Title: Stargirl
Author: Jerry Spinelli
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult, Romance
My Rating: ★★★★

____

Picture your life—and everyone else’s around you—as a vast, boiling desert, occasionally littered with cacti and yuccas. For you, blandness is normality.  You’re all content on playing chameleon, melting against the nondescript walls of conformity, swaddling yourselves with the safety of not being singled out. You’re a bundle, you’re a “we,” and you like everything to stay that way.

But glitches occur, no matter how perfectly shielded you think your system is. It may scare you one minute and enchant you the next, but when you realize it’s jeopardizing your perfect routines, you’re going to despise it. You’ll get the urge to banish it. It’s a rare event, but no worries—it’s only a normal stimulus of most people in your place.

This is the story of Susan “Stargirl” Caraway, the ‘glitch’ that cartwheeled her way into the “normal” lives of Mica High School students…and into the heart of sixteen-year-old Leo Borlock. With her floor-length skirts, pet rat, and a ukelele strapped to her back, she faces each day with a bounce in her step and a grin on her freckle-dusted face, not minding what everyone else will think of her.

I’d like to refer to Stargirl as a rebel, even if she only loosely fits in the category. Among my roster of female fictional revolutionaries, she—ironically—is the most normal. She’s not rising up against a cruel or corrupt government in a post-apocalyptic setting, nor is she preparing to serve cold dishes of revenge to those who did her wrong. She’s just being herself. It’s stereotype she’s ramming against. It’s no secret that in a world that forces you to be someone else, being yourself is perhaps one of the hardest battles you can ever fight. Not to Stargirl, though: she doesn’t even need to lift a finger to win it. She is not afraid to be unique…that is, before she fell in love. Leo is a typical MHS kid, and while he loves Stargirl so much, he doesn’t want to be turned into a social pariah because of their relationship. So he works to transform Stargirl into a normal girl, oblivious to what it will do to her.

However, Stargirl as a character is a tad too Mary Sue-ish (too Pollyannaish?), and because we haven’t seen her ‘side’ of the story, it’s easy to judge she’s a shallow, flat character. Perhaps that’s why Spinelli spun a sequel to mold her more? I’m not really sure. While I think the portrayal of the main female protagonist is decent, she needs more development.

Spinelli have spun a simple tale that will without a doubt resonate with every teenage heart that will encounter it. I marvel at the characterization of Leo, at how human he seems to be instead of being just another one-dimensional knight-in-shining-armor figure that pops up frequently in most of today’s young adult novels. He doesn’t recklessly rush to rescue his ‘princess’ when she’s in trouble; in fact, he even runs away from the scene, afraid of the prickly eyes and thoughts of the people around him. He is an ordinary boy torn between having to choose between the approval of the society and the happiness of being with the girl he loves. I understood his insecurities and behavior; I tasted his fears, and in the several nights he spent thinking on his moonlit sheets, it’s almost as if I caught a glimpse of everything he’s dreading. Sometimes I dislike him; sometimes I feel the urge to give him a sucker punch for not doing what he thinks is right “because the others think it’s wrong.” He’s like a bandwagon-riding, pesky little brother to me most of the time. I don’t know if it will make sense to you, but I began liking him because he so…unlikable.

The world-building is not precisely first-rate, but the setting greatly adds to the symbolism department of the novel. The desert stands for the collective “we” of MHS. Then there are “enchanted places” beyond the sand dunes and saguaros—places that are always there but you can never locate with your naked eye, places that represent someone like Stargirl. More than once, a character explicates how Stargirl is closer to what we all should be, and that something is inside us already. We just need to get in touch with it by using our hearts as our compasses.

The plot only takes a backseat here, since the enigmatic Stargirl steers the wheel of the story. There are a couple of twists and turns, but nothing that can imprint an indelible memory in my head. There are poignant scenes, hilarious scenes, and a mixture of both, but what really struck a chord with me are the times of ruminations and the conversations between Archie and Leo. :)

A magnificent portrayal of the celebration of nonconformity, Stargirl is one of the few books that are so plain on the surface but is beautifully labyrinthine when you delve deeper into it. Four stars for a great read! I can’t wait to get my hands on Love, Stargirl.

Someone’s on cloud nine! Guess who? ;) I’m late to the party, but who cares? I finally got John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars! All the local bookstores I’m contacting the past month kept on telling me this book’s out of stock. But a couple of weeks ago, while hunting  for The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making in NBS Tutuban,  I chanced upon Green’s newest gem on the YA shelf. I wasn’t able to hold in the little giggle-squeal that bubbled up my throat (how little that squeal was, I’ll never know—I had my earphones on).

After reading and rereading Pamela Haag’s list of awesome words, I think someone needs to coin a term for that ineffable feeling you get when you find that special book you’ve always wanted to have. “Bookstore serendipity”, which I always use, sometimes seems a tad too broad a term to describe the feeling. I’ll still use it though.

Review
Title: The Sky is Everywhere
Author: Jandy Nelson
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult, Romance
My Rating: ★★★★

___

The morning of the day Bailey died, she woke me up

by putting her finger in my ear.

I hated when she did this.

She then started trying on shirts, asking me:

Which do you like better, the green or the blue?

The blue.

You didn’t even look up, Lennie.

Okay, the green. Really, I don’t care what shirt you wear…

Then I rolled over in bed and fell back asleep.

I found out later

she wore the blue

and those were the last words I ever spoke to her. 

(Found written on a lollipop wrapper on the trail to the Rain River)

cinderellainrubbershoes:

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience.

This is probably one of the best book trailers I’ve ever seen. It’s written and directed by Ransom Riggs himself.

UPDATE! Rumor has it that Tim Burton is in early talks of directing a movie adaptation of this book! :)

REVIEW
Title: Going Bovine
Author: Libba Bray
Genre: Young Adult, Surreal Dark Comedy, Speculative Fiction
My Rating: ★★★★ ½
Warning: SPOILERISH

___

Take a modern day Holden Caulfield diagnosed with the human equivalent of mad cow disease. Throw him in a mission to find his cure (and save the world!) with a hypochondriac dwarf and a Viking god cursed as a lawn gnome. Add a punk angel with a penchant for spray-painting misspelled messages on her wings, a cluster of fire demons, an enigmatic Wizard, and a wormhole that will bring the dreaded apocalypse. Stir well—and voila! You just prepared Libba Bray’s surreal dark comedy, Going Bovine.

There are many authors who attempted to concoct an effective formula that can render their stories both fall-off-the-chair funny and heartbreaking at the same time, but I believe only a handful of those who declared “Eureka!” got a positive response from the reading world. Libba Bray is one of them.

Speaking through the (vulgar) mouth of teenage lazybones Cameron John Smith, Going Bovine is a story of death, choices, friendship, and of course,life. Bray’s spot-on sense of humor is reminiscent of Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; her writing style is addictive and convincing. The characterization is astonishingly brilliant, and it proves to be more than enough in persuading the readers to root for the unlikable, unreliable narrator.

Cameron is perhaps one of the most irksome antiheroes in Young Adult literature. The ennui he builds around himself is perpetually backed up by his I’m-the-world’s-most-apathetic-jerk-and-I-know-it-and-you-can’t-do-anything-about-it attitude. Considering himself a ‘social paramecium’, he wants to survive high school (and life in general) just by, well, having mass and occupying space. Nothing more. The word ‘effort’ is nonexistent in his lexicon. Bray makes it so that Cameron comes off as a sardonic quipster that can give you the urge to punch him just for being who he is. That is until he finds out he acquired a fatal illness, the Creutzfeldt-Jakob variant BSE.  Suddenly, he is forced to grow out of his shell of indifference; he is forced to care. He has to face many questions, the most important being: have I lived a meaningful life? Have I ever lived at all?

Clearly, the answer is no. Cameron wasted a majority of his life existing, not living. With only a few time left before shifting off the mortal coil, he learns it is too late for him to taste the essence of life. He begins to despise everyone who will outlive him. But as in Pandora’s box, after all the bad news emerges hope: the angel Dulcie gives him a chance to live. He grabs this opportunity and sets off in an adventure like no other, to search for his supposed cure.

Most of the poignant moments occur while Cameron and his newfound friends are on the road. Why is it only when Death is reaching out to you with open arms that you are finally noticing the things in life worth hanging on to? Cameron belongs to a dysfunctional family, and though he does not admit to hating any member, his attitude toward them is the usual “I don’t give a damn.” Everything changes when his impending death is confirmed. When Cameron talks with his father on the phone, you could almost hear his croaking “I love you.” He has a couple of touching moments with his mom too, but my favorite is the subtlest, when he dines at Konstant Kettle and misses his mom’s Grammar Nazi-sh pet peeve. He decides to call her:

There’s a pay phone in the way back next to the men’s bathroom. I drop in all the change I’ve got and make the call. It rings four times and goes to voicemail. I hear my mom’s familiar message.

“Hi, this is Mary Smith. I can’t come to the phone right now because I’ve probably been carried away bygriffins. But if you leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you just as quickly as Hermes would.” There’s a pause, and then she says to me, “Cameron, did I do that right? Oh! We’re still recording! Oh my goodness…,” and her laugh is cut off. That message used to annoy the crap out of me, my mom being all spacey and mom-ish. But right now, hearing her voice is the best thing in the world, like waking up and realizing there’s no school. There’s a beep, and my stomach tightens.

“Um, hi, Mom. It’s me. Cameron. Well, you probably figured that part out,” I say, sounding like the biggest dork. “Anyway, I’m okay. I want you to know that first. And, you know what? Keep grading those moronic English Comp 101 papers, because otherwise, we’re all gonna be getting our gas at the K-W-I-K S-E-R-V and drinking our E-X-P-R-E-S-S-Os at the Konstant Kettle, two K’s. Seriously, the world needs you. You matter. A lot. Okay, I gotta go, ’cause the griffins are here and you know how much they hate to wait. Love you,” I add quickly, and hang up.

Halfway through the novel, Cameron is becoming a more pleasant person. He is still a potty-mouthed smartass, but he cares a lot now. He even loves. I enjoyed reading about their “stops” and how Cameron picks up a couple of lessons from them that he hasn’t learned in the past sixteen years of his life. However, it easily became clear to me that the story will take a Lewis Carroll-esque turn. I’m not certain if it’s because of the plethora of clues strewn across each chapter or the extreme surrealism of events, but either way it did not deter me from liking the whole thing.

Aside from carrying significant messages that will send you pondering, what makes Going Bovine stand out from today’s flurry of cookie-cutter Alice in Wonderland tales is that it makes you question what really happened. That said, I absolutely love the concept of parallel worlds/alternate realities. In the readers’ perspective, everything is just a Don Quixote journey…but what is real, anyway? Bray poses that rhetorical question from the very start. Like Schrödinger’s Cat experiment, who’s to say only one reality exists? Can two realities not happen at the same time? Perhaps it’s only my inner kid’s happy-ever-after alarm going off, but I took comfort in the fact that this recurring element may also apply to the storyline itself.

There’s one thing I did not see coming: the identity of the Wizard of the Reckoning. I was shocked in a good way, and that’s plus points in my book. The final pages were amazingly bittersweet and thought-provoking. I was sobbing quietly, but a sense of eternal hope is also lingering there, making me smile (therefore making me look like a first class idiot, haha).

Going Bovine is officially taking its place in the bookshelf of my favorite novels. 4.5 stars out of 5 for an unforgettable read! 

Review
Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Author: Sherman Alexie
Genre: Young Adult, Coming-of-Age
My Rating: ★★★★ ½

It’s a massive understatement to say life is hard for someone like Arnold Spirit, Junior. Being geeky and having hydrocephalus, epilepsy, stutter, lisp, and extra ten teeth made an outsider out of the aspiring fourteen-year-old cartoonist in an already outsider of a community. He’s used to the feel of punches and kicks on his body and the sharp stings of barbs on his heart; to take the edge off, he uses his humor and talent in the arts. “I belong to the Black-Eye-of-the-Month Club,” he jests when referring to the bullying. “I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats,” he says about his drawings.

Like everybody else in the Spokane Indian Reservation, Junior acknowledges the fact that they are destined to be poor for the rest of their lives…but only at first. He has a lot of dreams, and deep inside he knows he will not reach them if he stays in the rez. One book-hurling incident and a heart-to-heart talk with a teacher later, Junior decides to change his fate: he’s going to study in an all-white school and start chasing his dreams, even if the odds are not in his favor. His choice pushes him up a step closer to being a social pariah. Everyone in the rez thinks he’s a traitor (an ‘apple’, red on the outside and white on the inside) and everyone in his new school thinks he’s different (he’s the only Indian in school…if you don’t count the mascot). Junior knows it will be a difficult journey, but he figures it’s better to search for a brighter future than to surrender to the bleak destiny he is expected to fulfill.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is one of the books I’ll recommend without second thoughts to people who want to have a good laugh…and perhaps a good cry. There are only a few novels that can make my spleen hurt from laughing too hard one minute and then break my heart the next, and this one is perhaps the best of them. Sherman Alexie nimbly handles the hilarious and poignant moments with his simple but powerful writing prowess, and by that I don’t exactly mean he uses an extraordinarily brilliant prose. I just admire how easy it is for him to make Junior sound like a genuine kid blathering about his uproarious mishaps after a long, exhausting school day. In short, Alexie makes the readers feel like they’re conversing with the characters instead of actually reading a book (which, if you ask me, is a sign of a really good book). Even if you don’t have a drop of Indian blood in your veins, finding a friend—or bits of yourself—in Arnold is a cinch. The conversational narrative helps in drawing in the readers closer to the storyline.

I heard this is Alexie’s first foray into the young adult genre, and honestly, it doesn’t show. He knows how a teenager’s mind works, he knows how a teenager’s mouth speaks, and he knows how to use this knowledge to reach out to all the teenagers inside of us.

Interspersed with the story are the cartoons (by Ellen Forney)Arnold draws. These do not only serve as complementary illustrations, they also help the narrative to flow smoothly and provide additional humor to the story. Take a look at these doodles:

I think the best thing about the book is how Alexie attacks serious issues like racism, poverty, alcohol and drugs usage, etc. with his sharp wit. In the process, he colors the prose with a lighter tone, but he never forgets to imply that these issues are grave enough to define the Native American life that exists even before the story starts. My favorite theme presented in it is the constant tug o’ war between individualism and collectivism, which Junior finds himself participating in while searching for his identity and place in the society. How do you continue to function in a community that sees you as a traitor? There’s nothing like watching a boy succeed in dealing with the heap of new burdens his own choice dropped on his shoulders, problems that would normally send an adult’s knees buckling. What’s fascinating here is that Junior doesn’t come off as precocious, like most kid geniuses in YA literature who hope to pass up as normal. He still sports the fragility of a kid, and he has a kind of optimism no one in the rez ever possessed.

While I cannot say all the characters are well-developed, I think a majority of them can leave a mark deep enough in the readers’ hearts to make them remarkable. I give Alexie a thumb up for portraying everyone in gray shades; no one is one hundred percent hero and no one is one hundred percent villain. They are just people, described with stark honesty in the eyes of a fourteen-year-old.

4.5 stars for an enjoyable read! I’m now considering reading more of Alexie’s works. :)

New covers for The Curse Workers series by Holly Black. I still think the UK covers are better.

Review
Title: Delirium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: Dystopia, Romance, Young Adult
Rating:  ★★★

____

Amor deliria nervosa, n. also known as “love” in the old times, this is a disease that can kill you both when you have it and when you don’t. Symptoms include preoccupation, impaired reasoning skills, periods of euphoria, obsessive thoughts, etc. Unless there are emergencies, everyone is scheduled to be “cured” at the age of eighteen; everyone also undergoes “evaluation,” where your future husband/wife is assigned to you based on your answers to some questions. All uncureds are required to stay away from the opposite sex.

Can anyone really be safe and happy in a world where love is considered a fatal ailment? What will you do if you finally realize that the fences that are supposed to protect you are also caging you from the truth? This is the tilt where Lauren Oliver’s dystopian world in Delirium rotates, and in the middle of it all is a plain teenager who can’t wait to be cured, Lena Haloway. 

It’s no secret that I’m infected by the dystopian/post-apocalyptic virus that’s continuously spreading in the world of literature nowadays, particularly in the young adult department. I haven’t read a lot of novels under this genre, but it’s easy to pick up common themes. Rebellion/resistance is at the hub of most books, its automatic spoke consisting of defiant protagonists that go against the established laws and take down the abusive government…mostly in the course of three books. The Hunger Games trilogy is by far my favorite, and truth be told I think it set the bar in this genre. I plan to bury my nose in more post-apocalyptic books, but I tend to delay reading those that use the same formula as THG. Then came a story about “love” as a sickness, and I thought, “That sure is a catchy idea!” I readily grabbed it from the shelf. 

It’s true that the best way to enjoy new books is not to get your hopes too high. I liked Oliver’s debut novel Before I Fall, but I really can’t say the same for Delirium. 

Delirium’s main idea is appealing and I wanted to find out how its author will deal with the domino-like line of questions that pops out after the concept is laid down. In my opinion, Oliver isn’t so successful in answering them. The origin of love as a mental illness (the whole package—the when’s, the who’s, and even the how’s) is not thoroughly discussed. Obviously there is government resistance, and my first hunch is that the “cure” is more than what it seems. In my mind, the government is transforming the world of love into a world of apathy through these vague brain surgeries because they don’t want the people to be angered and to revolt against them, in fear that they may end up like the rest of the world, destroyed perhaps by wars. Okay, maybe that’s just my overactive imagination—let’s say they just want to control the people like inanimate objects while feeding them the idea that they’re safe and sound. I can feel that Oliver has something up her sleeve, but I never got to learn what that is. Maybe I’ll find it out in the sequels, but if that’s the case, then Delirium as the first installment did not quite achieve its goal of cementing a strong foundation. Leaving questions normally makes the reader go hungry for more, but leaving too much makes the story look like a Swiss Cheese, full of plot holes.

Speaking of plot holes, I’d like to point out the very big flaw in the “Law of Segregation” in this book’s universe, where boys and girls are separated because they may fall in love. How about LGBTQ? Boys can love boys. Girls can love girls. It’s impossible that there’s no record of this. In a world where love is already considered dangerous, how do they deal with same-sex amor deliria nervosa? I think that will be interesting to explore because even in our society today, homosexuality is already considered by many as a disease. I hope Oliver will prove me wrong, that it’s not a flaw at all and it’s just waiting to be solved; I hope she touches this kind of love in the next installments, and touches it effectively.

If the epigraphs that came from fictional pamphlets and textbooks in that world were not included, the plot and the world-building will appear so thin. The characters are okay albeit bordering on stereotypical young adults. Most of the time, Lena is toddling precariously on the edge of being a Mary Sue, occasionally showing Bella Swan-esque qualities. Her thought processes are pretty interesting and thought-provoking though, and sometimes her memories can subtly break your heart (I’ll give her that). Alex is the regular love interest—you know, the once mysterious guy now sitting with you under the stars and reading romantic poetry. There are two more books, so there’s more room for them to develop. 

When it comes to originality, Delirium doesn’t stand out that much. It’s strikingly similar to Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series (dead ringers—just replace the word “love” with “ugliness”), and I’ve also heard of this book called Matched by Allie Condie, which shares a few similar concepts with Delirium, particularly the prearranged matches. 

There are a few things that redeemed this book for me. One is how Oliver showed that hate is not really the worst thing but indifference. She painted horrifying images that can make you think. I realized how without love, everything seems to be an insipid dollhouse; the people inside are marionettes trying to function normally according to the pattern that everyone else is following. It’s a choreographed world. Imagine a family that is only a family because it’s dictated by the authority; imagine how all the movies, music, and books that come your way never deal with anything that can tug at your heartstrings. What’s the point? Eradicating love is like taking away everything that matters, and it’s a very harrowing thought. 

Second is Oliver’s writing style. It’s quite different from Before I Fall, but I caught glimpses of the poetic curls at the edges of her prose. They’re usually overlapped by the book’s initial slow pacing, but they’re still there. 

Third is the climax at the end. I think that’s what really made me decide not to completely rule out reading Pandemonium, the sequel. :)

Review
Title: Before I Fall
Author: Lauren Oliver
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Contemporary
My Rating: ★★★★ (3.7 stars)

__ 

Once upon a time, a teenage girl died in a car crash.

The End? Not quite. It’s just the beginning of a story that may actually have a happy-ever-after—an unconventional one, especially in the first place it is not a fairytale at all.

Lauren Oliver’s debut novel, Before I Fall, follows the story of popular high school girl Samantha Kingston. More specifically, it revolves around the very day that Sam died, which she is “doomed” to repeat in some kind of a time loop until she figures out how to escape it. For seven times the same day is told, but with Oliver’s soul-crushingly beautiful writing, the formulaic albeit well-orchestrated plot comes off as refreshing. As you read along, you will not feel as if the six days are just echoes of the first one.

YA books with first person points of view are not my cup of tea, but there are a few that I liked unreservedly. Before I Fall is now one of them. Sam’s voice is surprisingly good; I find myself drawn to her story just a few pages after the prologue. Given her quandary, I find her medley of reactions and ruminations about the same things on the same day utterly realistic. Needless to say, her characterization is superb. Her transformation throughout the book is akin to watching a butterfly as it wriggles out of its chrysalis—the readers journey with her as she attempts to rectify the mistakes that she regrets to have committed, as she peels the superficial layers of herself and of her friends, and as she opens her eyes to appreciate everything that she has taken for granted when she is still alive. She grows and learns that life never fails to teach her something new (even if she is technically dead).  I commend the ace character development.

Over the sevenfold loop, Oliver didn’t forget to give the readers a kaleidoscopic glimpse on the lives of the other characters. She made it a point to not let any character be considered just black or white—everybody has shades of gray, just like in real life. There are a lot of teen books that deal with cliques, drugs, booze, and parties, but I think this book pretty much set the bar when it comes to honest portrayal of a typical high school life. The prose even has a journalistic quality to it, in a sense that Oliver didn’t bother on putting too much sugarcoating or melodrama to make it more appealing. A clear reflection is enough.

The pattern for day 1 is used loosely throughout the book, but the story never comes off as lackluster. The pacing makes for a thrilling read, and both the minor and major epiphanies will hold your attention and evoke several emotions. Anyone who likes romance will get a treat, too, but I think you should watch out for the ever-complicated relationships between friends. All kinds of friendships have their own versions of complexities, and Oliver managed to execute that very well.

Thumbs up for a satisfying read.

(photo by kayceemacuha)

“My point is: maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there’s a tomorrow. Maybe for you there’s one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much you can bathe in it, roll around in it, let it slide like coins through your fingers. So much time you can waste it. But for some of us, there’s only today And the truth is, you never really know.”

-Before I Fall (Lauren Oliver)

Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
Author: Ransom Riggs
Genre: Young Adult; Coming-of-Age, Fantasy
My Rating: ★★★★

_____

“The composition of the human species is infinitely more diverse than most humans suspect. The real taxonomy of Homo sapiens is a secret known only to a few, of whom you will now be one. At base, it is a simple dichotomy: there are coerlfolc the teeming mass of common people who make up humanity’s great bulk, and then there is the hidden branch—the crypto-sapiens, if you will—who are called syndrigast, or ‘peculiar spirit’…”

I have a strong hunch on what you’re thinking about right now, but no—it’s not X-Men: First Class’ Professor Charles Xavier blabbering about his thesis on mutant-kind. It’s a character in Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children speaking about, well, another “peculiar” race.

Basically the story is this: Jacob Portman has always been fascinated by his grandfather Abe’s stories. As a kid, he loved hearing them—tales about an enchanted home and kids with supernatural powers—backed by a stack of vintage photographs that the old man kept. But as he grows up, he dismisses them as bedtime fairytales and decides that the photographs are fake. When Abe dies in the hands of a creature strikingly similar to those that haunt Jacob’s dreams, the boy must embark on an adventure to clear the mist of mystery surrounding his grandfather’s last words, to shed light on Abe’s past…and perhaps, to pave the way for a new future for him, too.

Pre-reading, the whole package of this book just screams “horror” to me: on the cover you could see a grainy black and white snapshot of a girl with a tiara, and a little squint at her Mary Janes would reveal she was actually levitating. Below her was the creepy combo of the chalked and gravestone-type of the title. Most blurbs talk about a mysterious island and an old man’s riddle-like words before shifting off the mortal coil; the book trailer achieved its aim on sending chills down my spine. But when I finally sat with the book, I knew I’ve tagged it the wrong genre in my head. It has its share of spooky moments, of course, but the bigger chunk of it was more of an adventure story. Fantasy would be a misnomer too, but that’s the closest I could label it. Coming-of-age would actually do, too.

I loved Riggs’ prose. It was simple but has the prowess of a magical paintbrush, inflating a world populated with interesting characters and amazing mythology. I think Jacob was fleshed out in a good-portrait-of-an-alienated-teen kind of way, and Riggs made sure he didn’t leave out the hormones, the PSTD-ish stuff, and the innate smart aleck at the core of almost every adolescent nowadays. Topics executed wonderfully to fuel Jacob’s gradual growth as a protagonist were hard decision-making and identity-searching. The other characters were…well, peculiarly fascinating, though I guess they need more developing. I liked the ‘relationship issues’ in Jacob’s dysfunctional family, especially the tension-filled one between his grandfather and father. They added one dimension to Jacob’s fullness as a character, explaining a lot about his overall demeanor.

The collection of eerie black and white photographs interspersed with the book enhanced the narration, and it added to the enjoyment factor of reading it. I got a bit creeped out upon finding out at the end that the shots were authentic, and with the exception of a few that underwent minimal post-processing, all of them were unaltered.

If we were going to talk about originality, Miss Peregrine’s would not stand out. Theme-wise it has a good and familiar message: teens can confront monsters, whether they’re creatures lurking in the night or the ones gnawing at their hearts. Plot-wise, it was practically generic: there were a few twists and turns that I enjoyed, but at its core it was a regular bildungsroman with the “Chosen One” flavor. The young adult library was choked with that kind of formula ever since I began picking up a book in the genre. I think if it were not for the photographs, this book would perhaps not gather a lot of attention from the bookworms’ herd. Sans the awesome presentation, it would still be a decent read, but not as great as being juxtaposed with the photos.

Anyway, the combination of photos and narration was sterling, and that was enough to stop me from bellyaching some more. For a novel that was woven from a collection of snapshots from 10 different people, I think it was fascinatingly solid.

Halfway through the book I had decided that I would rate it based on what I would feel after I turned the last page, and guess what? I was actually mad.

It ended with a freaking cliffhanger.

Which meant there was going to be a sequel! My excitement at this epiphany was added to the ratio of my rating system for this book (60-40, based on photo-story). So all in all, I give this 3.9 stars. :p

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. And a strange collection of very curious photographs. It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience.

This is probably one of the best book trailers I’ve ever seen. It’s written and directed by Ransom Riggs himself.

Review: Ash
Author: Malinda Lo
Genre: LGBTQ, young adult; fairytale retelling
My Rating: ★★★ 1/2

____

When her father died, Aisling’s—Ash’s—world is turned upside down. Her stepmother, Lady Isobel, is cruel to her, and her stepsisters are not exactly fond of her. Ash is forced to work as a servant for her stepfamily, and she could only hope for someone to take her away from her miserable life.

Sounds familiar? It might, but this is not the fairytale you remember—it’s not the story of Disney’s ultimate damsel in distress who waits for Prince Charming to come by and hand her the happy-ever-after she longs for. In this retelling, instead of falling in love with a dashing prince, the dreamy, pretty orphan becomes smitten with the King’s feisty huntress, Kaisa.

You read that right. It’s Cinderella with a lesbian twist.

The strongest point of this book, for me, is the elegant unfolding of love between the two women and the society’s reaction (or lack thereof) to their budding relationship. The bottom line of the novel is not that the Cinderella figure is a lesbian, it is that no one cares that she is a lesbian. With that concept as a backbone, Malinda Lo managed to create this loose retelling sans the ‘coming out’ vibes that most LGBTQ titles possess.

The coming-of-age part of the book molds Ash well into a believable character, but she’s not particularly a likable one. While Ash only raises herself a step from being a total ingénue, Kaisa is portrayed as a stronger and more mannish character that completes what Ash lacks. Oh, I forgot to mention that there’s a bizarre love triangle here, and you’ll be surprised who makes the third side of it: the fairy godmother figure from the original tale…except that this time he’s a cruel Fairy Prince cursed to love a human girl (I really love the gender-bending bits!). Characterization of the antagonists came off as a little ‘bedtime story’ conventional, and to me they feel a stage short of being inflated into fully-realized characters. But in fairness to Lo, she suggests that Ash’s older stepsister only forces herself to marry a wealthy man just to make themselves a kisby ring, not wanting to sink into poverty, given the existing social strata in their world.

That takes us to the world-building—which is amazing. I love the complexities of Ash’s world, from the smallest fireside stories to the traditions of Rook Hill and the King’s City. Side by side, greenwitches and philosophers exist, a prevalent science vs. magic feel that helps shapes Lo’s universe. I also tremendously enjoyed the fables and myths that are deftly intertwined with the main story; they’re like gems embedded in a layer of less-precious stones. If they are invented by Lo, I’ll never know, but they sound authentic and they carry some shades of Brothers Grimm in them.

This is a good book, but if you are a sucker for retellings that are fast-paced, gripping, and out of the ordinary, Ash may not be your cup of tea. There is a lot to like about this novel, but there is something about the narration that does not quite click with me. The descriptions are beautifully dreamy and lush, but they make the transitions from scene to scene a tad slow. Other than that, I think this is a nice treat for fable-lovers and for queer people. After all, gays need fairytales, too.

___

a little trivia: Cinderella comes from the name “cendrillon,” which in French literally means “little ashes,” so I think Lo’s choice for her protagonist’s (nick)name matches this. Some sources also say that the girl in Cinderella is originally named Ella and she is almost always covered in soot/cinders from cleaning. This is used by Lo as well, as for many times Ash sleeps by the hearth and ends up coated with ashes and soot when she wakes up.