The Books of Elsewhere: The Shadows by Jacqueline West

You know that house down your street that everyone always knows about, refers to as "that house," and is just generally creepy? Olive has just moved into that house. Her brilliant (read dippy) mathematician parents are delighted with the architecture and the lighting of the library; Olive on the other hand is fascinated with the old clothes, glass medicine bottles, and the paintings - especially the paintings. She soon discovers that she can go into the paintings and interact with the subjects, but there's something menacing watching her. With all the information gleaned from a small scarecrow boy, a lovely young woman, and three talking cats, Olive doesn't know who she can trust or what the truth is. What she does know is that there's something coming after her, someone who doesn't welcome Olive and her parents into the house.

I really enjoyed this book. As I was reading, I kept comparing the atmosphere that West created with Neil Gaiman's Coraline. The book grabbed my attention and kept it, just when I thought the plot was going to fall into some overly done trope it took a bit of a turn and renewed my interest. That isn't to say that there weren't a few obvious plot twists, but given the overall awesomeness of the book it's easily forgiven. Needless to say, it took me about two hours to plow through the 235 pages of fast-paced adventure.

This book is coming out June 30th (though on West's website it lists the release date as June 15th), it's a series and I hope that the second follows quickly on the heels of this exciting first book.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer

Yes, of course I read it. It's free online, it just came out yesterday and I read it today in like an hour. Yes, of course there are other things I could be reading. My list is gigantic. But Stephenie Meyer called me, and I answered.

What? You have no memory of anyone named Bree in the Twilight books? Me neither. So to refresh: remember in Eclipse, at the end, when the plot finally shows up and all the newborn vampires lead by Victoria and her boy-toy Riley come to kill Bella because Victoria is still out for revenge from when Edward killed James? She was one of the newborns. She surrendered, so Carlisle didn't kill her. Then the Volturi show up and kill her. Then end.

OR SO WE THOUGHT.

Bree was living on the street when she was caught and made into a vampire by Riley. She's been living in a basement with 22 other vampires for three months, annoyed as anything because all the other vampires are STUPID and keep killing each other. She is different. She is sensible. Diego, also sensible and not stupid goes hunting with her one night. They discover that vampires can actually go out into the sun without burning up and realize that Riley has been lying to them. Why would he lie? Why? Diego and Bree (who by this time, like 20 pages in, heart each other) follow Riley to see what is up and discover that Riley has gone to talk to her (they don't say Victoria's name, they all fear her), and that they have been created to be soldiers in some kind of war. Then the Volturi show up, make it clear they would be delighted if the newborns take out the yellow-eyes (Cullens), and off we go to war. Diego stays behind to tell Riley about the whole OK-to-go-out-in-the-sun thing, but doesn't come back. Riley says he's gone ahead to spy, but Bree isn't so sure. She wants to find Diego and convince him to run off with her as she just realized that she doesn't have to hang around with all these other idiots.

So after the newborns go to war and all die in about half a page and Bree surrenders, not because she's afraid, but because she's realized that Diego has been dead THE WHOLE TIME (I mean, dead dead, not like vampire dead) and she just doesn't care, kill her too, she refers to one of the vampires as "the red-head." And I had no idea who she was talking about. Then I realized that she was talking about Edward. Does Edward have red hair? In all the times that Bella describes him (approx.: 1 million) I don't recall her ever saying his hair is red. Did she? But then, Bella would never describe Edward as a "red-head." She would wax poetic about how his hair is the color of flames in the setting sun, or something.

In conclusion: A quick read, and interesting. When you read the two pages of Eclipse that Bree is in she just seems like a half crazed, uncontrolled newborn, which she actually isn't. At all. If you've read Twilight you know you're going to read this one anyway so I think I'll leave it at that.

tales of the MADMAN underground by John Barnes

Karl Shoemaker has one goal for his senior year: be normal. If he can only be normal, then maybe for one year he won't be sent to the therapy group. How hard can being normal be? Pretty hard, when your mom steals your money to go drink and "being normal" means not being able to talk to your best friend. As much as Karl wants to be "normal," he finds it's pretty hard to leave a group where everyone knows your story.


OK Printz committee. I’ll give you this one. This was a good book. OK? You were right about this one. I really liked it. But I still maintain they were trying to be hip and edgy. It just so happens it was good too.

Reasons I liked this book:

1. Nice job with dialogue Mr. Barnes. So often teenage characters end up talking like snarky English professors or street kids from an 80s movie. Or valley girls from a 90s movie. There’s a middle ground people. And it was found in this book. The character’s voices were all very distinct, and very real. They felt like actual people.
2. I very much appreciated that everything wasn’t fixed in the end. One things was fixed, but hey, it’s a YA book, we need something. But there was no happy ending, for anyone really, and that felt true. It was a bittersweet ending, but I really like those. Have you ever seen Little Miss Sunshine? You know at the end when they all come together as a family and they’re feeling good and it’s really uplifting? But at the same time, you know they have to go back home and they’re bankrupt and the father’s business idea has failed and their grandfather’s dead and the uncle is still sad about his lost boyfriend and the kid has lost his dream of being a pilot. So sad. But uplifting. It was like that.
3. I’ve read a number of books that try to tell the story through “real time” and it does not work. This book took place over the course of five days, and it worked perfectly. It didn’t feel forced, it didn’t feel accelerated. Things were actually happening at a pace that was believable for a five day period.

I disagree with the subtitle though, which is A Historical Romance 1973. I didn’t think of this as a romance at all. I’m glad that title isn’t actually on the cover of the book, because I think it would be a turn-off.

Emily the Strange: Stranger and Stranger by Rob Reger

Emily is an evilish, gothish, punkish scientific genius who main goals in life seem to be constructing elaborate pranks to pull on unsuspecting people, painting large murals, skateboarding, guitar playing, and snuggling with her cats. Emily thinks it will be a FABULOUS idea to make a duplicating machine and duplicate herself but, gasp, things don’t work out as planed!

Not going to lie. I didn’t finish it. I didn’t have to though. I flipped around enough to confirm what I knew was going to happen happened. But really, should I expect more from a book based on a character from a sticker that promotes a skateboarding clothing line? I don’t think I should.

Ready? I’m going to spoil the book for you. If you don’t want it spoiled, stop reading now. I’m about to give it away. This is your last chance! ::SPOILER:: It turns out Emily didn’t duplicate herself at all! She split herself! So each part got some parts of her personality! One half of her is super evil and trying to destroy the world and kill the other half of her, which is not evil but just loves her cats and pranking and skateboarding! Now the not evil Emily has to figure out what zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oh, I’m sorry. I drifted off. That’s enough for the spoiler. ::END OF SPOILER::

Right. So. Not Evil Emily was super dumb. How did she not figure this out? Maybe the Evil Emily got all the brains in the split. I don’t know. There’s nothing really redeeming about this book, aside from the fact that if you have reluctant readers who are familiar with the character, they might be into this

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

After Will Henry’s parents die in a fire, he, like his father before him, becomes the assistant to Monstrumologist Pellinore Warthrop. Will Henry has to do horrifying things in the assistance of Dr. Warthrop, dealing with creatures he had no idea were even real. When a grave robber brings to Dr. Warthrop attention a particularly deadly species of monster, the horror really begins.

So…I don’t know what to tell you. The book flap describes this book as a “gothic tour de force,” but this is not a Gothic horror book. Gothic horror is like Dracula. Everything is done in the shadows, there’s no real blood and gore. This was full out, detailed, blood and gore. For example, after the monster has attacked and killed a family of six, we get a detailed description of the scene, down to the scooped out brains and flesh and bone scattered around the room.

I do not like horror. So I did not enjoy this book. I was too grossed out the whole time. Because of this, I don’t feel like I can accurately judge whether this was a good book or not. I just don’t know. I did like what Yancey was doing with the “when does a man become a monster?” psychological aspect.

What I am sure of is that my theory that the committee in charge of the Printz Awards this year was trying to be hip and edgy is holding true. I will continue to make my way through the Printz winners I haven't read (and had never heard of until they won).

In conclusion. Ew. If you don’t like horror, DON’T READ THIS BOOK. If you do like horror, well, have I ever got a book for you!

The Grimm Legacy

So I finished The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman about a week ago. Enter Elizabeth, our heroine, whose life somewhat reflects the fairy tales that she loves so much: distant father, horrible stepmother and stepsisters, and not a friend in the world. Enter Mr. Mauskopf (who I couldn't help visualizing as having a mouse on his head) who recommends that Elizabeth gets a job at the Circulating Material Repository. This is a library like no other, instead of specializing in books it loans out things! Rugs, wigs, tools, music, and things only whispered about that come from the Grimm Collection. Just as Elizabeth is figuring things out, making friends, and gaining the trust of those she works with disaster strikes when items are being stolen and friends are being threatened. The horror! Elizabeth must rise to the occasion or lose everything that she has worked for.

I have to admit that I didn't love it. The premise is great, who doesn't love the idea of an outsider finding her place at a quirky magical library? But what should really have been a more plot driven tale, I felt was bogged down by unlikable characters and a fractured storyline. I can't help but wonder if Ms. Shulman can either fix the book before publishing or grab enough attention to create a better sequel? I didn't hate it, but honestly I had such high hopes that I ended just being disappointed.

Introducing three librarians bent on making their way to the ALA conference

Hello! We are three librarians, who met in library school and discovered that our passion for young adult literature, Eddie Izzard, and general nerdiness would forever bind us in chains of professional development and friendship. We hope to make it to the ALA Annual conference in Washington D.C. this year, and are hoping to gain enough attention from anyone to motivate us to plan our trip. Keep a watch out for book reviews, technology recommendations, and general life question like: Did dinosaurs go to church?