Rereading Pleasure: Child of Fire

I recently read Harry Connolly's second Twenty Palaces book about Ray Lilly, ex-con and wooden man.  What I like about his urban fantasy books is how the horrible things he sees and does affect Ray, a man already struggling with the things he's done in his past.  So I bought the first book so I could reread it, and I enjoyed it as much the second time around.   Child of Fire: A Twenty Palaces Novel has a lot of scary stuff in it.  Children die.  That's one of the first things Ray sees as his new and terrifying boss makes him drive to the small town in Washington where magic is happening, magic his boss plans to stop.  His uncertainty, fear, and horror drive most of his actions, although he also acknowledges that he is hungry for the power his boss exhibits.  The pacing is fast and the characterization is strong, mainly for Ray but also for the smaller characters in the town.  A good urban fantasy book (and definitely not a romance, for those avoiding girl-cooties in the fantasy). B+

Good Book: Homicide Related

Norah McClintock is a Canadian author who writes a lot of books for below average readers.  She's good at that, at writing a book for a YA audience that unobtrusively has an actual reading difficulty of elementary school.  Good enough that I'm careful not to recommend them to my kids, because I don't want them accidentally reading stuff that's thematically beyond what they want before they realize it.  Most of her books seem to be about urban kids trying to come back from mistakes or dealing with dangerous situations.

Her Dooley series fits the urban problem kid theme, but she doesn't have to keep the reading level low.  Dooley Takes the Fall,  the first book, hooked me with his refusal to give out easy answers.  It's a mystery, but the emphasis is on the character who is trying to pick himself up after some horrific decisions.  I just noticed the sequel, Homicide Related (Ryan Dooley Mysteries), and I grabbed it from Amazon immediately.  

Again the mystery isn't the strength of the book.  There are murders, and Dooley is a suspect because of his past, but more interesting is how Dooley addresses his problems, both the looming problem of the police but also his relationship with Beth (whose mother thinks he is a thug) and his relationship with his uncle, who has been keeping secrets from Dooley.  I'm looking forward to the third book, which is out in Canada but not here until February. A

Missed My Jump: Demon Blood

I like to start series somewhere in the middle, on the grounds that if I'm going to spend that much time with an author's characters, I want the books to be so good I can start anywhere.  So I grabbed Meljean Brook's Demon Blood (The Guardian Series) from the "Hot Picks" area of the library although it was clearly not the start of the Guardian series.  I think it's book six or something.  Unfortunately, I don't think this was a good place to start.

There's a complex world system set up, with all sorts of strange creatures -- Guardians, vampires, demons, nephilim, etc, all with different rules and origins and motives.  That wasn't the problem; I enjoy figuring stuff out from the middle.  But this book is more a paranormal romance than an urban fantasy -- the backbone of the book is the romance, with the action adorning that.  And the romance didn't work for me; I suspect that the previous five books had lost of background building up the problems between Rosalia and Deacon, but since I skipped that I didn't feel it.  And their only conflict was a lack of communication and an overload of angst -- Woe is Me, I am Unworthy / He could never trust me after THAT / She says she loves me but I cannot believe she MEANS it / blah blah blah.

There was so much time spent on their mutual undeclared love that the complex plot for the destruction of the bad guys got buried.  I know it was complex because everyone told me so a million times.  I think I missed some of the complexity, because everything fell out easily in the last fifty pages.  I bet if I had been in on the story from the beginning I would have cared more for the people, but this book doesn't make me want to run out and get the rest.  C+

Library Loot for the Long-Absent

Hi -- remember me? I used to have a blog?  Well, I'm back.  I was held hostage by aliens for all of October, but I got away.  For a while, anyway, and of course, I immediately went back to the library.

The kind librarians stocked the hold shelf with some tasty treats for me:

• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (for book club)
• Blood of the Demon, Diana Rowland.  Urban fantasy
• Would the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby?, Allyson Beatrice.  I continue my exploration of the Buffy the Vampire phenomenon.  
• Genius Genes: How Asperger Talents Changed the World, Michael Fitzgerald & Brendan O'Brien.  Since my son's diagnosis I've been reading up on Asperger's, and frankly, he's getting tired of hearing about it.  He's much more cheerful about this title, though.

We then grabbed some music (some that I'll be listening to while the kids are away, oops), so Pokemon films, and then two extra books fell into my bag on the way out:

• The Demon's Lexicon, Sarah Rees Brennan.  I own this one, but I wanted to reread a few scenes and couldn't be bothered to look too hard for my copy.  I meant to get the sequel too, but some rotten kid beat me to it.
• Crave, by J.R. Ward.  I promised myself I wouldn't follow the author of the over-the-top Brotherhood Vampires with lots of extra H's into her new series, but I'm curious as to how it reads.  Will the heroes of this series get extra J's in their name? Cjarlos? Brujce? 

Total Books from Library Elf (counting all the kid stuff that I'm legally responsible for even if I hope not to read it): 68. Stuff on my card: 64, but all the boys have lost their cards, so that includes their stuff.

I'll go sign up for Library Loot this week. That's a weekly event hosted in turns by Clare's The Captive Reader and Marg's The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader (this week's host) where bloggers can share their library finds of the week. Some of them make me look restrained.

Thursday Library Jaunt

I am very close to my library goal of keeping my items out to less than my age, and if I discount the books the kids checked out on my card I'm probably good already.  Of course, we've also lost a book, but I have hopes that it will turn up tonight somewhere in Nicky's room.

My hold shelf was empty!  Well, except for the Kidz Bop 5 CD, as we continue our death march through the Kidz Bop oeuvre, but that hardly counts.  Two "recommended" books fell into my hands:

• Below Zero, C.J. Box, because I liked the other Box book I read, and
• Touched by an Alien, because I've seen it on a lot of blogs.

Then we grabbed 5 more CDs and headed out into the sunshine.  Kids wanted nothing, but they are still enjoying the return to school libraries.

Total Books from Library Elf (counting all the kid stuff that I'm legally responsible for even if I hope not to read it): 46. Stuff on my card: 46.  Hmm, Amanda's card is showing as inactive; I'd better check that next week.

I'll go sign up for Library Loot this week. That's a weekly event hosted by either Claire from The Captive Reader (this weeks host) or by Marg from Adventures of an Intrepid Reader where bloggers can share their library finds of the week. Some of them make me look restrained.

Kids Today: I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced

My nine year old niece asked me what I was reading (I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced),and I stuttered as I explained, because she's the age of Nujood (about -- we know A's birthday, but N's is vague about her exact age). The idea of nine year olds as appropriate marriage material is horrendous and repulsive, yet it is also a fact of life for many children just as Nujood.

I'm reading the book through two filters, since it's a translation of a book told to an adult, and I did wonder how much of the book was Nujood Ali vs the co-author, Delphine Minoui. The voice and opinions sounded authentically young, but clearly the structure and the pacing was set by Minoui. I don't know how much input the girl had over the text -- was it a series of interviews, did Minoui piece together a lot of what happened, how much could have been a diary if Nujood could write? Heck, how are the proceeds divided?

Regardless, the book gives a clear sense of life in Yemen for poor girls and their families, and how modern life and old customs clash in unpleasant ways. I might offer it to my twelve year old, but I'm not ready to give it to the nine year olds. B

Falling Back in: Game of Cages

It's Fall, and I haven't blogged in over a month. I haven't read much either, which is part of the problem. But both kids have to keep reading logs, and X even needs to do a reading journal, and I'll have much more backbone forcing this upon them if I'm responsible for my own log. So there. I'm back!

I finished Harry Connolly's Game of Cages: A Twenty Palaces Novel, the 2nd book about Ray Lilly, ex-con and wooden man, whose life was ripped apart when his best friend met up with a magic predator. Now Ray is a pawn in the Twenty Palaces, the organization dedicated to keeping those magical beasties away from our earth, but he's very uncomfortable with what he has to do for them.

The characters in Connolly's stories seem very real, especially Lilly. He does a good job of showing Ray's emotions and growth through his actions, especially since the book is told from Ray's viewpoint. This is a very violent book, with a lot of death and fear; I don't recommend it for the squeamish although I do recommend it in general. I'll be looking for Connolly's next book.B+