L.E. DeLano's Blog, page 9

A To Z Book Review: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

My letter “N” pick for the A to Z Book Challenge was NINTH HOUSE by Leigh Bardugo. Let me start by saying that I’ve read every book Bardugo has written and loved the hell out of them all – until now.

NINTH House follows Miss Alex Stern, a young woman with a troubled past who is recruited into a secret supernatural society housed on the campus of Yale University. All the most renowned houses on campus are fronts for their supernatural specialties like spellwork, shape-shifting and divination, among others.Alex gets their attention (and a free ride to at Yale) due to her unique ability to see and physically interact with the dead (something that has caused her great harm in the past).

Along with her mentor, a charismatic young man named Darlington, Alex begins the journey of not only honing her own powers, but learning all there is to know about the supernatural houses that her particular house, Lethe, is charged to oversee.

Things go very wrong when Darlington goes missing, spirits begin to target Alex, and more nefarious things are afoot within the houses.

This book is rich with world-building and plot twists, and Alex and Darlington are strong and compelling characters, but the story shifts back and forth between present and past at whiplash levels, making it hard to keep up with and frustrating to have to flip back occasionally to various sections and refresh your memory when the past echoes into the present.

This book is also 75% info dump about the societies, their individual histories, players, and current activities to the point that it sometimes felt more like a slog than a read due to the slow pace. I realize this is poised to be the start of a series (two books projected for now but Bardugo has said she plans to follow Alex through several more) but I struggled with finishing this rather than feeling like I couldn’t put it down (like Bardugo’s other books). Four stars for a brilliant premise but too much information clogs up the gears.

Trigger warning: this book explicitly describes rape, drug use, physical abuse, and death.

A To Z Book Review: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (trans. George Long)

My letter “M” pick for the A to Z Book Challenge was MEDITATIONS by Marcus Aurelius, translated by George Long. This was a free audiobook with my Audible membership, and since I vowed to put a variety of genres into my list this year, it was an easy pick.

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman Emperor from 161 to 180 AD (actually a co-emperor, along with his adopted brother), and a lifelong philosopher. He credits many of his teachers in his works and expounds upon their virtues in great detail, describing every bit of himself that he owes in some part to them.

It’s easy to just delve into this as a self-help book, full of wise musings and existential introspection, but when you realize his works were more of a diary, or “note to self” sort of account and not meant to be published and inspiring the masses, the words become a much more personal study of what this man learned from life, what made it worth living to him, and what he still struggles to find in his experience.

George Long got some flack on this translation, as it was greatly pared down and more of a sampling of Aurelius’s work rather than a full study or compendium. I felt it was a good introduction to someone vaguely familiar with Aurelius, and definitely left me with an interest in delving deeper into his work. All in all, a solid, if occasionally dry read. I give this three stars, and I’ll leave you with a few favorite quotes.

“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

A To Z Book Review: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

My letter “L” pick for the A to Z Challenge was LEGENDS & LATTES by Travis Baldree.

This book was such an unexpected mix of lighthearted fun and heart – I just absolutely loved it. This story is a comforting mug of cocoa by a fire with your best friend on a cold day.

We start out with Viv, a determined badass Orc who has hung up her battle axe (literally – it’s behind the counter) and quit her mercenary work after defeating a terrifying monster, making a bunch of money, and scoring herself a Scalvert’s Stone – a magical stone that gives the owner good luck.

She moves to the town of Thune, buys a dilapidated building, and with the help of a local handyman named Cal she turns it into a coffee house – a product no one in Thune had ever heard of. She recruits Tandri, an introverted succubus with a talent for management and presentation, and Thimble, a Ratkin who happens to be an excellent baker, and soon the coffee shop is a hopping spot for good coffee, great eats, and lively conversation (featuring live music!).

This gets the attention of a local crime boss who stupidly tries to extort an orc with an enormous battle-axe, and another merc who wants to steal the Scalvert’s stone – all of which puts Viv’s livelihood and the new found family she’s built in danger.

This book is stuffed with humor, masterful with it’s worldbuilding and characters, and is loaded with heartfelt moments that will sock you in the feels before handing you a steaming cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun. I cannot recommend this enough. If you buy it on audiobook, the author narrates – which is often a disaster – but in this case, Travis Baldree is a seasoned audiobook narrator with hundreds of titles under his belt – and it shows. His performance is highly entertaining.

Five stars and a homemade biscotti for this one.

A To Z Book Review: Killers Of The Flower Moon by David Grann

My letter “K” pick for the A to Z Book Challenge was Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann.

I love to watch true crime stories and documentaries, but I have to admit I don’t read them often. Since this challenge is about pushing out of my reading norms, I wanted to give this a read. The story is not only horrific in the sheer number of murders, the underhanded way they were perpetrated, the cover-ups by multiple parties, but also for the rabid hatred and greed that motivated it all.

This is also one of the earliest big cases solved by the newly formed FBI, in conjunction with other investigators. The plot concerns the serial murders of members of the Osage tribe in Oklahoma. These tribespeople had one thing in common besides their ancestry: wealth. There’s an old adage in just about every crime movie or documentary – follow the money. There’s almost always a money trail that trips somebody up and this story is a prime example. This particular Osage tribe owned land that was found to be sitting on top of a large reserve of oil. The federal government paid a handsome sum to the land-owning tribespeople that made them very rich, with a continued stipulation of payments in perpetuity.

As is the case in a lot of small racist towns where people are barely scraping by, a lot of white people were really angry that they were missing out on the money and that oil field was sitting on land they so generously gave to the Osage (after they took it from them in the first place and raped and murdered their people for decades, but of course, that’s not the way these yahoos saw it). The sheer number of not only murders but conspirators leads to a richly woven story with a hellish ride to the finish full of reveals and twists that will have you turning pages with one hand as the other sits firmly over your mouth.

I’m giving this one four stars, mainly because the pace is very slow until about 3/4 of the way through, and early on the plot meanders a bit too much for my taste. That being said, once it gets going it’ll grip you and hold you to the end.

A To Z Book Review: Joyride by Anna Banks

My letter “J” pick for the A to Z Book Challenge was JOYRIDE by Anna Banks. This book had a lot of promise. The rich, popular boy falls for the studious nobody girl from an immigrant family – but it just fell short of the mark in a several places.

First of all, Arden, the rich boy in this equation, is the son of the local sheriff and loves to play what he considers “harmless” pranks on people – a pastime that he shared with his late sister, whom he grieves deeply. He enlists Carly to be his partner in crime after he pulls a gun on an elderly man in the parking lot of the convenience store where Carly works the night shift, then promptly steals her bike to make his getaway.

Despite this turbulent beginning, they end up hanging out and becoming pranksters together. True, Arden was only faking the robbery on the old man–who happened to be his uncle–to keep him from driving drunk, and he did give Carly’s bike back and help her get a better-paying job. But Carly is a smart and careful girl. We are told this over and over again. She keeps her head down, her grades up, and she saves every single penny of her money to give to her brother so they can buy covert passage to get their parents back into the U.S. after they were deported. She will not do anything to jeopardize this.

This is where the narrative hits a roadblock for me. No matter how charming and helpful Arden has been with Carly, he is still the son of the sheriff who deported her parents. Is she really going to risk getting on the sheriff’s radar by romancing his son? Or by doing a drive-by throwing firecrackers at the mayor’s house for fun? I find that very hard to believe.

Of course, all of this ends up becoming a giant mess that jeopardizes not only their relationship, but everything Carly has been working for regarding her parents. This all resolved very quickly and a little too conveniently for me at the end. In addition, the story is told in alternating points of view between Carly and Arden, and when Carly holds the chapter, we’re in first person, present tense (common in YA), but when Arden gets a chapter, we switch to omniscient narrator, present tense, which makes his chapters read more like a stage script or screenplay. It’s jarring and kept me from really connecting with Arden like I might have if she’d just had him talk to us in first person.

Overall, a compelling plot with shaky execution. I’m going three stars on this one.

A to Z Book Review: I’m Glad My Mom Died By Jennette McCurdy

My letter “I” pick for the A to Z Book Challenge was I’M GLAD MY MOM DIED by Jennette McCurdy. This book was a tough one. It’s never easy to read an account of child abuse and it’s after-effect, and McCurdy doesn’t hold back her punches while retelling the detailed examinations of her anatomy in the shower each day and the emotional manipulation and stage-mother-on-steroids antics of her mother. Her sneering disdain for most of the Hollywood machine is evident in every line. The fallout of this sort of childhood followed her into failed relationships, alcohol abuse, and torment as she tries to segue from child star to working adult actor and even a dabble in country music before she throws it all of, distances herself from her toxic mother, and begins to reclaim her life.

Mixed into this brutal narrative are the warm and lingering lines of love – for her iCarly costar Miranda Cosgrove (who seems to be one of the few true friends in Jennette’s life), her father and siblings, her love interests, and yes, even her mother, and that makes the story all the more poignant. Jennette, despite all the pressure and abuse, loved her mother, and deeply. But it’s also true she’s glad her mother is gone.

I’m going to give this one four stars out of five for only one reason: I listened to this on audiobook. McCurdy is a talented actress and a great human being, but she is not an audiobook narrator, and it shows. Maybe it’s because she was too close to the source material, but her reading is perfunctory, rushed, and devoid of emotion to the point of nearly being robotic. She should have asked Miranda to do her a favor on this one, or let the publisher find a capable voice artist.

The IABX Children’s Book Fest Is A Wrap

The IABX Children’s Book Expo went down this past Saturday and I had a great time meeting readers and other KidLit authors. Despite this being the first time this book festival took place, we had a terrific turnout. This event was put together by author Renaee Perrier-Smith, and she and her team of volunteers did a terrific job organizing and keeping the festival running smoothly. The kids all had a terrific time, and there were all sorts of prizes and goodies to be had.

If you missed it this year, be sure to mark your calendar for next year – you’ll be glad you did!

A to Z Book Review: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

My letter “H” pick for the A to Z Challenge is THE HIDING PLACE by Corrie ten Boom. I must confess this pick is a bit of a cheat in that I’ve read this previously, but it was a looooooong time ago (6th grade). Someone in my church passed her copy on to my mom and I commandeered it when it was clear she wasn’t going to read it.

Concentration Camps and Holocaust stories aren’t exactly ideal elementary school reading material, but I always read above my grade level and I remember this book made a huge impression on me at the time. I wanted to do a re-read to see if the story still stood up over time for me, and if the emphasis on Christian themes would overshadow the rest for me, now that I’m no longer eating, sleeping, and breathing Evangelical Christianity.

I’m happy to say that while Ms. ten Boom leans heavily on her faith throughout the narrative, I never felt like she was beating me with a bible, and her story is still as riveting and heart-wrenching as I remembered. From the day she bravely closed the secret door to hide her Jewish boarders from the Nazis who came to their home, then walked out the door to prison (deliberately leaving her packed bag of clothing and supplies behind because it was leaning on the secret door), then months of maddening solitary confinement, we feel every ounce of her fear and helplessness. When she and her beloved sister Betsy are shipped off to Ravensbruck, a concentration camp in Northern Germany, we watch her determination to survive despite overwhelming daily cruelties and heart-wrenching losses. When she’s finally released out of the blue, we live her wary confusion and weep with her at the kindness of strangers who helped her transition.

I have since learned that Ms. ten Boom was released due to a clerical error and one week later, all women her age at the camp were killed. Obviously, she was meant to carry this story to the rest of us, and she does so with clarity, empathy, and strength. I’m giving this four stars out of five, only because the story does meander at times, but otherwise, still a solid and worthwhile read.

Meet Me At The IABX Children’s Book Festival!

June 10th is a little over a week away, and I’m prepping for the IABX Children’s Book Festival. If you’re in NJ/NY area you won’t want to miss this. Check out the fun:

FREE ADMISSION & PARKING

Free books and supplies to the first 100 Children

Arts & Crafts

Yoga Sessions

Bouncy House

Prizes & Surprises

Be sure and stop by my table for some giveaway items and to get a signed copy of my books! Hope to see you there!

A to Z Book Review: Geekerella by Ashley Poston

My letter “G” pick for the A to Z reading challenge was a book that’s been on my TBR list for a long time (too long a time) – GEEKERELLA by Ashley Poston.

This is a fun twist on the fairytale. We follow the delightful and spunky Elle, who lost her mother very young and has recently lost her father. She now lives with her wannabe-socialite stepmother, one vapid influencer of a step-sister, and one step-sister who’s afraid to take sides. Elle’s parents were minor celebrities within the fandom of a popular sci-fi TV show back in the day, and Elle was raise in the fandom and still relates heavily to it as a connection to her parents.

When Hollywood decides to reboot the franchise with a new movie starring the shallow, pretentious Hollywood heartthrob Darien Freeman, she sees red and takes to her blog. When a misdirected text has her conversing with a great guy and fellow fan – one who also grew up on con culture, she finds herself falling and oops! Of course, it’s Darien. Elle has to struggle with her own misconceptions, her fury over Hollywood trying to mess up a good thing, her vicious step-sister and abusive step-mother, and her own self-doubts and fears for her future.

She handles it all with unapologetic geekiness, fierce determination, and heartwarming vulnerability. And the book takes all the great tropes of this story – the pumpkin carriage (now a vegan food truck) the dress and slippers (part of her mother’s prize-winning con costume) and the ball (the costume ball at the con) and works them all in seamlessly and with such marvelous description I really want to see that on screen! The story is told from both Elle and Darien’s viewpoints via alternating chapters, and I just plain fell in love with them both.

Is it silly? Yup. Is it a light read? You bet. I’d heard a lot about this book and expected a fun, fluffy YA read with nerd humor and romance and it did not disappoint. This is a fun romp through fandom and con culture, sprinkled with a cast of colorful characters, quirky humor, heart-fluttering new love, and poignant moments that bring all the feels. Four stars.