Backlist Review: The Peculiars by Maureen Doyle McQuerry

Title: The Peculiars

Author: Maureen Doyle McQuerry

Genre: young-adult, steampunk, fantasy/science fiction

Series: N/A as of now

Pages: 368 (Nook ARC edition)

Published: expected May 2012

Source: publishers via NetGalley

Rating: 4/5

This dark and thrilling adventure, with an unforgettable heroine, will captivate fans of steampunk, fantasy, and romance.

On her 18th birthday, Lena Mattacascar decides to search for her father, who disappeared into the northern wilderness of Scree when Lena was young. Scree is inhabited by Peculiars, people whose unusual characteristics make them unacceptable to modern society. Lena wonders if her father is the source of her own extraordinary characteristics and if she, too, is Peculiar.

On the train she meets a young librarian, Jimson Quiggley, who is traveling to a town on the edge of Scree to work in the home and library of the inventor Mr. Beasley. The train is stopped by men being chased by the handsome young marshal Thomas Saltre. When Saltre learns who Lena’s father is, he convinces her to spy on Mr. Beasley and the strange folk who disappear into his home, Zephyr House. A daring escape in an aerocopter leads Lena into the wilds of Scree to confront her deepest fears.

The Peculiars is, best and most simply said, a peculiarly delightful novel.  With a humanly flawed and real character in protagonist Lena Mattacascar,  a fun cast of intriguing background characters and a familiar-yet-alien enveloping atmosphere, this is one of the first novels I've read this year to so thoroughly and quickly grab my attention. This is advertised as a 'steampunk adventure' and admittedly that was half of what drew me to this particular novel, but this is really more proto or early-ear steampunk than a full-fledged addition to the genre. It's more of a window dressing than the main house if you follow me, though that's not the novel's overall detriment. What Peculiars has in plenty is charm, dimensional and likeable characters and its aforementioned alluring alternate universe.

Lena lives in an 'alternate universe of the 1880s", a world that persecutes and hates 'Peculiars'. Though there's no real basis for the hate (other than the oh-so familiar "they're different from us"), and though no studies have ever reported from studying them, they are labelled as "soulless", prone to violence, hateful and full of selfishness. While it's easy to see parallels between the treatment of Peculiars in Lena's world and the treatment of minorities in America's not-so-distant past, McQuerry doesn't beat the reader over the head with it. Her message(s) throughout The Peculiars are simple but direct. The Peculiars themselves are largely unseen for most of the fantasy novel, giving them an added air of mystery to their already largely mysterious demeanor - do they even exist? what actually defines a Peculiar? Lena herself grapples with the possibility certainty that she is a Peculiar often and genuinely. It is so easy to understand and sympathize with her plight and her subsequent questions and actions. Fearing her half-Peculiar nature, Lena shuns part of her heritage and hates that non-conformist part of herself - something most people, willing to admit it or not, can easily commiserate with and remember from their own pasts. 

I loved Lena. I didn't love her initially, as she seemed a bit judgmental and quick on the draw for it (see: Jimson in the train) but Lena is a wonderful character, one that grows and learns throughout the course of her journey. As the pages go on and Lena makes mistakes, learns, I became quite fond of the snarky but smart girl. She is flawed both personality-wise and appearance-wise but her character is rounded out with intelligence, courage, and other attributes. Her search for her father is clearly about much more than finding answers about a long-ago crime; it's about Lena finally accepting who and what she is, unconditionally.  I do wish this had been in first person perspective as it was focused so closely on Lena, her thoughts, struggles, and experiences and it's always weird, for me as a reader, to read that type of narrative from a secondhand perspective. <SPOILER WARNING>I would've been very disappointed if Lena's long-routed trek to Scree had resulted in a father-daughter reunion. Who Lena is shouldn't be defined by anyone else, nor her acceptance of what she is. Hats off again to Ms. McQuerry for avoiding the obvious and easy out. </END SPOILER>

While the hatred/segregation directed towards the Peculiars as a race/species brings back uncomfortable memories, the slight paranoia, fear and overall watchfulness of the world will do the same. This time, the mood set forth is more dystopic, akin to Nazi Germany with the normal, non-Peculiar citizens encouraged in an anonymous report-your-neighbor spy system. While the worldbuilding isn't the most solid I've come across, the tidbits that eke out over the course of a read do much to fill in the early blanks. While I didn't get a final answer until the author's afterword, certain phrases/words/names were dropped or alluded to throughout The Peculiars - further reinforcing both the similarities and disparities between Lena's world and ours. The clues appear at random and it can be kind of fun matching the cognates between alternate worlds: Karl Marx, Meriwether Lewis, Napoleon, Mendel all warrant specific mention, if in different capacities than actual history takes. London, Holland, Sweden, India - all are referenced as countries still existing. The only frustrating part about those tantalizing hints is that no real place is confirmed as the location. Scree/Knob Knouster is the scene for most of the events, but no country, fictional or fact, is mentioned as a home country. 

I did find the 'villain' of the novel to be a bit lacking. He didn't really add a lot of suspense or tension until too far for my personal tastes, so I felt that certain sections...dwaddled a tad. I liked the pull Lena felt between the two possible romantic interests she had in this novel: this love-triangle, as slight and proper as it was, actually felt like more than a plot device to further drama. While I can't say I am a fan of it here, even, I will willingly and readily admit that this is one of the few authors that actually can present a believable mess of emotions like Lena. The marshal appeals to her 'human side': win his affection and it's like proof she's all human. Jimson on the other hand, represents a wilder, unknown attraction and Lena's indecision rings true. It's not drawn out overlong, either, when Lena's mind is made up. Likewise my disappointment with the villain's lacking presence, so too the the absence of more than just a few Peculiars. So much was made about them that I was genuinely curious to find out the same answers as Lena - do they have souls? How many kinds are there? What happened to make the Peculiars? Unfortunately for my impatient soul, The Peculiars doesn't dole out the easy answers for all the questions Lena and I have. The only way I won't be majorly disappointed in the execution of such an inventive idea is if Maureen McQuerry pens a sequel with those revelations inside. 

This is a book I would actually love to see in a series. (Make it happen, world!) Though I can't help but commend McQuerry for neatly wrapping up the ties of loose plot floating around the end of her novel, I just want more. More of this steam-powered world of goblins and winged people, more of Lena and Jimson. More of Mrs. Mumbles, a Scree-cat that joins fellow famous felines like Harry Potter's Crookshanks, Grimalkin from the Iron Fey, and Mogget/Yrael of Lirael/Sabriel fame as my favorite literary cats.  The Peculiars is quirky and odd but filled to the brim with great, living characters - this was a read I didn't want to finish and a world I didn't want to leave. 

Review: Something Real by Heather Demetrios

Title: Something Real
Author: Heather Demetrios
Genre: young adult, contemporary 
Series: N/A
Pages: 403 (print ARC edition)
Published: February 4 2014
Source: ARC from MacMillan
Rating: 5/5

There’s nothing real about reality TV.

Seventeen-year-old Bonnie™ Baker has grown up on TV—she and her twelve siblings are the stars of one-time hit reality show Baker’s Dozen. Since the show’s cancellation and the scandal surrounding it, Bonnie™ has tried to live a normal life, under the radar and out of the spotlight. But it’s about to fall apart…because Baker’s Dozen is going back on the air. Bonnie™’s mom and the show’s producers won’t let her quit and soon the life she has so carefully built for herself, with real friends (and maybe even a real boyfriend), is in danger of being destroyed by the show. Bonnie™ needs to do something drastic if her life is ever going to be her own—even if it means being more exposed than ever before.

After a six hour reading marathon, with breaks only for feeding the dogs and eating, I was finally able to put down the whirl of emotion and entertainment that is Heather Demetrios's Something Real. A YA contemporary that boasts possibly my favorite-ever gay ship and favorite sibling relationship, this charming but impassioned novel demands attention and will not be forgotten. What could have been a sensationalized, fictionalized and thinly-veiled retelling in the vein of real-life tv family Jon and Kate Plus Eight is so much more under the pen of this new but talented author.

Though a lot of YA contemporary is about main characters gaining their independence, learning to trust themselves, and just plain growing up from adolescence to adulthood, none of those prior characters have had the life that Bonnie Baker did with her crazy, mixed family. Though the basic plot of her life shown in the novel is similar to others, the circumstances that force Bonnie to become Chloe are truly affecting and different. Though she is tied for my favorite character, Bonnie/Chloe is the crux of the novel. Her voice and narration are effective and realistic; her circumstances are out of this world but Chloe has a warmth and humor to her that quickly endeared her to me.

For the duration of most of her seventeen years, Bonnie was seen and as a commodity, not a child. She was packaged, coached, and sold to masses, with no regard for her own wants, life, secrets, or pain. When her only job should have been being a kid, her parents used her for fame and perks "to be financially secure." They ply their responsibility as parents on the backs of their own children and when one of them breaks from the pressure, it's hard not to see all three of the parental figures in the novel as heartless. Their depiction is truly saddening and often infuriating, but it is also believable. Bonnie's story feels familiar and authentic because it is, in this modern-day, paparazzi-crazy pop culture we all partake in.

With Chloe, Benton, Matt, Tessa, Patrick, Lexie and more, Demetrios has created a group of people that immediately feel like old friends and make reading Something Real even more enjoyable. They are all so rounded and individual, I feel like I really know these non-existent people. I can't tell you how refreshing and real a lot of the relationships are in this novel. Not only are the romantic ones like Benton and Matt or Chloe and her love interest developed slowly, but there are sibling relationships that evolve and mature, and then there friendships that feature girls who actually love and care about one another. It's astonishing and I totally loved that Bonnie wasn't a character defined by having boyfriend. Her strongest relationship is with her brother and their love for one another is palpable.

Something Real is a book that wears many hats over the course of its four hundred pages -- it's genuinely funny, often quite sweet, frequently able to trounce every feel you possess in your body -- but through it all, it's a just  great read. Even when the author is destroying your heart, she writes so well you can't help but admire her ruthlessness and plotting. Through Chloe's various exploits, Demetrios never loses sight of the plot or the emotional center at the heart of the story. The pace never lags, the story doesn't falter and it ends up being a brilliant, emotional story.

Review: Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown

Title: Cinnamon and Gunpowder
Author: Eli Brown
Genre: historical fiction, adventure
Series: none
Pages: 336
Published: June 4, 2013
Source: Publishers via NetGalley
Rating: 4.5/5

A gripping adventure, a seaborne romance, and a twist on the tale of Scheherazade—with the best food ever served aboard a pirate’s ship

The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail.

To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that he leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he’s making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider.

But Mabbot—who exerts a curious draw on the chef—is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur hidden on her ship, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot’s madness, he must rely on the bizarre crewmembers he once feared: Mr. Apples, the fearsome giant who loves to knit; Feng and Bai, martial arts masters sworn to defend their captain; and Joshua, the deaf cabin boy who becomes the son Wedgwood never had.

Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a swashbuckling epicure’s adventure simmered over a surprisingly touching love story—with a dash of the strangest, most delightful cookbook never written. Eli Brown has crafted a uniquely entertaining novel full of adventure: the Scheherazade story turned on its head, at sea, with food.

Reviewed by Danielle. 
Cinnamon and Gunpowder is a hard book to review because it’s a hard book to define. Part adventure, part food writing, and part romance, this epistolary novel is as complex as the dinners Wedge creates, as beautiful as the love that grows, and as bittersweet as the ending. Tears weren’t expected in a story about a chef creating new meals for a group of pirates every week, but they came all the same.

I was madly, head-over-heels in love with Hannah Mabbot from 2% into the book when she broke into a dinner party, stepped onto the dining table, and then delivered the greatest line in bookdom:

“Tell the devil to keep my tea hot. I’m running late." Then she fired point-blank, without mercy or provocation, into [Ramsey’s] defenseless body.

Done. Eli Brown now owns my heart.

Mabbot loots the house, taking Ramsey’s chef, Wedgwood, in the pillaging. She’s decided a captain should have some perks over the rest of a crew, starting with a gourmet Sunday dinner. This sets up a wonderful take on the traditional Scheherazade story, with Wedge tasked to cook a completely unique meal every week in exchange for his continued breathing.

The first quarter or so mostly revolves around Wedge’s desire to escape. It does a good job of setting the scene and introducing the crew, but I was left desperately longing for more Mabbot. Wedge is mostly alone and apart from the other crew members, though he does find himself teaching Joshua, the deaf cabin boy, to read. However, after an escape attempt leaves him in worse straits than before, and yet simultaneously in the captain’s confidence, he’s able to start, if not accepting, acclimating to a pirate’s life.

This is where the action really sets in and it’s quite exciting. Ship battles featuring solar death rays and horrific storms. Flayings, a saboteur, lost limbs, explosions, women disguised as men, long-lost relatives, prison-breaks... It really swashes the buckle. Mabbot, being chased by the late Ramsey’s hired hand, (hoping to catch and deliver her to England before his crew realizes their money went with the dead,) is on a very personal quest to catch the Brass Fox and destroy quite a lot of opium along the way. The circuitous journey; winding through England,West Africa, India, the South China sea, Macau, and out to the Americas; brings treasure and triumph, even a stove for Wedge, along with bloodshed and loss. The descriptions of the locales and locals, while not always politically correct by 21st century conventions, are not to be missed.

But it’s the love in between the action pieces that really sets Cinnamon and Gunpowder apart. The narrator describes every meal with utter reverence, somewhere between lust and religious devotion. If anything, I could have done with a few more meals just for the breathtaking way each layer of flavor is described, building on the last. The continued ingenuity of Wedge in the kitchen was almost more exciting than any pirate confrontation.

There’s romantic love, too, and familial, that evolves and builds and feels very natural. And like the love inside, the book is very bittersweet coming into the final confrontation. Without spoilers, I’ll say when it ended I was so happy with a great read, but I felt as if my heart was broken, too.

However, I don’t want to leave this review on a sad note, because Cinnamon and Gunpowder is more than a tearjerker. It’s also witty and vibrant and a little crude. Instead, I would like to leave you with Owen Wedgwood: Christian, widower, and overall goodly man’s advice on how to extricate yourself from an uncomfortable situation.

There is, no doubt, a proper and Christian response to such an offer, [to join a massive homosexual orgy,] but I was so shocked that my only thought was to excuse myself as quickly as possible. "Ah yes, right! Do go on without me. I have a sudden case of the shits.”

Review: Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor

Title: Lips Touch: Three Times

Author: Laini Taylor

Illustrator: Jim Di Bartolo

Genre: mythic fiction, supernatural fiction, young-adult, fairytales

Series: N/A

Pages: 266 (hardcover edition)

Published: October 2009

Source: purchased

Rating: 5/5

Everyone dreams of getting the kiss of a lifetime... but what if that kiss carried some unexpected consequences? A girl who’s always been in the shadows finds herself pursued by the unbelievably attractive new boy at school, who may or may not be the death of her. Another girl grows up mute because of a curse placed on her by a vindictive spirit, and later must decide whether to utter her first words to the boy she loves and risk killing everyone who hears her if the curse is real. And a third girl discovers that the real reason for her transient life with her mother has to do with belonging -- literally belonging -- to anther world entirely, full of dreaded creatures who can transform into animals, and whose queen keeps little girls as personal pets until they grow to child-bearing age.

From a writer of unparalleled imagination and emotional insight, three stories about the deliciousness of wanting and waiting for that moment when lips touch..

Do yourself a favor: if you like imaginative, creepy, and dark fantasy/supernatural tales written in jawdroppingly gorgeous prose, buy this book. If that bundle of win sounds up your alley, Lips Touch: Three Times is the perfect novel for you. Do yourself an even bigger favor and do NOT buy an ebook of this - the illustrations are insane, as the only the print editions can truly show. This quirky husband and wife team hit it out of the park with the pitch-perfect, foreboding art used, as well as the fact that each successive story kept impressing me more and more. Each story is fully unique, described in the lush way that only Laini Taylor can, and fully captivating - from curses than can kill with a word to soul searching, Lips Touch is a rare pleasure. 

This is a sadly rather short novel at 266 pages, but one my advice is to read it slowly, to just luxuriate in the glow of a damn good book and stretch out the exotic and experience as long as possible. This is an all-time favorite of mine after one just one read, but Lips Touch: Three Times is an obvious, seductive winner, done in both Taylor's and Di Bartolo's inimitable styles. This is a book stuffed so full with gorgeous words and gorgeous illustrations, it demands to be reread, and I will certainly indulge that in the future.

#1. Goblin Fruit - 5/5

The shortest and least intense of the three offered, Goblin Fruit is the indicator for the tone and style of this book of short stories. I've read other full-length novel interpretations of Christina Rossetti's classic poem, but Laini Taylor has taken the well-known story and added flair all her own in the form of knife-wielding grandmothers, girls with impossible dreams and imagery ahoy ("Sometimes Kizzy imagined her grandmother knife-fighting her way down the long tunnel of death...") The use, temptation and desire of souls advance much of the plot of all three novellas and Daughter of Smoke and Bone, though in quite distinctly disparate ways, and Kizzy's tale of drastic choices is no different.

In less than 55 pages, Laini Taylor can craft a character more defined and individual than many YA authors can offer up after several books and hundreds of pages. While she (and her characterization) are sadly somewhat hampered by the extremely short length, they operate admirably under the pressure. It's easy to see Kizzy as a real person because what she wants so much, so urgently it and her immediately resonate with the audience. Kizzy's flawed and "deeply susceptible to mortification" and like every other protagonist from Lips Touch, I'd greedily grab for a chance at a full-length novel with her featured.

Favorite quotes:

"The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood. The girls with hungry eyes who pray each night to wake up as someone else. Urgent, unkissed, wistful girls.
Like Kizzy."

“She could smell the boy spice beneath the thrift-store aroma of his jacket, and the rubbing and the smell began to work to soften her -- like butter before you add sugar, in the first steps of making something sweet. It was her first experience of how bodies could meld together, how breath could slip naturally into rhythm. It was hypnotic. Heady. And she wanted more.”

2. Spicy Little Curses Such As These - 5/5

While I (at the moment) think the third and final story is my favorite, Spicy Little Curses Such As These is a close second place. It's imaginative, rich, dramatic, and romantic. It's ominious and Gothic from the start: 

“This is the story of the curse and the kiss, the demon and the girl. It's a love story with dancing and death in it, and singing and souls and shadows reeled out on kite strings.”  

and

 “Some would assert that Providence was at work shaking out its pockets in Humanity's lap. Other would argue for that mindless choreographer, Chance. Either way it was a simple thing: a lost diary fell into the hands of a soul-sick war hero on a train from Bombay to Jaipur just when he'd grown tired of the scenery and needed something to keep his thoughts from the minefield of his wretched memories.

In such mild ways is the groundwork laid for first kisses and ruined lives.” 

Like both other stories and probably everything this author produces, Spicy Little Curses is eminently quotable in a truly unique vein.  But how beautiful and tactile is that first quote - "souls and shadows reeled out on kite strings"? The image described is compelling, unique and quite dire indeed for those attached to the souls in question.

I like that Taylor switches it up with her mythology and settings - Hatchling is set somewhere in the Kazakhstan/central Asia area, and this particular story here is set in the Indian region, with all the added benefits of a rich and storied culture to pick and choose from. Infusing her fantasy plots and stories with flavors from so many varied cultures keeps each fresh and easy to distinguish between, without sacrificing any essential ingredient from the mix.

Favorite quotes:

"At the British parties in Jaipur, gossip swirled wild on eddies of whiskeyed breath. The old bitch was a popular topic of it. It was generally agreed she had been in India too long. It had "gotten to her." She spoke the native tongue, and not just Hindustani but also Rajasthani and a touch of Gujarati, and she had even been known to haggle once in Persian! It suggested to the British a grubby intimacy with the place, as if she took India into her very mouth and tasted it, like a lover's fingers."

 3. Hatchling - 5/5

The longest and by far the creepiest and most compelling out of Lips Touch, final short story Hatchling is a dark tale with several unpredictable twists and turns. It might be old by now (and obvious that Laini is my favorite YA author), but just when I think the creativity well is tapped out, this is an author that can constantly create new ideas, incorporate old ones and make the subsequent novel read freshly and vividly. Hatchling is beautiful in its poetic prose, in its alien terribleness of the Druj and in the message of hope and love at its core.

Even moreso than the first two, Hatchling left an impression - wistful, surprsingly, and utterly original. 

Favorite quotes: 

“Staring at her face, she began to fancy her outer layer had begun to melt away while she wasn't paying attention, and something -- some new skeleton -- was emerging from beneath the softness of her accustomed self. With a deep, visceral ache, she wished her true form might prove to be a sleek and shining one, like a stiletto blade slicing free of an ungainly sheath. Like a bird of prey losing its hatchling fluff to hunt in cold, magnificent skies. That she might become something glittering, something startling, something dangerous.”

Review: Bittersweet by Sarah Ockler

Title: Bittersweet

Author: Sarah Ockler

Genre: young-adult

Series: N/A

Pages: 384 (Nook ARC edition)

Published: January 2012

Source: publishers via Pulse It!

Rating: 4/5

Once upon a time, Hudson knew exactly what her future looked like. Then a betrayal changed her life, and knocked her dreams to the ground. Now she’s a girl who doesn’t believe in second chances… a girl who stays under the radar by baking cupcakes at her mom’s diner and obsessing over what might have been.

So when things start looking up and she has another shot at her dreams, Hudson is equal parts hopeful and terrified. Of course, this is also the moment a cute, sweet guy walks into her life…and starts serving up some seriously mixed signals. She’s got a lot on her plate, and for a girl who’s been burned before, risking it all is easier said than done.

It’s time for Hudson to ask herself what she really wants, and how much she’s willing to sacrifice to get it. Because in a place where opportunities are fleeting, she knows this chance may very well be her last.

I just. . . loved this. While the beginning had me seeing echoes of the start of the film Stick It, it's easy and impossible not to be won over by this cute baking/hockey teenaged love story. I had fun reading it, I wanted to read it when I wasn't, and I feel comfortable - nay excited! - recommending it to others. If those are not the signs of a good book, I don't know what are. This is exactly the kind of adorable, heart-felt book centered around baking that I wanted to read last year. What I got instead was Christina Mandelski's The Sweetest Thing, and, well, to be nice let's just say it far from delivered on the promise of its title. Sports, baking, school, family - main character Hudson Avery is a well-rounded, personable, real, dimensional character and one I enjoyed reading even for more than three hundred fifty pages. Author Sarah Ockler has greatly impressed me with this, the first novel of hers I've read, and with another of hers sitting to be read in my "already-bought" TBR pile I'm eager to start Twenty Boy Summer.

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first, nice, easy, and best of all: quick. Why quick? I have very little to complain about from this book. There's so much to love from Bittersweet: from Hudson's rounded and faceted personality to Dani's take-no-crap attitude to the delicious-sounding cupcake recipes, I either missed things I ought've been annoyed by (possible) or they just never existed (most likely). First: I found it to be a tad lengthy. I enjoy a well-told and long story, but I felt Hudson's last twenty pages or so could've used some condensing. I flew through this book and only felt that the end suffered from a need for shortening: the rest is well-developed and timed. Second: Hudson's mom, Beth, expects too much from her daughter with little to no input from the daughter. I don't mind the "pull together for the family" spiel, it's understandable and actually happening all across the country, but I did mind Beth's attitude towards Hudson. Hudson is very mature and helpful: runs a side business, babysits her brother, pays some bills, goes to school, etc., but none of that factors into her mom's decision-making. It's aggravating, especially since the book is all from Hudson's perspective. The frustration of Hudson never being heard or listened to permeates for the duration, and it was one of the few things about this book I disliked. The good news is that it doesn't happen all the time, only sporadically, so it didn't really intrude on my reading enjoyment.

Hudson herself is great. She's so not perfect I want all the authors of Mary Sues to take note. Hudson is flawed human being: complicated, confused, FUNNY (when getting kissed: "I was 92% hygienically unprepared"), strong, and most of all, real. I really liked Hudson's humor: she doesn't take herself too serious and her self-deprecating style isn't so jaded as to be worrying. She's not the prettiest, or the most popular, or even the most intelligent: she's a normal, talented girl. Actualized and vibrant, Hudson is a happy harbinger for the personalities of the rest of the characters within Bittersweet. She has dreams and desires, hopes and wishes and a real-life she feels stuck in. Basically, Hudson is a typical teen: easy to relate to, easy to root for. Let me tell you, this girl is also funny. Her voice is so authentic and real, she comes across like several awkward friends of mine - I loved the freshness and authenticity consistently present. I thought the family drama behind Hudson's story was both compelling and also real. Contrasting her individual desires for freedom and escape against family duty, Hudson's struggles through the book are mundane but universal. Sarah Ockler truly did a noteworthy job with the characterization of the people within this book. The author absolutely and repeatedly nails the emotions and feelings of so many teens with Hudson's understandable reactions and thoughts.

Another thing about this I loved: the secondary and even tertiary characters are real, and believable, rounded personalities. Even the jerk of the novel is shown to have more than one side - and not all of them bad. He's human and understandable, even if I wanted him gone long before the book ended. Dani, Hudson's best friend, is a fireball but a real friend. She calls Hudson on her shit and isn't afraid to do her own thing without her BFF. I really enjoyed the realistic nature of the friendship between the two girls; the up and down trajectory is authentic and isn't just for plotting. Ms. Ockler also pulled off a feat in YA: there was a love triangle present, however slight. I for once, wasn't alienated by it. It helps the situation that both boys have their own appeal supposedly (Team Blackthorn FTW), and that Hudson's less undecided/wishywashy and more figuring things out without being obnoxious about the attention. On a side note, I did find "Bug's" intelligence/precociousness to be a leeetle far-fetched for an 8-year-old, but hey, minor quibbles.

For all its cute romance, great characters, teenage dating and cupcake confectionery fun, Bittersweet is not without depth or emotion. Some of the curveballs Hudson and her family have to deal with will resonate with readers: the hard economy, the desires vs. duty theme Hudson explores, the broken family so common and still so problematic. Hudson's identification with Hester Prynne of Nathaniel Hawthrone's The Scarlet Letter is a nice reminder of how Hudson - and a lot of teens - feel isolated, and alone within a group they should belong. Hudson is a special case because she is shunned by a select group - serious ice skaters - but that feeling of aloneness, of not being listened to (coughBethcough) is one a lot of teens will accept without thought.

Bittersweet is not just sweet and fun to read, it's completely evocative in tone. It's set in upper New York and Hudson is an outdoors kind of person. This is a novel that makes snow sound fun, exciting, new, full of possibilities and this is not actually true. I may live out west in Arizona, but I know snow. I live in Flagstaff, which in 2010 was the city with the most snowfall in the entire contiguous United States. At one time, we had more than Anchorage, Alaska. So yeah, I know snow and I love it for the first month it's here. Sarah Ockler, however, with her magnificent setting and through her lovely descriptive writing, has me craving a blizzard out here in Arizona. Right now. I wish there'd been one while I was reading this. This is the perfect read for a snowy day, and a cup of tea in front of the fireplace. With a cupcake, of course. So nicely done on the timing front - I say buy this one ASAP while it's still cold outside.

Bottom line: Look no further if you want a book with cute but not saccharine romance,  angst without melodrama, and a cast of varied and interesting characters. It's cute without beating the reader over the head with its own adorability. And Josh is hot.

Review: Pure by Julianna Baggott

Title: Pure

Author: Julianna Baggott

Genre: post-apocalyptic, dystopia, young-adult

Series: Pure #1

Pages: 369 (Nook NetGalley ARC edition)

Published: expected February 2012

Rating: 4/5

Source: provided by publisher via NetGalley

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters . . .
Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers . . . to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.
Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash . . .
There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it's his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.
When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

Pressia Belze lives in a harsh and hard world, a world wracked by wars and detonations, separations and hatred. Outside of the Dome that protected the city and people inside from the world-ending Detonations of nine years before, everything is warped, twisted, fused, changed. Pure is definitely a striking and original dystopic debut: twists, turns and betrayals come and go and always turn out different than expected, harder parts of life are not glossed over, and the omnipresent feeling of danger and being watched all lend themselves to an engrossing, enveloping and often disturbing read. Pressia and the story of her struggles are one of the better examples of these two genres (dystopia and post-apocalyptic) I've read and is a promising beginning to a series. Through its occasional  and minimal stumbles, Pure's plot is addictive and striking: this is not a novel that you will want to put down and continue later.

One of the things I liked best about this novel and author was that Pure is a very developed and thought-out novel. This is a world that is utterly destroyed and ripped apart in a frighteningly possible way, very alien to our current situation and yet it doesn't take too much of a stretch of imagination to believe in Baggott's harsh and unyielding future. The dystopic elements of the darker novel aren't just for show or used as an accent like curtains on a window. No, the controlling forces and people within Dome/the militaristic OSR outside are the main driving forces for the plot and the events throughout Pure, and are happily used well within the frame of the story. This is one of those young-adult novels that features a romance by-plot: it doesn't stop the show to focus on the touchy-feely emotions of the teen leads. I just wish it had been a first person novel: the events of the past, the action, the characters all feel slightly removed thanks to the third person perspective used. With so many shifting, main perspectives floating directing around the story (at least five that I can remember), and with several of those feeling rather unnecessary in the first place, it's hard to feel a concrete connection to all the goings-on at times.

Pressia herself is likeable, if distant for the reasons mentioned above. She's strident and tough: a survivor in a harsh reality where millions simply vanished, or were horribly affected by the Detonations. I also really like that Pressia isn't perfect: not in looks, not in attitude, not in her actions. She fumbles, she falls, she makes basic mistakes, but Pressia does not give up or give in: this is a protagonist to respect. What made me happiest is that she is never a stagnant character: she grows, matures, learns and adapts to new information and situations. At sixteen, Pressia is on the run from the violent and bloody leaders of the people outside, Operation Sacred Revolution, her own government. Being in her narrative is a constant whirl of emotion and thought: Pressia is not one to sit idly by - ever. Take her conflicted relationship with  the "Pure" Partridge: it's a constant flux of guilt, curiosity, anger, shame, jealousy, and opportunism. It's real and believable. Forced by her own "government" to kill or be killed, Pressia is a girl with limited to no options given to her, so she does what few do and creates her own path. What resonated with me most about Pressia and her life was the unique but clever treatment of memories from Before as currency: I thought that spoke rather elegantly and ingeniously of each characters individual wish and desire for better times, a reminder of hope and love in this dark painful life to get them through the Dusts/Beasts and other terrors. 

Like Pressia, Partridge is a likeable character constrained by his surroundings. Like the Dome itself, duty and expectation weigh upon and have his whole life; this is a kid that is easy to commiserate with. His typical teenage family problems and concerns are much more relatable than Pressia's fused dollhead, mysterious past or bounty on her head. Partridge is one those rare male protagonist that isn't utterly foreign or alien; Baggott does an admirable job of distinguishing his personality without veering into female-like tendencies/thoughts. Unlike Pressia, Partridge has far more leeway in the direction his life will take; though not without its own macabre risks (tickers!) his life is a stark conparison to the beaten-down, ignored and hated masses outside the Dome. I can't say which character I enjoyed more: there was a nice dichotomy present with the both of them that showed the most rounded view of the novel. These are two characters whose combined story arc absolutely ASTONISHED me. I thought I had called where this novel was going, dreaded love-triangle and all, but I was dead wrong.  I did find the pairing off of the teenage couples to be a bit much; strains my credulity meter that it's that easy for two couples to fall in love, but to be quite fair, romance is far from the main focus of this novel. Ms. Baggott can most definitely write a twist and stand all expectations of her work on their head.

Pure can surprise you with its characters, its surprising revelations, or even its bleak and dark tone. No character is safe in Pure, and several losses hit me hard. Occasionally gory, Pure is a lot of novel. And with so much going on, oftentimes parts of the book are less developed and well-done. I felt that the information on the sciences and "coding" left a lot to be desired. How do they upgrade people? Using what technology? I thought that at least two of the POVs used were unneeded and superfluous to the basic story of Pressia and Partridge: Lyda and El Capitan specifically. Both seemed rather sadly and hastily sketched out compared to the real, three-dimensional personalities of Pressia and her Pure. I found myself wondering why they were essential as Pressia, Partridge and Ingersoll clearly dominated the narrative: they two would've done much better as tertiary characters without POV chapters.  I wanted more detail and time spent on the religion aspect of the novel: the idea of some "wretches" worshiping the Dome as a type of Heaven is a very interesting and compelling idea - I'd love to read more about that and its impact of the lives of the people in/outside the Dome. I also think that more time in the narrative used to see the differences and the turmoil between the two social strata would've provided a more complete and real background: outside the obvious, superficial differences between the pures and the wretches not much is explained. There's a lot of basic groundwork laid here in Pure for the two future sequels to build from and fill in, and I can't complain that it's full of obvious or calculated plotting: Pure is a smooth read from start to finish with details from Before enmeshed skilfully within the kid's POVs.

This is a dark, engrossing, dystopic and post-apocalyptic young-adult read. It's hard to put down with great characters, unforeseen twists and good-to-solid writing. Pressia is one of the better female protagonists I've come across with a unique and compelling storyline, along with a functioning brain and an adaptive attitude, and I was very impressed by my reading experience. I will be buying my own copy when this goes on sale and will also be keeping an eagle eye out for the sequel, Fuse.

Review: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Title: The Book Thief

Author: Markus Zusak

Genre: young-adult, historical fiction, general fiction

Series: N/A

Pages: 550 (paperback edition)

Published: 2006
Source: bought

Rating: 5/5

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery.

So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jewish fist-fighter in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

There are books that you read, that sink tendrils into your heart and never leave. These are almost the very best kind of books, books like:  The Hunger Games, The Onion Girl, The Dogs of Babel or The Alchemist. Then there are those books that you feel, down to your very soul and in your bones. Books in which almost every word resonates perfectly within the reader, creating an enveloping, complete and often heart-wrenching story. Markus Zusak's alternately heart-warming and heart-breaking The Book Thief is one of those latter type of books: completely affecting, gorgeously written and endlessly readable. The Book Thief is not just a book of deeply affecting and believable characters: this is a book with living, breathing people upon its pages. Even Death, that fearful and unknowable force, is shown as compassionate and caring while watching the story of Liesel Meminger's life unfold. It's rare enough for me to add a new author to my favorites list, but Markus Zusak has done so with one novel, and one read of that novel, alone.

This is going to a different kind of review than my normal ones. It's very hard for me to articulate any kind of coherent thoughts about this book, even weeks after reading it. The Book Thief is impressive in scope, in character, in its vast, tangible emotions. Liesel Meminger is a burst of life and color from the page: real in all her imagined flaws, pains and triumphs. Spending over 500 pages with this determined foster child is revelatory and profound. It is best and most easily said succinctly: read this book. You will not be sorry you did. Yes, you will cry. Probably more than once (I definitely did at least three times), but The Book Thief is a novel deserving of your emotion and constant attention. Reading The Book Thief is an experience: draining but oh so worthwhile and rewarding. Encompassing love, war, hatred, fear, anger, infatuation and grief, this is a novel that is utterly unafraid to explore human emotion and human nature across the board.

Though this is by nature a more serious, emotional read, Zusak can come through quite unexpectedly with a sly or subtle humor that keeps the reader from veering into moroseness. I heartily appreciated the smattering of light-heartedness when they came about because this is a sad book, make no mistake. It's ultimately about the triumph of human will, of love and hope, but this is a sad novel to read.What I like best is that even when humor makes an appearace in the novel, it is used to prove or illustrate a point being made. I'm not going to go into detail about how vibrant and real I found Liesel Meminger, or her clinging to the written word in a world of uncertainty and denial. I won't go on about how a simple sentence like, "You never told me you had a son" would make several tears fall from my eyes.

The Book Thief may not be a "life-changer" for me as a reader (I don't know if any book is a life-changer), but it is definitely one I will take with me everywhere I go. And one I will recommend and throw at you until you give in and love read it. With a lyrical and mellifluous style for the chilling (and often heart-rending) events in The Book Thief, it is immensely readable despite the hard subject matter. This is a work of art in novel form, moving and poignant from  its start in 1939 to its all-too-soon finish. Zusak's portrayal of these stand-out characters (Liesel, Hans, RUDY) will linger long in your memory. Don't dismiss this novel out of hand as just "another YA", especially if you are an adult. This book will resonate with and affect you even if you're long gone from the dreaded teenage years.

"Many jocular comments followed, as did another onslaught of 'heil Hitlering.' You know, it actually makes me wonder if anyone ever lost an eye or injured a hand or wrist with all of that. You'd only need to be facing the wrong way at the wrong time or stand marginally too close to another person. Perhaps people did get injured. Personally, I can tell you that no one died from it, or at least, not physically. There was, of course, the matter of forty million people I picked up by the time the whole thing was finished, but that's getting metaphoric..."

Lastly, a final quote from Death that I found particularly apt and poignant:

"  *** A SMALL BUT NOTEWORTHY NOTE ***
I've seen so many young men
over the years who think they're
running at other young men.
They are not.
They're running at me. "

BUY THIS BOOK. 

You won't just passively read it: you'll experience Liesel Meminger's world in all its horror and beauty.

I can't recommend The Book Thief enough. If you take one recommendation from this blog at all this year, let it be this one.

Review: Blood Rights by Kristen Painter

Title: Blood Rights

Author: Kristen Painter

Genre: supernatural fiction

Series: House of Comarré #1

Pages: 433 (Nook NetGalley ARC edition)

Published: October 2011
Source: publishers via NetGalley

Rating: 4/5

The lacy gold mapped her entire body. A finely-wrought filigree of stars, vines, flowers, butterflies, ancient symbols and words ran from her feet, up her legs, over her narrow waist, spanned her chest and finished down her arms to the tips of her fingers.

Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle’s body bears the telltale marks of a comarré—a special race of humans bred to feed vampire nobility. When her patron is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, which sends her running into the mortal world…and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.

Now Chrysabelle and Malkolm must work together to stop a plot to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds. If they fail, a chaos unlike anything anyone has ever seen will threaten to reign.

Kristen Painter breathes her own version of supernatural life into the genre with Blood Rights, the first in a planned urban fantasy series, and it is lively indeed. With a convoluted culture and three-dimensional, fleshed-out characters this was an interesting twist on the human/vampire relationship shown so often in this (and, really, paranormal romance as well) type of genre. There's a lot to take in and enjoy from Ms. Painter's crafted world of vampire geisha, corporeal ghosts and hidden assassins. Blood Rights is the kind of novel one would plan to read for "just a minute" but actually ends up in the same place but two hundred pages, numerous escapades and hours later. With her kick-ass female protagonist Chrysabelle and tortured male protagonist Mal, I found a lot worth mentioning from this introductory but by means boring first novel. Intensely readable, Blood Rights is definitely in the running for my favorite (adult/non-YA) vampire read of the year.

Moreso even than the characters, the world that the author has so intricately created is impressive and far-reaching. The comarré themselves are a creative addition: closely related to the kine (humans) of the world, but longer-lived, faster, and infinitely more desirable. The signum of the breed is also interesting: it allows for instant identification much like the facial tattoos/uploads of the GENs in the YA dystopia Tankborn. The comarré are always very aware of who/what they are and where they stand in the vampires' view. I found the interactions and dependency between the comarré and the vampires to be vastly interesting. Each side benefits uniquely from the arrangement: the vampire receives increased power/life from the blood of the comar/comarré and the gold-gilded almost-humans receive longevity, increased strength, speed and self-healing capabilities. I liked that it was a give-and-take between the both species; it certainly makes it easier to buy Chrysabelle's more martial nature further on. It's a fairly level balance of power that keep the comarré from being just slaves or indentured servants to the undead nightwalkers (and that's not even mentioning other obvious talents of the comarré. . ). While the vampire half of this symbiotic relationship isn't as revelatory and new as the comarré aspect, Painter does go so far as to imbue her novel with different types of vampires: fringe and noble, each descended from a vastly different source. I do wish clarification about terms/culture of this world had been provided much earlier: it's vexing to try and figure out what "fringe" or "anathema" means in relation to these vampires for 250 pages.

Obviously, Blood Rights has a very complete and complicated, alternate world. Though similar to this modern one we live in, locations like "New Florida" or "Islamic Republic of France" are subtly dropped into conservations, ensuring the reader is aware that 2067 is a very different world. Even the swearing is different, and even theme-appropriate for a vampire book ("son of a priest!" also? just hilarious.) With vampires in a very regimented patriarchal society, organized by Family/talent (I also loved the nods to first purported vampires Vlad Tepes and Erzsébet Bathory inserted into the novel) Elders and Dominus, Painter's social stratification is omnipresent, even among species, not just between them. Not only are vampires and comarré either reinvented or completely created, but many types of fae (wysper, shadeux, others), and other creatures, are present as well. Hidden from humans because of a mysterious "Covenant", Chrysabelle's world has other such nasties as Nothos, or hellhounds created from human and vampire stock. I love the constant touch if originality for Painter's supernatural creations: she even re-imagined shapeshifters as her varcolai. Not much was explained about the varcolai, with only one character belonging to that race, but with three novels to follow in this promising series, I'll trust the information is en route.

Chrysabelle, with her desire for freedom, is likeable though it takes a bit. Her desire for independence is one of the most compelling components of her character: as the saying goes, a gilded cage is still just a cage. As the absolute best of the best for comarré, a Primoris Domus comarré, she is much more than she appears, and more than any vampire bargained for. It's easy to root for Chrysabelle to win out against the bad guys. She's definitely hardcore, and while I fear she may be guilty of the dreaded "Waif Fu" trope, her violent tendencies work well for such a determined character. I wish Chrysabelle had been a little more discrete: secrets seem to fall from her lips anytime someone just asks. It's remarkably easy for Mal to tease the comarré race?species? from her within days of their meeting. I personally thought her story about the signum and what getting a new one means was very revealing about her character: this is a woman that has sought freedom her entire existence, only to be constantly, unjustly denied. I just wish Chrysabelle had dropped her attitude a bit earlier because it seems to go on a bit long once she's within Mal, Doc and Fi's circle. Mal himself is a dark, tortured vampire. As in, twice cursed and therefore gruff, reticent and often quite hard to deal with. Everyone has issues with Mal at some point in the story: Chrysabelle, Maddoc, Fi, Preacher, Dominic. . . I found Mal's double cursed status to be almost a conscience for the soulless anathema (outcast from noble vampires). Unable to take "vino de vena" (another clever twist to the real-world) Mal is different from all the other vamps in the novel, including his unusual relationship and attitude toward the comarré in his care. Mal is always isolated: even as a human he was "anathema", which bodes less than well for his eternal life. I liked Mal more than his female Golgotha-blade-wielding counterpart, and while I still find his and Chrysabelle's relationship to be too tumultuous, it is a believable one to read. It certainly takes a long time to coalesce, and their relationship is never the forefront of the narrative. This is definitely an urban fantasy not a paranormal romance. The focus is clearly upon the action and plot, with any side stories remaining just that.

Outside of Mal and Chrysabelle, I largely enjoyed this cast of characters. Even the villains are strikingly evil without being too cartoonish. I will say that Tatiana, of the Family Tepes and the main present antagonist for Blood Rights is the most maniacal, megalomaniacal (it's a word) vampiress I've read to date. She somehow manages to be surprisingly well-rounded for a power-hungry bitch, with hidden facets I couldn't have seen coming. Her scenes were often cringe-inducing, especially those with the father of all vampires, varcolai, Nothos: the Castus Sangus. What I like best about Tatiana is that she is never predictable throughout the narrative and she was always riveting to read. Maris, an aunt of Chrysabelle's and a free comarré was a sneak favorite of mine. What I assumed to be a fairly humdrum character defied my expectations and was a fully-rounded and human character with her own unique and compelling  history from before the events of Blood Rights. Painter does an excellent job of slowly teasing out the story of Maris, and her evolution was one of my favorite parts of the novel. 

Most of all, I wish the beginning of the novel was a bit less unclear and confusing. Like I said earlier, I thoroughly enjoy this varied and lifelike world the author has fashioned for her characters to live within, but the first seventy-five or so pages were not easy. There's incredible amounts of action occurring even as the first chapter ends - murders, conspiracies, flight from danger, stabbings - with little to no contextual details. It's a lot to take in before the first understanding the basics of the world, like vocabulary. But if I was initially dismayed by Blood Rights, it didn't last past page 100. By then, the sheer amounts of awesome have started to leak through to the plot and characters and I loved it. Kristen Painter can definitely write a twist - ones I don't even predict. Some plot lines were fairly obvious but others might as well have been a piano dropping out of the sky upon my head (Maris! WTF!).  I thought the time and effort spent on the varcolai (but super attractive) Maddoc was a little wanting. I had the same situation regarding Fi - she's very inscrutable and quite hard to read with her whiplash emotions. I was never sure what her real feelings towards Mal were, though I loved her and Doc.

As I said before and as was once again proved by the ending to Blood Rights, Ms. Painter is not an author I can accurately predict. I did not see that ending coming at all and I am left eager and excited to get book two, Flesh and Blood. With plot twists that are genuinely shocking, an intricate and complete world along with compelling characters, Blood Rights is a hard novel to resist for any urban fantasy/supernatural fiction fan.

Review: The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees

Title: The Demi-Monde: Winter

Author: Rod Rees

Genre: dystopia, science fiction, steampunk, fantasy, historical fiction

Series: The Demi-Monde Saga #1

Pages: 424 (Nook NetGalley ARC edition)

Published: expected December 2011
Source: publishers via NetGalley

Rating: 4/5

The Demi-Monde is the most advanced simulation ever devised. Thirty million people ruled by history’s cruellest tyrants, locked in eternal civil conflict. The intention: to create the closest thing to Hell, and prepare soldiers for the nightmarish environment of war.
But something has gone badly wrong. Reinhard Heydrich – or at least a simulacrum resembling the Nazi monster – has kidnapped the President’s daughter from the Real-World and concealed her within the Demi-Monde, making it impossible for the program to be switched off. This achieved, he has cut off all contact with reality.
It falls to Ella Thomas, a young jazz singer, to infiltrate Heydrich’s virtual domain and rescue the missing girl. But once inside she will discover that everything in the Demi-Monde is not as it seems, and that the Real-World may be in more danger than everyone outside realises.

Ambitious is the word best used to describe this melange of various genres, alternate realities, and mishmash of famous, reviled persons from across history.  Rod Rees has indeed created something very unique and quite wonderfully different with The Demi-Monde: Winter. As the first published part in a four-book saga about an alternate reality populated with "Dupes" or a cyber duplicate, of such nasties and reprobates as Henry VIII, Robespierre, Lucrezia Borgia, Shaka Zulu, Aleister Crowley and the main villain Reinhard Heydrich, engineer of the Nazi's "Final Solution", I have to admit this series is off to one hell of a start. This is a novel that will suck you in completely, as if you were a visitor to the Demi-Monde itself; it will envelop you wholly in its individual amount of awesome and flair.

The Demi-Monde, put most simply, is an immersive alternate reality created by the United States Army to better train its soldiers without actual harm (an 'Asymmetric Warfare Environment' or AWE), but still with plenty of threat. As a heuristic (aka self-teaching) program, The Demi-Monde is constantly evolving, changing system and at least TWO of the five will always, always be at war with one another. With five sectors (The Rookeries, The Coven, Rodina, Quartier Chaud, and NoirVille), each radically, racially and religiously opposed to the others, it is a place of constant war and pain. It's a delightfully steampunkian locale, with technology equivalent to the 1870's in our (real) world. With 30 million Dupes NowLive, created from actual human DNA, this is a populous, dangerous and utterly alien world. And with Dupes considered basically the same as real humans, with no real difference between them, these horrible people are doppelgangers/reincarnations of the most vile people to walk the earth. Another twist added onto the constant fractious nature of the sectors is the reliance on blood throughout the Demi-Monde. Without it, a Demi-Mondian won't last two weeks, so supply and deman dictate life. Yes, this is a cyber-reality full of Dupes that are vampires, though not in the paranomal-type way: the Dupes simply can't survive without the Red Gold. With such a scarce supply of real blood within the AWE, this is another element is used to keep the sectors constantly at the point of war/invasion. The blood supply for this world could even be seen as an allegory for the real world's attitude regarding oil.

You can't fault Rees for being inconsistent or not planning out in minute detail every aspect of this historical fiction/fantasy/steampunk/science fiction-ish-esque story. There's varying cultures, conflicting political parties, isolationist religions. . . any stressor involved in real life, real world strife has been thought of an represented in Rees' hell of a world. From the steampunk flair of "mutoscopes", "steam-limos", the ubiquitous gas-lights, the required mention of "aether", this was a genre that worked well for a recreated subreality/world, coupled with the additional touches from sci-fi and fantasy.  I do wish I had a better visual representation of the sectors, The Hub, Terror Incognita, etc. for the maps provided in the digital arc left a lot to be desired with their tiny type and indistinct markings. I never really got a picture in my head of the world itself, and better maps would remedy such an easy fix. While the constant influx of information and data just on the Demi-Monde itself, it can get a bit old but it's also so interesting. I fully admit to googling random side characters mentioned by others just to see who they were (are?), and just what they did to merit a doppelganger in a cyber-reality populated with humanity's worst vermin.

I loved the Demi-Monde and all the possibilites it brought for Rod Rees' story but I didn't love all about this tome of a novel. New, invented terms and acronyms are constantly tossed at the reader, from the first page. While it's usually quite easy to figure out the modern-equivalent of what the Demi-Mondians are saying/doing, it's disruptive in the initial part of the novel. Another aspect of the style itself I grew VERY wear of: the random capitializations. Rees will also often subvert a word or saying from the Real World for his Demi-Monde and the results are like this: LessBienism (lesbianism), RaTionalist, nuJus (new Jews), woeMen, etc. Between that and the overdone acronyms (TRUE, ABBA, PINC, AWE) it hampered the story. What started out as a clever but subversive homage to the messed up real world became a schtick to mask a non-advancing plot. It was a bit, "Here, look at all these clever observations I've made and incorporated! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain stagnating characters and plotlines."  The story itself is told is a very direct and almost simple style, switching from the lives of Ella, rebel Trixie, Trixie's father Dashwood and (my personal favorite character) a Russian colonel named Vanka Maykov.

Ella herself is a bit of an issue for me. As part of "Operation Offbeat" to rescue Norma, the President's daughter somehow caught within the AWE, I wanted to like her. I wanted to enjoy her dark humor, sarcasm and muse into her obviously troubled personal history. It's just hard to feel a genuine rapport with this woman, for me personally. I also thought her intelligence fluctuated strangely: she says she is the top of her class, best SATs, but doesn't know basic world knowledge? She meets Colonel Ivan Ivanovich and doesn't realize he's a Russian? It was random, and weird. I didn't really "get" any of the females of this novel: Norma and Trixie also fall short of my favorites list As for Ella, I  definitely liked that she wasn't a general, cliched white female - she's a tough, smart African American young-woman, who is supposed to be the top of her class. Too much of Ella's plot and actions revolved around every Dupe man in the Demi-Monde finding her abnormally, irresistibly attractive, so much so that they are distracted from, say, torturing her. I'm sorry, but especially with white supremacists doing the torturing, the villains are not going to be conveniently distracted by a nice ankle, or a muscled thigh. I also got SO SICK of hearing her own incredulity at using expletives. I stopped counting the instances after the fourth one, but that needs to go, QUICK. The only time I really enjoyed Ella was in her scenes with the amusing Colonel Maykov... and that's more to do with the fake psychic than the Shade PsyChick. 

As for Trixie Dashwood, former Lady of the royal regime, now enmeshed within the Demi-Mondians white supremacist version of the Third Reich (the ForthRight as it's called) she's constantly in danger. Trixie is a hard-headed and hard-hearted young-woman. Between her, Ella and Norma three different types of woman are portrayed (seductress/rescuer, wimp/whiner/rescuee, cold/closed off) and I didn't love a single one. Trixie is just too much: too much anger, too much selfishness, too much action and no thought. Ella, by far comes the closest, but in this world of EXTREME character arcs, she remains far from a favorite. SPOILER AHEAD STOP NOW! Ella's development from "jad" singer to rescuer to Messiah? Really? I can't say I predicted that at all, but that's a risky and inventive move to take for a (female) character. END SPOILER. I can buy Trixie's revolutionary bent, but her abrupt and entirely unreal switch from proto-RaTionalist Lady to Commander of a militia? In days? With Trixie "[knowing] exactly what had to be done" for an entire military camp? I. Do. Not. Think. So. I call shenanigans, Mr. Rees. That is too far-fetched for a steampunk alternate reality inside a computer with murderous villains from across the ages. But even there, Trixie's evolution does not stop. Slight spoiler ahead: her eventual (and honestly, quite disheartening), bloodthirsty command turns her into something murderous and terrible, something not very far from the SS themselves. Rees does a subtle but effective job of pointing out that fighting fire with fire will sometimes turn you into what you fight. I had to admit that besides a certain charming, scheming Russkie named Maykov, it was the side, bit-players that I enjoyed the most: Louffie, Roza (LOVED HER), Dabrowski. I also quite liked Trixie's sneaky but smart father, the former Baron Dashwood and wished he'd had a bit more time to operate on the page/within the Demi-Monde itself. He sadly was the most underutilized of all the players.

The Demi-Monde: Winter is a lot of book. With plotlines that seem to tie together seamlessly and lead to a satisfying and thoroughly original read, I can't not recommend this novel. One of those rare books where antagonists both outnumber and outclass their counterparts, this was one I both didn't want to finish while simultaneously wishing I had the sequel, The Demi-Monde: Spring, in my hands as soon as I closed the cover, metaphorically speaking. Yes, there are a lot of uncomfortable themes about race, religion, politics, women - but they're all handled with aplomb and finesse and I wasn't off-put by them. The ending doled out some much-needed information, while offering unforeseen complications, a few answers and a burning desire to read the second as soon as humanly possible.