Review: The Dust of 100 Dogs

The Dust of 100 Dogs

Author: A.S. King
Pages: 336
Publisher: Flux
Source: Gifted by Kara of Great Imaginations

Description from Goodreads:
In the late seventeenth century, famed teenage pirate Emer Morrisey was on the cusp of escaping the pirate life with her one true love and unfathomable riches when she was slain and cursed with "the dust of one hundred dogs," dooming her to one hundred lives as a dog before returning to a human body-with her memories intact.

Now she's a contemporary American teenager and all she needs is a shovel and a ride to Jamaica.

First Sentence: "With one last, almighty roar, the Frenchman fell to his knees and died."

Review:

What can I say about this book? I really do not know how I feel about the book I've just completed, and might not know until I reread it a couple of times in years to come. All I know entirely for sure is that my author-crush on A.S. King has gotten larger, and that I have never in my life encountered a book remotely like The Dust of 100 Dogs.

I've read two other novels by A.S. King, Everybody Sees the Ants and Ask the Passengers. As much as they differed from one another, The Dust of 100 Dogs is even further removed. Her other novels are contemporaries, but this one takes place in the seventeenth century and the 1990s. Her storytelling methods, the mature subject matter, and the settings highlight King's daring as an author.

Her love of history can also be felt in Everybody Sees the Ants, in which the main character's grandfather was a World War II veteran. Here, King goes all the way back to seventeeth century Ireland, in the era of Oliver Cromwell and English subjugation (well, one of many eras of that anyway). She unflinchingly depicts the brutality of the English through the eyes of eight-year-old Emer, who witnesses her mother's brave battle and her brother's death firsthand. Where she was once a weak, whiny creature with dreams of being admired for her beauty, Emer learns from this hard lessons about power and how to live.

Taken in by her abusive Uncle and his family, she loses herself in her grief for a while, retreating into herself and going mute by choice, since there is nothing worth talking about in her new life. This changes when she meets the love of her life, a boy similarly mute, Seanie Carroll. When she takes a stand against her cruel Uncle Martin, he ships her off to France to marry a wealthy, disgusting old man. Emer escapes and begins her wanderings around the world, eventually becoming the captain of a pirate vessel.

That's right! Thar be pirates here! These are the kinds of pirates one cannot help but root for, coming across almost as Robin Hoods, when compared to the slavers and the plundering Spanish. Emer, an honest, upright girl at heart, justifies her actions, her violence, with the knowledge that these colonizers do horrible things to the people whose land they are stealing. The comparisons drawn between the English in Ireland, the Spanish on the Atlantic Isles, and the manifest destiny of the Americans are brilliant.

King focuses on power and on colonization. Her tale is not a happy one. Lovers die, heroines are raped and stalked by the worst of men, and many people are held subjective to the whims of assholes with more will and more power. Even in Emer's modern life (as Saffron), this plays out through the abuses of her brother, a druggie, who steals and destroys everything her parents have, but whom they cannot begin to resist; they are willing victims. Emer, after her childhood experience, never allows anyone to make her into an easy victim; her suffering makes her strong.

The concept and execution completely awe me. King tells the story through shifting perspectives: Emer in third person, Saffron in first person, Fred Livingstone in third person, and notes about dogs. Emer's third person narration, with the exception of the prologue, follows her life chronologically. Saffron, blessed or cursed with Emer's memories still has her own distinct personality. She is a fascinating figure, a child with hundreds of years of memories, both human and hound. Fred may be one of the most creepy characters I have ever encountered, and I do not think I'll be forgetting him any time soon; he's like a rapist stalker combined with Gollum, which is just nightmarish. The notes about life as a dog and how best to raise them are typically King in their oddness. These include sharp insights into human nature, but do occasionally come across as a message from the humane society.

Much as I love the plot of this book and am wowed by King's bravery as an author to venture into such untrespassed lands of YA fiction, I do wish there had been more focus on characterization. My first priority for a book is characters I really connect with, and I did not really find that in Emer or Saffron. I like both of them, worry about both of them, and wish the best for both of them, but they did not capture my heart. With all that King had to accomplish narratively, this is not surprising, because the book would have had to be a good bit longer. If you do not read for character foremost, as I do, then this will likely not be a huge drawback.

If you are looking for a book unlike anything else in YA fiction, you cannot go wrong with A.S. King's The Dust of 100 Dogs. King writes beautifully and does not romanticize anything. Her books are honest and thought-provoking.

Rating: 4/5

Favorite Quote: "If dogs ran the world, there would be endless food, water, walks, and humping, but not much conquering. Humans want to conquer everyone they can, and buy everything they see. I think this is because humans have forgotten how to be happy."

Audiobook Review: May the Road Rise Up to Meet You

May the Road Rise Up to Meet You

Author: Peter Troy
Narrators: John Keating, Allyson Johnson, Barrie Kreinik, Adam Lazarre White
Duration: 16 hrs, 24 mins
Publisher: AudioGO
Source: Own

Description from Goodreads:
An American drama told from four distinct perspectives, spanning the first major wave of Irish immigration to New York through the end of the Civil War. Ethan McOwen is an Irish immigrant whose endurance is tested in Brooklyn and the Five Points at the height of its urban destitution; he is among the first to join the famed Irish Brigade and becomes a celebrated war photographer. Marcella, a society girl from Spain, defies her father to become a passionate abolitionist. Mary and Micah are slaves of varying circumstances, who form an instant connection and embark on a tumultuous path to freedom.

Review:

Phew. Audiobooks over ten discs long just seem to go on forever. When I ventured out of the house for lunch with friends today, I passed a woman leaving the library with a James Michener audiobook about as large as a freaking toaster and I just don't know how she does it. May the Road Rise Up to Meet You felt really long, and it's only 13 discs. Overall, I definitely enjoyed this, but it took some commitment to get through.

Parts of this novel, I simply loved and did not want to stop listening to at all. Unfortunately, the bulk of the novel bored me, especially in the beginning. When the book first starts, the four main characters are all children, and I just did not find myself as interested in those aspects of their lives. Two of the characters, Micah and Mary, are slaves in the United States, who, from separate places, get sold to new masters. While I know I should have been moved by this, there wasn't anything original in this part of the narrative, so I kept finding myself zoning out. Meanwhile, Ethan made his way from Ireland, beset by the potato famine and resulting hunger.

As the characters grew up, their tales became much more engaging. Micah and Mary both become slaves of utmost importance, respected, though still without freedom. Micah does better carpentry work than any white men, and Mary can make dresses just as nice (and for which her master charges just as much) as those French designers.

Ethan enlists in the Union Army with his friends, in the Irish brigade. He takes pictures of the conflict, because of his training as a photographer. The discussion of the slow movements of the army took me back to half-remembered lessons in a course on American Military History, which mostly taught me what a horrific memory I have for battles. His story line, more than any other, highlights the civil war from a regular man's perspective.

Marcella, though, had to be my favorite. Her family moved, a generation or two back, to America from Spain. She has so much sass. When the reader first meets her, she's playing a poker game with some wealthy, slave owning white men. She simpers and pretends to be a sweet, simple thing, but, actually, she's a card shark, taking their money to use for the abolition movement. Later, she gets involved in women's suffrage too. Marcella has so much strength, power and an indomitable will. In a dream cast, she would definitely be a young Natalie Wood, using all the sass from The Great Race and a little bit of the accent from West Side Story.

I rather expected this novel to be endlessly depressing as such lifelong, sweeping dramas as thing one tend to be in my experience. Actually, the message is one of hope and inspiration. The romances are sweet, and all of the characters utterly lovable.

Rating: 3/5

Narration:
Finally a full cast narration done well! Thus far, all the one's I've listened to have made some questionable casting decisions and lessened the impact. Each one of the voice actors matched their part well. Marcella sounds a bit like a sassy Natalie Wood, Ethan has his Irish brogue, Micah sounds deep and reliable, and Mary seems like just the kind of woman to excel at putting forth the face she wants whoever she's talking to to see.

Even better, they all do a pretty decent job imitating one another. The narration switches from character to character, but, once they meet up obviously, they converse with one another, so the actors sometimes need to do the voices for another actor's character. Some do better than others, but all do well enough. I doubt I would have been able to finish this in print form, as I might have DNFed in the slow passages.

Rating: 4.5/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Autoclave - The Mountain Goats

Beta
Beta, Book 1

Author: Rachel Cohn
Pages: 329
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Publication Date: October 16, 2012
Source: Disney Hyperion at BEA

Description from Goodreads:
In a world constructed to absolute perfection, imperfection is difficult to understand—and impossible to hide.

Elysia is a clone, created in a laboratory, born as a sixteen year old girl, an empty vessel with no life experience to draw from. She is a Beta, an experimental model of teenaged clone. She was replicated from another teenage girl, who had to die in order for Elysia to be created.

Elysia's purpose is to serve the inhabitants of Demesne, an island paradise for the wealthiest people on earth. Everything about Demesne is bioengineered for perfection. Even the air there induces a strange, euphoric high that only the island's workers—soulless clones like Elysia—are immune to.

At first, Elysia's new life on this island paradise is idyllic and pampered. But she soon sees that Demesne's human residents, the most privileged people in the world who should want for nothing, yearn. And, she comes to realize that beneath its flawless exterior, there is an undercurrent of discontent amongst Demesne's worker clones. She knows she is soulless and cannot feel and should not care—so why are overpowering sensations clouding Elysia's mind?

If anyone discovers that Elysia isn't the unfeeling clone she must pretend to be, she will suffer a fate too terrible to imagine. When Elysia's one chance at happiness is ripped away from her with breathtaking cruelty, emotions she's always had but never understood are unleashed. As rage, terror, and desire threaten to overwhelm her, Elysia must find the will to survive.

First Sentence: "It's me she wants to purchase."

Review:
Before I got to read this one, I saw a few non-flattering reviews roll in, so I was on my guard, prepared for another in a string of disappointing reads. Thankfully, I enjoyed Beta pretty much all the way through, although I am definitely immensely skeptical about where the series is heading.

Beta takes place on an island paradise, home to only the richest and most fashionable of people. These people are so rich that they have clones, programmed to be emotionless and get work done perfectly, to take care of them, because, honestly, human butlers and nannies are just so last season. The rest of the world is not so nice, and is very different from the one we know today. Details on that are somewhat limited in Beta, but I hope to learn more about the Water Wars and what the cities are like in later installments.

I do need to talk for a bit about the concept of the clones to serve this island. Honestly, I don't get it. They talked about why they needed them: because good labor is too difficult to find, since the island didn't have natives and travel to the island is exceedingly expensive. That's nice and all, but I'm FAIRLY CERTAIN that producing clones is about 80 billion times more expensive than that. Also, the whole process seems suspect to me. For one thing, the person being cloned is supposed to be dead, which makes me wonder where all of the hot, dead people are coming from. Another problem with I have with this is the whole business about how they separate out the soul from the body. Did I miss when we figured out where the soul is? Has a physical soul been located in the future?

Betas are not supposed to be able to feel or taste anything. They should be, essentially, like robots. Elysia, our heroine, is a beta, a test clone for the new teen line. Because she is gorgeous (stacked), she sells quickly and goes to serve as a companion in the home of a wealthy family. It quickly becomes apparent that Elysia is not what a clone should be, which I am thankful for, since her first person story would have been VERY boring were she actually the way clones are meant to be.

Thankfully, I did not find her narration boring at all. Cohn's writing often amused me and I really liked the rhythm of it. Basically, she used the beginning clone section for comedic value. Even early on, it's apparent that something is wrong with Elysia's programming because she is so incredibly curious. As such she asks lots of inappropriate questions. For additional reader amusement, she interprets things very literally, like wondering where a girl 'puts out the sex.' This humor was obvious, but I must admit I was still entertained.

Cohn makes an attempt at twists, and there are several in here. Most of them I saw coming from miles away. Pretty much as soon as a character was introduced, I would predict that x and y would happen to them and then a hundred pages or more later, it would. The twists at the end did get me, though, I will admit. Basically, there are enough surprises that she'll likely catch you off guard once or twice.

For most of the book, I was okay with the romance. Just okay. I don't especially care for either guy (yes, a love triangle, and one that I suspect I will come to loathe). Tahir sounds totally dreamy. Were I Elysia, I would be all over that one, because he sounds delicious. Besides, he's actually there, which helps. Still, I did not really experience any feels at their romance. Mostly, I just wanted her to enjoy herself, because why the hell not. The other boy has a history with her First, aka the girl she was cloned from, and she knows him from a brief memory. He holds no appeal for me. Still, the dynamics of the love triangle were interesting enough thus far.

Did you notice that I have mentioned THE END a couple of times as having been somewhat distinct from the rest of the novel for me? GOODNESS GRACIOUS, THE ENDING. I really wish that I could talk about this in detail with you guys, but I won't because spoilers. Here's what I can say. Things get darker, which I give Cohn props for. Something I thought was coming but kind of didn't think would happen because it usually doesn't in YA DID happen, and it was painful. That part of the end was good in a painful way.

THEN there's some things that I am just all kinds of not cool with, which sucks because I had such a pleasant reading experience up to that point, despite my nitpicking above. What it comes down to is that some trope-ish things happen all in a row and I am REALLY concerned about whether I will like the next book at all. If anyone has read this book, I would love to discuss!

So, for the review skimmers, I will say that I enjoyed reading Beta quite a bit, but I am not altogether sure how I feel about it. A lot will hinge on whether you like Cohn's writing and what happens in book two.

Favorite Quote:

"'Does chocolate compel ataraxia?' I ask the family.
   'Darling,' says Mother, cutting a piece of her soufflé and placinng it on my plate. 'It's the antithesis of meh.'
   'What is meh?' I ask.
   She shrugs. 'Indifference. Chocolate is the opposite. It's the very essence of happiness.'"

"Hand me your hand, let me look in your eyes
As my last chance to feel human begins to vaporize
Maybe it’s the heat in here, maybe it’s the pressure
You ought to head for the exits, the sooner the better

I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam"

Remember: Every comment on a post during Dystopian August is an entry to win one of fourteen dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels IF you've filled out the form from this post.

White Flag - Dido

For Darkness Shows the Stars

Author: Diana Peterfreund
Pages: 402
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Source: Diana Peterfreund signing at BEA

Description from Goodreads:
It's been several generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.

Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family's estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot's estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wentforth--an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.

But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret--one that could change their society . . . or bring it to its knees. And again, she's faced with a choice: cling to what she's been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she's ever loved, even if she's lost him forever.

Inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion, For Darkness Shows the Stars is a breathtaking romance about opening your mind to the future and your heart to the one person you know can break it.

First Sentence: "Dear Kai, My name is Elliot, and I am six years old and live in the big house."

Review:
This is going to be a tough review for me to write. It seems the books you've most been anticipating are the ones that are most difficult to reflect upon. I had so many expectations going into For Darkness Shows the Stars (FDStS), something you can tell if you scroll back through my blog posts. In fact, I was entirely confident that this book would be a new FAVORITE, because how could a dystopian/Austen combo NOT become one of my top reads of all time? Well, with those weighty expectations, FDStS did not entirely satisfy me.

Peterfreund is a marvelous author, and she truly accomplishes what she aimed for in FDStS. First off, she got the Persuasion aspects of the story pitch perfect. The characters and their emotions are all by the book. Though many of the scenes and the overall situation are greatly changed, there is no doubting that this is a futuristic retelling of Persuasion. I am seriously impressed by Peterfreund's talent and how she made a story about an older couple (for their time) into a story about teenagers. Though I do feel it might have worked a bit better with slightly older main characters, she did make the tale work for youths.

What makes that work is the society in which FDStS is set. The world has regressed, run by Luddites, those who fear technology. Messing with genes, robotics and medicines, humans became close to gods, but there was an unfortunate consequence: the Reduction. Wars and, perhaps, divine punishment left the world populated by the Luddites, largely unchanged and the Reduced, unable to speak and used as slaves. The Luddites are much like the landowners of Austen's time: wealthy, privileged and built upon the backs of abused workers.

This political and social landscape is complicated more and more as time passes. Not all children of the Reduced are Reduced as well. Some of them (1 in 20) has all the capabilities of a regular person. The Luddites, comfy in their estates, try to keep the CORs (Children of the Reduced) in the same menial state, bound by the same laws. The CORs prefer to think of themselves as Posts (Post-Reduction), the beginning of something new. This is a time of upheaval, a nice parallel to the social issues in Austen's novels. The Posts have money and talent that Elliot's Luddite family now lacks, much like Captain Wentworth earned a fortune in the army in Austen's Persuasion.

Elliot, like her namesake Anne Elliot, does not fit in with her family. Her father and sister care only about material things: clothing, racetracks and other such trappings. Elliot works hard to try to help the Posts and the Reduced on the family farms and estate, burdened by her family's extravagance. Meanwhile, she is haunted by worries about what has become of the boy she loved as a child, Kai, who left to find fortune at 14.

In Persuasion, Anne Elliot turned down Wentworth's initial proposal because her family deemed him unworthy. In Elliot's case, she let him go of her own volition, not because of any direct social pressure. Still, she has always loved him and they have been friends since a young age, due to their shared birthday. Interspersed with the main part of the novel are letters the two snuck back and forth to one another throughout their childhood. These, while sometimes entertaining, perhaps could have been reduced, or at least put into chronological order. Bouncing around in time really didn't help their impact.

My issue with the book, despite its quality, is that I did not connect to Elliot or to Kai. Persuasion, though beautiful, is not my favorite Austen novel. I have trouble forgiving Anne and Wentworth for their behavior to one another, especially Wentworth's stupid and shameless flirting with the stupid neighbor girl. Peterfreund did such a good job with their characters that I feel much the same about Elliot and Kai. While I root for them more than I do for the other characters, I also didn't feel any special warmness towards them.

So there you have it as clearly as I can manage to put it. FDStS is brilliantly done, but it didn't touch my heart, at least not on this reading. I do think it's funny that her unicorn series is much darker than her dystopia. Still, if you're interested in this one, do give it a try.

Favorite Quote: "The old poems said that lovers were made for each other. But that wasn't true for Kai and Elliot. They hadn't been made for each other at all—quite the opposite. But they'd grown together, the two of them, until they were like two trees from a single trunk, stronger together than either could have been alone."

"And when we meet
Which I'm sure we will
All that was there
Will be there still
I'll let it pass
And hold my tongue
And you will think
That I've moved on....

I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be"

Remember: Every comment on a post during Dystopian August is an entry to win one of fourteen dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels IF you've filled out the form from this post.

Possession - Sarah McLachlan

Blue Asylum
Author: Kathy Hepinstall
Pages: 270
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt via NetGalley

Description from Goodreads:
Amid the mayhem of the Civil War, Virginia plantation wife Iris Dunleavy is put on trial and convicted of madness. It is the only reasonable explanation the court can see for her willful behavior, so she is sent away to Sanibel Asylum to be restored to a good, compliant woman. Iris knows, though, that her husband is the true criminal; she is no lunatic, only guilty of disagreeing with him on notions of justice, cruelty, and property.

On this remote Florida island, cut off by swamps and seas and military blockades, Iris meets a wonderful collection of residents--- some seemingly sane, some wrongly convinced they are crazy, some charmingly odd, some dangerously unstable. Which of these is Ambrose Weller, the war-haunted Confederate soldier whose memories terrorize him into wild fits that can only be calmed by the color blue, but whose gentleness and dark eyes beckon to Iris?

The institution calls itself modern, but Iris is skeptical of its methods, particularly the dreaded "water treatment." She must escape, but she has found new hope and love with Ambrose. Can she take him with her? If they make it out, will the war have left anything for them to make a life from, back home?

Blue Asylum is a vibrant, beautifully-imagined, absorbing story of the lines we all cross between sanity and madness. It is also the tale of a spirited woman, a wounded soldier, their impossible love, and the undeniable call of freedom.

First Sentence: "When Iris dreamed of that morning, the taste of blood was gone, and so was the odor of gunsmoke, but her other senses stayed alive."

Review:
Nothing makes me more feminist smashy than reading historical fiction where women who dare to be themselves and not the obedient pet society wanted them to be are thanked for their strength by being sent to an insane asylum. Iris isn't even that radical (by modern standards); she does want a man to take care of her, but not her evil, slave-owning husband. Even though later in the story, I don't necessarily agree with all of Iris' decisions, I can't help sympathizing with her because I can see what she's been through.

Just the other day, Heather of Coffee-Stained Pages and I were discussing historical fiction that dealt with the topic of slavery. Basically, we agreed that most of the books on slavery have the exact same viewpoint and narrative, whereas other historical fiction (like that of WWI or WWII, for example) is much more creative. Well, here comes Hepinstall with an exception to that. Although slavery is a central topic, along with the treatment of women, this story is nothing like any that I've read before. I love the comparison she draws between women's issues and slavery.

The writing was beautiful, and I had a lot of lovely quotes from which to choose. Ultimately, I went with the one that speaks to my life most. I love that phrase 'ecstatic loneliness,' because, as an introvert, it really describes how I feel most of the time. No wonder reading is my favorite pastime. Plus, who can't sympathize with a person who wants more out of life? Don't we all?

The way that Hepinstall also focused on the other residents of the mental hospital was fascinating. All of the 'lunatics' made a certain amount of sense, and yet there's just no way they can hope to function. Most of them were actually lucky to be there. For a mental hospital, this one was really nice, definitely not Nurse Ratched material.

Blue Asylum is a beautifully-written book that explores insanity and slavery, both of women and African Americans. Hepinstall walks familiar territory but weaves something new (I know I'm mixing my metaphors but I don't care!). Her book will likely appeal to those who enjoy Jessica Maria Tuccelli's Glow, especially those who don't like dialect much, or The Yellow Wallpaper.

Rating: 4/5

Favorite Quote: "Her childhood had been magical, hours spent in ecstatic loneliness in the apple orchard, dreaming of foreign lands and wild adventures.. Everything was new, down to bird song and grass blades. By the time she had reached adulthood, the town around her was like a grandmother who had used up all her stories and now simply rocked on the porch. The same flowers, the same streets, year after year. She longed for someone more exotic. A prince. A pirate."

"Through this world I've stumbled
So many times betrayed,
Trying to find an honest word,
To find the truth enslaved,
Oh you speak to me in riddles and
You speak to me in rhymes
My body aches to breathe your breath,
Your words keep me alive"

Faded from the Winter - Iron & Wine

Glow

Author: Jessica Maria Tuccelli
Pages: 320
Review Copy Acquired from: Viking

Summary from Goodreads:
A breathtaking Georgia-mountain epic about the complex bond of mothers and daughters across a century.
In the autumn of 1941, Amelia J. McGee, a young woman of Cherokee and Scotch-Irish descent, and an outspoken pamphleteer for the NAACP, hastily sends her daughter, Ella, alone on a bus home to Georgia in the middle of the night-a desperate action that is met with dire consequences when the child encounters two drifters and is left for dead on the side of the road.
Ella awakens to find herself in the homestead of Willie Mae Cotton, a wise hoodoo practitioner and former slave, and her partner, Mary-Mary Freeborn, tucked deep in the Takatoka forest. As Ella begins to heal, the legacies of her lineage are revealed.
"Glow" transports us from Washington, D.C., on the brink of World War II to 1836 and into the mountain coves of Hopewell County, Georgia, full of ghosts both real and imagined. Illuminating the tragedy of human frailty, the power of friendship and hope, and the fiercest of all human bonds-mother love-this stunning debut will appeal to readers of both Sue Monk Kidd's "The Secret Life of Bees" and Amy Green's "Bloodroot."
Review:
Ordinarily, I write my own summaries of books, but try as I might, I could not manage to sum Glow up in a paragraph. This novel, though not especially long, is dense and complex. There hardly is a plot, but a whole lot happens. Nothing is stated explicitly; it's left to the reader to suss out the meaning.

Glow did not especially grab me, but, despite that, I can still appreciate the artistry of the book. Jessica Maria Tuccelli displays evident talent both in the unique construction of a narrative and in the writing of disparate characters.

Tuccelli tells the story using multiple points of view, a very effective narrative style, but a very dangerous one as well. Only authors talented enough to write easily distinguishable characters by voice alone can pull it off. Tuccelli does so with ease. Each of the assortment of characters that narrate their perspective have very particular methods of speaking that clearly distinguish them. Most all of them speak in their own particular dialect, all quite distinct even though they all live in the same small town. One character's brief section seems more like poetry than prose, and, though unclear, conveys perfectly the confusion and tragedy of a little girl's death.

In Glow, Tuccelli tackles a number of serious issues, most importantly that of racism. The characters in the story come from an array of backgrounds, but are mostly black and Indian (as in Native American). The story spans all the way from before the Civil War era to 1941, from the era of slavery to the fight for civil rights.

When I first started reading Glow, I tried to read it like I do most books, quickly, devouring. This was, I realized later, a mistake. By reading so fast, I became confused about some of the action and the relationships between moments. When I began reading more slowly, giving myself more time to mull over what was going on and to really savor Tuccelli's talent, my joy of the book most certainly increased.

If you like beautifully-written historical fiction that will really make you think, try Glow.

Rating: 3.5/5

"Daddy's ghost behind you
Sleeping dog beside you
You're a poem of mystery
You're the prayer inside me"

Children of God from Jane Eyre: The Musical

The Declaration
The Declaration, Book 1

Author: Gemma Malley
Pages: 301
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Brief Summary:
Anna is a Surplus, a burden on the resources of the world. She knows her place, knows that she does not even deserve to live. Her selfish parents gave birth to her even though they did not opt out of Longevity, the drug that stops the internal physical process of aging. The Catchers found her when she was two and, since then, she has been at Grange Hall, learning how to be a Valuable Asset, a servant for Legals. Anna is the best Surplus. Then a new Pending (an older kid) arrives at Grange Hall and keeps trying to fill Anna's mind with crazy thoughts: that she is loved and that she has a last name, Covey.

Review:
This book is like a combination of Unwind, The Postmortal and Among the Hidden, although the last one was the only one actually published when The Declaration came out in 2007. Set in 2140, most people live forever, because of the miracle drug longevity. Unfortunately, this drug does not halt the aging process of the skin, meaning that wrinkles and sagging are still a serious problem. Basically, in this future, plastic surgery is de rigeur. Of course, there's the mysterious new Longevity+ which apparently keeps the skin young too.

Like in Among the Hidden, people are forbidden from having kids, although here most people aren't even allowed one, whereas in Among the Hidden families could have two. The governments feared over population with everyone living indefinitely. Thus, only if the parents opt out of taking the drug will they be allowed to reproduce.

What I wonder though is why the rules are quite that strict. Here's the thing. I agree that over-population is a definite concern, but it's not like most people are actually going to live forever. At one point, Malley mentions that crime has essentially been eradicated, because, apparently, it's not worthwhile if you're going to live forever. Really, that seems like bullshit to me. There would still be murder and there would still be accidents. People would be dying off, obviously at a very reduced rate, but there's still no need to institute a "life for a life" policy.

I still haven't really warmed up to Anna, although she definitely improved as the book moved along. At the outset, she was insufferable, with her complete belief in her own worthlessness and her desire to be the best slave ever. Ugh! Plus, as the prefect at Grange Hall, she helped make the already awful lives of other Surpluses even worse. Not exactly a heroine.

Still, I am definitely going to read the next book, as I am curious to find out what will happen next.

Rating: 3/5

"Girls, don't slouch, keep in line
Or my nerves will snap
Do not whisper or breathe
Or I'll show you the strap"

Human - The Killers

Tankborn

Author: Karen Sandler
Pages: 370
ARC Acquired from:

Brief Summary:
Kayla and Mishalla are GENs, Genetically Engineered Non-Humans. They are essentially slaves. When people left Earth to begin living on this planet, the wealthy purchased their places and poorer people agreed to a temporary servant's status so that they could go. When the high status people did not give those of low status their freedom after the stated time period, riots began to break out. That's why GENs were made. The GENs take comfort in their religion, in which they were specially crafted by the Infinite and especially beloved. Being a GEN basically sucks, only now it seems to be getting worse...

Review:
Today is my birthday. Hurrah for me! I am so glad to be able to share such an awesome book on my special day. Let me apologize for the rather uninspiring description. The backstory might be helpful, even if it's not the most scintillating. It was awesome!

Tankborn was definitely another reminder to me not to judge books by their covers, which I will undoubtedly continue to do ad infinitum. Still, I know I shouldn't. The only reason I requested this on NetGalley was because of the golden word dystopia in the description. If it says dystopia, I will read it. So yeah, the cover's not the best (and, yet again, does not seem to depict one of the main characters), but don't let that stop you.

The characters and the story both intrigued me right off. It took a few chapters for me to get completely absorbed, because you're dropped into the middle of this completely unfamiliar landscape and have to get used to how things work there. Once I did, though, I could barely put the book down, except for having to work and sleep and feed the cat and all of that.

My one complaint, and it's pretty mild, is that I would really like to know more about why they left Earth. What happened there? There really wasn't too much said about that and I can only hope that there will be a sequel that might delve into some of that, and tell more of Kayla's future.

The lessons this book conveys about racism and religion are really well done, not so much lecturing as raising an ethical point and getting you to really think about the philosophical and theological leaps needed to support certain ways of being. This might make an excellent book club read for that very reason.

If you love dystopias, you will not want to miss Tankborn. It's going on sale tomorrow, so go get it!

"I did my best to notice
When the call came down the line
Up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind"

Tired of Waiting for You - The Kinks

Drought

Author: Pam Bachorz
Pages: 386
Publisher: Egmont

Brief Summary:
Ruby is in no way your average 17 year old girl. This is perhaps most obvious in the fact that she is actually 200. She and her mother and the rest of the Congregation have all lived for centuries. Ruby's father, Otto, led them and gave them long life through the power of his blood, but then he left. In his absence, they have been forced into servitude, made to gather Water so that others may share in the magic. They lied though about what turns water into Water; Darwin West, the man who enslaves them, does not know that there is Water only because Ruby drops some of her blood into it. Like her father's, Ruby's blood has amazing healing powers. Only they may not be strong enough to rescue the Congregation from Darwin West. And Ruby is starting to suspect that her father may never return to save them.

Review:
Drought is a really strange book. Partly because I thought it was going to be a dystopia, which it did seem to be for a while, but then it turned out to be something else. I would not have picked up on the point of the story at all, if not for an observation by one of the characters; I would discuss it, because it's an interesting theme, but the reveal is a part of what makes the story interesting, so I won't. Suffice it to say that it is covering fairly new ground in teen lit.

The story is fairly slow moving without much real action; the characters spend much of the book gathering water and getting beatings. While a whipping may sound like action, it felt more like drudgery, because it happened to the Congregants most every day. Just because the book is slow doesn't mean it was hard to get through; it actually flowed along at a slow pace, like a sluggish river.

The characters were a bit of a weak point. Ruby was definitely most likable, which is good since you see from her perspective. I couldn't get caught up in her romance or her worries about the Congregation though, because I did not see why either one really deserved such devotion.

Religious themes are hugely important to the plot of this novel. The Congregation is so named because they all worship together. They worship Otto, their savior who promised to return (sound somewhat familiar?). They believe in him because of the miracles he performed (now?). A couple of clever things are done with this, such as the scene where Ruby and her love interest both insult one another's beliefs: she his in the Holy Trinity and he hers in Otto.

Overall, I really do not know how I feel about this book. It was just so strange! For that reason alone, I think I am happy to have read it, because it is definitely walking some fresh ground. My plans to read Candor, Bachorz' other book have not changed; this book was well-written enough and interesting enough to earn her another try.

"I'm so tired
Tired of waiting
Tired of waiting for you

I was a lonely soul
I had nobody till I met you
But you keep-a me waiting
All of the time
What can I do? "