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This "pick a topic and a day in January and I'll write about it" meme seems interesting--anyone who wants to give me a topic is welcome to do so.
Sarah Rees Brennan, Untold: Kami returns, now no longer mentally linked to Jared but still having confusing feelings for him (and even more confusingly for his cousin Ash), the two wizards who are on their side in the stand against their murderous father/uncle who’s trying to take over Kami’s hometown. Also there’s Ash’s mother, but she really doesn’t like Kami, or anyone else who’s not a wizard, and her plan to fight the bad guy is apparently just to be icy and superior, so Kami and her friends try their own methods. I didn’t like this one as much as the Demon’s Lexicon books. The snappy quippage dial was turned down from 13 to maybe 10 here compared to the first book, and Kami’s genuine distress both at her romantic conflicts and at the stresses in her family were powerful. But this book was basically everyone flailing around before the climax in, presumably, the next book so I probably should’ve waited to read it.
Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson, Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites: What if you took bog-standard supernatural plots and did them with the local pets instead of people? Simple, but it worked for me in this graphic novel—with lots of bonus Devil’s Traps as well. The neighborhood dogs, and a couple of cats, must band together to defend their home against a rising tide of evil in many forms, including witches, zombies, and a Rat King.
Malinda Lo, Inheritance: Sequel to Adaptation, in which Reese and David, two teens adapted by aliens, confront an excited and hostile population that now knows about them, while Reese tries to deal with the betrayal of the girl she loved (who turned out to be an alien) and negotiate her new relationship with David, who can feel her emotions and knows that, while she loves him, her feelings aren’t exclusive. Aside from the unusual resolution to the love triangle, I found it pretty standard YA teens against the world—which was fine; sometimes that’s exactly what you want.
Brian Wood et al., The Massive: Black Pacific: Graphic novel. After a year of environmental catastrophes devastate the world, a pacifist environmental group roams the seas, looking to survive and to help if it can. I wasn’t drawn in enough by the scenario to deal with all the time shifts back and forth, or the characters who all had various tragic/mysterious backstories. But if you want to feel depressed about what we really already have done to the ocean, this book will help!
Sarah Rees Brennan, Untold: Kami returns, now no longer mentally linked to Jared but still having confusing feelings for him (and even more confusingly for his cousin Ash), the two wizards who are on their side in the stand against their murderous father/uncle who’s trying to take over Kami’s hometown. Also there’s Ash’s mother, but she really doesn’t like Kami, or anyone else who’s not a wizard, and her plan to fight the bad guy is apparently just to be icy and superior, so Kami and her friends try their own methods. I didn’t like this one as much as the Demon’s Lexicon books. The snappy quippage dial was turned down from 13 to maybe 10 here compared to the first book, and Kami’s genuine distress both at her romantic conflicts and at the stresses in her family were powerful. But this book was basically everyone flailing around before the climax in, presumably, the next book so I probably should’ve waited to read it.
Evan Dorkin & Jill Thompson, Beasts of Burden: Animal Rites: What if you took bog-standard supernatural plots and did them with the local pets instead of people? Simple, but it worked for me in this graphic novel—with lots of bonus Devil’s Traps as well. The neighborhood dogs, and a couple of cats, must band together to defend their home against a rising tide of evil in many forms, including witches, zombies, and a Rat King.
Malinda Lo, Inheritance: Sequel to Adaptation, in which Reese and David, two teens adapted by aliens, confront an excited and hostile population that now knows about them, while Reese tries to deal with the betrayal of the girl she loved (who turned out to be an alien) and negotiate her new relationship with David, who can feel her emotions and knows that, while she loves him, her feelings aren’t exclusive. Aside from the unusual resolution to the love triangle, I found it pretty standard YA teens against the world—which was fine; sometimes that’s exactly what you want.
Brian Wood et al., The Massive: Black Pacific: Graphic novel. After a year of environmental catastrophes devastate the world, a pacifist environmental group roams the seas, looking to survive and to help if it can. I wasn’t drawn in enough by the scenario to deal with all the time shifts back and forth, or the characters who all had various tragic/mysterious backstories. But if you want to feel depressed about what we really already have done to the ocean, this book will help!
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