Review: Voices In The Air

Read if you like: authentic, heartfelt poetry that speaks to the soul.

Voices In The Air | Naomi Shihab Nye

Series: N/A

Genre: Poetry
Released: February 13th 2018
Pages: 208
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

Acclaimed and award-winning poet, teacher, and National Book Award finalist Naomi Shihab Nye’s uncommon and unforgettable voice offers readers peace, humor, inspiration, and solace. This volume of almost one hundred original poems is a stunning and engaging tribute to the diverse voices past and present that comfort us, compel us, lead us, and give us hope.

Voices in the Air is a collection of almost one hundred original poems written by the award-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye in honor of the artists, writers, poets, historical figures, ordinary people, and diverse luminaries from past and present who have inspired her. Full of words of encouragement, solace, and hope, this collection offers a message of peace and empathy.

Voices in the Air celebrates the inspirational people who strengthen and motivate us to create, to open our hearts, and to live rewarding and graceful lives. With short informational bios about the influential figures behind each poem, and a transcendent introduction by the poet, this is a collection to cherish, read again and again, and share with others. Includes an index. 

To read this book, every day I took a few minutes of quiet time. It became a ritual to read these poems of love and resistance and frustration and love. There are poems I loved and poems I didn't, but I loved the simple act of reading them either way. Worlds and lives come to life in these pages, in such few words and sparse lines - I want to read more.

4 stars

Review: The Girl From Everywhere

Read if you like: awesome female characters, high-stakes stories, and irresistible romances (heavy on the snark.)

The Girl From Everywhere | Heidi Heilig

Series: The Girl From Everywhere

Genre: Fantasy, Time Travel, Historical
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination.

As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix.

But the end to it all looms closer every day.

Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence.

For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters.

She could find herself, find her family, find her own fantastical ability, her own epic love.

Or she could disappear.

Why did I take so long to read this? It's SO good! Epic, snarky characters, incredible world building, and writing that's just GORGEOUS. I fell in love with this lush, sweeping story of maps and sailing and love.

Nix is SO COOL, I love her, but Kashmir really hooked me into this book, my sarcastic thief prince. I'm still not sure about the rest of the characters, even though Slate, Nix's dad, has some WILD character development. The world and writing and imagination is where this book stands out, from Hawaii to New York to TERRACOTTA WARRIORS. Just full of awesome (but also sadness and heartbreak and beware this one, it'll sneak up on you!)

5 stars

Review: The Changer's Key

A Riddle in Ruby: The Changer's Key | Kent Davis

Published by: Greenwillow Books, September 27th 2016

Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy

Pages: 384

Format: Ebook

Source: Greenwillow Books, via Edelweiss

The second book in the fantasy-adventure trilogy. In an alternate colonial America, young thief Ruby Teach trains to become the greatest weapon in the coming war.

To save her friends and family, apprentice thief Ruby Teach bargained with the man who chased her across the sea and through an alternate version of colonial Philadelphia. Now she’s training to become a soldier in the war he foresees and being experimented on by the army’s scientists. Ruby’s blood holds a secret, if only someone can unlock it.

Meanwhile, Captain Teach and Ruby’s friends—a motley crew made up of a young aristocrat, a servant, an alchemist, and mysterious woodswoman—are racing against time to find and liberate Ruby.

Kent Davis’s imagining of a colonial America powered by alchemy is fascinating and wholly original. The heroes are swept through cities and unsettled territories with imagination, humor, and magic.

I remember really liking the first book, but I just did connect with this at all. The Ruby plot, I liked but I didn't really care about it, and the other plot didn't interest me at all. But I still like Athena a whole lot, and kinda wish the book was all from her POV. By the end of this, I was just reading so I could finish it, and I'm not sure why because I really loved the first book.

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world ★★★☆☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

Review: Blight

Blight | Alexandra Duncan

Published by: Greenwillow Books, May 30th 2017

Genre: YA, Dystopia, Science Fiction

Pages: 528

Format: Ebook

Source: Greenwillow, via Edelweiss

Seventeen-year-old Tempest Torres has lived on the AgraStar farm north of Atlanta since she was found outside the gates at the age of five. Now she’s part of the security force guarding the fence and watching for scavengers—people who would rather steal genetically engineered food from the company than work for it. When a group of such rebels accidentally sets off an explosion in the research compound, it releases into the air a blight that kills every living thing in its path—including humans. With blight-resistant seeds in her pocket, Tempest teams up with a scavenger boy named Alder and runs for help. But when they finally arrive at AgraStar headquarters, they discover that there’s an even bigger plot behind the blight—and it’s up to them to stop it from happening again. A fast-paced action-adventure story that is Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake meets Nancy Farmer’s House of the Scorpion.

I thought I would love this more. As it was, I did like it, and there were parts that really drew me in, but overall I just didn't have that holycrapthisisawesome moment I did in Salvage. Which makes me kinda sad. But there's still some awesome bits:

- AgraCorp is SO COOL. In a totalitarian, never wanting to get involved with them kinda way. They are such a compelling, dynamic threat, and I wanted to delve deeper into their gritty agriculture, army world. Which was why I was a bit frustrated to detour into the shiny, glitzy bits of the world.

- I liked the main characters, their utter differences in upbringing and personality.

- No romance, if you're into that thing!!!

- There's so much to this world that works, from the soldiers to the farming to the blight which was quite frankly horrifying (but I REALLY REALLY wish we'd seen more of that in the second half because it just kinda ... vanished.)

- There's so many secrets in this, especially revolving around Tempest's family, and those actually managed to shock me. I'd JUST started to suspect when the huge plot twist was thrown down but I only saw a tiny part of it coming not the Giant Shock. This worked so well.

-The first half was SO GOOD, the second half ... meh. I lost a bit of interest, to be honest, and there's so many bits of the world I wanted to explore that I was disappointed when the book just didn't go there

-I wanted a big showdown with AgraCorp in the end, that final battle between the old Tempest and the new, but instead it was a fight with a gang which ... eh, it was cool but I still wanted her to fight AgraCorp.

Overall: a really unique, interesting take on the future.

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

Review: Eliza & Her Monsters

Eliza & Her Monsters | Francesca Zappia

Published by: Greenwillow Books, May 30th 2017

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Comics

Pages: 400

Format: Ebook

Source: Greenwillow, via Edelweiss

Eighteen-year-old Eliza Mirk is the anonymous creator of Monstrous Sea, a wildly popular webcomic, but when a new boy at school tempts her to live a life offline, everything she’s worked for begins to crumble.

In the real world, Eliza Mirk is shy, weird, smart, and friendless. Online, Eliza is LadyConstellation, the anonymous creator of a popular webcomic called Monstrous Sea. With millions of followers and fans throughout the world, Eliza’s persona is popular. Eliza can’t imagine enjoying the real world as much as she loves her digital community. Then Wallace Warland transfers to her school, and Eliza begins to wonder if a life offline might be worthwhile. But when Eliza’s secret is accidentally shared with the world, everything she’s built—her story, her relationship with Wallace, and even her sanity—begins to fall apart. With pages from Eliza’s webcomic, as well as screenshots from Eliza’s online forums, this uniquely formatted book will appeal to fans of Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona and Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl.

My favourite contemporary ever. And to think I never used to like the genre. This dumb book stole my heart.

I can't even begin to explain how hard I connected with this, with the characters and the story, as both a member of many fandoms and  as a creator. Everything, from the characterisation, to the online friendships, to the fandoms, to the romance, to the family life just meant SO MUCH. And the art was PERFECT, I badly want to read Monstrous Sea. I have nothing but emotions for this book - no comments or issues or whatever I usually say in reviews. I just honestly loved this so much, and it HURT me so much, but I love it more for it. That ending was unfair for a long while and, not gonna lie, I cried for the whole last 30% non-stop, at first because it broke my heart and then because it mended it. I want to read this all over again.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★★

ARC Review: This Savage Song

Monsters of Verity: This Savage Song | Victoria Schwab

Published by: Greenwillow, July 5th 2016

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Demons/Monsters

Pages: 464

Format: Ebook

Source: Greenwillow, via Edelweiss

There’s no such thing as safe in a city at war, a city overrun with monsters. In this dark urban fantasy from author Victoria Schwab, a young woman and a young man must choose whether to become heroes or villains—and friends or enemies—with the future of their home at stake. The first of two books.

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters. One who can steal a soul with a simple strain of music. When the chance arises to keep an eye on Kate, who’s just been kicked out of her sixth boarding school and returned home, August jumps at it. But Kate discovers August’s secret, and after a failed assassination attempt the pair must flee for their lives.

I have a lot of thoughts and feelings, but I'll try to say them in an orderly fashion.

- I either want to BE Kate or be WITH her. I love her so, so, so much.

- August is precious, but with the addition of being shivery-scary. I've never read a character like him before and I want to keep him.

- I REALLY like the world. I don't usually like post-America fantasy worlds, in fact they really grate on me, but this was done well - not overdone, mostly detached from the present. Thought I don't typically enjoy fantasy-as-future, I did really like the split city of Verity.

- One of my favourite things was the different types of monsters, and how different they are from each other, and how they have their own brutality and way of being.

- It's a magical, dark, glittering story with an atmosphere I fell in love with. It's rich and dense and full of secrets I'm dying to know. I just love the world and story so much.

- Schwab has firmly put herself in my top 5 authors - I know now I'll love everything she writes.


- If you've yet to read This Savage Song, get yourself a copy - you'll fall in love with its shadows, its dangerous friendships, its monsters - most human - and its bright world of dark crime. 

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★★★
Writing ★★★★★

ARC Review: A Drop of Night

A Drop of Night | Stefan Bachmann

Published by: Greenwillow Books, March 15th 2016

Genre: YA, Horror, Thriller, Mystery

Pages: 464

Format: Ebook

Source: Greenwillow, via Edelweiss

Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she's been selected out of hundreds of other candidates to fly to France and help with the excavation of a vast, underground palace buried a hundred feet below the suburbs of Paris. Built in the 1780's to hide an aristocratic family and a mad duke during the French Revolution, the palace has lain hidden and forgotten ever since. Anouk, along with several other gifted teenagers, will be the first to set foot in it in over two centuries.

Or so she thought.

But nothing is as it seems, and the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a game far more sinister, and dangerous, than they could possibly have imagined. An evil spanning centuries is waiting for them in the depths. . .

A genre-bending thriller from Stefan Bachmann for fans of The Maze Runner and Joss Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods.

You cannot escape the palace.

You cannot guess its secrets.

A Drop of Night is a compelling, twisty, edge-of-your-seat thriller with all the best bits of a horror film and something brilliantly new.

I really liked Anouk, the main character. I totally got her sulky, distant, anti-social nature. There aren't many characters I've read like her and I empathised with her and her story. Plus her snark was 100% me and I loved seeing a bit of myself reflected in a book. The other characters are great too, each of them individual, which is kind of a big deal with a large group of characters. Sometimes they blur into one and I lose track of who's who, but with this book I didn't at all! Plus Will was so cute and I want one.

As well as awesome characters, this book has a tonne of plot twists that kept me guessing and theorising until the very end. It has parts written in the past, which are chilling and atmospheric and VERY unsettling. This book is creepy as heck, especially the Butterfly Man. In parts, it reminded me of the film Thirteen Ghosts - it's got all the revolving, tricking, traps-galore danger that I loved of that, plus a whole lot more just for thrills.

Very well plotted, cleverly written, and just genius in parts. Like nothing I have read before.

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting/world ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★☆

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A Riddle In Ruby (ARC Review)

Key To The Catalyst: A Riddle In Ruby | Kent Davis

Published by: Greenwillow Books, September 22nd 2015

Genre: MG, Fantasy, Steampunk, Alternate History, Ships

Pages: 352

Format: Ebook

Source: Greenwillow Books, via Edelweiss

Ruby is a thief-in-training and a keeper of secrets—ones she doesn't even know herself. A Riddle in Ruby is the first book in a witty and fast-paced fantasy-adventure trilogy for fans for Jonathan Stroud, Septimus Heap, and The Very Nearly Honorable League of Pirates.

Ruby Teach, daughter of a smuggler and pirate, has been learning how to swindle and steal and pick the most complex locks for as long as she can remember. But a collision with aristocratic young lord Athen sends her spinning into chaos. Little did she know that her whole life has been spent in hiding from nefarious secret societies and the Royal Navy . . . who are both now on her trail. In this debut middle grade adventure, Kent Davis weaves a rip-roaring tale through an alternate colonial Philadelphia. A world where alchemy—that peculiar mix of magic and science—has fueled the industrial revolution. With this highly original setting, a cast of fully rounded characters and rapid-fire, funny dialogue, A Riddle in Ruby will call to mind fantasy greats like Diana Wynne Jones and Terry Pratchett.

Thank you, A Riddle In Ruby, for bringing the magic back to middle grade fantasy. I've read a slew of MG fantasy this year, most with ships and pirates as is my thing, and they've all been pretty good. But not amazing. None of them had the spark for me, that magic I've been looking for. 

This book did.

A Riddle In Ruby is a fun, high stakes adventure. It starts off on a ship (you know that's my jam) and moves onto an alternate history version of Philadelphi. Now I don't know much about American history or actual Philadelphia but I thought the setting was awesome, and wholly unique. There was a city on top of the city! Everything about this book felt indulgent, like Kent Davis had looked into my head and seen everything I wanted in a book and stuck it all in A Riddle In Ruby. Ruby, especially, stuck out to me. I loved her so much, and Athen too. Maybe the characters were the real magic I've been looking for.

My only niggle was that this book stuck to the thing where the MC is a young girl and follows a slightly older boy, who is more intelligent and worldly and knows all, where the MC is a silly little girl who needs help. I've read many MG that have this for some reason and I thought this book had given me the same thing that makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable. But nope. Everything I thought I knew was really a secret very cleverly concealed. So I actually love everything about this. It just feels fresh and it's compelling - the villain is interesting and doesn't fall into the same old villainous tropes, there are metal animals (!!!), dastardly sailors, and a very serious riddle in Ruby that I'd like to solve.

Do yourself a favour and read it.

(But what does the series name mean, and what's with the key on the cover? What am I missing? I'm so excited to get answers!!!)

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world-building ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★☆

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The Unquiet (ARC Review)

The Unquiet | Mikaela Everett

Published by: Greenwillow Books, September 22nd 2015

Genre: YA, Thriller, Science Fiction

Pages: 464

Format: Ebook

Source: Greenwillow, via Edelweiss

For most of her life, Lirael has been training to kill—and replace—a duplicate version of herself on a parallel Earth. She is the perfect sleeper-soldier. But she’s beginning to suspect she is not a good person. 

The two Earths are identical in almost every way. Two copies of every city, every building, even every person. But the people from the second Earth know something their duplicates do not—two versions of the same thing cannot exist. They—and their whole planet—are slowly disappearing. Lira has been trained mercilessly since childhood to learn everything she can about her duplicate, to be a ruthless sleeper-assassin who kills that other Lirael and steps seamlessly into her life.

An intricate, literary stand-alone from an astonishing new voice, The Unquiet takes us deep inside the psyche of a strong teenage heroine struggling with what she has been raised to be and who she really is. Fans of eerily futuristic and beautifully crafted stories such as Never Let Me Go, Orphan Black, and Fringe will find themselves haunted by this unsettling debut.

I liked this book from more or less the first page. It starts with a creepy child-assassin thriller that reminded me so much of Nikita, one of my favourite shows of all time. Kids from one earth are being trained to kill and replace their Alternates (from the other earth) from a very young age, kept captive in cottages in the countryside, and the weak ones either don't survive training or are killed by their masters. It's so so original.

And then it transitions into a sleeper spy novel, when the MC is sent to take over the life of her Alternate. I loved that this book was set in France, not the typical American setting. And there were so many elements of the story that it felt fast paced, yet drawn out and suspenseful all the same.

I didn't love the characters but I didn't dislike them either. It was interesting to see Lira growing from the killer the cottages trained her to be into her own person, with her own wants and fears despite having them trained out of her.

This book was just really cool and rare and a total surprise. If you like awesome thrillers and sci fi that feels real, add this to your to-buy list.

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting/world-building ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★☆

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One (ARC Review)

One | Sarah Crossan

Published by: Greenwillow Books, September 15th 2015

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Poetry

Pages: 400

Format: Ebook

Source: Greenwillow Books, via Edelweiss

Tippi and Grace share everything—clothes, friends . . . even their body. Writing in free verse, Sarah Crossan tells the sensitive and moving story of conjoined twin sisters, which will find fans in readers of Gayle Forman, Jodi Picoult, and Jandy Nelson.

Tippi and Grace. Grace and Tippi. For them, it’s normal to step into the same skirt. To hook their arms around each other for balance. To fall asleep listening to the other breathing. To share. And to keep some things private. The two sixteen-year-old girls have two heads, two hearts, and each has two arms, but at the belly, they join. And they are happy, never wanting to risk the dangerous separation surgery.

But the girls’ body is beginning to fight against them. And soon they will have to face the impossible choice they have avoided for their entire lives.

Everything you will hear about this will be true. One is poignant and moving and unflinching. It is just, unfortunately, not the greatest book for me. I could go on about how I connected with the characters but never cared much, about how the story was important but I wasn't all that interested, how the romance felt depth-less, but let me tell you about the writing instead. Because that is where I fell in love with this book.

Sarah Crossan writes free verse like a master. Seriously. Her way with words is astounding, and sometimes left me a little speechless. I have huge parts of this highlighted, and more than ten poems bookmarked, because I just fell in love with how it was written and I know I will go back and read those parts again and again. So while I didn't love everything about this, I can find no regret that I read it, and I will always remember One.

This story didn't resonate with me as much as it should have done, as much as it will with you, but for the writing alone I have to own and cherish this book forever. Read this book - you won't regret it! (Well, you might, at the end, when you're crying...)

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world building ★★★☆☆

Writing ★★★★★+

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