Day 21 by Kass Morgan

At first I thought that Day 21 had the misfortune of being weighed down by the superior TV show- to read this book, even after reading the first, is to call to mind how different the show is from the original material, and also how much better the show seems in comparison. However, as I continued and got to the end I was once again hooked almost against my better judgement. I am not sure how Kass Morgan accomplishes this, but she does. Despite the fact that none of the characters listen worth a damn and honestly have very little depth to speak of, the story is still extremely captivating in its way. It's written well, if not spectacularly; the TV Clarke is portrayed with much more strength and character than the literary version but is still somehow likable. I have hated Bellamy in the the books, and this sequel does only a little to improve my feelings. So taken on its own merits, both the first and second book in what I assume will be a trilogy or series are extremely entertaining if not a masterpiece of literature. I call these books bubblegum books because they are great when you are reading them but they quickly lose their flavor and you forget about them quickly. If not for the TV bolstering the series I would fear for the story but I think this series will do just fine. Definitely worth the read. I consider it an improvement from the first; my only suggestion is that if you watch the CW series, re-read the first book to re-introduce yourself to the story. The two are vastly different. I found myself missing a few characters that are in the show but now in the books. 

Tear You Apart by Sarah Cross

*based on an ARC edition (out January 15, 2015)


Tear You Apart is the follow-up to Sarah Cross's Kill Me Softly, which are both set in the fairy tale driven town of Belle Rivage. Everyone who lives there have been Cursed by either evil fairies or Good fairies, and they are destined to carry out these fairy tales curses, no matter how hard they try to fight against it. Some have the Sombulence curses, like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty- and our two main female characters in either book have one of those. Some have the Rumplestilskin curse, some have the Beauty and the Beast curse, but they all know they have it and that one day they will be forced to live the tale out to it's conclusion. In Tear You Apart we follow Viv and Henley, a Snow White and her Huntsman. We met them in the first book, and we know that this Curse is so much more complicated then your average girl meets boy, boy is fated to cut out girl's heart kind of tale. Viv and Henley are in love, but as they get older they get closer to the inevitable conclusion- one day soon Viv's stepmother will task Henley with taking Viv out into the woods and cutting out her heart. How can love survive that? When it becomes apparent that the her stepmother Regina is about to finish the curse, Viv runs to the Underworld, which is less a place for the dead and more just another kingdom with it's own curses and secrets. There's always a prince in these tales, and Viv's prince-the one who is fated to save her from her cursed sleep-got tired of waiting for her to die and offers her protection in his castle as his princess. With no other choice but to flee, Viv does; but her heart, still intact, still only belongs to her Huntsman. Once she arrives she discovers there is much more than meets the eye in this castle- the king of the Underworld is a Rumplestilskin troll, and not a very nice guy. She's trapped now, and the only way to get out and to salvage her own future is to finish the tale. 

I truly enjoyed both Kill Me Softly and Tear You Apart. I loved thinking about these fairy tale characters- the real ones, by the way, from the Grimm stories and not Disney- living in this place. I never really thought about what it would be like to know you have this destiny and are fairly powerless to stop it. But I think the moral of these two stories is that if you fight hard enough you can weave your own tale, and it can have the ending of your choosing. I loved these characters, and the stories, and I especially enjoyed the mention of how dark the Grimm tales really were. Red-hot iron shoes. Sleeping Beauty wasn't always woken up with a kiss, if you get my drift. These were terrifying stories. So I loved how it was all portrayed and they were both excellently written. A definite must for everyone who loves a good tale. 

A Song For Ella Grey by David Almond

*based on an ARC edition

Not being British it took me a little bit to get used to the different way of punctuation and how the author wrote the dialog essentially phonetically (so the characters read in a Northern England accent) but once I got through that I fell in love. This is a book about love. It is a retelling of the Greek tale of Orpheus and Eurydice (Eurydice in this case being our titular Ella Grey) and it is of course about the love between Orpheus and Ella, an insane, magical, cosmic event; but it also more about the love of Ella's best friend Claire who narrates the story. She is the one who bears the tale because she says she must as she knew them both. But more she was in love with Ella as much as Orpheus ever could be. Anyone familiar with the myth knows how things end up and as with all Greek tales it isn't happy. So we know that there is loss and pain and magic but more than anything what touches you is Claire's love of Ella. It doesn't read as exactly romantic, but maybe it is. Some kinds of love are greater than friendship or romance, and if that was the intention of the author, to portray that of Claire and Ella, he does so admirably. I loved this book. It was written like poetry and it flowed like water over rocks. We feel through Claire Ella's love for Orpheus and his for her; we feel the pain of their loss and his struggle to retrieve Ella from the depths because only he could. Orpheus isn't even human, not really, is more Pied Piper than flesh and we feel that as we read, but at the end his loss and end is more human than anything. I highly recommend this book for just about anyone. Young or old. 

Breaking Butterflies by M. Anjelais

*based on an ARC edition

     I will say before I begin that I may not be the best audience for this book. I have degrees in psychology so the subject matter involving the sociopathic Cadence did nothing but annoy my sensibilities. I have to say with regret that I did not like or enjoy this book. Sphynx and Cadence are the children of life-long friends, their mothers having been best friends since they were seven; so much so that at seven they decided on their "life plan". This plan involved their children one day being best friends and then getting married and having children of their own. They didn't plan on Cadence being a monster. When the children were ten Cadence cuts open Sphynx's face, leaving a scar and causing his mother to take them both to live in England, away from Sphynx and her mother. When the kids were even younger, Cadence catches a butterfly and crushes it emotionlessly in his hand, only crying when he saw what the appropriate reaction was. Given my education (and people without it would probably know too) I immediately knew that the character was a sociopath. I admit I thought the story was about something else; namely a teenage couple who had an abusive relationship. This was a whole lot worse. Cadence is diagnosed with leukemia when they are 16 and asks that Sphynx come to England to see him, and for some unknown reason she agrees. Not only that she decides she has to stay until the end, even though he is nothing but cruel and terrible and on several occasions physically attacks her. She learns that he was diagnosed as a sociopath and for another unknown reason feels sorry for him. She thinks of all the emotions he can't feel and somehow thinks this is something to empathize with. Perhaps this is because the author was very young, but sociopaths cannot miss what they never had. The author paints the character of Cadence as someone to sympathize with, but that is akin to feeling sorry for Ted Bundy because he killed all those people. The final straw for me was that for quite some time Sphynx debates killing herself to die with him simply because he tells her they are meant to die together. This is ridiculous and made me really dislike her character. Then she tells him she loves him, because, presumably, she heard a line in a song that said "love means watching someone die". There was not even one aspect of Cadence worth such emotion, and if someone had such emotion that person would also be mentally ill. So while I very rarely give very bad reviews, this book unfortunately warranted one. The writing was actually very good, it was just the plot, if for no other reason than it must have been very poorly researched. And slightly dangerous. Every day a teenage girl decides she can fix the monster she loves and trust me it never goes well. They aren't all sociopaths of course, but to give the emotionless depth they don't possess is not something any author should do when writing for a teenage audience. 

Since You've Been Gone by Mary Jennifer Payne

*based on ARC edition


     Since You've Been Gone is about a girl who has been on the run with her mother 

since she was ten years old. She's never been able to take root, make true friends...fall 

in love. This last stop on the run is to London and things are even harder there than in 

her native Canada. She doesn't understand the way people speak or the way the 

streets are made or why one particular girl in her school has decided she needs to be 

crushed like a bug. And on top of it, after only a short while there her mother goes to 

work one night and never comes home. Knowing she would be put in foster care if 

someone found out Edie enlists the help of the school misfit to find her mother. I 

enjoyed Since You've Been Gone. It wasn't the best written book I have ever read but 

while it was fairly predictable, Edie and the her partner Jermaine were well-drawn out 

and empathetic. There is some social commentary on racism in England that seemed 

almost unnecessary but as I am not from there it may be a bigger problem than I know 

of. Edie and Jermaine's eventual relationship over only a couple days seemed very pat 

to me, but then that is a part of the genre. The story was, like I said, predictable, but 

somehow Ms. Payne still managed to provide a suspenseful feel to the book which I 

appreciated. Overall I would recommend this book for a quick read and a good way of 

passing some time.