Book Reviews

Here are the links to all the books I've reviewed on my blog (and some of the books I intend to review in the future)

Beauty and the Werewolf - Mercedes Lackey

Coraline—Neil Gaiman
The Darkness After — Scott B. Williams

Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor

Dearly, Departed - Lia Habel

Delirium - Lauren Oliver

Divergent - Veronica Roth

Enclave - Ann Aguire

Entwined - Heather Dixon

Flash Point - Nancy Kress

Glitch - Heather Anastasiu

The Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury

The Hollow - Jessica Verday

Insignia - SJ Kincaid

Vortex (Insignia #2) - SJ Kincaid

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre - Amanda Grange

Nevermore - Kelly Creagh

Quarantine #1: The Loners - Lex Thomas
Quarantine #2: The Saints - Lex Thomas

Romeo & Juliet & Vampires - Claudia Gabel

The Selection - Kiera Cass

Splintered - AG Howard

The Vicious Deep - Zoraida Cordova

Wither - Lauren Destefano (informal review)

Zombie in Love—Kate DiPucchino

The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin
The Iron Thorn - Caitlin Kittredge
Matched - Ally Condie
The Girl in the Steel Corset - Katie Cross
Perfect Ruin - Lauren Destefano
Cinder - Marissa Meyer 
Enshadowed - Kelly Creagh
Masque of the Red Death - Bethany Griffin
Crossed - Ally Condie
So You Want to Be a Wizard - Diane Duane

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir Review (4.5/5 stars)

Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.

Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear. It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.

But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy. There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

“Just because he’s a good leader doesn’t mean he’s a good person.”

“I’d rather die than live with no mercy, no honor, no soul.”

“Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be. Too much fear and you’re paralyzed. Too little fear and you’re arrogant.”

What I Liked: Oh my gosh, so much! I like that Laia is really scared all the time even though she’s trying to be brave. I like that Elias is biracial and that we don’t know much about his dad and that he comes from a very non-traditional family, being raised by his maternal grandfather. I also like that even though his mother hates him, she still loves him a little, too, even though she doesn’t want to and hates herself. I loved all the characters - Laia, Elias, Helene, Telmun, Elias’s grandfather, even Marcus and Zak - because they’re very fleshed out and believable, even though some of them suck so bad, because each of them is well realized and has strengths and weaknesses, fears and wants, etc. I even found myself pitying Marcus a little bit at the end of the third Trial and then once again at the end of the fourth.

I loved the Trials, even though they were just awful. I loved all the plot twists - I wondered what the fudge was going on with Helene the whole time and I can’t wait to get her POV in A Torch Against the Night. I love how even though the book left us with questions, it wasn’t super frustrating because the author answered just enough to satisfy my need to know things while also keeping some of my questions alive for the next book. I had several “oh s***” moments during the Trials, especially the last one. The book left me wanting to know more without making me frustrated.

The writing was pretty simplistic but still managed to keep that lyrical quality I like in most of the book, even with Elias. And there’s humor in it, too, which can be difficult to pull off when doing that style. The mythology is so interesting - a mixture of Roman and Middle-Eastern things but shown in an all new way. I recognized the mix of cultures in the book within the first few chapters, which really impressed me - a low-key fantasy set in what is essentially Roman-occupied Israel but without the religious contentions that were occurring at the time. I love how there is magic in the world but it’s fairly low-key, only manifesting in the thing about the silverskin and the augurs and the monsters they have to fight. Magic isn’t something everyone has access to, which is cool and makes the stakes harder to compete against, you know?

I loved this book. I need the whole series in my life now. Omg. There were only a few things I didn’t like.

What I Didn’t Like: Very little. There were only a few things. I didn’t like how Elias sort of bought into the whole “the dance of death is my prayer” thing his grandfather came up with for him. Like, I felt changing it a little to get away from the homicidal aspect of it versus the battle aspect (so keeping the first 2 lines, ditching the last 2) would’ve been more in keeping with his character.

And then how people talked about raping Helene like it would totally be okay and it’s like, I feel like the Commandant would’ve stopped him from raping her? Slave girls, I could see the Commandant not caring. And Helene manages to take care of herself, of course, so nothing happens, but Marcus is just like, “Yeah, I’m gonna do it eventually” and nobody thinks to tell an adult? Or Helene’s parents?

And then the Emperor is made out to be this big bad problem but we never see him before he gets killed by the Commandant’s goombas, which was kind of a letdown. Lastly, I do not ship Elias and Laia. I don’t mind them feeling some sort of attraction to each other but Laia has Keegan and Elias has Helene and I do not want Helene getting shafted in this way, she is so loyal to Elias and she loves him so much and I’m a teensy bit tired of the male and female leads falling for each other in YA. I’d like to see where that doesn’t happen.

But those were the only things honestly that I didn’t like and didn’t work for me.

Things of Note: I did edit out some of the violence in the book, just because I couldn’t really handle it. A kid gets flogged to death (he’s like, 10) and I had to edit that. Also, I’d say trigger warning for child abuse, parental neglect, parental slut-shaming, mentions of rape, torture, and mentions of attempted infanticide.

Would I Recommend: If you can handle all the things I mentioned in the above paragraph, than heck yes!!! I absolutely loved An Ember in the Ashes. I read it in less than 3 days even though I had to go to work and pre-ordered the sequel right after I finished it. So there. :)

Characterization: 1 star
Plot: ¾  star
Realism: 1 star
Word Choice: ¾ star
World-Building: 1 star

Plus ½ stars for originality (Roman-occupied Israel for a low fantasy? Dude)
Plus ¼ star for biracial protagonist
Minus ¼ star because why is there only one girl a generation at Blackcliff?
Minus ¼ star because of normalization of rape
Minus ¼ star because it doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test

The Assassin and the Pirate Lord Review (1.5/5 stars)

On a remote island in a tropical sea, Celaena Sardothien, feared assassin, has come for retribution. She’s been sent by the Assassin’s Guild to collect on a debt they are owed by the Lord of the Pirates. But when Celaena learns that the agreed payment is not in money, but in slaves, her mission suddenly changes—and she will risk everything to right the wrong she’s been sent to bring about.

What I liked: I liked the premise. I liked the new location (we’re out of Rifthold!) and I really liked the map the Pirate Lord has. That map was freaking amazing and I want someone else to get a map like that sometime in a later book. I loved getting to see Sam’s backstory, see people Calaena cared about from her assassin days, see how she interacted with Arobynn. I liked that her relationship with Sam started off with them as rivals. I liked the introduction of Ben, because it explains - among other things - why Calaena didn’t realize how awful things were with Arobynn.

And I liked the basic plot. The action scenes were well-written and the tavern brawl was awesome. That time when Sam and Calaena starting fighting on the beach after going to inspect the slaves was brilliantly written, too. And the voice/word choice was, as usual, fairly fantastic.

What I Didn’t Like: Oh, boy…let me count the things. 

Sam is an idiot. The way he just rips off Calaena’s mask like that? Like, what the frack? Her identity is a carefully guarded secret you could be tortured to death for revealing. Are you stupid? Apparently. Despite being Arobynn’s second-best student.

The use of slavery? Calaena is very much a white savior. It would’ve been better if all the slaves we see weren’t almost 100% from Ellywe, but even then…I feel like maybe more time should’ve been spent on maybe a slave coming to the fore and having more of a spotlight/helping out more to get somewhat away from the white savior trope. But here it just feels like SJM threw in the slavery thing as a way to show how good at heart Calaena was?

The sudden fondness Calaena feels for Sam felt very rushed. And I get that it’s a novella (which is why I typically don’t read romance novellas anymore) but there are ways to do it where it wouldn’t seem so abrupt. It could’ve started a bit earlier. Or maybe Calaena could, instead of straight-up hatingSam to begin with, could’ve always wondered why he didn’t like her and wishing he’d stop being so antagonistic - so that when he is, she’s more receptive to softening up to him. Here it just felt forced.

Calaena has no reaction to the heat except to sweat but she’s sweating buckets and not drinking anything hardly at all. Because she’s from Adarlan, dehydration would be a problem for her. Now, it could be assumed that she’d be okay since she’s worn that cloak ensemble before, but she wouldn’t be if she didn’t drink between breakfast and late dinner and was sweating like that. It would be like being in a sauna all day, but without the ability to drink or even lick the sweat off your skin. If nothing else, she’d have dehydration headaches, but she doesn’t. I’m pretty sure Sarah J. Maas has never actually been dehydrated or lost in a desert in her life.

Because I loved Throne of Glass - even with its flaws - I expected to love The Assassin’s Blade. But I didn’t. I didn’t love “The Assassin and the Pirate Lord.” It was okay. I didn’t hate it. But unlike Throne of Glass, I’m not going to be raving about it. And it wasn’t so good that the flaws didn’t detract from my enjoyment of it, as with books like Throne of Glass.

Also, since peeps might be wondering about the ¼ star for characterization - Calaena is so unlikeable in Throne of Glass and in this that she loses ½ a star. Sam being an idiot dropped it another ¼.

Things of Note: It’ll get a little better, but then it only gets worse as the novellas go on. You’ve been warned.

Would I Recommend: I would tell people who are curious about Calaena’s thoughts on slaves in the beginning of Throne of Glass that they could find out more in this novella, but that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would.

Characterization: ¼ star
Plot: ¼ star
Realism: ½ star
Word Choice: ¾ star
World-Building: ½ star

Minus ¾ a star for bad usage of slavery and use of the White Savior trope; it’s used here to show Calaena as a white savior, but the slaves are mainly objects, with no real value as their own characters.

Entwined - Heather Dixon (4.5 Stars)

Come and mend your broken hearts here.

Just when Azalea should feel that everything is before her — beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing — it's taken away. All of it. And Azalea is trapped. The Keeper understands. He's trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. So he extends an invitation.

Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in his silver forest, but there is a cost. The Keeper likes to keep things. Azalea may not realize how tangled she is in his web until it is too late.

So, Heather Dixon wrote this book called Entwined, which is an adaptation of the fairytale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." So basically Ms. Dixon said, "Hey, would you like to dance?" And me, fool that I am, said, "Sure." And she dragged me out on the dance floor and sucked me into this brilliant, beautiful, fun, and uplifting novel that has no sequel! How am I supposed to live in a world where Entwined has no sequel? I don't care if everybody got their happily ever after, there should be more to this book! Evil, evil woman…I think she enjoys the pain of her fans.

For the record, I own four novels (have read five) and own/have read various short story adaptations (and the Barbie movie) of this fairytale. Entwined is absolutely the best (followed by The Midnight Dancers by Regina Doman and Barbie in the Twelve Dancing Princesses, which are tied for second place). The brilliance of Entwined is that it has the best reasons for pretty much everything:

— why the girls are dancing in this enchanted space to begin with
— why they refuse to tell anyone where they're going
— why the girls are dancing in secret instead of out in the open
— why the king offers the princess's hand in exchange for discovering the secret

The other thing I like: all the princesses have their own distinct personalities, which makes it a lot easier to tell them apart. This is the only version of this story where I've seen that, except in the Faerie Tale Theatre episode, but there were only six princesses and I could never tell the twins apart. In Entwined, we have from eldest to youngest (and yes, they're all named after plants; their family has a thing for gardens—they have an aunt named Mugwort):

— Azalea, crown princess, has a bit of a temper, but brave and loyal and loving
— Bramble, brave but also impulsive, bit of a tomboy, a little too proud, but really funny
— Clover, the prettiest but also the shyest of the twelve
— Delphinium, the girly-girl, the romantic, who can be a bit melodramatic
— Evening Primrose (called Eve), who loves to read
— Flora, one of the twins, very studious and not much of a rule-breaker
— Goldenrod, the other twin, a relative rule-breaker compared to Flora
— Hollyhock, who lisps and loves oranges and asks a bazillion questions
— Ivy, who loves food in general
— Jessamine, doesn't talk very much and is a bit shy
— Kale, who's not talking yet but screams a lot when upset
— Lily, the new baby princess

I'll admit, the beginning of the book is a little sad (and right here is my SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILER! warning).

Anyway, the book starts out a little funny but morphs quickly into some serious sadness. It's Christmas Eve, the queen is pregnant with her twelfth child, and she's very sick — so sick, in fact, that when she gives birth to the youngest princess, Lily, the queen dies. The book spans the required year of mourning that takes place after the queen's death. And because the royal family is in mourning, they have to follow the rules of mourning: no visitors or visiting except on royal business or to church; wearing all black; no celebrations or parties; no courting; and absolutely no dancing.

But the princesses want to dance. It's the thing that makes them feel closest to their mother, who loved dancing with all her heart, and it's something they can do together as a family. They all love to dance. But their father, King Harold, doesn't want them to because a) it's against the rules of mourning and he's very strict about rules, is the king, and b) it reminds him too much of the queen, whom he loved very much. In fact there's a scene where the third-eldest princess, Clover, is trying to explain to the king that dancing reminds them of the queen and makes them feel close to her and his expression is like someone just stabbed him because it hurts him just to hear people talk about her.

So here's the basic plot of the book is: princesses dance in magical pavilion which turns out to be a trap laid by an evil sorcerer in order to free himself and kill the king, and because of a magical oath the girls took called Swearing on Silver they literally cannot tell the king or anyone else what they're up to (very sneaky, Ms. Dixon, giving them a good reason like that), and they have to find a way around the oath in order to protect themselves, the king, and their kingdom. This all takes place against the backdrop of the twelve of them and the king mourning the death of the queen, and how they heal from that loss is a big thread of the story.

Now, the king is kind of a jerk in the first half of the book, and part of that's because he's in mourning and really misses his wife, but the other reason is because of something that as the reader kind of makes you gasp in sympathetic agony for the poor guy but that the girls don't really process (they just shove it into the mental box labeled "Dad's Being a Jerk, Don't Listen") — he thinks his daughters wish that he had died instead of the queen.

You don't find this out until a little more than midway through the story, when he and the girls are having an argument, and he shouts, "You shall have to come to the reckoning that it is I who you have, and not your mother, and so it is. Nothing can help that. Despise me for it, as I know you all do…" I read that and was just like, "Well, jeez…no wonder he's so stiff and distant all the time. He thinks they hate him. That's a horrible thing for a parent to feel."

But dancing is what the girls love, so their attitude is basically, "Screw off, Dad, we're doing it." I can admire that, having been in that position about things I liked when I was young. Only one problem — the strangely compelling and very handsome Mr. Keeper, trapped within the walls of the castle, offers them a place to dance. And they don't know anything about this guy.

Of course, this is set in like, Victorian times, sort of, and children weren’t taught to beware of serial killers, pedophiles, white slave traffickers, and other bad types back then. So the girls are relatively trusting, and they feel bad for Mr. Keeper, who's trapped in the castle in the same way the girls feel trapped. So they dance at his magical pavilion, and all he asks in return is that they find a way to break the curse holding him to the pavilion and preventing him from walking around in the real world.

I have to admire girls who stick to their guns, though. When their dad finds out they've been dancing even though he expressly forbids it ("Mourning is meant to show the grief inside us. Dancing [and other such things forbidden by mourning] dishonor your mother's memory…How can you all treat your mother's memory in such an appalling way?"), he takes their dancing slippers, so they dance in regular shoes, even though it really tears up their feet. As in, blood staining their stockings after a couple days.

What I like about that is that the king gives in when he sees how much it matters to them. At first he's ticked that they'd hurt themselves just to disobey him, but then Clover explains it to him — which is brave of her because she's painfully shy — and at first he's like, "Well, it won't help," but when it becomes clear he's really hurt them with his attitude, he not only gives in, he has new slippers made for them, and he's willing to replace them when they wear out, as long as the girls make it to their lessons on time every morning and they don't flaunt the fact that he's letting them break mourning.

But the secret of the dancing has to come out because the king has a problem — Azalea is of marriageable age, but because of mourning, can't meet any potential gentlemen (either lords or landed gentry) who might want to be her suitors. So the king uses the mystery of where the girls go dancing at night as a means of bringing guys over to the castle.

Officially, it's Royal Business, which is allowed during mourning. Unofficially, it's an opportunity for two things: the girls get to go outside for fun, which is also prohibited by mourning, and Azalea gets to meet some guys. The thing I like about this is that the suitors aren't promised Azalea's hand in marriage — they just get to spend time with the princesses. The king's official rule about his daughters' marriages is that they'll never be forced to marry someone they don't like. Which I love.

And this brings me to three of the suitors! Now, for the record, some of these guys who show up are pretty smarmy. The first guy to arrive, Mr. Hyette, gets thrown out of the palace because he dared to peek at the girls when they weren’t wearing shoes or stockings (which back then was like peeking at a girl in her underpants) and then had the audacity to laugh about it. What a moron. And then there were certain nice guys who came because they knew the king wanted a chance to let his daughters of the house and so they're just there to help, not because they want anything. Unfortunately they're the minority.

BUT!

Three of the suitors are wonderful boys! Well, one of them is a man, but the other two are boys. Lord John Bradford, Lord Edward Haftenravenscher, and Prime Minister Fairweller (whose first name we never learn…hmmm…) are the three favorites among the "suitors."

Lord John Bradford, whose father was the former prime minister, is obviously madly in love with Azalea, and he can dance! He's not great at it, but he's got this talent for compensating for Azalea's rare weak points, and he leads very well. He's just a sweet guy, and he puts up with a lot of chuff from Azalea's sisters. He also risks his life several times to help the princesses deal with the evil magics unleashed on the palace.

What I like about him is that, while he's very much an adorable young man, he can step up and be a warrior when it's needed. You see him do that in the second-to-last battle when he literally comes charging in on a horse (along with the other two suitors, Sir John the Royal Physician, and Mr. Pudding the Royal Steward, who's actually kind of old, so that was pretty impressive of him) to fight the bad guy and the bad guy's evil magic in order to save the princesses.

And he uses words like "stupendous." I love him!

Lord Edward Haftenravenscher (what a mouthful), also called Lord Teddie, is a total doll. I adore him to distraction. Very much a clown, he's also sweet and generous, and he puts up with a lot from Bramble, whom he is very much in love with. She loves him but thinks he's only there because he feels sorry for her, and that turns into a complicated little subplot that thankfully gets solved by the end of the book when Teddy confesses his love in the most adorable way ever (here: "And you, Bramble! I love you!...I love you so much my fingers hurt!" and before that he told the king that Bramble was "the raspberry jam on his toast, the cadmium red in his paint-set!")!

And he only loses his temper (because he's depressed about Bramble) twice in the whole book, and both times it's because she's basically like, "I don't want your charity, I hate you, go away." Poor guy. But it gets resolved!

He's just fantastic. He makes a point to spend time with all the girls, not just Bramble, and he's a lot of fun. He's calls Azalea "Princess A" and Hollyhock "Hollyhocky," which she just loves. Unfortunately he wears this horrendous lime-green bowtie, but the rest of him is so adorable I don't even care. And even though he's a bit of a goof, he joins in on the charging-into-battle-on-the-horse thing along with Lord Bradford, which shows he can be serious when needed.

The third and most unlikely of the three suitors is Lord Fairweller, who's actually a marvelous dancer ("To [Azalea's] surprise, he was a masterful dancer. He swept her along the dance floor, guiding her about the corners and between skirts, flowing perfectly with the music. In fact, the only thing wrong with dancing with Fairweller was…well, dancing with Fairweller.") and it turns out a wonderful man, though at first he seems very stern and standoffish. You find out all kinds of wonderful things about him from the girl he's in love — Princess Clover.

She's a bit young for him (he's actually considered really young for a Prime Minister; I think he's in his twenties, and she's fifteen, which would be gross except she went after him; took her over a year to get him to agree to marry her despite the age-gap, and at fifteen she's considered an adult) but they're actually very sweet together and he's the perfect gentleman. The king was all like, "Not happening," but Clover can be very stubborn when she puts her mind to it and under the incredible power of the sweet-and-shy-but-strong princess, he buckled. Of course he did. You go, girl!

Let it be noted that Fairweller is also one of the men who rode in to save the princesses from the magical bad guys when he has no magic of his own. Just his sword and I think a pistol, but this is set during the time when pistols only had a single shot before you had to reload, so fat lot of good it would do him.

Let it also be noted that Fairweller volunteers to take the girls out for breakfast in the gardens (which they wanted) when it was horribly cold, and they made him carry everything because they don't like him much (food basket, blanket, etc.), and then when they finally got to where they were gonna eat, because there was no room on the blanket, he had to crouch on wet, frosted pine needles. The man deserves some props.

Yet another reason the man deserves props: when Ivy, who was like four at the time, got lost in the gardens (which are huge), the only reason she turned up safe was that Fairweller went looking for her, searching the little wooded park with his scent-hound for hours! And then he brought Ivy back and didn’t even complain when she threw up on him. The man deserves a medal.

So pretty much I adore this book. It's got lovable characters, it's hilarious (especially Bramble and Teddie, although Clover was pretty surprising at times, too), and I love the transformation of the king as he learns to loosen up and let go of the past. The healing process is very deftly woven into the story, as well. It's just a wonderful, uplifting book and I love it sooo much!

I only have three problems with this book, and they're all rather small. One, no sequel. Two, the king never really comes to grips with the whole Clover/Fairweller thing. I mean, he doesn’t make Fairweller resign as Prime Minister (he was going to) or anything like that, but he's like, "Azalea, we have to get her to fall in love with someone else before she and Fairweller marry in a year." Although when Azalea's like, "But they're so cute together," he just sighs and goes, "Traitor." So it's not terrible, but if things are tense between them later, I want to see it because it's probably going to be funny.

And third, the plot was a little predictable. Only a little bit, though. Part of that was Azalea's temper. Some of the issues created in the storyline were because she needed to learn to control her anger, but what I like about that is that she actually did learn to get a handle on her temper because of the problems it caused. So I both like and don't like that part because I kinda wanted to shake her sometimes but at the same time I totally understood because of all the stress she was under. A very well-fleshed character, honestly. But it did lend some predictability to the plot.

Because of that predictability, this book gets a 4.5/5 stars. It really does have a great father-transformation, though, and it's a very creative and realistic book. I love it; it's sitting on my shelf. Everyone should go read it.

Sincerely,

LA Knight

Some Great Bits from Entwined!

"Down with tyranny! Aristocracy! Autocracy! Monocracy! Other ocracy things! You are outnumbered, sir!

　Surrender!"　— Bramble

---

"What happened?" said Clover, wetting a cloth in the basin, and dabbing Azalea's face.

"She had a sort of fit," said the King. "I think her underthings may be laced too tightly."

All the girls, including Azalea, blushed brilliantly.

"Sir," said Eve. "You're not suppose to know about the U word!"

"Am I not? Forgive me."

　

---

In a billow of skirts, Bramble leaped. It was a

grand jete worthy of the Delchastrian prima ballerina. She landed right on Lord Teddie, who had no choice but to catch her, and threw her arms around his neck. Then, to everyone's shock, she pressed her lips full on his.

"Oh...my," said Clover.

No one seemed more surprised than Lord Teddie who stumbled back under Bramble's assault."　

---

"I can be agreeable," said Fairweller. "If the other party is."

"Oh, well," said Bramble. "There goes that, then."

　

---

"Honestly, we don't kick or bite or throw potatoes at all our guests."

A crooked smile touched Lord Bradford's lips.

"Your family has spirit," he said, taking his hat from Azalea. "I enjoyed the evening."

"Well, yes, you've just come from a war," said Azalea."

---

"What did Fairweller say? When you delivered the [love] note [from Lady Caversham]?"

"Oh," said Clover, calming a little. "Well...nothing, actually. I sort of...accidentally...tore it to pieces."

"Accidentally," Azalea echoed.

"And threw it into the fire," said Clover.

"Oh."

　

---

"She looked at him, his soft brown eyes and tall form, and contemplated raising herself on her toes and kissing his ear, or his cheek...

Instead, impulsively before leaving, she reached up and smoothed his mussed hair.

Mr. Bradford beamed."

　

---

"He was shockingly easy to follow. The pressure of his hand, the step of his foot, the angle of his frame... it was like reading his mind. When he leaned right, they turned in perfect unison. He swept her across the gallery in a quick three, a dizzying pace. Gilded frames and glass cases and the window blurred in her vision, and Azalea spun out, her skirts pulling and poofing around her, before he caught her and brought her back into dance position. She could almost hear music playing, swelling inside of her.

Mother had once told her about this perfect twining into one. She called it interweave, and said it was hard to do, for it took the perfect matching of the partners’ strengths to overshadow each other’s weaknesses, meshing into one glorious dance. Azalea felt the giddiness of being locked in not a pairing, but a dance…Now, spinning from Mr. Bradford’s hand, her eyes closed, spinning back and feeling him catch her, she felt the thrill of the dance, of being matched, flow through her."

--- (and one of my favorites, the King as outraged dad) ---

"The King emerged from the library, paperwork in hand, eyebrows furrowed.

"Well, what is it, what is it?" he said crossly. "Can you not let me work for five minutes at a time?"

The girls burst into angry cries. Kale let out another piercing shriek.

"Him-him-him-" said Delphinium, pointing a shaking finger at Mr. Hyette, who laughed still. "He-he-him!"

"He-he-he was spying on us!"

"And we weren't even wearing our boots!"

"Or even our stockings!"

Thunpfwhap. The King threw Mr. Hyette up against the paneling. Mr. Hyette's head slammed against the wainscot.

Kale stopped mid-scream, hiccupped, and giggled.

"Mr. Hyette!" said the King.

Mr. Hyette struggled against the King's steel grip.

"Ow," he said. "I say, ow!"

The King yanked Mr. Hyette from the wall and grabbed him by the scruff of his fluffy cravat. He handled Mr. Hyette out the entrance hall doors, slamming them behind him. Outside, gravel scuffled.

"I say," said Bramble, in an impeccable impersonation of Mr. Hyette. "I say, I say! I say—this Royal Business could actually be quite a lot of

　fun!"　

--- (and one of my other favorites, the birthday scene) ---

"It was my coming-of birthday last January," said Bramble, gripping the handle of her glass, "and you forgot that, too. You weren’t even here."

"I turnt eight last spring," said Hollyhock, "'n I didn' even get any present at all!"

All the girls joined in.

"I was thirteen last April and it

rained on my birthday and I didn’t even get to wear anything special—"

"We turned ten—just two months ago—"

"I usually get a book for my birthday—but—this year—"

"You forgot my birthday, too."

"And mine."

The girls looked miserable. The King opened his mouth, then shut it.

"Sir!" whined Lord Teddie. "You forgot

　my birthday, too!"

Bramble gave a surprised laugh, then slapped her hand over her mouth, as though shocked at letting it out. The tension broke. The girls laughed sheepishly, and Lord Teddie beamed. He probably did not have many ladies think him funny. In fact, he probably got slapped by a lot of them."

Splintered - AG Howard (4 Stars)

This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family.

She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.

Now, LA reads a lot of different things and sometimes refers to herself in the third person because she's crazy. But I don’t just read different things. I also write different things, and one of the things I love to both read and write about is Alice in Wonderland. It takes a lot to write a really good Wonderland story. Tim Burton did it with his film from 2010, and AG Howard has done it now with her fantabulous foray into the absolutely brilliant and bizarre Splintered.

Just so we're clear, this review contains SPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS
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SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS!

There. That should do it.

Now, this woman is the queen of creepy, a sorceress of the surreal, a witch of wordsmithing, a magician of madness, a wizard of Wonderland really cool. She took a book that actually isn't that great on its own (c'mon, Alice in Wonderland spawns abso-fantastic sequels and adaptations, but the source material's pretty satirical and very classic-lit, which I like in some instances, but not this one) and she managed to make something freaky and bizarre and utterly amazing out of it! I love Splintered, and I am going to tell you why!

Follow me down the rabbit hole, everybody, if you please…

First of all, there's Alyssa Gardner. I cried like a little baby was a bit put-out at first when I saw the MC' name was Alyssa because that's the name of my main character in my Alice in Wonderland urban fantasy faerie quartet, The Twilight Chessboard, but within the first five pages of Splintered I got over it real quick because boy, does AG Howard know how to start the creep off with a bang! I discovered right away that her Alyssa and mine are two completely different people. And besides, how many variations of "Alice" are there in the world, exactly? Not too many…

Alyssa Gardner is the girl I totally would've been friends with in high school — if she would've been willing to be friends with me. She's smart, she's spunky, and she can do some pretty wicked things on a skateboard. On top of that, she makes some of the most beautiful mosaics I've ever seen with my mind's eye (we'll touch on that later…). But on top of Alyssa's personality, she's the punky Alice I've always wanted to see. Tim Burton chose a certain wardrobe style for his Alice in the 2010 film, to give her more of a punkette feel, but AG Howard took Alice and punk, threw them both in one of those drink-mixer thingies (I don't know what they're called, I don't drink, but bartenders use them), and shook that thing up like a tornado. When she dumped it out, we got Alice 2.0 — and she is ready to kick some Wonderland butt.

Her backstory is incredible, too. Turns out she's a descendant of Alice Liddell, the girl who inspired Lewis Carroll's bizarre-o children's books. And apparently all the women in her family are bat-crap crazy insane. They hear flowers and bugs talking when they hit puberty. Alyssa's mom, Alison, is currently locked up in a nuthouse almost the entire book, eating junk out of teacups. Alyssa can hear them talking, too, but she keeps that a secret because she does not want to end up in a straitjacket. Who would?

Quick side note regarding Alyssa's mosaics and the fact that she can hear bugs talking: she makes her art out of insects (obviously dead ones). At first, that totally creeped me out and made me think this girl might be a bit of a psycho kind of squicked me out a bit, but once she described all the cool things she made, I was like, "Oh, never mind. I'm on board the we're all mad here, death to buggies, let's kill some more! pesticide bandwagon! These are pretty!" And her justification for using insects in her art is pretty understandable ("I've been collecting bugs since I was ten; it's the only way to stop their whispers…Once they get chatty, they're fair game.") and is explained on page one, so I'm okay with it.

Alyssa has two guys in her life who basically equate to two Wonderland characters: Jeb the Heroic but Kind of a Pansy Skater Boy (we'll get to that later) and Morpheus the Hot but Kinda Jerky Magical British Guy — aka, the Silver Knight and the Mad Hatter.

Jeb has been Alyssa's friend since they were kids and she is hopelessly, madly in love with him and wants to have his babies has a biiig crush on him. Unfortunately, Jeb the Complete and Total Pansy Moron Skater Boy doesn't seem to realize Alyssa has a thing for him (though that is not why he's a moron) and is currently dating the girl whose goal in life is to make Alyssa's life suck (that is why he's a moron).

The reason he's the Heroic  but Kind of a Pansy Skater Boy is because he nearly sacrifices his life to save Alyssa. The only reason his life doesn't get sacrificed is because he gets rescued, but he totally would've done it for her. Which annoys me because I don't want to like him, because of how he handles the whole evil-girlfriend bit, gah. But I do, because when Alyssa really needs him, he's always there, and he always puts her safety first, and he's totally in love with her. The idiot.

Why, AG Howard? Why must you make Jeb so flawed and annoying and likeable? Never mind, I already know. It's good writing…but so frustrating for us readers, sigh.

But I still don't approve of how he thinks it's okay for him to try and take control of Alyssa's life just because she's young. I get that he's trying to look out for her, and he's not abusive about it (it's big things, like when she wants to stay in Wonderland and help Morpheus and Jeb's like, "You must  be on drugs. That is so  not happening. We're going home. You're not thinking straight. This guy's doing some kind of mojo on you."), but it still bothers me and makes Jeb seriously not the guy Alyssa should get with. At least Morpheus respects her intelligence. Yeah, she might make mistakes, but Jeb's not infallible and he really needs to not act like it. And he needs to not get ticked off about petty things (like Alyssa taking money from Taelor, her enemy, the witchy girlfriend who's made Alyssa's life into a niche of Hades for years and years on purpose, because Alyssa needed it to save her mom's life and couldn’t get it any other way) when he's gone and done crappy things to Alyssa, too. So meh on Jeb.

Morpheus has also been friends with Alyssa since she was a kid…but she doesn’t remember him. And he is madly in love with Alyssa and wants her to have his babies has a biiig crush on her. His theme song really should be "White Rabbit" (originally by Jefferson Airplane, but the version that reminds me of Morpheus is the version done by the Crüxshadows. “…a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call. He called Alice when she was just small…"). Morpheus is so cool, and not just because he's got this smokin' hot cockney accent and muscles and he's so smexy, why is he smexy, why, it makes no sense, he's not even human, why does this always happen to me? handsome. I've read and seen several different versions of Alice in Wonderland over the years and this is the first one I've seen where someone smushed the Mad Hatter and the Caterpillar into one person (and then had the Caterpillar grow up into a butterfly…or in this case, a moth). That right there is incredibly creative. So kudos to AG Howard just for that.

Although I have to wonder why the Caterpillar is always blue? In the Tim Burton movie, in this book (well, Morpheus is sort of blue; he has blue hair), in the animated Disney film, in The Looking Glass Wars. Why is he always blue?

Morpheus has all the answers to Alyssa's questions — why can she hear flowers and bugs talking? What is the deal with this so-called Liddell curse that makes the women in her family able to hear them? Is Wonderland real? And why does Alyssa have the same mark — a mark she always thought was a birthmark — that Morpheus has?

(Footnote: No, they're not related. Ew! He's her love interest, for crying out loud. That sort of thing only works in seriously angsty books like Flowers in the Attic)

Morpheus is willing to give Alyssa the answers she seeks on one condition: she has to come to Wonderland and endure a series of mini-adventures to right the wrongs Alice Liddell apparently did to Wonderland and the local populace, called netherlings. If she manages to fix all the things Alice messed up in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (like crying that giant pool of tears, which totally screwed up the netherling ecosystem), Morpheus will help Alyssa break the curse on her family and save her mom from the horrible things that they're going to do to her in the asylum. But there's more to what Morpheus wants than he's letting on (duh, of course there is) and Alyssa has to find out what it is before she and Jeb end up royally screwed.

AG Howard should seriously  be congratulated on what she's done with this book. She's taken the creatures we all know from the classic novels Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and turned them into absolutely freaky new things. The walrus from the Carroll poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" (“The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things; of shoes and ships and ceiling wax; of cabbages and kings. Of why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.") has been turned into something completely bizarre with squishy tentacles and octopus suckers and waaay too much blubber and seriously sadistic tendencies and a serious need to go on a diet different. The Bandersnatch is still as scary as ever, but I didn’t even recognize the Jabberwock (which is a good thing; she is ridiculously creative, man!) or the White Rabbit.

I couldn’t call the plot at all. That is actually pretty hard, and most of the books I review are the ones I can say that about. I hate it when I can call the plot. But I couldn't call anything in this book at all! It kept me guessing right to the second-to-last page (since the last page had like, 2 paragraphs on it — whoopee…).

All in all, this book is a 4.75/5 stars. Only one thing kept it from being a full 5 stars — Jeb and the fact that he's not just Heroic, but a Heroic Pansy. And she's with him at the end…well, sort of. She wants to be with him instead of with Morpheus, and I'm like, "I get that he's sneaky and a bit manipulative, but he seriously pulled through for you in the end every time, Alyssa, seriously! He totally had your back the entire time! Whereas Jeb has your back on the big things but not in the small things like with the stupid girlfriend! GAH!!! Morpheus is better!"

Meh. She's running away from the truth. She'll get over it eventually. Morpheus has her back. Jeb probably doesn't — not every time. Sure, when it's super important, but boyfriends should have your back every time. So meh.

Anyway, AG Howard, my verdict is clear — your book is awesome, I can't wait to read Unhinged, and please let her get with Morpheus because I'm sooo ticked about the whole way Jeb handles the girlfriend-thing. Boo. But I adore you anyway! So much love pouring out of me right now  that I can't EVEN  because this book is the most amazing thing I've ever read in my entire literary existence except for Nevermore  and Dearly, Departed!  This is going on my I LOVE YOU SO MUCH shelf right next to those two books because it's so incredibly fantastic, it's so fantastic I'm gonna die ohmigawd!

Best,

LA Knight

PS — I'm currently reading this book to my roommate, and we had to stop while she was making dinner because she got so wrapped up in it that she forgot to flip the pancakes and we ended up with a few pieces of flat charcoal.

PPS — I've finished book two, Unhinged. All I can say, AG Howard, you are so cruel to me! Whyyyyyyyy?!?!