The Professor's Daughter

★★★★★

The Professor's Daughter by Joann Sfar & Emmanuel Guibert

Before the paranormal romance craze, the concept of this book would have seemed utterly bizarre: in Victorian England, the daughter of an Egyptologist and one of the mummies he brought back from Egypt fall in love. (Plus accidental murder, kidnappings, and Queen Victoria being tossed in the Thames River.)

Now, there are other zombie love stories floating around, but when The Professor's Daughter was originally published in France in 1997, it was a completely novel idea. The reason it works? The simply gorgeous illustrations by Guibert convey so much emotion, especially the beginning, when the pages were illustrated in Sepia tones.

The colors actually shift as the book progresses. The changes have meaning within the story, so I won't describe it here, but Elizabeth Bird shared an excellent review (much better than mine, actually) that explains why.

My favorite of the illustrations is on page 11. For some reason, the composition and colors strike me as being near perfect, even if there is a mummy wearing a suit in it. I would honestly hang a print of it on my wall, I find it so fascinating. It might require some explanation for visitors, though.

The storyline itself is rather bizarre, but combined with the illustrations—and a good dose of suspended disbelief—it transcends the stereotypical comic or graphic novel to become a piece of literature. I heartily recommend buying The Professor's Daughter, even if only to gaze at the lovely images.

Dearly, Departed

NetGalley has the author of Dearly, Departed as LISA Habel, but I'll go out on a limb and bet the novel's lovely and dark cover has the right of it with LIA. You with me?

Mulitple author identities aside, I greatly enjoyed my first encounter with a Habel work. Released just this month, Dearly, Departed (yes, comma intentional)  encompasses the stories of a group of people, chaptered through their individual viewpoints, which range from disenfranchised post-apocalyptic "New Victorian" misses who miss natural propriety by a wide margin, all the way to military-approved and maintained undead with more heart (even if its entirely static) than the average high-class NV resident, with several types of character between.

So what happens if the world goes to hell in a natural-disaster-fiber-woven basket? It seems people regroup in more southerly climes, and a couple centuries later nothing really changes . . . well, except for The Lazarus  (or Laz) virus. The world still experiences class disparity, disagreements in political strategy,  and disputes regarding the place of technology. The world is the world.

At least, until Miss Nora Dearly--daughter of famed medical scientist Victor Dearly, deceased for the past year--becomes the Winner's prize between two contestants: First, the folks who know about the Lazarus virus, which reanimates a dead body to varying degrees of sanity and retained humanity, and want the government and someday the world to differentiate between the slobbering masses of undead only concerned seeing to their cannibalistic drives and the undead perfectly capable of controlling themselves, possessed of their "living days" personalities and restraints.

Secondly, the folks who know of the Laz, and want every single body infected with it torched in the nearest available fashion, regardless of mental or moral state.

Nora is important to both factions. Nora is a key piece of flesh in the fight.

In a time when the Laz rages from person to person via bodily fluids, threatening all humanity, Nora Dearly, brave, feisty, hot-tempered, and open-minded, and much-loved--eventually by the dead and alive alike . . . 

Nora Dearly is immune.

I had some minor gripes with this YA novel (somewhat slow, clunky beginning; somewhat rushed, abrupt end--though being the first of a trilogy, that must be given some leeway; and a couple too-close-to-the-line Twilight-esque moments), but all-in-all the book engaged me enough, I didn't mind. I truly enjoyed reading the book. I connected with the characters, which I feel were well-developed and 3D, including the secondary characters. The bonds between the love interests rang true, as did the familial bonds, and the bonds between close friends. I totally bonded with their bonds, and that's reason for high praise from me.

Was Dearly, Departed perfect? No. Was it worth buying (even though I was lucky enough to have access to free copy)? Yes. If you don't have the cash right now, get it from your library. It's a nice escape, without being too fluffy. Not a beach read, take it with white chocolate cocoa and your Snuggie.

Hourglass

I absolutely adore the cover of Myra McEntire's debut novel, Hourglass. Not only does it have lovely, smooth lines, but for a little while it fools you into thinking the model is being sucked into something . . . and then you realize it's actually a girl, standing on the wall, with gravity obeying its natural course. Go 'head, turn it on the side, and then try to decide what photo magic they used to pull that one off. Photoshop? Wires? Giant wind machine? TIME TRAVEL?

Oh, right; that's what the book's about. Or more accurately, things of the past visiting a quite present Emerson Cole. Or maybe they're ghosts? Maybe Em's psychic and sees dead people? Whatever the answer, the situation is trippy.

Enter the uber-hot Michael (such a popular name for uber-hot characters). Tell us what he wants, what he really, really wants. What's he need, that Michael boy? History rewritten, that's what. Also? Em, because they are science-fictionally two halves of one whole. But do they belong together? Maybe. Maybe not. Because, you see, there's someone else in Emerson's future . . . 

The cover blurbs suggest the book induces all sorts of mood swings in the reader, and this is true, especially in the final fifty pages. Even I, a "first hero met should get the girl" loyalist, don't completely root for one boy over the other by much. Even I can see the wisdom and merit of a specific someone else winning that war, other than Michael. McEntire has done a fantastic job forcing me to consider the alternative, without embittering me toward it. That takes some mad skills, to sway a girl like me. I can only admire it and hope to learn from it.

I say this with a bit of a admission: Hourglass is a book . . . how to put this? Well, sometimes I felt myself reading a scene or a bit of narrative and feeling either proud or a little wary, because it's written so much like I myself would have written it. So that may mean I'm biased when I say I think either a Buy or Borrow appropriate.  The book isn't the most prime example of fantastic writing ever known to man, but it's entertaining, an emotional rush, and leaves you thinking about it hours later, which means it delivers on exactly what it promises.

Saving Juliet

Have you ever seen the movie Lost in Austen, about the girl who falls though this crack in her bathroom wall into Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice only to swap places with main character, Elizabeth Bennet? No? Well, make sure you do. It's lengthy, but worth it.

If you have seen the movie, you know things in fictional P&P Land start tripping up the moment Amanda steps a toe in it, and everything goes wonky.

Suzanne Selfors's Saving Juliet gives Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet the same sort of treatment, and with thoroughly fastasmagoric results.

Seventeen year old Mimi, scion of the late, great theatre goddess Adelaide Wallingford and last hope for the historic Wallingford Theater hates acting, despite her pedigree and promise on the stage. As any teen faced with but one choice of futures, Mimi chafes against the strictures, plans, and outright momentum of her mother, who--from Mimi's viewpoint, only wants to live out her own failed dreams through her daughter. Complete with a stuck-up Surfer boy pop-star (for the ratings,dear) co-star in the form of one Troy Summer, avaricious understudies, and an heretofore unexperienced case of stage fright, Mimi does her best to play Juliet Capulet until she can escape for a few weeks in a planned vacation with her Doctors Without Borders-esque aunt.

Enter some very realistic and intuitive descriptions of Mimi's pre-cue panic attacks--which just keep getting worse, her inital crush on and being crushed by Troy Summer, and finally a magic charm which send Mimi and Troy both either back in time, or arguably, into an alternate universe wherein the feud between Montague and Capulet is alive and thriving.

Reading this book is a bit like seeing all the different charcters on days other than those Shakespeare chose to write about. Selfors gives great back-story about how the feud began, manages to humanize Juliet as a real thirteen-year-old girl, no matter the era, makes the reader totally buy Paris as a pervy old man, keeps Romeo from sounding like the most fickle guy alive, and eventually even makes heroes of many unheroic characters, and while the "script" often strays from Shakespeare's narrative (Romeo and Juliet never fall in love at all, at least possibly until after the book), and the language stays mostly contemporary, the book is all the better for these choices. Elizabethan English--as genius as Will's abilities were--would only have cluttered the alternate plot points and would have seemed almost gaudy in comparison to the very real and very ageless way Selfors handles the story.

This is definitely a book in which the cover does the story a disservice. While Mimi is very much a modern teenager, she isn't flippant or blase, which is what that pink bubble-gum bubble and kitten shades say to me. Mimi has heart, just like her (normally) fictional counterparts, and that should be shown, too.

I got a kick out of this book with it's nimble narrative and ultimate happy ending. I engaged with it, and if I hadn't gotten it from my library in the first place, I'd have been happy with my choice to BUY it.

Fablehaven Four: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary

Brandon Mull has always given me consistently good reading experiences, but I gotta say, with the fourth installment of his Fablehaven series, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary Brandon Mull takes the art of misdirection and makes it his lapdog, complete with sissy rhinestone-studded collar.

I pride myself in being able to tag two-faced characters a good 85 per cent of the time, and I won't lie and say I didn't expect a particular character a little of being a double agent, but Mull did such a good job of endearing me to that character I desperately wanted to be wrong, and then when I wasn't, I felt just as crushed as the characters Two-Faced had betrayed so utterly.

Meanwhile, Mull craftily sets up a "replacement" for the role, so that without knowing it, and despite the upset of moments before, we're already rooting for the new character, envisioning the way the role can be chanced, stretched, made even better.

MG or not, it's a keeper. BUY it.

Mister Monday

Okay, so I'm going to be easy like Sunday morning and just say, I really dug Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom starter, Mister Monday. I'm not saying it's my favorite book ever, but I definitely enjoyed the atmosphere, which I think compares to a bit of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere smooshed together with Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci books i.e. stark children's adventures with a no-holds-barred take on a young hero's lack of limitations.

Nix excels at creating a completely credible kid hero, Arthur Penhaligon. Arthur is a normal kid, not some super-powered, hyped-up X-boy. His power comes from the strength of his heart and his will. He has no ego to speak of, but is also not a whiny baby. He's comfortably aware of his limitations, but he's also aware of his loved ones and those who loves, and for them he's willing to believe and attempt anything, including wrest control of a creation dimension from its erstwhile caretakers.

With an unofficial, way-before-its-peak form of Steampunk, Nix has blended ephemeral magic with shiny, creepy and/or glorious mech, and a fantastic set of primary and secondary characters.

I'm looking forward to the next book, Grim Tuesday, and if I hadn't borrowed Mister Monday from the library in the first place, I'd have BOUGHT it. Knowing how much I like the first book, I might have to go pick up both of them.

Pegasus

It wouldn't be honest to say Robin McKinley's Pegasus was a fast read for me. In fact, it took me two to three times longer than I'd anticipated.

I can't say it was an easy read, either, as some parts were . . . well, not exactly difficult, but more like tedious.

I can't even simply say I enjoyed the book. I wouldn't say that. Because while the writing was experienced, sometimes extremely evocative, and somehow ripe, there were also places where the writing killed off the story, which is about a young girl (starting out with a genuinely childish twelve-year old, and coming in one of the many "Hurry up and flounder" moves, to fifteen-nearly-sixteen/adulthood) being magically (spirtually? mentally? unusually?) bound to her royal Pegasi counterpart, and what the surprising differences to historical bindings this one poses. Of course there's a bad guy who hates it, a thoroughly bad bad guy we all want to smother in his own supercilious robes, and there are wise monarchs, loving maternal figures, and the much-lauded Third-party-OR-ARE-THEY?!?! threats from great Pegasi-and-human-eating beasts.

There, in fact, 404 pages of these things. Or rather, there are 300 pages leading up to these things, 79 pages of the actual STUFF, and then 20 pages of WHOA, CRAP!, followed by 5 blunt pages of me getting very, very angry, because I--a hardcore devourer of books--have just toiled for at least three-fourths of this book to get to the last page to find . . . nothing.

You remember the Looney Toons wherein Wile E. Coyote would be chasing the Road Runner around, hellbent on (I . . . don't actually know. Did he want to eat him? Take back his pride? Square Dance?) catching that bird when suddenly he finds himself three feet out over the edge of some cliff-edge he'd have sworn hadn't been there two seconds ago? You see it before he does, but then he looks down, looks back up at you, and for the two or three moments he has before he waves, gulps, and begins to fall, you both know the very worst of what's about to happen.

That's page 404 of Pegasus. It's not that I don't like books that leave off in the middle of the action, with no real sense of having accomplished anything--wait, no, that's exactly what it is.  I know I'm always harping about book that could have been tightened up, I guess that's just my style, but if a book takes 400-some pages to just get to the big UH-OH, and then either plans on letting you hang, or means to make you wait for a sequel, my reaction is going to be something to the tune of, WTHades, people!? Cut out 200 pages, put in 200 OTHERS to finish out the frakking story, and let's get a real book out of these pulped trees, already!*

I didn't like the book; I liked the story, but I'm not sure I liked it enough to tip the scales. If you're cool with unnecessarily dense run-around, however well-done, you could borrow this from the library, but otherwise, I advise you BYPASS it.

*I have now looked around to find Pegasus does indeed have an intended sequel, which is good for those who find the ending enough of a cliff-hanger to wait for it, but still doesn't really do anything to change my opinion--so I guess it's good it's purported McKinley herself admits readers will hate her for how the book ends, and she's got a good sense of humor about it.

Tiger's Curse

Tiger's Curse  by Colleen Houck reads a bit like a list of things NOT to do in a debut novel, including almost all "telling" rather than "showing", excessive use of weak, generic adverbs (and redundant description, in general), awkward plot transitions, contradictory conclusions, and much, MUCH, extraneous narrative, sometimes poorly disguised as introspection by the main character.

I wanted to enjoy this book, I did. I mean, look at that gorgeous cover! And tigers! Tigers are COOL, cursed tigers, even better. India? Great! I'd like to know more about India, and it isn't an overdone setting. Reading about it like I'm surveying a shelf of BROCHURES on India? Not so much.

In the end, I couldn't overlook the inexperienced writing enough to enjoy such a good premise--namely a normal girl recruited by an Indian gentleman, a many-armed goddess, and a tiger prince to help lift a centuries-old curse.

So, could Tiger's Curse have been a great book? YES. Was it? No, I'm sorry to say it was not. It get's a Bypass.

P.S. I must admit, I did rather like the character Phet. He made me giggle.

*Disclaimer A. After reading much of the book and wondering how an editor would knowingly let an author put out a book with so much still to be done, I scanned the back flap copy and Acknowledgments pages hoping to find an answer, and I kind of did.

Originally a self-published eBook*, Tiger's Curse enjoyed success and was then picked up by a publishing company, who then--in my opinion did the author a disservice by not encouraging her and guiding her in polishing the novel, thereby reaching its potential, before hitting the mainstream market. A friend of mine, formerly an editor at a publishing house, explained a common practice for these self-pubb'd eBook pick-ups is to edit solely for typographical errors, possibly due to First Print rights already having been taken, a concept I understand in theory, but still feel is negligent and morally shady. Obviously, this is speculation on our parts, but such a reason would go a long way in making me understand, if not necessarily agree with it.

**Disclaimer B: I don't feel self-published authors are in any way inferior to traditionally published authors. Just the opposite actually. If you want to see some fantastic, enviably talented self-, indie-,e-published authors, boy have I got a list for you.

The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel

As a big fan of Cassandra Clare's The Mortal Instruments trilogy, I was thrilled to receive an Advance Reader Copy of Clockwork Angel, the first installment of Clare's upcoming Nephilim prequel series, The Infernal Devices. Clockwork takes place around two centuries before TMI series, and deals with that series' predecessors.

I've always adored both Jace and Simon from TMI, loved their sarcasm, sharp insults, and intelligent humor, so it was a difficult for me to really dig into the extremely similar character template of Clockwork's Will (though in the fourth TMI novel, City of Fallen Angels, Clare has one character point out these similarities, so obviously the commonalities were at least somewhat intended).  Unfortunately, for me the ways Will resembles Jace made the book feel repetitive to me.

On the other hand, Clare leaves us dead in the middle of several questions at the end of Clockwork, and if Will's actions indicate anything, it's that he has more of a fighter's spirit than Jace; Jace tends to fill himself with snark to cover over what he sees as his inevitable fate. In short, for now Will reminds me too much of Jace, and Jace did it better, but there's a definite possibility Will could surprise the daylights out of me.

Tessa, the heroine of the series, struck me as a little bland. She was likable enough, but so little of her personality was allowed to show it's hard to really identify with her, and while she seems the focal point of the story, I almost felt as if she were a throwaway character, only there to act as an extra for the real plot-makers, Will and Jem. Let's hope she gets less apathetic about her own role in the following additions.

And speaking of Jem, um hi, LOVE (if you haven't seen it by now, Jem's on the cover of book two in this series, Clockwork Prince, and it might be my favorite cover/coverboy EVAR). Jem's calm, almost-zen-like handling of both his own problems and Will's brawling temper are completely endearing. Unfortunately, Clare likes to twist our hearts, so I wouldn't at all be surprised if she intends to make us fall for the pale, gallant boy just before she breaks us with something monstrous about him.

In general, Clockwork Angel didn't snag me as much as the books of the TMI series, but it's early days, and if there's one thing Cassandra Clare has mastered, it's messing with a reader's feelings, and that is a WONDERFUL kind of catharsis, and that alone is worth giving this new set of characters and conflicts a chance to wrench our guts.

Clockwork Angel gets a Buy rating, due to it's relationship to other Nephilim novels, and in the hopes of subsequent installments adding to its quality.

The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Dun dun duuuun.

That's really how they should have ended The Maze Runner, first book in the Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner. Instead they concluded with a boring "End of Book One."

Now here's the thing. The Maze Runner is a seat-of-your-pants thrill ride, but there's an undercurrent of something more sinister and overarching as the book progresses. This isn't just the story of a boy who wakes up in a ginormous maze filled with deadly monsters, and who can't remember a thing about himself or his life. It's a story of survival, community, hope, fear, and courage.

So let's start with the basics. Every thirty days a boy is brought up in a metal box to a wooded glade surrounded by a vast maze. The glade offers protection to the ragtag group of boys that live there, the walls closing every night before the Grievers—horrible monsters, part animal, part machine—come out to prey upon any boy without the maze's walls. The Gladers have survived like this for two years, sending boys out each day to map the shifting walls of the maze with the hope of finding a way out.

The day sixteen-year-old Thomas shows up, things begin to change for the boys in the glade. One day after his arrival, a girl is sent up through the box. A girl, the first ever in the glade, with a message for the Gladers: "She's the last one. Ever." Thus starts a race against the clock for the Gladers to solve the puzzle of the maze before they are all killed.

I won't say anything more about the plot for fear of giving anything away, but I will say this: the moment you start reading this story, you won't want to stop. Dashner deftly weaves mystery with suspense and terror, creating a world where nothing is permanent or safe.

As the story progresses and mysteries deepen, two questions become key: Who would do this to children? And more to the point, why?

The end of the book does bring a sense of conclusion, but even then more questions are asked. I, for one, will be eagerly anticipating the release of the second and third books in the series.

For a cinematic taste of The Maze Runner, view the book trailer here: http://bit.ly/2ENNkw