#61: Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

★★★★☆

Griffins are supposed to be extinct. So when Yukiko and her warrior father Masaru are sent to capture one for the Shogun, they fear that their lives are over. Everyone knows what happens to those who fail him, no matter how hopeless the task.

But the mission proves far less impossible, and far more deadly, than anyone expects – and soon Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in her country's last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled griffin for company. But trapped together in the forest, Yukiko and Buruu soon discover a friendship that neither of them expected.

Meanwhile, the country around them verges on the brink of collapse. A toxic fuel is slowly choking the land; the omnipotent, machine-powered Lotus Guild is publicly burning those they deem Impure; and the Shogun cares about nothing but his own dominion. Yukiko has always been uneasy in the shadow of power, when she learns the awful truth of what the Shogun has done, both to her country and to her own family she's determined to do something about it.

Returning to the city, Yukiko and Buruu plan to make the Shogun pay for his crimes – but what can one girl and a flightless griffin do against the might of an empire?


Stormdancer was one of my most anticipated reads of the year (just look at that cover), and I was so thrilled to find that it lived up to that expectation. Yukiko is awesome, but Kristoff's writing is the true hero of the novel. It brings the story to life with vivid attention to detail, throwing into high relief a fantasy world that is atmospheric and full of surprises.

I think one of the great things about Stormdancer is that it has such a wide appeal. It will undoubtedly find an audience amongst those who love action and humour, but it also has a lot to offer those who appreciate the development of romance and friendships. The few (minor) problems I had come down to taste, and didn’t detract much from what was overall a very enjoyable reading experience.

Stormdancer had all the things I look for in a fantasy novel – badass heroine, realistic world building and a good combination of light and dark moments. Also, kudos go to Kristoff for tackling steampunk, a genre that I’ve seen botched so many times before. Simply put, a story like Yukiko’s was always going to be interesting, but it is Kristoff’s phenomenal writing that make it a truly great book.

Thank you to St Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with a review galley. 

#60: The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

★★☆☆☆

Some schools have honor codes.
Others have handbooks.
Themis Academy has the Mockingbirds.

Themis Academy is a quiet boarding school with an exceptional student body that the administration trusts to always behave the honorable way--the Themis Way. So when Alex is date raped during her junior year, she has two options: stay silent and hope someone helps her, or enlist the Mockingbirds--a secret society of students dedicated to righting the wrongs of their fellow peers.

In this honest, page-turning account of a teen girl's struggle to stand up for herself, debut author Daisy Whitney reminds readers that if you love something or someone--especially yourself--you fight for it.

Beware: Mild Spoilers ahead

The Mockingbirds is a difficult book to review because, though it discusses real-life issues that are of grave importance to its intended audience, it is not immune to the same problems that plague books with a less ambitious purpose. It deserves some credit for delving into the much-ignored territory of date-rape. Unfortunately, I still don’t think it’s a very well-crafted novel. The writing is sound, I suppose, but the characters are very dull. I had no sense of who Alex was apart from what she experienced – the plot jumps right into the deep-end and there is no baseline for her personality, so I don’t feel a strong connection to her or have an understanding of how she has been changed by the trauma of what happened to her. In fact, I couldn’t help not liking her very much.

I think the biggest problem with this book is that it is really just about a girl who was date-raped, and nothing more. There are no real sub-plots, and the characters have very little going on in their lives separate from the main conflict. The characters are stripped of individuality and reduced to vessels for discussing the ethical ‘problem’, which isn’t a very subtle way of presenting moral arguments to an audience.

Then there are the Mockingbirds, the mysterious group committed to upholding justice at Themis Academy. I feel as if I did not get what I paid for here. There is no sense of mystery surrounding the Mockingbirds. In fact, it seems as if everyone knows all about the Mockingbirds except Alex herself. So, no suspense or detective work required. A question is posed and then almost immediately answered, which makes for an unrewarding read.

It could be debated whether what conspired at the beginning of this book actually fits the description of rape, but for the sake of this review let’s say that it does. The consequences that the Mockingbirds wrought seemed petty to the extent that I didn’t feel any sense of victory by the end of it. Getting kicked off the water polo team is not a real repercussion, and it is unconscionable to let a date-rapist who targets intoxicated girls to walk around in the world. The Mockingbirds are all too ready to take on her case, without concern for whether that is what best serves her needs, in a way that is almost sinister.

I thought this would be a book with lots of fist-pumping girl power moments, but that was not what I found. It was a lot of pushing by secondary characters and acquiescence on the heroine’s part. Perhaps this is a more realistic depiction of a date-rape victim, but it made for a flat read with very few discernible ‘highs and lows’. If The Mockingbirds had managed to discuss the topic of date-rape without being consumed by it, I might have looked upon it more favorably.

#59: Speechless by Hannah Harrington

★★★★★

Everyone knows that Chelsea Knot can't keep a secret

Until now. Because the last secret she shared turned her into a social outcast—and nearly got someone killed.

Now Chelsea has taken a vow of silence—to learn to keep her mouth shut, and to stop hurting anyone else. And if she thinks keeping secrets is hard, not speaking up when she's ignored, ridiculed and even attacked is worse.

But there's strength in silence, and in the new friends who are, shockingly, coming her way—people she never noticed before; a boy she might even fall for. If only her new friends can forgive what she's done. If only she can forgive herself.

Speechless is a wonderfully succinct novel. Harrington deftly weaves together interesting characters and contemporary issues whilst avoiding any hint of a preachy tone. I can see how much she has grown as a writer since her debut, Saving June, which I thought struggled in fulfilling it’s purpose.

The story is simple but gets right to the heart of the issues it deals with. There is no bumbling or ambiguity surrounding the central message of the novel, which is one of friendship and kindness and all those important things. Think before you speak, do unto others and all that have been done before in the young adult genre, but perhaps never as crisply as in Speechless. The story is perfectly paced and there is a rewarding build up before all the triumphant moments, which adds a lot to the reading experience.

Still, the natural focus of the novel was Chelsea and her bid for redemption. This is where Harrington excels. Chelsea is a fantastic protagonist – one that challenges the reader but doesn’t alienate them. I understood where she was headed and I was with her every step of the way.

All in all, a sometimes-sweet, sometimes-gritty contemporary that won me over completely. Give me a story like Speechless any day.

Announcing the Winner of the Defiance Giveaway

Today the winner of the Paperback copy of Defiance by C. J. Redwine was drawn.

Congratulations to...

Entry no. 127 - Aqsa N. 

An email is coming your way shortly!

A big thank you to everyone who entered. 

#58: Saving June by Hannah Harrington

★★☆☆☆

Saving June is very well-written, but lacks clarity. The novel suffered most as a result of the emphasis on the romantic relationship over the relationship between the main character and her dead sister, which should have been the natural focus of the story. 

I thought this book would be about the tragedy of suicide and the complex the relationship between sisters. It isn’t really though, because there is no sense of June’s presence in this novel. I know nothing about how she interacted with Harper or their parents. I don’t know what kind of personality she had. I know nothing about her, so why am I supposed to care that she’d dead?

Ostensibly, the reader is supposed to feel the loss of June through Harper’s grief, but I couldn’t. Mostly Harper uses June’s death as an opportunity for self-pity – I kept waiting for her to get around to feeling sad for June herself. The reader is given little sense of their relationship. We’re told it was a complicated relationship, but we are given practically no insight. I was left wondering why Harper was so intent on making the trip to California when she had little interest in finding out what was going on in June’s life and mind. The only conclusion I could draw was that Harper was making this trip much more for herself than as a tribute to June.

There isn’t really any enquiry into why June ended her life. It is passed off as June just not being ‘strong enough’ for the world, as if that is a believable reason for someone to end their life. We hear a bit about June at the start of the novel (that she was ‘perfect’ - whatever that means) but we never find out whether June was under undue pressure from their parents or teachers or if she felt trapped by her academic life. Harper's lack of interest in investigating her sister’s life made the story less believable. In fact, once the relationship between Jake and Harper starts to develop, the whole suicide theme fades into the background. 

Saving June has some good ideas but never gets to what really matters and lacks enough meaningful insight into sisterhood and the devastation of suicide. Even the ambiguity of June’s suicide note felt contrived, as if the author doesn’t even know why June killed herself.

So, I guess the problem with this book is that it addresses many controversial, touchy subjects but lacks clarity on any of them. June’s suicide feels like a plot device to push the two romantic interests together and create conflict in their relationship, which is a waste of all the time that could have been spent establishing the relationship between Harper and June – a relationship that the book utterly depends upon. Also, the hidden ‘connection’ between June and Harper’s love interest Jake was really anti-climactic. Teen pregnancy and abortion is briefly touched on but just fades away into a vague plot point with no oomph – better to have left this out altogether or done more with it. Harper spends too much time thinking about what June’s death has done to her life than thinking about June herself, so we never find out much about the ‘perfect’ sister. Which is a shame because Harrington is a talented writer, and the premise held a wealth of emotion that unfortunately remained unexplored.

#57: North of Beautiful by Justina Chen

★★★★☆

"As he continued to stare, I wanted to point to my cheek and remind him, But you were the one who wanted this, remember? You're the one who asked-and I repeat-Why not fix your face?"

It's hard not to notice Terra Cooper.

She's tall, blond, and has an enviable body. But with one turn of her cheek, all people notice is her unmistakably "flawed" face. Terra secretly plans to leave her stifling small town in the Northwest and escape to an East Coast college, but gets pushed off-course by her controlling father. When an unexpected collision puts Terra directly in Jacob's path, the handsome but quirky Goth boy immediately challenges her assumptions about herself and her life, and she is forced in yet another direction. With her carefully laid plans disrupted, will Terra be able to find her true path?

Written in lively, artful prose, award-winning author Justina Chen Headley has woven together a powerful novel about a fractured family, falling in love, travel, and the meaning of true beauty.

This will be a brief review, because there is not a lot to say about North of Beautiful other than that it ticks all the boxes on what a good young adult novel should deliver. It sat on my to-be-read list for a long, long time for no other reason than that there always seemed to be a book I’d been anticipating more. Now that I’ve finally gotten around to it, I’m sorry that I didn’t give it more priority. The themes of North of Beautiful and the cartography symbolism were really unique and effective. But what makes this novel stand apart from the crowd is the wonderful character development.

The characters start out very hard to like or understand – Terra, her parents and her brothers come across quite pathetic and misguided for the first part of the novel. But once you hit the second half, Terra and her mother start to develop deeper personalities and the novel becomes really enjoyable. There were heaps of wonderful, triumphant moments because the characters were given such care and growth. There is nothing artificial or contrived about the character’s problems and Terra’s journey flows naturally. Chen is a very strong writer, and I’ll definitely be checking out more of her work.

#56: Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

★★★☆☆

"When I was fourteen, I made a decision. If I was doomed to live in a trailer park next to an airport, I could complain about the smell of the jet fuel like my mom, I could drink myself to death over the noise like everybody else, or I could learn to fly."

Heaven Beach, South Carolina, is anything but, if you live at the low-rent end of town. All her life, Leah Jones has been the grown-up in her family, while her mother moves from boyfriend to boyfriend, letting any available money slip out of her hands. At school, they may diss Leah as trash, but she’s the one who negotiates with the landlord when the rent’s not paid. At fourteen, she’s the one who gets a job at the nearby airstrip.

But there’s one way Leah can escape reality. Saving every penny she can, she begs quiet Mr. Hall, who runs an aerial banner-advertising business at the airstrip and also offers flight lessons, to take her up just once. Leaving the trailer park far beneath her and swooping out over the sea is a rush greater than anything she’s ever experienced, and when Mr. Hall offers to give her cut-rate flight lessons, she feels ready to touch the sky.

By the time she’s a high school senior, Leah has become a good enough pilot that Mr. Hall offers her a job flying a banner plane. It seems like a dream come true . . . but turns out to be just as fleeting as any dream. Mr. Hall dies suddenly, leaving everything he owned in the hands of his teenage sons: golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson. And they’re determined to keep the banner planes flying.

Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business—until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret. Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers—and the consequences could be deadly.

Such a Rush was a book that I had high hopes for. I mean, I couldn’t wait any longer to read it so I bought the hardcover. That’s a commitment right there. Lately I’ve been trying to get into the contemporary genre with a bit more enthusiasm, and as such have been digging around for books with originality and flair (with mild success). However, I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it had the element of freshness that I was looking for. But, on the other hand, the plot was sometimes weak and the romance needlessly complicated.

I think that the most important message of this book gets lost along the way. I thought it was going to be about the importance of family. I.E the protagonist learns about the love of a real family from the Halls and realises how much more love and support she deserves as opposed to what she gets from her mother. But that ends up playing a minor role compared to what the story is quickly consumed by – a fraught romance based on one of the silliest ideas I’ve ever read. Let me break it down for you real quick. Grayson Hall inherits his father’s flying business and wants to run it, but Leah staunchly refuses to work for him even though she needs the money (and even though she owes a debt of gratitude to their father for giving her free flying lessons). Therefore he blackmails her (flimsily at that – she forged her mother’s signature on a permission form. Pfft.) to work for him, and to date his twin brother. He won’t say why, and it quickly becomes clear that it makes no sense for him to have asked her to be the one to pretty much seduce his brother. This complication could have been taken out all together to focus on the themes of family, loss, self-worth and responsibility, which take a backseat when the romance picks up and remain under-developed throughout.

There seems to be too much time spent talking about how ‘sexy’ the heroine is without even trying (or being aware of it. Snort), to the point that the love interest talks about her school teachers being attracted to her. Gross and unnecessary. One other scene that made my skin crawl a bit was when the heroine and the love-interest are talking about her (platonic) relationship with his father. She says that if the father had been her age, she would have fallen for him, and that prompts the guy to kiss her. No, just no. If a guy is turned on by you talking about how you would have boned his dad if he had been your age, run.

So, the second half of the novel was dumbed down by the nonsensical dating-scheme (which is seems is just there to complicate the romance), but this book still doesn’t suffer too badly star-wise because I loved the focus on flying and the writing wasn’t half-bad. This is my first, and maybe only, Jennifer Echols novel, but it was at least an entertaining, imaginative addition to the genre.

(Also, just have to say that the cover is really misleading and actually does a disservice to the book. This book isn’t as fluffy as the jacket picture suggests, and it’s a shame they didn’t do something more with the pilot theme. The model doesn’t even bare resemblance to Leah. Couldn’t they have at least put some aviator sunglasses on her – she wears them constantly throughout the whole book! Oh well.)