Monthly Archives: December 2010

Skulduggery Pleasant, by Derek Landy

Children's 9-12, Fiction, Paranormal and Supernatural

Cracking wise and cracking skulls.  Skulduggery Pleasant is an all new kind of hero.  First of all, he’s a skeleton.  Noticed that, did you?  Secondly, he’s immersed in another world that exists alongside ours.  Finally, he’s a magician, and a darned good one.  We’re talking fireballs from the palms, people.

I have only read the first book in this series, but I liked it enough to want to read the next one.  Stephanie is left an entire house in her uncle’s will, but that’s only the beginning of her weird day.  She ends up spending the night in the house alone, where she is attacked by someone claiming to want something her uncle had hidden.  Cue the hero to save the day, only this hero is a skeleton in a three piece suit.  They set out on a series of adventures to find the object sought by the dark side, meeting strange and wonderful characters along the way.

Now, while I did enjoy this book and I do look forward to reading the next one, I did find it to be a bit dialogue heavy.  If you have a 9-12 level reader who likes a lot of action, this might not be the book for him or her.  The action is there, and is so well written that I could clearly visualize it in my mind as I read, but even those scenes have a lot of talking going on between the characters.

It could be that the next books in the series have less exposition via dialogue.

All in all, I’m not sure that this is a YA/9-12 book that will really appeal to adults like some others in the genre do, but it has intrigued me enough to want to keep with it.  I’d love to hear what others think.

Insomnia and Morganville Vampires (the latter by Rachel Caine)

Fiction, Paranormal and Supernatural, Teen, Vampire Fiction

Ah, insomnia, how I do love thee.  While I’m anxiously awaiting my trip to the fae, I thought I’d talk a little about a great little book series I’ve discovered, the Morganville Vampires by Rachel Caine.

Yes, it’s about vampires.  Yes, it’s YA/Teen.  No, you really shouldn’t be surprised that I’m reading ANOTHER vampire novel…or so mean.  Stop rolling your eyes!  Anyway, moving on…

This series was recommended to me by no less than half a dozen customers at work, claiming it was better by far than the Twilight series (I’m sorry, I just can’t call a book about teenagers a SAGA), which I’ve read (and managed not to review…you may thank me now) and the Vampire Academy series which I have not yet read.  I picked up the Omnibus edition, which includes books 1-3, with the intention of reading it on the plane on my most recent trip back home to America.  It seemed reasonable, since I read three Vampire Diaries books in that space of time.

It did not happen, because unlike the other series, I found myself reading every word, hanging on every cliff, and not skipping whole paragraphs because I’d gotten bored.

At the risk of gushing, this series is so much better, more engrossing, better written, I could go on and on and on…sorry, back on topic.  This is one of the best in a genre that seems to be overrun with bad writing.  Slap a black cover on it and it will sell these days…but Morganville is different.  The characters are more real to me, even though the situations they are in are fantastic and involve the supernatural.  The plot twists involve action and adventure, not romance. Rachel Caine has been called the Queen of YA/Teen vampire fiction, and I’d tend to agree with that.

Okay, fair enough, there’s action and adventure in the Twilight books.  But that and my feelings on the sheer number of times a main character is killed and brought back in the Vampire Diaries series belong in other posts.  I said moving on, didn’t I?

The basic plot is this:  Claire is a sixteen year old genius who starts college early.  She attends a small school in Texas in a town called Morganville, but soon discovers that the town has some weird quirks.  She is your basic ill-at-ease, clumsy, awkward teenage heroine, but she displays a strength of character from early on in the novels that I don’t think you see in a lot of other vampire fiction these days.  After some unpleasantness she moves herself out of her dorm and into a house being shared by four other slightly older teenagers, none of which are students at the college she attends.

The plot changes gears here, as she finds out that Morganville is a town filled with and mostly run by vampires.  Humans don’t go out after dark.  If you’re lucky, you have a vampire patron that offers you protection…but that usually comes at a price.  I have to admit, making the vampires the bad guys was a refreshing change from the other novels that are so popular right now.  Claire is a strong heroine who comes into her own more and more as the novels progress.  I’ve only finished the first three, and I can’t wait to see how she continues to grow up in the next six novels.  If you like the genre but are sick of the emo stereotypes, go hang out in Morganville for awhile.  You’ll be glad you did.  Just…make sure your seatbelts are fastened and your tray tables are up.  The ride is fast paced, often turbulent, and just fabulous.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to think about a different kind of novel all together…Skulduggery Pleasant.  Stay tuned.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney

Children's 9-12, Fiction, , ,

This post could also be titled Why the Book is Always Better than the Movie, by Nancy Dunne.  This is, in my grown up opinion, one of the best YA/9-12 series of books I’ve seen in a long time.  The main character,  Greg, is an awkward pre-teen who has been given a diary journal by his mother, and the books are basically his handwritten words with cartoons drawn in to help explain the story.  These books are hilarious, especially to those of us who were awkward but didn’t really know it at the time.

Greg’s mother and father play important roles in his story, as do his older brother Rodney and baby brother Manny.  Greg’s best friend Rowdy is the typical kid who has hit pre-teen land but would rather stay in little-kid world.  There are other characters who, when they make appearances in the book, will remind you of kids you knew growing up and will surely remind younger readers of other kids they see every day at school.

The movie…well, I’m not a movie reviewer, but I tend to always think that the movie/TV show is better than the book.  In this case, I believe it to be true.  There is so much in the book that can’t be put on the screen faithfully.  While I think the movie makers tried their best (and there is even a book to prove it that shows how the movie was made), this is one work that needs to remain on the page.  It’s the Diary…not the web log.

I loved these books and anxiously await anything else that Jeff Kinney writes.  Get them for your kids but read them yourself.  Neither of you will be disappointed.