Title:

Author: Jennifer Brown

Genre: YA Contemporary

Publication Date: May 21, 2013

Source: ARC received in a trade

Synopsis: Ashleigh’s boyfriend, Kaleb, is about to leave for college, and Ashleigh is worried that he’ll forget about her while he’s away. So at a legendary end-of-summer pool party, Ashleigh’s friends suggest she text him a picture of herself — sans swimsuit — to take with him. Before she can talk herself out of it, Ashleigh strides off to the bathroom, snaps a photo in the full-length mirror, and hits “send.”

But when Kaleb and Ashleigh go through a bad breakup, Kaleb takes revenge by forwarding the text to his baseball team. Soon the photo has gone viral, attracting the attention of the school board, the local police, and the media. As her friends and family try to distance themselves from the scandal, Ashleigh feels completely alone — until she meets Mack while serving her court-ordered community service. Not only does Mack offer a fresh chance at friendship, but he’s the one person in town who received the text of Ashleigh’s photo — and didn’t look.

Acclaimed author Jennifer Brown brings readers a gripping novel about honesty and betrayal, redemption and friendship, attraction and integrity, as Ashleigh finds that while a picture may be worth a thousand words . . . it doesn’t always tell the whole story.

☆: 4/5 stars – Comes dangerously close to after-school-special territory, but it’s still a good novel.

If it weren’t for the main character of this novel sharing my name and unusual spelling (I can recall two other books/series using my name and that’s it), I probably wouldn’t have read it. People read books for all sorts of unusual reasons, so I guess it doesn’t matter in the end. What does matter is that I read the novel and I’m glad I did. It’s not enough to make me purchase Brown’s backlist, but it isn’t a novel I’ll be getting rid of anytime soon.

Sexting is a difficult topic to tackle and make approachable at the same time because it takes very little to make it feel like an after-school special. Thousand Words veers dangerously close to such territory due to characters that lack depth for the most part. It almost feels as if they exist just to get this message across, which isn’t how it should work. Then there are moments that make the experience too real, like the fauxpology Kaleb gives Ashleigh. It’s clear both in and out of the text that he isn’t sorry and he’s using an apology likely written by his lawyer to try and get some leniency. That’s something that goes beyond sexting scandals and permeates real life more than any of us care to remember.

Like the story itself, Ashleigh as a character feels like a cautionary tale in most moments, but the fauxpology brought up above was one of her shining moments, as was her confrontation with Rachel. She indulges in a little slut-shaming, but she only does it when Rachel does it first in a pejorative way and she always uses in a challenging way, not to put other girls down. THIS is how you use it in a story, people, especially when the novel has to do with sex and it seems slut-shaming is inevitable.

The novel is short and weaves together the aftermath of Ashleigh’s community service sentence with the events that led to her sentence, but it can feel a little slow sometimes. The moments are rare, so that’s okay. Also, one thing I love about this book? No romance! Sure, the jacket copy implies she’s going to have a romance with Mack, but she doesn’t. They develop a friendship that might become a romance after the novel’s end, but we’ll never know. Also, funny thing: we don’t learn in-novel that Mack got the text but didn’t look until the very last pages. Either way, Brown recognized this wasn’t a book that needed a romance. A round of applause for the lady! Agents and publishers, please pay attention.

Like I said, this isn’t enough to make me seek out Brown’s backlist like a wolf who hasn’t had fresh rabbit in weeks, but if she can write a novel with a premise that appeals to me on more than just the basis of a character’s name, I’m willing to read it. I can definitely see why she’s such a popular YA writer and keeps getting deals for more books: she knows what she’s writing about.

“Waiting  On Wednesday”

Here’s what we’re waiting on this Wednesday:

USAGI:

♡ Title: “Unhinged (Splintered #2)”

♡ Author: AG Howard

♡ Release Date: January 7, 2014 (North America)

♡ Publisher: Abrams/Amulet

♡ Synopsis: Alyssa Gardner has been down the rabbit hole and faced the bandersnatch. She saved the life of Jeb, the guy she loves, and escaped the machinations of the disturbingly seductive Morpheus and the vindictive Queen Red. Now all she has to do is graduate high school and make it through prom so she can attend the prestigious art school in London she’s always dreamed of.

That would be easier without her mother, freshly released from an asylum, acting overly protective and suspicious. And it would be much simpler if the mysterious Morpheus didn’t show up for school one day to tempt her with another dangerous quest in the dark, challenging Wonderland—where she (partly) belongs.

As prom and graduation creep closer, Alyssa juggles Morpheus’s unsettling presence in her real world with trying to tell Jeb the truth about a past he’s forgotten. Glimpses of Wonderland start to bleed through her art and into her world in very disturbing ways, and Morpheus warns that Queen Red won’t be far behind.

If Alyssa stays in the human realm, she could endanger Jeb, her parents, and everyone she loves. But if she steps through the rabbit hole again, she’ll face a deadly battle that could cost more than just her head.

♡ Why?: I absolutely LOVED “Splintered” (seriously one of my favorite debuts of the year!) so I’m so, so happy there’s a sequel coming out. I can’t wait to meet these characters and this world all over again, and I’d probably give my firstborn for an ARC. Wink wink.

ASHLEIGH:

♡ Title: The Twice Lost

♡ Author: Sarah Porter

♡ Release Date: July 2, 2013

♡ Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

♡ Synopsis: Mermaids have been sinking ships and drowning humans for centuries, and now the government is determined to put an end to the mermaid problem—by slaughtering all of them. Luce, a mermaid with exceptionally threatening abilities, becomes their number-one target, hunted as she flees down the coast toward San Francisco.

There she finds hundreds of mermaids living in exile under the docks of the bay. These are the Twice Lost: once-human girls lost first when a trauma turned them into mermaids, and lost a second time when they broke mermaid law and were rejected by their tribes. Luce is stunned when they elect her as their leader. But she won’t be their queen. She’ll be their general. And they will become the Twice Lost Army—because this is war.

♡ Why?: The first two books in Porter’s Lost Voices trilogy really surprised me with how creative and girl-centric they are! Waking Storms in particular took me by surprise with its brutal ending and I’m dying to see how it turns out.

What are you waiting on this Wednesday?

Author: Bennett Madison

Genre: Fairy Tales Retold, NO STARS FOR YOU, YA Contemporary, Mermaids

Publication Date: May 21, 2013 (HarperTeen – North America)

Source: Publisher-provided ARC

Summary: When Sam’s dad whisks him and his brother off to a remote beach town for the summer, he’s all for it– at first. Sam soon realizes, though, that this place is anything but ordinary. Time seems to slow down around here, and everywhere he looks, there are beautiful blond girls. Girls who seem inexplicably drawn to him.

Then Sam meets DeeDee, one of the Girls, and she’s different from the others. Just as he starts to fall for her, she pulls away, leaving him more confused than ever. He knows that if he’s going to get her back, he’ll have to uncover the secret of this beach and the girls who live here

☆: 0.5/5 stars – painfully sexist and had me raging like no tomorrow.

Review:  Originally, this was going to be a NO STARS FOR YOU BOOK. Seriously. It had me that angry, and baffled that Kirkus (among others) gave it a starred review. It was really a “I can’t even, what is this?” moment. And then I looked a little deeper, and saw a little bit of redemptive qualities to this story. But only half a star’s worth. Seriously. While I will admit Madison can write, I cannot in any kind of good conscience recommend “September Girls” – which is really a shame since I had high hopes for it months ago.

The said redemptive qualities: the Girls’ monologues up until the one before chapter seven, which I’ll be getting to in a bit. I have no doubt that Madison can write gorgeous magical realism that can easily leave people confused (hey, it happens) – and maybe that’s what Kirkus and company were looking at when they gave this thing a starred review. There is an eerie quality to the Girls’ monologues up until that fateful pre-chapter seven monologue, one that does feel unearthly and utterly inhuman. That’s my kind of style, and I love it when authors can give me chills like that with their magical realism, so I can’t deny him that. Bro can write when he really puts his mind to it, and when he leaves the savage sexism out of things.

HOWEVER.

There’s the issue of tapping into a very primal male fear: that of the vagina dentata (the vagina with teeth, said to eat penises during sex). The particular Girls’ monologue right before chapter seven really kind of reflects that. It talks in particular of the Girls having to survive after Daddy throws them out of the sea, and what they have in their proverbial tool kit in order to do so. We’ve had hints before this in previous monologues – such as, “You always find us. You always break our hearts” and so forth, making us think that they really do need human men to survive (and human women are totally out of the equation). Beauty is mentioned as a weapon, and how it’s used to survive on land. Very oblique references to the vagina dentata are made the most in this monologue – which I find interesting that no one else so far has seemed to really pick up. Beauty is “the knife” that allows them to eat, to survive, and to live off of human males. The Girls even mention their names given to them by human men as being sexist (not explicitly but with the choice of names, it’s made pretty obvious) and how they’ve used that to their advantage.

Which really? Kind of explains at least a little of the rampant, borderline-cruel sexism in this book. Which is not an excuse, nor a pardon for the author’s choice in how he wrote this book – merely a desperate reason to find something to salvage within it.
As for the rest: flabbergastingly sexist, rampantly anti-feminist, and just plain painful to read, I can’t recommend “September Girls”. Analyzing it when you know you’re going to rage about it is fun, but it doesn’t make for easy or pleasant reading. And as much as I’m for unlikeable characters, this just went over the top, and by chapter  seven, I was 500% done. I just couldn’t read any further.

But that’s just how I feel about it – I will admit I’m one in the very large chorus panning this book because of its sexism, but the panning is deserved. “September Girls” is out now from HarperTeen in North America, so if you so dare, check it out when you get the chance and see how you feel about this book.

Author: Natalie Whipple

Genre: Alternate Universe/Parallel Timeline, Sci-Fi, YA Contemporary

Publication Date: May 21, 2013 (HarperTeen – North America)

Source: Publisher-provided ARC/Edelweiss Review Copy

Summary: Plenty of teenagers feel invisible. Fiona McClean actually is.

An invisible girl is a priceless weapon. Fiona’s own father has been forcing her to do his dirty work for years—everything from spying on people to stealing cars to breaking into bank vaults.

After sixteen years, Fiona’s had enough. She and her mother flee to a small town, and for the first time in her life, Fiona feels like a normal life is within reach. But Fiona’s father isn’t giving up that easily.

Of course, he should know better than anyone: never underestimate an invisible girl.

☆: 2/5 stars – a great premise, but just didn’t deliver.

Review: I was really excited when the blurb for this book went up late last year – I love anything with the mafia in YA and of course, superheroes/X-Men sort of stories and it sounded like “Transparent” would definitely be the book for me. Sadly, there was so much that needed to be done, and at least another two or three drafts written to smooth everything out even at the ARC stage of things that I just didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d expected to. However, it’s not without its fun bits, so I’d recommend it as a book you’d want on a rainy day, or something to read in about one sitting. It just didn’t entirely work for me.

My biggest issue with this book: the underdevelopment of nearly every technical aspect of this story. I don’t mind having unlikeable characters in my books – if anything, I welcome the challenge to see how they make their transformation by the end of the story. But there was no real significant progress here for anyone, and it felt for long periods of time the story just didn’t go anywhere. We waited and waited, but there was a lot of talking, and not a lot of action. I will give it to Whipple – she does know how to keep the pressure on the characters going with the threat of Daddy coming to bring everyone back to Vegas, but even there, I felt like the tension could have been ramped up more than just one scene with Graham flat-out abusing Fiona in front of his younger brother and mother. Which triggered me. But we won’t go into that. Just a warning: those with a domestic violence or dub-con trigger? This may not be the book for you.

The world – while interesting with the alternate universe retelling of what happened during/after the Cold War, and how it ended up in quite a few people having supernatural abilities, that too was underdeveloped. We only get a few sentences as a quick infodump at the beginning, but nothing more. I feel like Whipple could have woven more of the backstory of the world in throughout the story, and connected it a little more deeply with the characters. There is an attempt with this as to explaining how Fiona’s invisibility worked, but it’s rather poor in consistency and continuity. In David Levithan and Andrea Cremer’s “Invisibility”, we too have an MC that’s been born invisible, but at least he has a vague idea of what his face is like once he’s able to see it. Fiona doesn’t. At all. Whatsoever – and this is surprising, because there are quite a few things seem to trigger “seeing” what Fiona may look like (water on her skin, or sunscreen), yet we don’t really get to see her, and neither does she. Which was kind of ridiculous. There was so much telling over showing, I wanted to scream.

The world badly needed more development in terms of the mutation backstory, and the YA contemp world of Arizona just kind of barely passed muster. Add to the characters, which were very flimsily constructed. I feel like Bea and her brothers were really just kind of propping up Fiona with her desire to be a normal girl and to fight off the terror of being brought back to Daddy – they didn’t feel significantly developed, and they also have a one-sentence backstory as to why their family isn’t working for her father’s competition. Brady just kind of felt like an inserted love interest because he was attractive (thankfully, not exactly insta-love, but it got close). There was also a pseudo-kind-of-I-can’t-really-decide-if-I-want-to-write-it love triangle going on between Fiona, Brady, and Seth – even now I’m still pretty confused as to how that made it into the book without further clarification by an editor.

However, this book isn’t without its fun moments – the superpowers in action themselves were really fun to watch (I think my favorite was the kid who literally smelled like crap when he got scared), and the first few opening chapters with Fiona and her mother on the job were quite exciting. But it needed a lot more showing in general, as the sensory language was barely there. But those fun moments? They were worth it.
The triggers, though, were the ones that got me the most. Usually, dub-con (dubious consent) doesn’t bother me much if it makes sense as to how the character who’s giving their dubious consent actually works and functions as how they’re constructed. But instead, this is explained away again with Fiona’s father and his ability as a Charmer – basically, a male siren sans fins and stuff – convincing any woman he sees fit to do his dirty work. We’re not even really sure if this is confined to women alone as it wasn’t entirely explained. And then there’s the domestic violence trigger – yes, we know Graham is a thug, and we know that Mom is still in PTSD mode from being with Fiona’s father and being used and abused by him for years, but even Miles, who’s resistant to Charm and escapes Graham’s wrath, doesn’t seem to say a thing when Graham goes and nearly kills Fiona for a very small thing. It was incredibly hard scene for me to read – and Whipple did that scene very well. If you’re making me uncomfortable, you know the author is doing their job. But all the same, there needed to be more scenes full of tension like that one, just a little less triggery. More vividity, but less outright violence against women, please.

Final verdict? As I absolutely love the premise, I’m giving it an extra star, but the execution was poor and really needed a few more drafts and more editing to make everything make more sense. However, that’s just how I feel about it – along with the triggers, it just wasn’t for me. “Transparent” is out now in North America, so be sure to check it out when you get the chance and come to your own conclusions about this story.

Title:

Author: Saundra Mitchell

Genre: YA Contemporary, Paranormal, Coming-of-Age, Historical Fiction

Publication Date: June 4, 2013

Source: Amazon Vine-provided ARC

Summary: Kate Witherspoon has lived a bohemian life with her artist parents. In 1917, the new art form of the motion picture is changing entertainment—and Kate is determined to become a director.

Meanwhile, midwestern farm boy Julian Birch has inherited the wanderlust that fueled his parents’ adventures. A childhood bout with polio has left him crippled, but he refuses to let his disability define him.

Strangers driven by a shared vision, Kate and Julian set out separately for Los Angeles, the city of dreams. There, they each struggle to find their independence. When they finally meet, the teenage runaways realize their true magical legacy: the ability to triumph over death, and over time. But as their powerful parents before them learned, all magic comes with a price.

☆: 2.5/5 stars – …I don’t know what to say, especially concerning the ending.

Neither The Vespertine nor The Springsweet were perfect novels, but they numbed my brain for a while and I enjoyed them for the most part. The Elementals, which focuses on the children of the heroines from each of the past two books, is in an entirely different ballpark compared to the two novels that preceded it in the trilogy. It’s got an ending you won’t easily forget, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.

The Elementals is almost everything its predecessors aren’t; it’s told in third-person and moves among multiple people instead of being told in static first-person. The main characters struggle with abilities that allow them to control death and time instead of discovering powers tied to the elements like their parents’ were. Where the previous two novels had some semblance of a plot, The Elementals is sadly bereft of a focus. All they have in common is the length and Mitchell’s lovely prose. The switch to third-person seemed odd at first, but it’s easy to adjust to.

The narration moves between about five people/groups: Kate, Julian, Kate’s parents, Julian’s parents, and Caleb (if you remember who he is and his role, you are better than me because I forgot). It gives us a wider scope of their world, their gifts, their struggles, and where the characters we followed through books one and two went, but it seems to mainly serve to fluff up the book. So little is going on that this should be a novella focused solely on Kate and Julian, not a novel. There’s not enough going on to justify a novel.

Also? Kate is bisexual. Don’t you dare try to tell me otherwise even if you’re Saundra Mitchell herself! (Kidding! Maybe.) Her fascination with Mollie seems to go a little beyond a director’s fascination with her muse and there’s also one paragraph in particular I’d use as evidence. Whether this is just a case of imprecise writing or genuine, it’s difficult to ignore this passage:

“Two black-eyed twins in Cyprus witched water together: the girl leaned toward heat and steam, the boy toward cold and ice. They taught Kate to ice-skate on a white-sand beach and to kiss beneath an olive tree, which made for a lovely summer indeed (ARC p. 111).”

Considering the times and how one woman loudly complains when Kate (everyone thinks she’s a man because of how she dresses) talks about kissing boys, that there’s no solid confirmation of her bisexuality, but I follow the subtext and the subtext says yes yes yes.

It takes about 200 pages for our two leads to finally meet and once they do, there are only 90 to 100 pages left in the novel. The ending is just… Weird. You’ll remember it because it’s just that weird, but it’s not a good ending. I needed to read it twice to understand what was going on and after that, I simply stared at it. Very… anticlimactic, I want to say? It’s difficult to find the right words to describe it without spoiling it for anyone. Big fans of the series won’t want to miss this, but they might want to go in with their expectations adjusted.

•Grab your current read

•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week’s teaser comes from “The Savage Blue (Vicious Deep #2)” by Zoraida Cordova (USAGI):

Kurt takes one step closer.  Whatever he’s going to say is interrupted by blue and purple blurs.

It’s the Urchin Brothers, pulling sails and tying ropes to create a bit of shade. When they stop running around, you can see their true shapes. Their almond-shaped eyes are big  and black, like their gums, which freaked me out when Blue woke me up this morning. True to their name, the Urchin Brothers have spiky heads that are surprisingly soft to the touch.

Note: don’t mess with an urchin’s head of hair, either.

This week’s teaser comes from Dance of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin (ASHLEIGH):

“I’m not complaining,” he says. “It’s nice, sitting here with you. Much warmer.” I shift to see if his expression is as sincere as his voice sounds, and our faces are so close. I should turn away, but I don’t.

I kiss him.

An owl hoots somewhere in the trees above us. Elliott twists so that we’re lying on the ground. For a brief moment, all I can think is that it’s different than it’s been with him before. He raises my chin with his hand, and he’s frustratingly gentle, as if he wants this moment to go on and on. And it does. It’s a very long time before I pull back to take a ragged breath.

“We have to find a way to get some privacy,” he whispers. “Soon.”

Author: Mats Strandberg & Sara Bergmark Elfgren

Genre: YA contemporary, UF, paranormal, Horror

Publication Date: May 7, 2013 (Overlook – North America)

Source: Publisher-provided ARC

Summary: On a night after the apparent suicide of high school student Elias Malmgren, a blood-red moon fills the night sky. Minoo wakes up outside her house, still in her pajamas, and is drawn by an invisible force to an abandoned theme park on the outskirts of town. Soon five of her classmates–Vanessa, Linnea, Anna-Karin, Rebecka and Ida–arrive, compelled the same force. A mystical being takes over Ida’s body and tells them they are fated to fight an ancient evil that is hunting them. The park is a safe haven; the school, a place of danger. The six are wildly different and definitely not friends…but they are the Chosen Ones.

As the weeks pass, each girl discovers she has a unique magical ability. They begin exploring their powers, but they are not all firmly committed to their mission–to discover the truth about Elias’s death. Then a horrible tragedy strikes within the circle. Newly determined to fight the evil forces, they begin to learn magic from The Book of Patterns, an ancient work with a will of its own that reveals different things to different witches.

☆: 3.5/5 stars – “The Craft” meets “The Secret Circle”, Swedish-style.

Review: So, “The Circle”. An interesting mix of “The Craft” and “The Secret Circle”, that’s not afraid to make fun of itself. I can see why John Ajvide Lindqvist blurbed this book – it’s got a certain mystery to it that also inhabits his books, but at the same time, I think there was a bit lost in translation. At least, at the ARC stage of things (which is what I got from the US publisher). But this book really isn’t just about teenage witches – it’s as Lindqvist says in his blurb – people learning how to deal with other people, and that is perhaps the best part of this book. While I feel like a lot could have been cut from this book with affecting nothing, it is what it is. “The Circle” is a taste of life in a small Swedish town, with teenagers against teenagers, learning how to deal with each other and their new-found abilities all at the same time.

My biggest problem with this book: the translation. As a translator myself, I can say regardless of what language I’m trying to work with, all translators deal with the same issue – trying not to make text read as “translatese”, and instead as fluid, coherent English. Unfortunately, this version of “The Circle” (I haven’t checked the final UK version so I don’t have anything really solid to compare it to) was full of translatese, and I know that this is because there were probably a lot of Swedish pieces of text that just couldn’t be worked into English any easier than what we got. That, or the editor just let it slip – and both of these two scenarios are totally possible. The result? It made good chunks of this book a little hard to read and to proceed smoothly along to the next part. That, and the fact that there were long parts of this book that could have been cut in the Swedish edition with the content not suffering one bit for those missing bits. There’s just too many scenes where not a lot (or anything at all) happened, and those could have been cut.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed “The Circle”, if just for the fact it puts together six girls who really do NOT get along, and makes them have to work together in the common goal of preventing a huge evil from making its way into our world. Not an easy task – especially when they’re all along the social spectrum. There are some that have bullied the others in the past, and there’s a very “The Craft” sense about some of the characters’ actions in order to get back at those who hurt them with their new power. That being said, there’s a LOT of characters to keep track of – our six protags, along with the Principal, the caretaker, parents, other friends, and so forth spinning a huge world within this tiny backwater Swedish town, which I found very impressive. With each girl comes her own demons and her own struggles, and I thought that the authors did a really good job of interweaving their stories, and showing us where they all intersected, and how they learn to deal with the fact that they’re all Chosen Ones, and they all need to work together, otherwise demons will come to this world and wreak havoc. But hey, no pressure, right?

I think one of my favorite parts was the world, and how the setting of the town of Engelfors became an antagonist. Even though it’s just one little sleepy town, the characters help really build it (the authors rely on the relationship-web school of worldbuilding, connecting everyone to create the world further than what’s just fixed as the basic setting) into this place where the past (witch burnings, really needed to give us more information on that but because this is a trilogy, I’m going to let it slide) haunts now, and helps create this thin membrane between humanity and demons, witches and regular teenagers that works both against the demons, and against the witches, along with the regular teenagers just trying to get along in this town until they come of age, get out of school, and become eligible to get the hell out of there to somewhere larger.
I think everyone can relate to that. Another thing I like about this book is the relatability – I think everyone can relate to so many moments in this book, because it’s the stuff of being a teenager, trying to figure out how to interact with others in this world along with discovering who you yourself really are all at the same time. That’s why I think it’s so beloved in its home country – because it’s something you can relate to, regardless of your age as a reader/the audience. You can say you’ve been there, even if your own situation hasn’t exactly been the same.

Final verdict? I think I’ll be sticking around for book two, but I’m really hoping Overlook gets the translatese problem solved for it. It’s a long, long book, but the ending (while semi-anticlimactic) is very well worth the wait. “The Circle” is now out in North America, so be sure to check it out when you get the chance.

Confused by some of the terms I use in this feature? See Week 1 for clarification on my most commonly used terms.

And now, to this week’s US and Japanese choices!

Week 34 (US Release): “D. Gray-Man: Volume 1″ by Hoshino Katsura

Title: “D. Gray-Man: Volume 1″

Author/Artist: Hoshino Katsura

US Publisher: Viz

Genre: Shounen, Paranormal, Steampunk, Alternate Universes/Parallel Timelines

Publication Date: May 2, 2006 (North America)

Summary: Set in a fictional end of the 19th century England, it’s the story of Allen Walker, a 15-year-old boy who roams the Earth in search of Innocence. Washed away to unknown parts of the world after The Great Flood, Innocence is the mysterious substance used to create weapons that obliterate demons known as akuma.

A born exorcist, Walker’s primary anti-akuma weapon is the cross that’s embossed on his red and disfigured left hand, which contains Innocence. But not only does Walker destroy akuma, he sees the akuma hiding inside a person’s soul! Together with his fellow exorcists fighting under the command of the Black Order, Walker leads the battle against the Millennium Earl, the evil being out to destroy mankind.

Usagi’s Take: An oldie but goody, “D.Gray-Man” is one of my go-to series when I can’t find anything new to read. While it’s not entirely one of my absolute favorites, I really really like this series. There’s a little something for everyone in this series – magic, romance, an alternate universe for the 19th century. This is a very fun series, and it hasn’t yet worn out its welcome in the manga world in either country, which is refreshing from a Jump magazine title. I would love another season of anime, though! Highly recommended!

Week 34 (Japanese Release) – “Amanchu!: Volume 1″ by Amano Kozue

Title: “Amanchu!: Volume 1″

Author/Artist: Amano Kozue

Publisher: Mag Garden

Genre: Comedy, Slice of Life, Seinen

Publication Date: 2008

Summary: Hikari Kohinata is a cheerful 15 year-old girl who lives near the ocean and she spends much of her time diving as a result. On her first day of high school, she meets a teacher who also likes scuba diving. There’s also a 16 year-old classmate, Futaba, who gets dragged along in Hikari’s maelstrom as soon as they meet at school. Most of the manga so far details the relationship between the two girls, which quickly seems to move into romantic two girl friendship-territory. (via myanimelist)

Usagi’s Take: From one of my favorite seinen manga artists, who created “Aqua” and its sequel, “Aria”, which is one of my all-time favorite series comes this really fun, carefree series that reminded me why I love this mangaka so much in the first place. With absolutely gorgeous art and snappy dialogue that will immediately make you love all of the characters in this series, while it’s not “Aria”, is still damned good. I’m quite behind on it, but I love Hikari and her crew (if Yotsuba from “Yotsubato!” grew up, she’d be Hikari – that’s my headcanon), and it’s one of those “comfort food” sort of manga that one can read when you’re feeling bad and feel better immediately. Here’s hoping someone picks this up for NA license and distro soon – it definitely deserves it!

What about you? Do you read manga? If so, feel free to participate with your own manga monday segment and link up in the comments section!

Author: Anne Applegate

Genre: YA contemporary, thriller, mystery, paranormal, urban fantasy

Publication Date: April 30, 2013 (Scholastic – North America)

Source: NetGalley Review Copy

Summary: What is this prep school preparing them for?

Camden Fisher arrives at boarding school haunted by a falling-out with her best friend back home. But the manicured grounds of Lethe Academy are like nothing Cam has ever known. There are gorgeous, preppy boys wielding tennis rackets, and circles of girls with secrets to spare. Only . . . something is not quite right. One of Cam’s new friends mysteriously disappears, but the teachers don’t seem too concerned. Cam wakes up to strangers in her room, who then melt into the night. She is suddenly plagued by odd memories, and senses there might be something dark and terrible brewing. But what?

☆: 1/5 stars – just…go back into the oven until you’ve cooked into a better book.

Review: I don’t think I’ve had much look with Point books yet. But, okay, let’s get on with this. At first glance, “The Last Academy” and its blurb sucked me in. Boarding schools? YEAH! Middle school protags? Okay, cool. Weird stuff happening? Yes please. But the blurb is probably the best part of this book, which is the saddest part of all. I wish I could recommend “The Last Academy”, but I just can’t.

Where to start? Even at the ARC point of things, this book really needed at least two more drafts to get really readable. All of the technical areas BADLY needed work – even the dialogue, which is something rare that I find a flaw in. Usually if there’s even just one other technical area that’s somewhat stronger, I can let the dialogue slide just a bit. But here, it just stuck out more – from the first sentence, which should ideally hook the audience, it was awkward and stilted, and just felt like the author was trying to write what a young teenager would say.
Second: the MC. She’s said to be 14, but she sounds at most like a very young 13. The character building for all of the characters up until I DNFd this was nearly non-existent, and they all felt so very 1D it nearly physically hurt. Also, we have her boyfriend talking down to her, and the author actual dumbs down the MC for the audience – which really just broke the camel’s back for me since everything else (non-existent sensory language, shoddy worldbuilding) just wasn’t there.

One of my huge pet peeves within writing is dumbing down characters or ideas for the audience to digest. Seriously, guys, even kids aren’t as simple as you think they are. There’s also writing down to the audience, which occurs here.

While I did like the idea of this plot of vague supernatural mystery, it needed to start getting clearer the further we went through the book. It didn’t. It stayed vague, and thus, really didn’t develop, or help the characters develop in every way.

So, as I said before – needed at least two more drafts before getting to the ARC point of things because this felt more like first draft material. So disappointing, and I had high hopes for this one.

But that’s just how I feel about it. “The Last Academy” is out now from Scholastic in North America, so be sure to check it out when you get the chance. Hopefully it’ll work better for you than it did for me.

Author: Jessi Kirby

Genre: YA Contemporary, Grief, Road Trip,

Publication Date: May 8, 2012

Source: Bought

Synopsis: Honor receives her brother’s last letter from Iraq three days after learning that he died, and opens it the day his fellow Marines lay the flag over his casket. Its contents are a complete shock: concert tickets to see Kyra Kelly, her favorite pop star and Finn’s celebrity crush. In his letter, he jokingly charged Honor with the task of telling Kyra Kelly that he was in love with her.

Grief-stricken and determined to grant Finn’s last request, she rushes to leave immediately. But she only gets as far as the driveway before running into Rusty, Finn’s best friend since third grade and his polar opposite. She hasn’t seen him in ages, thanks to a falling out between the two guys, but Rusty is much the same as Honor remembers him: arrogant, stubborn . . . and ruggedly good-looking. Neither one is what the other would ever look for in a road trip partner, but the two of them set off together, on a voyage that makes sense only because it doesn’t. Along the way, they find small and sometimes surprising ways to ease their shared loss and honor Finn–but when shocking truths are revealed at the end of the road, will either of them be able to cope with the consequences?

☆: 4/5 stars – Just as good as I expected it to be!

After the amazeballs, sobworthy novel named Golden, I knew I needed Kirby’s two other novels. This was the easier one to get between it and Moonglass, so I bought it recently. I was also in the mood for something short, so I started reading this when I really should have been staying on my reading schedule (which has suddenly happened due to book explosion). This falls just short of matching Golden‘s majesty and emotional touch, but it’s a fun novel nonetheless. Not just fun, really. Great!

It’s the kind of book that makes you alternately laugh and cry. The first chapter’s funeral scene made me genuinely cry and captured the sadness of being a slain soldier’s little sister when she’s forced to take the flag at his funeral. While they’re on the road, there are plenty of mournful moments when they talk about Finn and what he meant to each of them. The scene toward the end with the paper lanterns going out to sea? Borderline sob material.

It’s not a sad book, though. There are plenty of laughs too! Like the story of how Finn and Rusty figured out Honor’s prom date was the same dress size as her (the guy being a size two in women’s is a bit of a stretch, but I’ll go with it) and made her try on the dress Honor eventually wore to prom. It even tapped into my nostalgic love of the Suwannee River with the scene at the creek. There’s no counting how many people swung on a rope and jumped into the Suwannee the way Rusty and Honor did the same for their creek. In runs the whole gamut of emotions, really.

Honor is a bit difficult to connect to at first because she’s so obsessed with her strange little quest to get to California and see Kyra Kelley, but once she and Rusty are out on the road and hashing out their differences, it’s easier to see the girl beneath the obsessive quest and the grief. It took me a while to get to liking Rusty too, but once it was explained why he snapped at her the way he did sometimes, it all made sense.

What stops this from being a five-star novel is Honor herself, sadly. Her moment of slut-shaming in particular. When talking about a girl Rusty hooked up with in the back of a car on homecoming night, she calls her slutty. Really? REALLY? No. Not cool. The only time I deal with that kind of stuff is when it’s in a book that deals with sex (due to our culture, it’s going to happen; I want to see it challenged, though) or the issue of slut-shaming itself. Come on, it was so CLOSE. This is why slut-shaming ain’t cool: it might be all that keeps you from a glowing five-star review from a woman who rarely gives them.

I bought Kirby’s debut novel Moonglass on a bookstore trip earlier today and I’m going to try my best to fit it into reading schedule between ARCs. Then I’ll be caught up on her backlist! Fans of contemporary YA who aren’t already reading her books should start doing so right now.