Scarlet by A.C. Gaughin

Will Scarlet is a well known thief, a part of the much loved and vilified troop of thieves led by Robin of Locksley. As Will, Little John, Much, and Robin steal from the rich to give to the poor, Will Scarlet must also deal with the ongoing secrets that he lives with: he is actually a she and she has a past that is catching up to her like the hangman's noose. As she deals with a confrontation with thief catcher Guy of Gisbourne, she must also pick through the conflicting emotions she has for Robin and the attentions of Little John.

HOLY BANANAS THIS WAS AWESOME! AWESOME I SAY!

Scarlet was such an incredible, deep, layered character. She was thoughtful strong, and best of all realistic. She was not a wilting flower pretending to be a boy, Scarlet was fully committed to her ruse and was rather disgusted by the idea of skirts and flirtation. That's not to say that she isn't sympathetic to the female plight. She has a back story that unfolds beautifully and naturally, kind of like her feelings for Robin and her confusion about Little John.

SPOILERS HINTED AT AHEAD

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

Calpurnia is a precocious eleven year old on the verge of seeing America come into a new century. As she watches the country grow and develop intellectually, she must try and balance this with the expectation that she will grow up to be a wife and mother. Under the tutelage of her eccentric grandfather, Calpurnia discovers that what she is seeking in life might be beyond what her family and town can give her.

This book was lovely. Sweet, slow, and humorous, each chapter was a rather delightfully packaged little vignette that made you care for the entire family more and more. Each chapter begins with an excerpt from Origin of the Species, and it helps keep the theme of evolution very prevalent throughout the book even when the chapter might not have anything to do with the science experiments that Calpurnia and her Grandaddy perform.

This was a very character driven book, which partially makes it such a wonderful book. There are so few books for this age group that are character drive and well done. Jacqueline Kelly manages to do it though. Calpurnia makes you hope and dream with her, you want her to grow up and be able to do anything that she wants to do, and yet you know there's a good chance that she won't be able to. Jacqueline Kelly does an incredible job of creating a juxtaposition between our expectations as modern readers and the realist of Calpurnia's situation. Though-provoking.

I do have one little criticism. It's not huge, but I found some of the side-stories to detract from the main story-line. For example Calpurnia's eldest brother Harry has a fling with a young woman and I thought it dragged the story down a bit. It adds nicely to the whole well-rounded character and developing relationships between the family, but slowed things down in an already slow book. I get why it's there, I just didn't really want it there.

OK, enough about the book. I want to give a shout out to the reader Natalie Ross. She was BANANAS good. She encapsulated each character perfectly in the voices she gave them. It was incredible. When you listen to a book you want it to be this kind of experience. Awesome.

So go forth. Listen to this book. You'll enjoy it.

Girls Don't Fly by Kristen Chandler

Myra is a doormat, people walk all over her and all she does is welcome them in. She can't help it though, people rely on her. Howard, her horrible boss; her chaotic family; and Erik, her perfect boyfriend. Myra is content to take care of everyone until Erik breaks up with her so he can get laid, Myra's genius older sister drops out of college because she has an unplanned pregnancy, and Myra gets fed up with Howard and walks out. With more pressure from her parents for Myra to take care of her four younger brothers and make money to help support her family, she finds a mental escape in applying for a research opportunity in the Galapagos Islands. She finds herself empathizing with the flightless cormorants and evolving from a doormat to scientist with the help of her grad school mentor Pete. But as her senior year comes to a close, Myra isn't sure if her newly found confidence will carry her through to the end, or if she will fall into her old habits and let people walk all over her.

I think I liked this? Myra was a really interesting character. She obviously has self-esteem issues brought on partially by her relationship with Erik and partially from her family's dependence on her. She has some rather disturbing OCD traits that I think someone should tell her to seek psychological help for. She is a doormat, and yet not a fatalistic doormat. She doesn't whine a lot about it, I think she truly does things for others out of the goodness of her heart which is rather endearing. Her family interactions rang true, and even at the end there were still issues that needed to be worked out. Everything wasn't wrapped up in a pretty bow which I appreciated. The themes of self-actualization and evolution were handled really well. Not too over the top and yet they weren't dropped half-way through.

P.S. Spoilers ahead.

Enchanted Ivy by Sarah Beth Durst

Lily has one goal in life, go to Princeton just like her father and grandfather did. She can't help but think that going to Princeton will lead to better things, better than her grandpa's flower shop, better than her crazy mother, better than her deceased father who no one talks about. When her grandpa invites Lily and her mother to go with him to his reunion it turns out that Lily is being given the Legacy Test that could lead to her automatic admission into Princeton. Of course Lily is terrified and determined to find the key that will get her into her dream school, which grows exponentially as she learns that Princeton is not what she thought it was, i.e. magic. As she starts her quest she makes the acquaintance of a dreamy were-tiger, a gorgeous knight, and more gargoyles than she had anticipated; she watches as a seemingly simple 'old boys' test turns into a quest to save the magical compact between two worlds and her family's lives.

Let's be honest this was not a deep life-altering tale. It was fluff, unadulterated magically romantic fluff. And I enjoyed it, really enjoyed the hell out of it! It helped that the dialogue was pretty snappy, characters were engaging, the plot line adequately built, and it didn't pretend to be anything that it wasn't. It didn't go for deep and meaningful, it didn't go for gut wrenching, it was satisfied with being entertaining and that's how it should be. I'm not going to go into greater detail, because I think it is really unnecessary. This book was delightful and I actually don't feel super strongly about it, but I'm mostly posting this in the hopes that my friend Laura will read my review, then skim through the book, and then take me on a tour of Princeton and show me all the buildings and gargoyles. Dorky? Absolutely but necessary to appease my literary geekhood.

Ashes Ashes by Jo Treggiari

A tenth of the world's population is dead in the first epidemic, more die in the second wave. Natural disasters keep people fending for their lives, and sixteen year old Lucy is trying to survive in the Wilds just outside of New York City. Her family is dead and Lucy lives in constant fear that she will not survive the next day. When she is chased down by a pack of dogs, a young man saves her and she joins his commune when a tsunami destroys her hut. She must learn to trust and rely on others, overcome her prejudices against the S'ans (the infected that survived and now carry horrible scars), and deal with her attraction to Aiden, even as the Sweepers raid the little tent city more frequently on the search for something or someone. As Lucy discovers that there is more to her own back-story than she first realized, she must decide whether to stay and fight for the people she's become close to or run north.

This had a super strong start. Extremely atmospheric and a great history of how this world developed. I liked Lucy's voice, she was strong, spunky, moody without being obnoxious, and realistic responses to what life threw her way. Unfortunately I did not love the plot after the first four chapters. It slowed way down. Like a snail's pace. All of a sudden we're trying to deal with Lucy gardening, like all the time and a flirtation with a random guy. I liked the secondary characters, but there was some random focus on them. I didn't really understand why we didn't spend more time with Aiden and Del and really build up the love triangle there. Or why we didn't see or hear more of Leo so his death meant more. Why didn't we get to know more of Sammy or Del? Why was there a rather lame ending, that seemed overly action-y in the whole scope of the book.

Down the Mysterly River by Bill Willingham

Max "The Wolf" has woken up in a forest he doesn't know. As a super sleuth boy scout he tries to put together the pieces, and figure out why he cannot remember the last few days of his life. Adding to his confusion are the talking animals. Banderbock, the grizzled army badger; McTavish the Monster, a fearsome surly yellow animal that sometimes looks like a cat; and Walden, a black bear sheriff who kind of reminds me of the cowardly lion. They are all searching for answers and they eventually discover that the only way they'll get them is to make it to a sanctuary, specifically Wizard Swift's sanctuary. But this unknown world seems to be working against them. They must keep away from the Blue Cutters' influence, whose swords make horrible changes to personalities.

Bill Willingham is the writer of the fantastic graphic novel series Fables and Mark Buckingham who has illustrated volumes of Fables, most notably 1001 Nights of Snowfall which Arianna and I both loved. This is Bill Willingham's first non-graphic novel book, and it was fantastic! It wasn't as dark as I expected (and secretly hoped) it to be, there were some great action sequences and the characters were awesome! I'm telling you within the first few words of introduction of each you knew who they were, related to them, and yet they still managed to surprise you.