ten years and we find out who the girl child really is - the princess. Characters are popping in and out (still have no idea what most of the sons' names are), and before you know it they are all on the run to escape the Hunter and the evil wizard. The Hunter is supposed to be this big scary guy with a silver bullet that's going to hunt down the princess until he kills her. But somehow the gang manages to out run him (in a slower boat), and deceive them (with a spell), and reach the fens where they are all of a sudden safe?? The Hunter just goes back in defeat! And then the book comes to a screeching halt. I was left for 100+ pages wondering what the point was now. There was no immenent threat and the characters just seemed to be killing time. I was bored of the book by this point and almost quit reading it. But I have a really hard time stopping a book without finishing it. So I pressed on. It actually did get a little better. But the threats to the kids' safety seemed to come out of nowhere, and the keys to their salvation were even more out of the blue! I realize this is a kids book, but really - couldn't the author think of something a little more inventive than a magical boat appearing out of nowhere in an underground temple, oh, and the boat just happens to be a dragon too! Don't even get me started on the magic ring Boy 412 finds in a dark tunnel! I was just waiting for Golem to come around the corner!

The end of the book redeemed it a little. There was an interesting twist, and we finally found out what happened to Septimus. Still, I'm not sure if it redeemed it enough for me to bother reading the rest of this series.