Link Up and Giveaway: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is unquestionably a five star book. But as a white woman, you don't need to hear that from me.

I wanted to link you to some #ownvoices reviews in this space, but publishing is racist. I couldn't find a single black writer with an advance review. (If you have one and want to link up, please give me a comment.) Getting diverse reads into diverse reviewers' hands is important as hell and I'm disappointed Harper chose to give Jess and me copies that could have gone to someone who shares Starr's life. So instead of a full review, go boost the stats of some of my favorite black reviewers. They would have written this so much better than me.

Octavia at Read. Sleep. Repeat.

Joyce at Completely Booked 

Nikki at Take Me Away

Camryn at Half Monster Girls  (and the HuffPo and MTV and TIME Kids and)

And now that you've done that, you can enter for a chance to read THUG yourself, because it is the best book you will read in 2017. Two finished copies, open anywhere The Book Depository ships. And hell, double points for teens. You're the ones this community is for and you're going to be the voices we need.

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Two Minute Review: The Book Jumper by Mechthild Gläser

Title: The Book Jumper
Author: Mechthild Gläser
Genre: supernatural
Series: N/A
Pages: 384
Published: January 3 2017
Source: ARC via publishers
Rating: 2/5

Amy Lennox doesn't know quite what to expect when she and her mother pick up and leave Germany for Scotland, heading to her mother's childhood home of Lennox House on the island of Stormsay.

Amy's grandmother, Lady Mairead, insists that Amy must read while she resides at Lennox House—but not in the usual way. It turns out that Amy is a book jumper, able to leap into a story and interact with the world inside. As thrilling as Amy's new power is, it also brings danger—someone is stealing from the books she visits, and that person may be after her life. Teaming up with fellow book jumper Will, Amy vows to get to the bottom of the thefts—at whatever the cost.

The Book Jumper has a gorgeous cover, a great synopsis, and an interesting premise -- but even with all of that, it's not enough to raise this young adult novel to more than a two out of five star rating. The basic elements of the story -- both character-wise and narrative-wise -- are familiar and have been done before so many times in the young adult age group. The Book Jumper feels more like a retread of other stories rather than a new novel possessing its own plot or arc.

Despite the less than original attempts at characterization and plotting, I did enjoy the gothic atmosphere that The Book Jumper carried. Amy's fights and struggles, both in print and not, make good use of the moody atmosphere that envelops her story. Towards the end of the narrative Gläser finds a rhythm for Amy and Will's race to uncover the mystery and the plotline grows more unique and far less easily predicted. It's a little too late to salvage the tropes and stereotypes that take up the bulk of the writing, but the ending is a strong and solid one.

Not as good as it could have been, but also not as bad as it would seem, The Book Jumper is a flawed, forgettable but mostly fun-in-the-moment read.

 

Review: Windwitch by Susan Dennard

Title: Windwitch
Author: Susan Dennard
Genre: fantasy
Series: Witchlands #2
Pages: 400
Published: expected January 10 2017
Source: ARC from publisher for review
Rating: 4/5

Sometimes our enemies are also our only allies…

After an explosion destroys his ship, the world believes Prince Merik, Windwitch, is dead. Scarred yet alive, Merik is determined to prove his sister’s treachery. Upon reaching the royal capital, crowded with refugees, he haunts the streets, fighting for the weak—which leads to whispers of a disfigured demigod, the Fury, who brings justice to the oppressed.

When the Bloodwitch Aeduan discovers a bounty on Iseult, he makes sure to be the first to find her—yet in a surprise twist, Iseult offers him a deal. She will return money stolen from him, if he locates Safi. Now they must work together to cross the Witchlands, while constantly wondering, who will betray whom first?

After a surprise attack and shipwreck, Safi and the Empress of Marstok barely escape with their lives. Alone in a land of pirates, every moment balances on a knife’s edge—especially when the pirates’ next move could unleash war upon the Witchlands.

Susan Dennard's return to her Witchlands series is an entertaining, action-filled, and fun to read YA fantasy. With the benefit of book one setting the stage before it, Windwitch takes the opportunity to really build on the foundations laid down in Truthwitch. With Merik, Safi, Aeduan, Iseult and one more person again taking turns narrating their often separated plotlines, this direct sequel creates momentum of its own while furthering the series' overall plot and also introducing new challenges and allies to contend with and further complicate matters. Friendship and found family remain central themes and motivators for a lot of the characters, and there's also little to no romance due to the separation of nearly all the central players. Immediately picking up where the first novel ended, Susan Dennard launches into her second story without a pause.

This is a series that easily bridges the gap between what is considered young adult and what is considered an adult novel in the fantasy genre; there's a lot of appeal to be found in this layered story of friendship, magic, and empire. Dennard is more ambitious in scope with this series than with her first, and Windwitch is her most enterprising novel yet, both in terms in the characterization and in plotting. The worldbuilding and magic system(s?) finally begin to feel understandable here, now the characters at play and cultures/countries involved have had more time and pages to coalesce into something substantial. The pan-European world is both more vivid and tangible the second time around, though there are still lingering questions and plot holes about its history and the way magic/Witchery operates.

One of the many enjoyable things about Windwitch, that also held true for Truthwitch before it, is that these are two books that each slowly amp up the action and build the atmospheric tension until the end of the novel is almost unexpectedly emotional amid all the high stakes fighting and magically dire circumstances. There is definitely an "end of book high," (as another reviewer called it) present in each Withlands story. This duology-so-far, and the characters within them, manage to grow on the reader like moss. It's taken some time, but with their matured narratives these complicated characters are realistic. Some are easy to engage with, and care about, others are less knowable but still interesting. Even with the improved plotting and the stronger writing, it is the varied and multilayered characters that really shine in Dennard's imagined world and the continuing stories set within it. 

A strong sequel to an already promising beginning, Windwitch is an action-packed, unpredictable novel that further builds onto the Witchlands series and its mythologies. The magic system that veteran YA author Susan Dennard has invented for her fantasy world is unique (though maybe most similar to the one in Sanderson's adult fantasy novel Warbreaker) and explored more. Her characters are three-dimensional and engaging, and the plot of the book is simultaneously strong and interesting from the start to the all-too-soon ending. New twists -- both in characterization (Vivia's not the one trying to kill Merik and she cares about her country!) and in the narrative (Aeduan's dad is totally Ragnor) also help to keep this story moving at a good pace and to keep reader interest high throughout.

Two Minute Review: Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson

Title: Allegedly
Author: Tiffany D. Jackson
Genre: contemporary
Series: N/A
Pages: 400
Published: expected January 24 2017
Source: publishers via edelweiss
Rating: 4/5

Mary B. Addison killed a baby.

Allegedly. She didn’t say much in that first interview with detectives, and the media filled in the only blanks that mattered: A white baby had died while under the care of a church-going black woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The public convicted Mary and the jury made it official. But did she do it? She wouldn’t say.

Mary survived six years in baby jail before being dumped in a group home. The house isn’t really “home”—no place where you fear for your life can be considered a home. Home is Ted, who she meets on assignment at a nursing home.

There wasn’t a point to setting the record straight before, but now she’s got Ted—and their unborn child—to think about. When the state threatens to take her baby, Mary must find the voice to fight her past. And her fate lies in the hands of the one person she distrusts the most: her Momma. No one knows the real Momma. But who really knows the real Mary?

In this gritty and haunting debut, Tiffany D. Jackson explores the grey areas in our understanding of justice, family, and truth, and acknowledges the light and darkness alive in all of us.

Tiffany D. Jackson's debut novel Allegedly is the dark contemporary story of an infamous convicted teenage murderer named Mary -- who may or may not be innocent of the crime that the nation has hated her for many years. The premise is intriguing, and combined with the solid writing and characterization done over the course of its pages by this new author, Allegedly is a strong, memorable novel. It's a dark, unflinching, and harsh contemporary story; one told with more than a few real-world parallels. It's also utterly unpredictable and wholly unputdownable. It's an engrossing and fresh read; the subject matter isn't an easy one and the characters aren't either.

Allegedly clocks in at a respectable 400 pages and not a page of that feels wasted. The pacing is moderate as the pieces are set up and the narrative is rather clever in how it frames the plot and Mary's evolution. By using various interviews and documents about Mary's past/case/conviction/personality interspersed with the more straightforward events concerning her present-day life, the author creates an ever-evolving understanding of both her and her inscrutable mother. Mary's struggle for the truth/her memories of that day is the main focus of Allegedly but while exploring what happened to baby Alyssa, Jackson subtly interweaves themes and harsh realities about mental health, incarceration, racism and prejudice.

Top Ten 2016 Book Covers

  Top Ten Tuesday is all thanks to Broke and the Bookish! This lovely header is thanks to APR's own Dani.

I am going off topic from the TTT because I wanted to be superficial. I went through and counted down all my favorite books --- but even bad books can have a gorgeous cover. So, here are my favorite covers of 2016 ---- but that does not mean I endorse all of these as good or even readable books!

1. Furthermore by Tahereh Mafi

2. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers (Long Way #1)*

3. Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter

4. Hold Back the Stars by Katie Khan

5. A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray (Firebird #1)*

6. Saint's Blood by Sebastien de Castell (Greatcoats #3)

7. Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones

8. A Darkly Beating Heart by Lindsay Smith

9. Masks & Shadows by Stephanie Burgis

10. The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater (The Raven Boys #4)

Runners-up:

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows #2), Nevernight by Jay Kristoff (Nevernight #1), Dark Tide by Jennifer Donnelly (Waterfire Saga #3), Long May She Reign by Rhiannon Thomas, and Learning to Swear in America by Katie Kennedy.

*I limited series/companions to my favorites of that series/world. Otherwise, all three of Claudia Gray's Firebird books would be on here, as would be Long Way's companion, A Closed and Common Orbit.

TBR Planning: January 2017

January is here and I am actually ahead of my ARC/review queue? What is this madnesS? This is a weird feeling and I... entirely do not expect it to last. But hey, the sooner I get to the books on this month's TBR, the happier I'll be!


The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

 Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, Angie Thomas’s searing debut about an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances addresses issues of racism and police violence with intelligence, heart, and unflinching honesty.

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

I think most of us have heard of this book by now. It has gotten a lot of attention and I really am hoping it's as good and as important as hoped. I have only heard excellent things from those who have read it so far, so I am tentatively very optimistic about it.


Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller -- teenage girl pirate captain! Deceptions! Enemy pirates! Let this be as awesome as it sounds!

A Lie for A Lie by Robin Merrow MacCready -- teenage photographer finds out about her father's secret second life + family.

The Wish Granter by C.J. Redwine (Ravenspire #2) -- I know I know. I didn't even like book one all that much. But I am a terrible glutton for punishment and I swear if THIS one isn't good, I'll stop.


Dreadnought by April Daniels (Nemesis #1)

Danny Tozer has a problem: she just inherited the powers of the world's greatest superhero. Until Dreadnought fell out of the sky and died right in front of her, she was trying to keep people from finding out she's transgender. But then her second-hand superpowers transformed her body into what she's always thought it should be. Now there's no hiding that she's a girl.

It should be the happiest time of her life, but between her father's dangerous obsession with curing her girlhood, her best friend suddenly acting like he's entitled to date her, and the classmate who is secretly a masked vigilante, Danny's first weeks living in a body that fits her are more difficult and complicated than she could have imagined.

She doesn't have much time to adjust. Dreadnought's murderer, a cyborg named Utopia, still haunts the streets of New Port City. If Danny can't sort through the confusion of coming out, master her powers, and stop Utopia in time, humanity faces extinction.

This reminds me of Steelheart? But even better? Own voices telling the story of a transgender superheroine? I am beyond excited to read this --- and to be on the blog tour for it! That post will be up in a couple weeks so keep an eye out! :)

New Year's Blog Resolutions

So 2016 was a good year for us here at Ageless Pages, content-wise. Dani and I posted more than ever before in our soon-to-be-six-year-history; we got to be pretty consistent as far as number of posts per month went. I personally found a blogging rhythm, and though we both slumped a time or two, we kept it up all year long. (Stats and Challenges post for 2016 soon to come!)



So, with that in mind: I decided to try and be even more proactive in 2017.

1. Have fun!

This is a hobby. One I choose and one I love but the days of stressing about it are over for me. I do this when and how I feel like it. This relaxed approach actually has lead me to be much more productive --- I had the last half of November and most of December posts scheduled by mid-November. I'm a month+ ahead of pub dates for my ARC review queue. So no  more feelings of obligation for this blogger.

2. Aim for 22 posts per month (combined, not just me)

I would love to be above 260 posts in one year. No real reason for that; it's an arbitrary number just far enough exceeding 2016's output that it feels possible and like a challenge. And it's always held true that I work well with a goal.

3. Write more discussion posts

I've always kind of shied away from these. I have a lot of opinions about a wide range of topics (both concerning books and not) and for a long time I didn't really want to express them in case of offending people. Well, those days are also gone.  This is still a review blog but expect more variety/politics from us in the future.

4. Respond to all blog comments/ Comment on friends' blog more

  I am pretty good at visiting blogs that visit me. But I used to be much better at taking the initiative and comment-bombing reviews instead of reading + responding on twitter. Blogging is a labor of love. And it is one that we do purely out of love for literature, so it's always nice to hear back.

5. Cross-Post Reviews

 I have always, always been terrible about this. Before 2013 (sssh I am an old), I at least crossposted most to GR. Sometimes I remember to update them on retailer sites but going forward in 2017, I'm going to make sure all my reviews go up on Amazon, at least.



What about you? Any plans for blogging? Reading? Life in general for 2017?