Cloudy With a Chance of Books

*** Spoiler Alert ****
If you haven’t read Demon’s Lexicon and think you will (and I think it’s well worth it) then don’t read the following review.

The author said her 2nd book in this series was harder to write than the first. This second book also had me thinking even more than the first – I like to think as a reader.

This is the story of Mae. Mae is the non-magical, human sister of a magician. She’s befriended Alan and his brother, Nick, a demon who’s been raised as a human. Nick cannot lie, but is cruel and inhuman by definition. Alan, in contrast, is kind to a fault, but lies to everyone almost all the time. Mae is drawn to both brothers, though there is no traditional love triangle here. Sibling love seems to rule the day as the two brothers alongside Mae and her brother all try to protect their sibling from magicians and demons alike.

Mae comes to life in this book as a more full-fledged character than in the previous title. This is her book. She tries to figure out her attractions to the boys in her life. She tries to understand her love of the Goblin Market with its magical trade and beautiful dancers who dance to ask favors of demons.

This book had characters with complex motivations and a well articulated magical world. Those who liked the first book will be impressed with this one. I’d also give this to fans of Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series. 440p., 2010.

The ninja who sneak about under cover of night are vampires. This gives them their superhuman stealth and strength. Of course!

Nick Lake clearly knows his Japanese culture and it soaks out of this epic story of young Taro who is foretold to be the next shogun. Taro and his devoted friend Hiro travel with the vampire ninja, Shusaku, to hide from the assassination attempts of Lord Oda. There are also revenge plots, sword masters, beautiful & deadly ladies, ancient objects of mythic power, ninja trickery, and plenty of combat.

It took me a chapter or two to become immersed in this ancient Japan where vampires were real. But, once hooked the epic journey of Taro to discover his heritage and avenge his adoptive father had me. I picked it up for the ninja vampires, but will continue reading for the drama, romance, beautiful world and just to see how Taro overcomes all to be the next shogun.
368p., 2009

Shiver is a supernatural romance that is being promoted as the next thing for Twilight fans to read.

It’s about werewolves, not vampires and it’s tone is very different from Meyer’s Twilight.

Sam is a sensitive werewolf who suffers the burden of knowing his time as a human is growing short.  Stiefvater’s werewolves respond to temperature turning wolf in the fall and returning to human form in the spring.  Werewolves find their summers in human form grow shorter each year until one year they remain wolves and stop shifting at all.

Grace is underappreciated by her often absent parents and obsessed with the wolf pack in the woods by her house – especially the wolf she feels is her wolf.  The wolf who watches her and comes each winter.  She was bitten by wolves as a child and rescued by the wolf she will come to know is Sam.

The story builds slowly in chapters that are sometimes from Grace’s perspective and sometime’s from Sam’s.  Grace and Sam have a secret relationship.  Sam is deeply damaged by his parents attempt to kill him when they realized his werewolf condition was permanent.  A newly created werewolf is angry and stalking the school and his old human haunts posing a risk for all he comes in contact with.  Sam spends time trying to keep the new werewolf in check and trying to stay human so he can have as many moments with Grace as possible.

Sam is fragile and damaged and needs protecting.  He is so far from Edward Cullen it’s almost funny.  While Edward is powerful and the boy every girl in school wants but can’t have, Sam is the boy who has no powers he can control and who no one but Grace even knows exists.  This supernatural romance was quieter and the school side of the story didn’t feel as real as the moments Sam and Grace spend alone together or when Sam connected to his pack.

I think this book is better suited to readers who liked Kindl’s Owl in Love than those who reveled in Meyer’s Twilight.  At moments, it felt underdeveloped for me but on the whole an inventive supernatural romance.

Toby gets a summer job at the new franchise of Killer Pizza which serves up pizzas with names like “the Frankensausage” or “the Montrosity.” He’s looking forward to learning some cooking skills to help him with his dream of becoming a celebrity chef. However, it turns out Killer Pizza is a front for a monster hunting organization that protects an unsuspecting public from man-eating monsters and Toby is their newest recruit. He begins training in weapons, monster lore and surveillance. Toby isn’t certain he has what it takes to be an MCO (monster containment officer). When fellow recruit Annabel is captured by a pack of guttata shapeshifters, Toby and Strobe are on their own to rescue her.

A team of misfits are recruited to take on monsters. This book had a fun premise and kept the fun coming with dangerous monsters and daring rescues. The monsters were deadly and some minor characters were eaten. The pack leader of the shapeshifting guttata was scary. Give this to graduates of the Goosebumps series who want to take their horror reading to the next level.
346p., 2009.

Rue Silver’s policy has always been not to worry – there’s really no point in getting worked up. Even when her mother disappears and her father slips into depression – she keeps to her “no worries” policy hanging with her friends and doing a little bit of artistic breaking and entering for a gorilla photography project. However, when she starts seeing things that no one else can – odd creatures and fairies – she knows it’s time to worry.

Rue begins to suspect her mother is a fairy and her family is back to claim her. She just wants to be left alone, but it will not be that easy. . .

Naifeh’s artwork is stellar – these fairies are darkly beautiful. It is appropriate he gets equal billing with Black as an author because the pictures are as important as the words to conveying this story. Any teen with a penchant for fairie realms or tightly drawn graphic novels should give this a whirl. The mystery surrounding the murder of one of Rue’s father’s students and Rue’s role in her fairie family drive the plot. I will definitely be reading book 2 when it arrives to find out more.
2008.

Melissa Marr
Scott Westerfeld
Justine Larbalestier
Gabrielle Zevin
and
Laura Faria Stolarz

The perfect supernatural valentine’s week read!
Each author has taken a differently supernatural look at love -
mortals fall in love with ghosts, selkies, fairies, fictional characters come to life and even each other.

I ate this up. Each story was fresh and fun and different from the others.
Being a sci-fi girl, the Westerfeld story was my favorite. It is about a future teenager who decides as part of a school project to allow herself to be taken off her hormone regulators – teen angst, poetry writing, and a powerful crush soon take over her life.
The ghost story felt classic – moving into a new house where a young man died tragically and discovering his story. Then meeting him in dreams and discovering just how handsome he is.
Zevin’s story that blurred the line between fiction and real life romance will speak to those who have ever fallen for an author’s fictional creation (Edward Cullen lovers? Those who drool for Mr. Darcy?)

The love in each story packed a powerful punch. While things were magical – love was not easy or the romance straightforward. I think Twilight readers would enjoy the supernatural romance. A great read and I am looking forward to trying the companion collection from Harper Teen – Prom Nights From Hell.
263p., 2008

Since Janie was eight she has been forcibly pulled into others’ dreams. Now at seventeen, she is tired of being bombarded by her classmates’ anxiety dreams and their sex dreams as they doze in study hall. Without willing it she has learned her friends’ secrets, desires and fears from their dreams. She hides her ability carefully until she finds herself attracted to former bad boy Cabel whose dark nightmares hint at a scarred past and a mystery she must unravel. The book is told in quick snippets each with a time and date which make the plot race forward in spurts. Janie whose alcoholic mom has forced her to take care of herself is a compellingly resilient character. Romance, suspense, and dark secrets are woven into a satisfyingly fast-paced read. The ending hints that Janie may star in future books using her dream reading ability to solve new mysteries.

The premise may not be new, but this is a page-turner. The book has a satisfying mix of terse snippets of Janie’s life combined with well-written, gripping dream sequences into which Janie has been pulled. The snippet writing approach leaves the reader to fill in some of the spaces and keeps you feeling you are with Janie in not quite knowing what to think about Cabel or his dreams.
Supporting characters are fairly well developed and Janie is impossible not to root for. A definite quick pick with wide teen girl appeal. 210p., 2008

Horace is apprenticed to a photographer who has a scheme to take advantage of a grieving woman who has lost a child by creating a faked spirit photo that will include her dead daughter’s ghost. The photographer, Mr. Middleditch, hopes all the wealthy ladies will want him to come and photograph them in the hopes of capturing spirit images. What no one could know is that Horace is a seer and he really does photograph ghosts. By photographing the ghosts, he gives them power and calls them back to Earth. After photographing the child, Eleanora, several times, she returns and it seems her death was not caused by a disease but by something much darker. Eleanora is back and looking for revenge on her adoptive parents and only Horace has the power to see her and perhaps stop her.

A good ghost story built on a framework of historical 1872 when photography was new and capturing spirit images was in vogue. Horace’s family is staunchly abolitionist and so his friendship with the African-American servant girl of the wealthy house is his way of learning the secrets and solving the mystery of Eleanora’s death. Avi does a good job of building suspense as slowly the reader learns what happened to Eleanora and what her wrathful spirit intends to do about it. This was a good Halloween week read or a good read for any fan of classic ghostly tales. 202p., 2008.

It’s hard enough to wonder what the other teens at your high school think of you. It’s worse to know what they’re thinking. That’s Kristi’s problem – ever since she started hearing her friends’ thoughts. She knows her friend Jacob thinks about her breasts and that the cutest guy in school thinks she’s disgusting. She knows her former best friend thinks she’s stuck up and her mom only thinks about her job. It only gets worse when her dad returns home for his first visit since he left home and Kristi’s mom two years ago.

You’d think being a mind reader would help you understand people, but it turns out Kristi screens the thoughts she hears through her own anger and insecurities. It’s almost as if she’s so convinced of how other people see her that she only hears the thoughts that agree with her own opinion. The awkward beginning romance and misunderstandings with Gusty – the cutest guy at school will be a big draw for teen readers. Kristi’s individuality (she crafts her own clothes) and sarcastic comments about her friends and school are hilarious. I love a book that combines humor, teen angst with a feisty flawed heroine and this book was just that. I would recommend it highly to readers who liked Meg Cabot’s supernatural mediator series or to realistic fiction readers looking for something a bit different. 2008, 249p. galley copy

For all of those disappointed by Breaking Dawn’s weird pregnancy plot, the sequel to City of Bones continues a pure teenage angsty romance about Clary who has fallen for a magically gorgeous guy(okay he’s a demonhunter not a vampire, but he’s clearly not mortal) and their impossible love. There’s also Simon the friend who wishes Clary felt about him the way he feels for her. Clary and Jace seem meant to be together until they find out they are siblings (or are they?). The book has a complete cast of demon hunters, vampires, werewolves, warlocks, and fairies.

This is the soap opera story of impossible attraction between the teenage children of Valentine – a dark figure who threatens to destroy the demonhunters in a twisted attempt to cleanse the Earth. Teens Jace and Clary have magical powers granted all with demonhunter blood and some extra powers engineered by the dark Valentine. One wonders what secrets Clary’s comatose mother holds. We are all but promised she will wake in volume three. With Valentine’s return and involvement in a series of murders of Downworlders, Jace becomes implicated as his accomplice. No one trusts him and only he knows how to stop Valentine.

2008, 453p.