YA Fantasy - K.A. Wiggins

I do read mysteries, but I don't tend to read the gritty crime/noir genre. Too dark, in most cases. I loved this, though. 

 

Wiebe captures the culture, ephemera, and atmosphere of Vancouver with endless telling details, making his narrative about crime and the seedy, dark underbelly of the city all the more alarming. Reads smoothly and convincingly, with all-too-recognizable characters. The endless men (and some women) dismissing the harm they do to others, particularly to the most vulnerable (and often First Nations and visible minority) women, are the company owners I've worked with and for, the powerful and dismissive, the entitled and self-satisfied, and most of all, the casually careless.

 

The specificity of eating out in Vancouver and enjoying the views are so common in the city as to be living stereotypes, and the friendly familiarity of the lifestyle and location details drives the knife in even further as one character after another drives the women who've suffered in this book, and on our streets in real life, further into the mud.

 

I prefer reading mysteries set in exotic foreign places and times. New York. Chicago. London. Paris. 1920s. 1940s. A crime novel calling out not only the shady hidden figures of my Vancouver, but all of us in the city, privileged and struggling alike, for glossing past, stepping over, and treating with casual disdain and irresponsibility the ones having the hardest time surviving, hits far too close to home. But there's a balance of hope and tenacity in this book that keeps the darkness from feeling entirely crushing. So I'll read more of Wiebe's work, if only to remind myself of the faces, the voices, and the stories I need to not forget.

This was great. The setup is diverse science-geek kids become a Power-Rangers-style team of superheroes with mysterious alien-derived powers. Then it goes somewhere different.

 

Some cool things it included:

-caring parents that remain present and supportive
-kids with goals/girls w/ STEM goals they're pursuing
-decent representation across genders, races, abilities, nationalities & economic statuses
-everyone has a nuanced backstory
-it's not just another 'yay team' clone

-MC is homeschooled (but not a genius), multi-lingual & multi-racial, lost her hand at birth, designs her own prosthetics

 

There was a dizzying whirlwind of plot, and I think this could have been split into a duology given the amount of twists and developments. I inhaled it almost in a single sitting. Really entertaining and a lot of fresh takes on tropes while still checking all the boxes for thriller/SF/superhero story. So different than Hale's fairytale retellings, but just as excellent.

Satisfying conclusion to the series. Shusterman seems to have a genius for setting multiple characters and plots off in different directions, and them weaving them back together for a smashing, dizzying finish. I generally enjoyed the series as a whole, but didn't find it as gripping as some other recent reads. Might be because there's so many characters and different perspectives. Neat to see a lot of the stuff that went into the Arc of a Scythe series emerging here. Might need to take a break from my Shusterman marathon, since I slowed down on this trilogy, but I've got at least one more series to go.

This second entry keeps all the fun, humor, action, and social commentary of the first but shifts the setting east for an urban makeover. It's the late 19th century and giants are pulling the strings of the city in this revolutionary spin on Jack and the Beanstalk. Art continues to be appealing, funny and a little manic.

I picked up a copy of this by mistake as part of a newsletter chain/giveaway/review group and I don't usually read adult romances, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of writing. There's an underlying story that holds up quite well even without the racy bits, character motivations are clearly expressed and somewhat believable (I mean, aside from all the paranormal/shifter stuff), the writing style is strong and engaging, and the world-building is convincing.

 

I don't particularly care for dragons or shifters in general as a trope or topic, but I do like paranormal or fantasy stories and romance subplots, so it wasn't too much of a stretch for me. Cinderella-style romances with a rich guy are generally a good time, and there are other pretty classic storytelling threads that are combined competently enough to be entertaining, if predictable. It seemed pretty short, but there was a reasonable story arc and some character development, so it just very clearly leads into a series for the larger story. I would have continued on if it were less explicit, but that's totally a matter of personal taste, and I think this would do very well with romance fans. In my opinion, the writing and storytelling, as well as the quality of production, are a cut above typical indie fare.

I wasn't going to continue after book 1 in this trilogy, but I'm glad I did. The stakes and shape of the rest of the series surge in this second adventure. The kids are learning more about the nature, limitations, and opportunities afforded by their state. Particularly the skinjacker situation. Murder and manipulation, control and chaos, and good old world-domination via terrorist acts of destruction on the horizon. It's cool to see the seeds of conflict that birthed the Arc of the Scythe series popping up in this context. I'm not as glued to the page as I might be, but there's enough going on to keep me invested for the final book in the trilogy.

Interesting premise and entertaining quick read, but this left me with less of an impression than other recent Shusterman books.

 

Nick and Allison die in the same accident and knock each other off the path to the light. They wake up still on Earth, but stuck on the ghostly side. They discover there are others - lots of others, and they're all under 17. Gangs form, sides are taken, monsters are fought and discoveries made.

 

Interesting, mildly creepy young YA action. I'm reading the sequel, but I almost stopped after this first book because I was entertained but not really all that invested in spending more time with the characters and story world. But the blurb for book 2 had a good twist, so I'm going to keep going. I should stress that it's not at all a bad book, just a matter of taste, I think.

This was lovely and unexpected.

 

Set in a sort of alternate medieval fantasy!Mongolia, it brings to mind classic fairytales with a princess locked in a tower for defying her father's mandate to marry the evil lord of a neighbouring land. Except the hero of the story is neither the resistant princess nor her dashing princely love, but the unsuspecting, dutiful servant girl who accompanies her into exile.

 

Dashti is a mucker, a sort of herding, yurt-living nomad, who heads to the city for a job after her mother and last remaining family member dies. She's trained as a lady's maid because she knows the healing songs of her people. Her first assignment is to the daughter of the khan, but when she shows up for work, her new employer has been deserted by the rest of her staff and is about to be locked up for seven years for refusing a marriage.

 

There's much to love about this book - apparently a 10-year anniversary re-release. Dashti has the kind of slow but significant character arc that is extremely hard to pull off, but entirely convincing and satisfying. She's determined, responsible, and hard-working, and very aware of her low-class status. Her transition from being happy just to be fed and housed to falling in love and learning to want, pursue, and fight for more than she ever thought she deserved is inspiring and natural-seeming.

 

The story is entirely told through Dashti's writing-practice journal entries, a unique perspective that creates an almost delicate-seeming storytelling style. The character experiences are mostly conveyed from the outside, from observations and actions, which can pack more of a punch than a close voice and strong interiority.

 

A poverty-stricken, bottom-of-society, functionally powerless girl saves everyone from her nearest relationships to the country. But don't read it for that. Read it for the amazing healing power of cats, and the story of one girl who's totally, utterly and completely in love with her cat.

 

Lovely read. I'm grabbing everything written by this author to marathon through right now.

Disclaimer: reviewing uncorrected digital proof via NetGalley

 

I'm not quite sure how to categorize this. There are pretty strong contemporary fiction leanings, what with the complicated, extraordinarily messy and interwoven multi-generational family dynamics. There's the paranormal/fantasy content, with witches, shapeshifters, and monsters lurking around the edges. Things skew from drama to thriller and right on into the realm of horror as the story progresses.

 

I found the first quarter really slow going. Like, I kept double checking to make sure this wasn't a companion series to an earlier series because there is so much worldbuilding detail and so many different points of view and webs of interrelational drama to wade through. Despite the deep, rich worldbuilding, or really, probably because of it, the book didn't draw me in at first. I felt like I just didn't care about the characters, the witchy goings-on, or the New Orleans southern setting. But by the end of the first third of the book, all that detail starts to settle in and the shape of the story emerges. Well worth the extra effort to get there.

 

The investment in backstory and getting to know so many different threads at the beginning starts to really pay off heading into the latter portions of the book. Various mysteries start to unravel and a race for the finish line tangles against late-in-the-game twists for an unexpectedly high stakes, surprising wrap up that provides some closure while setting up the series for further drama.

 

One caveat for squeamish readers; the family drama and dynamics get about as sordid as you can imagine. There's no explicit sexual content, and abuse isn't lingered over (though things get pretty violent in the paranormal/horror scenes), but there's plenty of cheating and backstabbing (and front stabbing), plus a little mixing of the generations that may turn off some.

 

Verdict: detailed, engaging start to what's sure to be an impressive new Urban Fantasy series. Good read for readers who enjoy a dense, richly imagined story world.

So I generally reserve 5 star reviews for a both that was both excellent *and* I'm likely to want to reread. In this case, it's not necessarily that I'm likely to pull this down off the shelf over and over again, but that it was a truly remarkable book.

 

Told in 17 points of view, this is the story of - or maybe it's more accurate to say "around" - a high school shooting. Each segment was written by a different YA author and is from a different character or object POV. Remarkably, it still feels like a consistent, singular work. I would have thought the tonal shifts would be too jarring, or the way it doesn't come back around in a classic narrative structure would be more like reading a series of news accounts or a short story anthology. But - and this feels like a super weird comment to make - it reads really well. It's fast, engaging, even entertaining or enjoyable, at some level. The characters are well fleshed out, though it's hard to keep track of them and their relationships to one another, especially at first. There's insight, but not explanations.

 

The book as a whole doesn't answer much. The shooter was a boy with some problems. He might have been a good friend. He might have been destructive from a young age. He might have been bullied. He might have been suicidal. He might have had psychological issues. It might have been the system, or isolation; other kids, or school or genetics. There's complexity and confusion and bad choices and too much unexplored desire and it pretty much captures adolescence and the terrors and triumphs of high school. It's a mess and it's brilliant and remarkable.

Fun and funny YA that weaves awkward mid-teen shenanigans, poverty, and immigration together in a light yet high-stakes tale that's unfailing entertaining. Great for the younger end of the YA spectrum, with just enough dating angst to make it a bit mature for some MG readers, but none of the explicit content that ages YA up into adult territory.

Wasn't able to track down the first book in this sequence, but it's pretty seamless to jump in on this second one. Worldbuilding is smooth and convincing, to the point that you almost might miss the fact that a lot of the stuff referenced actually happened in a second book, and isn't just stage dressing.

 

Antsy's inscrutably cool Swedish classmate shares that he's going to die in six months. Antsy offers him a month of his own life out of sympathy. Then everyone else wants to get in on the good deed. Things spiral. Life, (the fear of) death, and comedy abound Lot of heavy themes explored with a light, funny touch. The mid-teens boy perspective is solid, by turns insightful and hilarious, and helps make the content feel approachable instead of heavy. Faith/prayer/religion, parents' career and relationship conflict, and illness and death covered.

 

Mild dating content (kissing) but I'd say this is an accessible read for male and female readers from about mid-Elementary school age on up. Main cast are in the 15-16yo range, but tonally it feels more MG.

This series is begging for fresh covers and a grand rerelease. There's such a wave of fairytale retellings making the rounds in YA right now, and these offer a sharply insightful modern day variation with more chilling horror than sparkly princesses which seems like it'd be fresh and well received. They're pretty short reads, borderline novella, so maybe that's holding them back a little (and yeah, those covers *shudder*) but the human, social, and cultural insight explored through a sort of twisted magical frame is spot on. This one picks up on the ugly duckling primarily, with a dark hook centered around the idea of beauty - or ugliness - being skin deep vs. all the way through, and drawing from or contributing to its surroundings. Not to get too spoilery, but it almost heads into YA paranormal territory; not quite vampires, but shades-of. Murder and abuse and Carrie-like bullying abound in a depressed smalltown (southern?) America setting.

Modern-day horror twist on fairytales and myth. Medusa comes to high school and starts exposing the petrifying cores of rich suburbia. Good short read with a creep, no-holds-barred ending.

Good character developments, smart twists, and creative solutions. Longer than the first two books, and favours action of humour, which felt slightly less engaging.

Refer to review of book 1. More of the same, with excellent middle-in-a-trilogy structure. Still fun, still sly, still pacy and full of surprisingly insightful and/or emotional commentary on people and our world. Great consistency and easy to read - got it down in one sitting. Highly recommended series for middle schoolers, and I'd say it's pretty appropriate for MG readers in mid to upper elementary as well. Romance is mild - on/off dating and a bit of kissing, and any violence is handled in a humorous way.