Dodger by Terry Pratchett

I admit to being slightly fascinated to find this other side of Terry Pratchett. I'm so used to associating him with  Discworld that these YAs are an interesting change. While less all out zany, there is still a surfeit of tongue-in-cheek humor in Pratchett's YAs.

Dodger is what Pratchett calls a historical fantasy. It is set in early Victorian England when conditions for the poor in London was scarily awful. The Dodger is a sort of sewer scavenger called a tosher albeit one who is unusually clever and quick thinking. Things change for him when during a storm he hears a woman's screams and rushes to her rescue. Successfully, I might add.

The woman ends up being more than she seems, of course, and things get complicated.

In a way the appeal to this book for me, an adult, is how it works on a meta level. Pratchett uses a large number of real historical figures in his narrative. One of these figures is Charles Dickens. This leads one to the natural connection from this Dodger to the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist. Of course, this is all pure fiction, but it's amazing who knowing that influences the read of the story even for me who's never actually read the Dickens novel.

Also present is Queen Victoria (of course), Prince Albert, Sir Robert Peel, Henry Mayhew, and Benjamin Disraeli among others. While Pratchett is pretty clear about what is and is not historically based, his writing is so natural and convincing that it's easy to take it all as historical. I find that I want to read more on this age of British history.

The Fall of Five by Pittacus Lore

It took me several tries to get a good start going on this one. Ryan thinks I'm reading them out of a misplaced sense of obligation. I get why he thinks that, but that's not it. I'm struggling through them because several of my students have read them and talk about them which means other students are interested in reading them. I try to read the things that become popular for whatever reason whether I find them personally motivating or not.

The Fall of Five is the fourth book in the Lorien Legacies and my biggest problem with it is that it came after the third book in the series: The Rise of Nine. (I really did not like that book.)

In this volume, the garde is reunited with each other. They've found Sarah and survived an encounter with the big bad, Setrakus Ra, and they soon run into Sam and his dad. They survive, but it's obvious they aren't ready to face off against the Mogadorian horde.

They retreat to Nine's Chicago penthouse and try to develop a plan. This is complicated by the appearance of Five.

I really like how the book opened with Sam finding his dad. I'd kid of written them both off. I assumed at the beginning of the series that the dad probably died tragically, and when Sam was captured by the Mogs and abandoned by Four and Nine, I was not entirely sure that he wasn't going to show up dead or brainwashed on the other side.

Structurally there are some issues.  The chapters switch between three different points of view: John/Four, Marina, Sam. There is no regular pattern to this, and it is not always clear for several paragraphs whose POV the reader is in. This interrupts the flow of the narrative and makes it feel a little more meandering than it actually is. Additionally, the progression of events feels a little disconnected. Things seem to be happening a little more randomly and it's chapter after chapter of characters reacting.  This seems to be because Lore is exploring the characters more, but it means the feel of narrative shifts.

Oh, and Nine is still a colossal jerk.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

City of Bones is the first book in a series. I picked up these books because I'd seen them around both online and in the library. Also, the edition of the series I have access to all sport very striking cover art. I admit, sometimes a read a thing because of good art on the outside.

Once I started walking around with them, people started stopping me in the halls to ask me what I thought of them. Usually it works the other way around. I'm usually the one pouncing on people and asking them what they think. It's also pretty amazing how many different types of people were asking. I had everyone from science teachers, to teenage girls, teenage boys, and the occasional student parent. It was bizarre to say the least.

The fact that it's been made into a television series, probably has something to do with its popularity in written form. Still it's odd how diverse the readership base is.

Clary is an artistic teen in New York City. She thinks she's pretty ordinary. She has a best friend named Simon and an over-protective mother. However, a chance encounter opens her eyes (literally) to her magical heritage. She is, in fact, a Nephilim, a human with a smidgen of angel blood that allows them to battle the demons that threaten to invade earth.

Oh and by the way, there are also vampires, werewolves, faerie, and warlocks too. It's all real on some level and it's all hidden from the world of mundane humans. So, how did Clary not know this. Ah! Intrigue.

It's good stuff. Oh, and there's a hot boy (Jace) because there's always a hot boy. However, the romance is not the most appealing thing to me. It's an interesting world and the mystery of Clary's origins is a compelling puzzle.

Altered by Gennifer Albin

There's something going on lately with the dystopian genre. There are a ridiculous number of them featuring female protagonists. Not that I have anything against that per se, but it seems wildly disproportionate. Off the top of my head, for the girls there is: The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins, The Pretties Series by Scott Westerfeld, the Divergent Series by Veronica Roth, and now the Crewel World series by Gennifer Albin. The only one featuring a male protagonist that I can come up with is The Maze Runner Series which I haven't read yet. It's possible that there's more out there and I just need to go looking, however it seems odd that I haven't tripped over them yet.

One of the hallmarks of the female dystopian novel is love triangle. Most of them feature a subplot wherein the protagonist must pick between two boys. The boys are generally representative of two sides of this fictional world. Crewel World follows the same general set up. Adelice must pick between two brothers (as it turns out) Jost and Erik.

At the end of the first book, Adelice escapes Arras with the two brothers to Earth. Most of Altered, the second book, is centered around developing the mystery surrounding the two worlds and the relationships between the two boys and Adelice.

Generally, I find the love triangle subplot kind of annoying. Done wrong, the protagonist comes off as either chronically indecisive or pathologically cold. Albin struck a good balance. Adelice's romantic problems make sense and the complex relationship between the two brothers factors strongly into what happens.

Overall, it's a good continuation from the first book. It adds strongly to the sinister elements already present and pulls the world into sharper focus.

The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

bwahahahaha I did it, I finally did it. I finished the book! The Chessmen of Mars is the last book in the big John Carter Omnibus that my dad bought for himself last Christmas and immediately handed to me to read. It is now almost Thanksgiving. It took me a year. Me! . . . A Year!

Honestly, they are fun books but they are so formulaic that I just couldn't read them back to back. Hence the long slog. Any way, on to the review!

The Chessmen of Mars is about John Carter's daughter, Tara of Helium. Tara is a brat. She's a real spoiled pain in the butt. So I admit when she got her self blown into a far off land as the result of a temper tantrum, I uttered a small but malicious giggle. In a weird way, The Chessmen of Mars is a twisted little coming of age novel. Tara matures from that spoiled little brat into admirable strong woman.

The main love interest for this one is a Jed from a far off land named Gehan. I liked him way more than Tara for most of the book. This novel also introduces a weird new insectoid species calling themselves the Kaldanes of Bartoom that have an odd symbiotic relationship with a headless humanoid animal they call rykors.

So, all in all good escapist stuff.

Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

It would seem that with the end of The Warlord of Mars, John Carter's stint as a main character is over. Thuvia, Maid of Mars's protagonist is John Carter's son Carthoris. It seems a little odd to me that as devoted to John Carter as Thuvia was that Burroughs is now setting her up with the son, but that is clearly what is happening.

The book opens with a love triangle. Thuvia is promised to Kulan Tith but she is very careful to never say that she loves him. It's painfully obvious that she has feelings for Carthoris so the whole scene is awkward and stilted. If that's not enough, Thuvia has also captured the heart of a very ill-mannered Prince Astok. When he tries to force his attentions on Thuvia, Carthoris rescues her...aggressively.

Rebuffed and humiliated, Astok kidnaps Thuvia and frames Carthoris for it. By doing so, he throws three kingdoms at each other's throats.

Then follows the usual chases, captures, and escapes.

Actually, there's more in this one in the way of intrigue and plot...there is still plenty of action, but it's not a pure action-fest. In some ways, I found this the most enjoyable of the series so far.