YA Wednesday: Graphic Novel Review: Saints by Gene Luen Yang

Last week I posted about the Printz Award Nominatee Boxers. This week, I'm posting about the second book in the series, Saints. I believe they were nominated together as one volume. To see last week's review, click here.

Saints by Gene Luen Yang

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I've been on a graphic novel kick lately, so I grabbed this in an armload of them from the library. I saw it was nominated for a Printz award, which made me take it out of the stack and read it first.

It was pretty good, but nothing exceptional. For one, the graphics aren't as lovely as many of the graphics I've read. If I'm going to read a graphic novel, I want to be as captivated by the illustrations as the story. Otherwise, why not just read a novel? I didn't feel this was enhanced in any way by being a graphic novel. In fact, I'd rather read a novella about this supposedly based-in-history girl.

I did like the story quite well. Four-Girl was such a sad, confused child. I felt for her and was glad she finally got a name and found a place where she was welcome. It was so sad and amusing when she thinks she's a devil and goes around making ugly faces so everyone will know. It was at once tragic and ridiculous. I'm going to read the companion novel, but I can't say I'm holding my breath waiting for it.



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YA Wednesday: Graphic Novel Review: Boxers by Gene Luen Yang

Boxers by Gene Luen Yang

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I picked up both Boxers and Saints at the same time, and I couldn't tell which came first, so I guess I read them in the wrong order. But, they are each stand-alone books, and I don't think one necessarily needs to be read first. However, this book did clarify a lot that I didn't know in the second, so I would try to read this one first. While reading Saints, I didn't know exactly who The Righteous and Harmonious Fist was, etc (my knowledge of Chinese history being pretty much nonexistent).
I really enjoyed learning about the Boxers rebellion, although the book was more fantasy than history. I found myself wondering if people had given accounts of the fighters turning into gods, or where the idea came from. However, the graphics in this one were more enjoyable for me. I've read 3 of Yang's books now, and although they have good stories, I feel that a graphic novel should be equally strong in both story and graphics, or else why not just write a novel? I guess I feel that if a writer uses this format, the illustrations should add to the story, and in the case of this author, this is the first book I thought his story lent itself well to the format.

I enjoyed this book more than the other 2 I've read by this author, and I think the reason is the illustrations. The gods were all vivid and colorful, and those places in particular were enhanced by the artwork (if you told me 'then he turned into a god' I would not have imagined the colorful, striking images of their gods but a more austere, western version of god).

Overall, this was a very good graphic novel and an excellent story.

Content: lots of war violence.
Recommended for: Age 10+ for violent scenes.



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YA Wednesday Graphic Novel Review: Amulet Series by Kazu Kibuishi

Amulet, Vol. 1: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If for some reason you think graphic novels are shallow and devoid of emotional impact, think again. Amulet had me in tears within a few pages of sparse dialogue. Don't underestimate the power or emotional impact images can have on us, moreso even than words, and in such a small space.
Once I dried my tears and began chapter one, the book flew by. The plot picks up, the characters are realistic (yes, I require this even in fantasy, perhaps especially in fantasy), and the author's imagination is a wonderful mix of the odd, the fantastical, the touching, and sometimes the absurd. It has the whimsy of something like The Never Ending Story. If adorable pink robotic bunnies are your kind of thing, grab this book and don't let go til you've drunk in every last magical image and read every last thought bubble. I know I did. And I can't wait to grab the next.



Amulet, Vol. 2: The Stonekeeper's Curse by Kazu Kibuishi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Beautiful illustrations, another wonderful story. My son and I can't get enough of these books. There is so much to see that he'll look at them for hours.


Amulet, Vol. 3: The Cloud Searchers by Kazu Kibuishi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


These book are fantastic! The artwork is so amazing--haunting and eerie, comical, tender. I absolutely love it. It makes the story multitudes better. The story is pretty good, too. But the illustrations are what really keep me coming back for more. Plus, I love Miskit!

Amulet, Vol. 4: The Last Council by Kazu Kibuishi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Once more, beautiful artwork, as in every book in the series. I enjoyed the storyline in this one a bit more than in the last. And was overjoyed to see the return of Miskit, the pink robot bunny.

Amulet, Vol. 5: Prince of the Elves by Kazu Kibuishi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I thought this was the last book in the series, but a lot was left up in the air, so I really hope Kibuishi will wrap things up with another book. I haven't read a lot of graphic novels before, but this series was so beautiful and breathtaking. I wish there were many, many more of them. 


I saw that Book 6 was out and I can't wait to read it! Exciiiited...

YA Wednesday: Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo

The Fourth of July is almost upon us, and what's more American than SUPER HEROES! So, without further ado, I bring you the first book I've ever heard of featuring a Superhero squirrel. Happy Independence Day, Americans! Happy Wednesday, everyone else!

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Even though Middle Grade is a little, well, young for me, I'd still like to read all the Newbery Award Winners. I have maybe 20 left to go, and in the past few years, I've slacked a bit. So I grabbed this one from the library, figuring I could listen to it with my son in the car. I wasn't expecting much, even though I've read and enjoyed many of DiCamillo's novels.

Like a lot of books I read, I didn't read the back before starting the book. So I was a bit startled when I realized the book was about a superhero squirrel. That's right. A squirrel who is also a (suspected) superhero. At least our other title character, Flora, would like to believe when the magically blessed Ulysses enters her life. Ulysses isn't your average superhero. His feats of strength include lifting a vacuum cleaner over his head for no apparent reason. His arch nemesis is a romance writer. He vanquishes nothing more than a large cat. And he is more concerned with giant (and gianter) doughnuts than saving the world. But he may just be able to save Flora.

With wit and humor, DiCamillo proves that superheroes come in all shapes and sizes, and that even when broken, we can still shine (much like a headless shepherdess lamp).

Review Wednesday: Fading into Magic by Vone Savan

Fading Into Magic by Vone Savan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was a valiant effort from a new independent author. I was drawn to it because of the wonderful, whimsical cover art. The story itself is engaging, exciting, and fast-paced. It has some romance, some tragedy, some action...all the usual paranormal ingredients.
The main character seemed a little undeveloped, but I still rooted for her. The plot was a little predictible, but I find that's true of almost all YA paranormal romance. The girls in this book seemed more like 10 than 17, though. At the beginning, I kept checking back to make sure I'd done the math right--I don't see 17 year old girls running everywhere and yelling to each other all the time, calling each other 'honey bunny' and stuff like that. I'm not sure the author is very aware of what high school girls are like.

While the plot didn't have any holes or leave anything to be desired, the writing style was very elementary and hard for me to get into. Some of the dialogue was hokey, the inner monologues often sounded like lectures for the reader, and the writing itself was very beginner. It was a good book, and with a professional editor who knew the writing business, it could have been very good. All the adjectives and people yelling things drove me a little nutty, though. I'd recommend a few books on writing for this author, and expect great things from him if he gets his books into industry-standard form.

An intriguing read that I'd recommend for Middle Grade/Young Adult readers of paranormal romance.



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Review Wedneday: Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I very much enjoyed this story about a nine 'but big for her age' year-old girl who gets lost in the Maine wilderness. For the most part. So let's get down to it.



What I liked: The girl who loved baseball. Yep, that pretty much sums up why I loved this book. I mean, how can you not love a nine-year-old who loves baseball, in large part because she shared it with her absent-through-divorce father. And maybe I'm a little biased because I was a kid who loved basketball, and then baseball, and then football. Yep, I had favorite players, I could recount their stats. I knew who they pitched against, if they had trademark moves, etc. And for sure I could understand why and how baseball was her link to the world, how she listened to the games for solace and sanity and hope, for escape and, well, everything we love about sports as children or adults. And the girl was tough-as-nails but not unrealistically so. I didn't even mind that she cried ALL the time. I mean, not only was it realistic, but it didn't annoy me how, say, reading YA books about girls crying all the time makes me want to throw the book against the wall. No, when Trisha cried, it fit into the story and didn't make her seem like a spoiled whiny brat (sorry, I have a thing against girls who cry a lot in books). Instead of giving up and feeling sorry for herself, our plucky little heroine gets her resourceful butt up and goes on.



Which, incidentally, brings me to the next part of my review: what I didn't like so much. First of all...I may have read this wrong, but I'm pretty sure this is how it happens. Girl hiking in woods with family. Girl comes to fork in the road, goes off in the MIDDLE to pee, and gets lost. She tries to slant off to one side to catch up with her family on the trail, taking the short cut. Okay, so maybe the trail winds away somewhere and she wouldn't intersect it that way. So what does she do? She keeps walking. FOR NINE DAYS!!!!! Hello, why not just turn around? She's in the middle of a fork. When she realizes she's lost, if she'd turned around and gone back, she'd have to either run into one of the two trails or come back to the intersection. It's geographically not possible that she wouldn't. Draw a picture if you don't believe me. For such a smart, resourceful kid to not think of something so simple...I don't believe it for a minute. Not for a kid who knows what to eat in the woods better than I do, and I'm an adult who happened to grow up, that's right, IN THE WOODS!

The next thing that sort of bothered me was how she got sick from drinking clear pure stream water. That's pretty much a myth. If you drink stream/river water that comes out of a farm where there's runoff from animal dung, maybe. In the middle of a pristine forest? Not so much. I'd buy it if the swamp water, or the puddle water, made her violently ill ie food poisoning, but not the clean water. And the last thing. Yeah, I know, SK points out that this was her first bad decision, to go north towards Canada instead of south when she got to almost civilization. I could see how she'd miss when she was so close. I could see how she didn't hear the town. But who goes north? Come on, she's seen maps, right? She lives in Maine, right? Can anyone name a town north of Maine besides, um, Canada? Can anyone name a town south of Maine? Yeah, that's what I thought. This girl was way too smart to make those mistakes. If she'd been an idiot, I'd buy it. But then, she wouldn't have lived.



So I guess my final word would be this: come on, Mr. King. Don't fall back on the same lame old lost-in-the-woods cliches. Your fans expect more.



Also, like most of King's almost could-happen books, I didn't need the supernatural stuff. It was hokey. There's plenty of horror in real life, plenty of scary situations for a girl lost in the woods. We really don't need wasp-gods to know it's scary. Really. I like King's supernatural books fine, but some of them, I always think, are more plausible (aka scary) without it. Those elements just ruin the spine tingling "this could REALLY happen" vibe and distract/detract from the suspense. Maybe he just adds it bc he thinks the fans like that? I know I don't need it in every book. Not. At. All.



I definitely fell in love with the character in this book, which is one of the things that Stephen King does SO well. I just didn't buy all the circumstances. But overall, it was a satisfying, if not exactly terrifying, story.



I'd recommend to younger King fans or those just getting into his work. And YA readers. And people who have gotten or would like to get lost in the woods.



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Show Me Your Teeth Blog Hop!

Hi guys,
I'm honored to be part of this awesome vampire-themed blog hop in honor of Rachelle Mead, author of the Vampire Academy series. As my giveaway, I'm offering a free ebook copy of my own vampire novel, The Superiors. The contest starts at midnight, August 15 CST and ends at 11:59pm on August 23. Check out the other blogs, too, there are tons of awesome giveaways of all kinds of vampire loot.

To win my giveaway, do the following:
Follow my blog (1 entry)
Follow my twitter @lenahillbrand (1 entry)
Like my FB page http://www.facebook.com/LenaHillbrand (1 entry)
Retweet, repost this on your blog, or link it on FB. (1 entry each).

Please post a comment letting me know which of these things you've done, and please include links so I can verify! Thanks and good luck!

How Love Triangles Ruin Books

Okay, here’s my rant. Haven’t we seen ENOUGH love triangles? Can’t authors think of some other plot device for our heroines? Do they all have to be caught between two guys forever, the same two guys in every book? Love triangles are becoming so tired and worn out they are a cliché in themselves.

It seems all teen romances these days are cursed with the classics love triangle. One unremarkable girl (and how do all these unremarkable girls always get not one but TWO hot, amazing guys to fall in love with them? By being passive, average, and unexceptional in all ways, of course) is caught between two guys. Ever notice how it’s never a girl fighting another girl for a guy? It’s always two guys and one girl. One of the guys is always nice, sweet, caring, nurturing, and a bit of a pushover (and hot as hell). The other guy is always mysterious, dark, dangerous, troubled, and usually a bit of an a-hole (oh, and of course also hot as hell).

Usually the mysterious guy treats the heroine like dirt, which of course makes her love him more. He is completely condescending, smug, and acts like he’s superior to everyone around him, especially the annoyingly passive and sweet other guy in the love triangle.

And here’s the real problem with love triangles. They are completely predictable. In EVERY SINGLE ONE, the heroine ends up with the mysterious guy. It sort of ruins the book for me. I mean, if I pick up a book, and by 30 pages in the love triangle is established, then I already know who she’ll end up with. So what’s the point of using a plot device that gives away the ending? It’s infuriating. You know what else is infuriating? That women are insulted time and again, shown to be shallow idiots who are so easily manipulated by the allure of the mysterious guy. Really? SOME women like nice guys. If they’d mix up the love triangles a little, it would still be interesting, but noooo… in EVERY SINGLE ONE the heroine picks the same guy.