Gods of Jade and Shadow, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I don't blog much in the summer anyway, but this year I've been in quite the reading funk and haven't had anything to say about books for a while. It happens, I guess. Sometimes life gets in the way of reading.

But when my friend's book came out I had to read it, of course. And if you need a book to get you out of a slump, have I got a book for you!

Gods of Jade and Shadow has to be the sweetest dark fantasy about homicidal death gods ever written! If Jazz Age meets Mayan death god sounds intriguing, I can promise you won't be disappointed: you get Mayan mythology and 1920's Mexico in equally vivid realism. The intersection of Xibalba, the Mayan underworld, with a Mexico on the verge of change is convincing, terrifying, and so much fun. Witches and demons lurk in strange mansions and the streets of Carnival; fancy new hotels can be portals to hell.

The protagonist leading you through both worlds is a clear-headed, no-nonsense dreamer with a temper that gets her in trouble and a dry, self-depreciating wit that gets her through it. Casiopea is named after a Greek myth and knows her stories, and when she accidentally resurrects a death god she takes it all in stride—after all, he's going to get her out of her grandfather's house and the drab town that "scorch[es] out dreams." And maybe, if she survives the vengeful spirits and the Black Roads of Xibalba and her ever-awful cousin Martín, she might get a chance to realize one or two of her own carefully hoarded dreams.

Hun-Kamé, Lord of Shadows and rightful ruler of Xibalba, is an equally delightful travel companion. Arrogant and careless as any god when we first meet him, he becomes more and more human as he journeys with Casiopea (due to a particularly well-done mythical plot twist). Casiopea's relationship with Hun-Kamé is the fascinating, piquant heart of the story: she fears him, stands up to him anyway, serves him, refuses to put up with his crap, chooses to stick with him, and comes to have compassion for him. The impossible romance that blooms ever-so-tentatively between them is entirely believable and beautifully bittersweet.

The writing is lovely and often quite funny. Hun-Kamé is prone to grave utterances that the other characters refuse to take seriously.

"Death enters all dwellings."
"Death has no manners."

But then sometimes he ends up being quite profound.

"Death speaks all languages."
"But I am not death."
"You wear me like a jewel upon your finger, Casiopea."

The plot has the pleasing inevitability of a folktale but the satisfaction of watching characters with agency change their world. "'Very well,'" says Casiopea at the beginning, "and with these two words she accepted her fate, horrid or wonderful as it might be." By the end of her Odyssey, she is defying gods and monsters (and the ever-awful Martín)(but even he gets some compassion, because Casiopea is just that awesome) and it turns out the fate of the world is in her hands. "'I wish you were a coward instead of a hero,'" says Hun-Kamé. But we've known from the start that Casiopea is no coward. Her triumph at the end is earned and fitting. I particularly enjoyed the form her happily-ever-after took!

If you're bored with endlessly replicated fantasy settings, annoyed with heroines whose one characteristic is spunky or kick-ass, have had it up to here with insta-love and angst—this is the book to cleanse your palate and renew your faith in speculative fiction.

Home-made corn tortillas with carnitas, queso fresco and a really spicy pico de gallo. Also a salsa made from blackened habaneros that will scorch your tongue off.

And here's some of what I've been doing instead of reading this summer:

Cross-posted on Goodreads (without the hiking photos!).

God Smites and other Muslim Girl Problems, by Ishara Deen

I read a review for this one right before I left on my Spring Break trip (can't remember which blog it was: thank you whoever you are!); since she's a Canadian author (and I'm a little patriotic) and the book was only 4.99 on Kindle, I decided to buy it (note to price-setting people: 4.99 is cheap enough that I'll buy something on a whim).

I did not regret my purchase.

God Smites is a very, very funny book about a Muslim girl who just wants to lead a normal life. Oh, and solve a murder. And maybe have a conversation with the boy she has a crush on.

Asiya's voice is so real, you can't help becoming best friends with her. Her inner and outer conflicts are achingly, hilariously believable. I loved the conversations she has with God, where she's genuinely trying to figure out the right thing to do, while justifying what she wants to do. I'm sure anyone who believes in God has the same kinds of conversations all the time. (I know I do!)(not that I've ever tried to justify breaking-and-entering, but, you know, same general idea!)

I loved that faith was presented matter-of-factly as a part of life. Asiya believes in God and is striving to live her religion. She chafes against her parents' strictness, she questions whether Satan will really appear if she's alone with a boy, she strongly dislikes her Imam (she and her friends have a great nickname for him that becomes a running joke), but she doesn't question being Muslim. It's a part of her identity and she's happy with it.

What was the last YA or children's book you read in which religion was a positive, normal part of characters' lives (what was the last book you read in which it was even mentioned??)

So, kudos for cultural and religious representation (and #OwnVoices). And for having a brown girl on the cover with her whole face showing, looking confidently out at the reader (what was the last book you saw ...). But mostly kudos for being well-written, engaging, and highly entertaining. I loved all the characters, particularly Asiya's parents, who are well-rounded and play important roles in the plot, not just as obstacles. Great relationship dynamics within her family, with her friends, and even with the other adults. The murder mystery was fun—there were a few scenarios that tested my suspension of disbelief, but any story with a teen sleuth is going to be a tad unrealistic.

There is room for a sequel, and I will be looking for it. I think Ishara Deen is going to be another Susan Juby or Eileen Cook—we've got some great humourous writers up here in Canada!

(Also you should go read the Book Wars review of this book, because it's hilarious.)

I'm going to go with fish pakoras for my food metaphor, because now that I've thought of them I'm craving some: crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, little bites of yumminess.

The Swan Riders, by Erin Bow

I was so excited to get this one in my mailbox. I loved The Scorpion Rules, and when I was offered a chance to review the sequel I had to edit all the exclamation points out of my enthusiastic reply. Erin Bow is simply an astonishing author; and this book is possibly even better than the first one (except that's actually impossible—when I reviewed The Scorpion Rules I said I wasn't sure I would reread it because of how intense it is, but I reread it before reading The Swan Riders, and loved it all to pieces even more).

Note that I will do my bestest not to spoil Swan Riders at all in this review (you really don't want it to be spoiled, trust me!), but it's impossible to talk about it without spoiling Scorpion Rules, so if you haven't read the first book, go read it now before you even look at the blurb for Swan Riders!

And if you've read Scorpion, then all you really need is this pretend blurb from E.K. Johnston:

"All the emotional punches of THE SCORPION RULES, but with horses instead of goats."

Very true. But, okay, I'll rave a bit more about it. LAST CHANCE NOT TO BE SPOILED FOR THE FIRST BOOK. Ahem. The Swan Riders starts right after the end of Scorpion.

Awesome first line:

So. It is perhaps not everyone who asks to be murdered, gets their wish, and then, three days later, finds that their most immediate problem is that they cannot ride a horse. 

Greta is riding across the Saskatchewan prairie with Talis (in Rachel's body) and two Swan Rider escorts, Francis Xavier and Sri. New characters that you will come to love with as much intensity as you loved Xia, Thandi, the Abbot, etc.  (Just so you don't get disappointed: Xia doesn't get any screen time in this book, though she's still an important emotional presence. But Elián does. Oh, Elián!)

We find out about Swan Riders—how and why they were created, their powers and limitations, why they choose to become Swan Riders, their relationship with Talis and the other AIs—and Bow has lots of room here for her trademark heartwrenching moral and existential dilemmas. Oh, Francis Xavier!

We find out more about Talis—oh, Talis! Some of the best scenes in the book are interludes from his point of view, memories that pack in a lot of world-building and explanation while being equal parts funny, creepy and heartbreaking. We meet a few more AIs, and learn more about why they are going insane (and why Greta might, if she can't get a grip on herself).

And, of course, because this is what the best science fiction does, Bow uses the idea of artificial intelligence, and Greta, who is turning into one, to explore what it means to be human. "The who of me. The why of me." What love means. Why it matters.

I said this in my CM Magazine review (I try to sound dispassionate and scholarly in these reviews, but sometimes my raving voice leaks through): Bow’s writing is elegant and exact: she illuminates rather than explains the technological and metaphysical complexities that underpin the novel, always bringing every idea back to the impact it has on an individual.

He'd seen it over and over: how a single memory rose from the organic mind, and then from the datastore, and then (reinforced, and stronger) from the organics, and then (reinforced, and stronger) . . . it was two mirrors reflecting each other. It was feedback squealing through a microphone. A single moment building to an intensity beyond what any psyche could endure.

 How could there be no circuit breaker? How could there be no grace? 

Those sentences that punch you in the gut. Lots of them in this book. (Talis learned how to "make it personal" from Erin Bow, just saying.) Lots of tense, visceral moments; lots of rock-you-back-on-your-feet plot twists. And humour, still so much humour. Talis being snarky, Elián being Elián, horses (with names like NORAD and Gordon Lightfoot) being horses.

I keep trying to write sentences that explain how wonderful Bow is at exploring really cool philosophical ideas with gripping drama, and my sentences keep getting tied up in themselves (like this one). Bow is just a master of metaphor and symbol and character and pacing, and everything, really.

The short version? If you loved Scorpion, you won't be disappointed in Swan, so just go read it already!

I've got the smell of roasting ham wafting through my house, and it's actually a good food metaphor for Swan Riders: salty, savoury, a bit smoky, meaty, all kinds of complex goodness.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, by the way! I'm thankful that we have awesome writers like Erin Bow in our beautiful country!

Exit, Pursued by a Bear, by E. K. Johnston

This Canadian YA author keeps astonishing me with every new book she writes. Her books are so completely original in setting, premise, plot, writing, that there's no way to compare them to anything else, except to other E.K. Johnston books. And this new one is completely different from anything else she's written. For one thing, it's contemporary realism. For another, it's a retelling (sort of) of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.

The Winter's Tale is one of Shakespeare's lesser-performed works, probably because the plot is kind of weird and disjointed. Johnston takes the essence of it—a queen falsely accused of infidelity, the king who refuses to believe her, and her loyal friends who stand up for her in a number of different ways—and transforms it into a YA novel about a cheerleading team captain and the friends and family who stand by her when she goes through a traumatic event. (The book blurb tells you what the event is, but I refuse to be spoilery, because knowing ahead of time what happened affected the way I read the first part of the novel, and I would spare you that if it were only up to me.)

If I were an expert on The Winter's Tale, I would probably be even more amazed at the clever things Johnston does with Shakespeare's plot, but even if you've never heard of Shakespeare, Exit, Pursued by a Bear is a brilliant, compelling story that everyone should read. It made me cry—but I was crying with happiness. The strength and fierceness of Hermione and her best friend Polly were overwhelmingly beautiful. Not to mention every other character who was there for Hermione in whatever way they were able to be, from her teammates to her devastated parents to the police officer to her therapist.

And you might say, well, it's not very realistic then, is it, because most people who go through something like this face a lot of rejection and feeling alone. And that's true. But Johnston chooses to show us what it would look like if someone did get support, and I think that's incredibly important. Hermione's healing process is slow and difficult, there's a lot of grieving that has to happen, and there are certainly people who make it worse (including the character named after the king, for obvious reasons), but this is a powerful parable that healing can happen, that an event like this does not have to define a person for the rest of their life.

I fear I am utterly failing to convey what a good book this is. (I was reading it in the bath, and I was reading for so long the bathwater got icy cold and I didn't even notice.) Hermione's voice is spot on; her friends are all real, interesting, varied people; her relationships with everyone are the messy, complicated relationships people have. I cared about every single character in the book. But, oh, Polly. Polly I loved. You have to meet her. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a Polly in their lives. Have I mentioned fierce?

It's a stunningly positive book. I want to emphasize this, because you might not want to pick it up if you hear about the trauma, the grief, etc. I know I probably wouldn't have read this if I didn't already love E.K. Johnston's work, and I would have missed out on so much.

Read it if you love good writing. Read it if you love strong female friendships. Ditto kick-ass heroines. Read it if you've ever known someone who went through something difficult and you didn't know how to help them. Give it to your best friend. Make your daughters read it. And your sons.

I will read anything this woman writes.

Rebel of the Sands, by Alwyn Hamilton

When I read the blurb for Rebel of the Sands, I confess I was a bit dubious: Hamilton takes the Wild West—a popular setting these days—and plops it down in the Middle-East, to come up with a fantasy land somewhere between Arabia and the American frontier. But she really makes it work. 

Miraji is mostly Arabian: a country ruled by a Sultan where Djinn still walk the earth (occasionally falling in love with mortal women, of course) and camel caravans cross shifting sands. But there are trains and mining towns that sound awfully Western, and some of the human-eating ghouls in the shadows are Skinwalkers. I think what I love about the setting is that Hamilton draws from all kinds of sources to come up with something that has familiar resonances but feels entirely original. 

The heroine, Amani, is a gun-toting hellion who leaves everything behind to gallop off on a magic horse with a rakish foreigner. She's impulsive, ruthless, not a little bit selfish—but I was rooting for her. She doesn't know it, but she's on a journey to find something larger than herself to believe in, and I was with her every step of the way.

It helped that I was entirely in love with Jin. I think Amani and Jin are going to be on top ten lists of great couples: the sparks certainly fly between them! Jin is mysterious, conflicted, has a hidden agenda, can't seem to keep away from Amani–plus he's got awesome cheekbones and a great smile, so, yeah. I'd follow him across a desert.

Not much happens with the magic at first—though there's plenty of action—, but once we meet the magical beings they're very cool. I loved the different powers and limitations everyone had; it was all very evocative and colorful. There's a Rebel Prince, a nasty army commander (who is actually the Rebel Prince's brother), plots and counter plots. Things really start getting interesting at the end, and I'm quite excited to see where the sequel goes.

Reminded me a bit of The Blue Sword and Graceling. Spicy lamb tagine served over couscous.

I was impressed with the writing in this debut novel. Alwyn Hamilton might live in London, but she was born in Toronto, so I'm claiming her as Canadian! I'm now over my goal of 13 Canadian books reviewed between July 1 and June 30: this makes number 14.

For more Canadian choices, you can always check out John Mutford's blog.

An Inheritance of Ashes, by Leah Bobet

This is one of the most original fantasies that I've read recently, with beautiful, compelling prose and a cast of fierce, wounded characters who will break your heart (in a good way).

Every time I sit down to write this review, I try to come up with coherent words to express my feelings about the book, and I can't find the right ones. Other reviewers have talked about it being intense, desolate, dark, eerie, bleak—and I can't deny those are appropriate words for An Inheritance of Ashes, but they're not sufficient. (And I would never have picked it up if I had read all those reviews first.)

Yes, it's a dark book, but it's also luminescent. You have to meet the characters to realize that all the fear and suspicion and despair only highlight the courage, hope, conviction and love that burn inside them. It reminds me very much of the Leonard Cohen song: "there's a crack, a crack in everything: that's how the light gets in." (Just had to go listen to it again. Really quite perfect for this book.)("Every heart to love will come, but like a refugee.")

But I'm not being a very helpful reviewer, here. What do you need to know to make you read this book? How about some of the cool, original things:

1.  It's about the aftermath of a war, about the people back home, waiting for the soldiers to return. It's not about fighting. At least, it's not about that kind of fighting. It's a very realistic setting—could be a farm just about anywhere, at just about any time. Except . . .

2.  The Wicked God was defeated. No one knows who or what the Wicked God was, that's just what everyone calls it. Eventually we do find out what the Wicked God was, and it's an explanation that doesn't draw on any mythology I've ever heard about; I found it entirely fascinating.

3.  But there are still Twisted Things appearing, and the Twisted Things are awesome: creepy, unexpected, poisonous, threatening, nothing like anything I've ever read about. And they shouldn't still be showing up, now that the Wicked God is dead.

4.  There's a lone soldier returning from the war with a secret. Does he know why the Twisted Things are coming? Does he know what to do about them?

5.  He's not the soldier Hallie and her sister Marthe are waiting for. And if Marthe's husband doesn't come back, they're not going to be able to hold the farm together, not two young women, one of them about to give birth, two sisters who rely completely on each other but can't seem to trust each other, or anyone else.

And number 5 is the burning, toxic heart of the story: Twisted Things may be poisoning the farm, but Marthe and Hallie are poisoning each other with their complete inability to understand each other*, and the psychological and physical threats are marvellously woven together in layers of metaphor and tension.

There are people who want to help, and people who hope they fail, and the community around Roadstead Farm is also a crucial part of the story. The war might be over, but there are so many things to fight for, to fight about. There are the battles we inherit from our families, the ones we think are over but are still festering into the next generation. And the people we think are the enemy might be the only people who can save us.

You just have to read it; I can't adequately explain how dense and nuanced and wise and surprising and real this fantasy is. Bobet is a writer into whose capable hands I will gladly entrust myself again.

Sweet potato black bean soup: hearty, rich, complex, with lots of heat and depth of flavour. (I might not put as much cumin into it next time, though!)

Leah Bobet is that rarest of wonderful people: a Canadian fantasy author! Which makes this my 13 out of 13 books in the 9th Canadian Book Challenge: and it's only March! (I have until June 30.) Yay Canadian books! Be sure to check out the other great Canadian books on John Mutford's blog.

*You know how in most fiction, the characters tend to say what they think to each other—things real people would never actually say because there are too many things holding them back? Hallie and Marthe are not capable of ever saying what they think, because the things holding them back are too painful and entrenched. It's possibly the most realistic relationship I've ever read in a fantasy novel.

A Thousand Nights, by E. K. Johnson

E. K. Johnston is a unique voice in YA fantasy. When I heard she was doing a retelling of the story of Scheherazade I knew she was just the writer to attempt it. It's a story that pretty much demands compelling prose—prose that could save someone's life.

A Thousand Nights is a beautiful book. The writing glows. The voice resonates like a legend; it reminds me of Robin McKinley's early writing, that sort of fairy-tale cadence that lifts every-day actions into greater significance:

Lo-Melkhiin killed three hundred girls before he came to my village looking for a wife.

She that he chose of us would be a hero. She would give the others life. ... She that he chose would give hope of a future, of love, to those of us who stayed behind.

She would be a smallgod for her own people, certainly, in the time after her leaving. She would go out from us, but we would hold on to a piece of her spirit, and nurture it with the power of our memories.

In the hands of a lesser writer, this kind of narration gets old rather quickly. But right after that opening passage, just when I might have rolled my eyes and put the book down, we learn that

parents would bring sweet-water flowers, even in the height of the desert wilt, and pickled gage-root to leave as offerings. She that he chose of us would never be forgotten.

She would still be dead.

Johnson gives us the little details that bring a world to life (what on earth is pickled gage-root? but I can imagine what it tastes like), plus a glimpse into the narrator's attitude that convinced me her story would be worth following. She's a determined young woman who knows her own worth, and her story is vibrant with detail about the world she loves.

She's never named. No character other than Lo-Melkhiin is given a name. People are referred to as "Lady Mother," "Daughter of my heart," "Sister of mine," and I thought this was beautiful and in keeping with the tone of the narration. It's also thematically significant, as the protagonist's relationships with her family and community are what give her strength.

I loved the notion of becoming a smallgod. I have lots of things I could say about the way A Thousand Nights explores the nature of power, but what I loved was the way our heroine gained her magic from little, every-day tasks, unnoticed, discounted by the villain. Women's work. The love and care that hold a community together. This is what saves her. And everything described in such evocative prose that even though I've never spun or woven I could feel the thread beneath my fingers, and completely believe that magic could arise from it.

This is not a book to read for plot. There's hardly any action, and the conflict plays out straightforwardly, no twists or sudden revelations. This is a book to savour for its descriptions, for the  sensory world it builds. I delighted in the sisterhood and the friendships, and I was compelled by the heroine's quiet defiance, her determination to live, and her pleasure in the power that Lo-Melkhiin doesn't understand.

Very dark, smooth chocolate, possibly with an unusual spice like cardamon, or maybe ginger. Eaten one square at a time, with the flavour lingering on your tongue for the rest of the evening.

Wrap-up of Recent Books Read: WURBR*

I'm busy reading the seven books on the Middle Grade Spec-Fic Cybil's shortlist, and I'm not allowed to talk about them until we decide on a winner. So in the meantime, some quick reviews of my holiday reading: light, fun, adventurous YA fantasy.

Winter, by Marissa Meyer. The conclusion to the sci-fi fairy-tale Cinder series has all the rousing escapes and battles and turning tables and stirring speeches and noble sacrifices and facing-off with villains you could possibly want from it. Plus spaceships and androids and mind-control and experiments with wolf-people and weird Moon fashions. And romance. Everything, really. Cinder is Cinderella, of course, (and I still get a kick out of the fact that she left her cyborg foot behind at the ball) Scarlet is Red Riding Hood, with her soldier Wolf, Cress is Rapunzel, rescued from her spy satellite, and now we get to meet Winter, a wonderful, broken but fiercely good Snow White, slowly going mad because she refuses to use her mind manipulation powers. All four kick-ass heroines converge on the Moon to defeat Queen Levana and save Earth from the Lunar armies. It's a little unwieldy to have so many protagonists, but they all get their fist-pumping moments, and the pace is nice and breathless all the way through. Meyer even made me believe in all four romances. (And I liked that everyone's happily-ever-after was more complicated than they had imagined.) I think my favourite character of them all is Iko, the artificial intelligence who gets several different forms through the series. She's just a hoot!

Fairest is a novella that "bridges" between Cress and Winter. It's a character study of Levana, giving interesting insight into her motivations and her relationship with Winter and with Cinder. It's the strength of Meyer's characters that make this whole series work for me. The plot and setting are a little silly (in a very enjoyable way), but the story is grounded by people with real needs and flaws who grow into trusting each other—or not.

Madly, by Amy Alward is a light-hearted adventure/romance in which an alchemist has to save a princess from a love potion. The fun twist is that it's a modern society with cell-phones and airplanes. (Think Harry Potter world except the Muggles know all about magic.) The Talented are the elite, the celebrities, particularly the royal family, of course. But magic screws up potion ingredients, so an alchemist has to be un-Talented. Samantha comes from a famous line of alchemists fallen on hard times, and saving the princess could save their family's fortunes. She has to get ingredients from all over the world (like yeti hair), so there are lots of adventures as she races against the other alchemist families—particularly her family's worst enemy the Asters. Too bad Zain Aster is so good-looking . . . I wasn't actually sold on the romance (it seemed to rely entirely on Zain's good looks, on Sam's side, and Zain was far too nice to be an arch-rival), but I really liked the world, and the focus on alchemy was fun. A fast read; if she writes more in this world I'd read it.

(Amy Alward is the Amy McCulloch who wrote The Oathbreaker's Shadow. And she's Canadian!**)


Jeweled Fire, by Sharon Shinn, is the third book set in the world of Elemental Blessings. Shinn's books are ultimate comfort reads for me. I love her storytelling, and I love this world—everyone is divided into earth, air, water, fire and wood personalities, with their associated magic, and there's an interesting interplay between fate and free will everytime people draw random blessings for themselves.  I really enjoy the way each book so far has explored the world from a different perspective: a water character, an air character, and now a fire character. Corene came across as a bit of a brat in the first two novels, and I liked the way Shinn got her out of Welce so she could recreate herself, figure out how to use her assertiveness and temper to work with people instead of against them. We also get a new kingdom to explore, with lots of intrigue and conspiracy. The romance was predictable, but sweet; the female characters were all strong and interesting, and developed believable friendships with each other. There was less interesting magic in this book; it turned out to be more of a murder mystery. This was an excellent plane read: light and enjoyable.

*So what do you think: WURBR. Is it one of those amazing acronyms that's going to catch on like wildfire? 'Cause that's what I was going for!

**This is my 10th of 13 in this year's challenge. For more awesome Canadian writers (because the world needs more Canada, am I right?), head to John Mutford's patriotic blog.

MMGM: Book Scavenger and The Spotted Dog Last Seen

A couple of mystery/puzzle books for those who loved The Westing Game, The Mysterious Benedict Society and Blue Balliett's books.

Book Scavenger, by Jennifer Chambliss Berman, has the best premise: a book-hunting game like geocaching except when you hide a book you create a puzzle someone has to solve in order to find it. I badly want this game to be real, and if you're in the States you can participate in Bertman's version of it. I think everyone should go join up right now, because this needs to become the next big thing!

But the book. It's a fun scavenger hunt through San Francisco as Emily tries to solve the last game created by eccentric entrepreneur Garrison Griswold. She's chased by a couple of nasty henchmen, determined to get their hands on whatever the prize turns out to be, and she's aided by her new neighbour and equally keen puzzle-solver James.

As in all puzzle books, there were plot aspects that seemed contrived, but I enjoyed the trip through San Francisco's geography and literary history. There were fun juicy tidbits about Edgar Allen Poe and his friend/nemesis Griswold (a real historical character); Bertman has an afterword in which she explains what she took from history. (I didn't know that Poe invented the detective-mystery genre.)

Emily is an engaging protagonist, and I liked her developing friendship with James, complete with misunderstandings and Emily learning what friendship means. Emily's family plays a realistic role,  with an older brother who used to play Book Scavenger with her but is now obsessed with a rock band, and her parents who make a living based on their goal to live in every one of the 50 States (the reason why Emily has moved nine times in her twelve years and therefore has such a hard time making friends).

Book Scavenger is nominated for a Cybil award in the Middle-Grade Fiction category. I think I'm glad I'm not judging that category, because it would be hard to judge between the more serious, issue-based, Newberry contender novels and more fun ones like this. (I myself prefer the fun ones!)

My son is making my microwave caramel recipe right now, and he's planning on pouring the caramel over Rice Krispies. That sounds like a good comparison for this book: chewy, sweet and crispy.

The Missing Dog is Spotted is another Middle-Grade Fiction nominee. I love the pun in the title! My library didn't have it, but I did find Jessica Scott Kerrin's earlier novel, The Spotted Dog Last Seen. The two books are connected but each stands alone.

Dog Last Seen is a quirky mystery about death, gravestones, accidents and responsibility. Derek gets stuck with cemetery duty for his community service. Who knew there was so much to know about gravestones? Then there's a library book with a secret code pencilled inside it that Derek and his fellow cemetery duty friends are determined to solve. The librarian knows more about it than she's saying. But the real mystery is the nightmares Derek keeps having about a car accident.

Everything turns out to be connected, and Derek is able to lay a ghost of his own to rest by the time all the mysteries are solved. I think one of the satisfactions of fiction—and of puzzles—is discovering that everything fits together. Nothing is random. Dog Last Seen plays with connection and coincidence to get at the deeper theme that everyone is significant. Although on the surface this book seems quite similar to Book Scavenger, there is more going on here; like its title, The Spotted Dog Last Seen yields more meaning the more you think about it.

I am eager to get my hands on The Missing Dog is Spotted and find out what new interesting characters and mysteries Kerrin has in store. If it's anything like Spotted Dog, I think it should be a strong contender for the Cybil award. (And I'm not just saying that because Jessica Scott Kerrin is a Canadian author!)

I am now completely stuffed with caramels (they turned out delicious, but slightly overcooked so impossible to get out of the pan!), so I can't think of any other food analogies. Something savoury, though, with enjoyable flavours in unique combinations.

Don't forget to visit Shannon Messenger's weekly round-up of Marvelous Middle-Grade books. And for more Canadian books to try, go to John Mutford's truly northern blog.

The Scorpion Rules, by Erin Bow

I have several other reviews half-finished, but I made the mistake of going to the library, and The Scorpion Rules was on the New Books shelf. "Oh!" I said, "Everyone says this is so good! Maybe I should take it home so I can read it in a little while. You know, after I do all the other things I'm supposed to do."

So I took it home. Nothing else got done. I read it in two sittings (and would have stayed up all night if hubby hadn't intervened), and then I had to vacuum and wash the floors when I was done just so I could process. (So that's something productive, anyway!)

The Scorpion Rules is everything they* say it is. Compelling—I can vouch for that! Beautifully written. Intelligent. Heart-wrenching. Provoking.

Kudos to whoever wrote the blurb, because it's brilliant at saying everything important about the story without giving away anything. The premise is eye-catching: AIs have taken over the world and enforced peace by making world leaders give up their children as hostages. If countries go to war, their children are killed. I think how you feel about this book will depend on what you think is the most interesting thing about that premise.

For me, and apparently for Erin Bow, it's the psychology of the children who are raised together, knowing that at any time one child's parent may declare war on another's, and then both children must die. How do you wrap your head around that? How does it affect your relationships with each other, with your parents, with the AIs who are as parents to you and yet will kill you if so instructed?

It's seriously messed up, that's what it is, and so this is a book about seriously messed up kids who manage to retain their dignity, their sense of humour, their capacity to love—their humanity—despite the psychological (and often physical) torture they live through.

It's an intense book. It's also very funny at times. Best use of goats for comic relief in a YA dystopian novel. Wonderful, wonderful snarky amoral AI mastermind who loves 20thC movies.

Oh, the characters! So vivid, so realistic. Greta, the narrator, is barely holding it together, clinging to her ideals of duty and sacrifice. This is what a princess is; this is what a princess does. The others follow her lead because she's smart, she understands the implications of things, and yet she's blind to so much that matters. Elian—bleak, defiant, funny, unable to resign himself to his situation, Greta's opposite in so many ways. Graceful, compassionate Da-Xia. Prickly, protective Thandi. Silent Atta. So many different ways to respond to the horror they are living through. I'm not sure it's a book I'll reread, because it goes to some unpleasant places, but I would gladly spend more time with all these people.

The ending . . . I wasn't entirely happy with it, but it was satisfying. It did fit. And it could have been left as a standalone, but I'm very, very glad there's going to be a sequel.

I'm going to cross-post this on Goodreads because there are a few spoilery things I want to say, and I haven't figured out how to hide spoilers properly on blogger! So if you've read it, come over to Goodreads and tell me what you think.

I just discovered that Erin Bow is Canadian!! And she studied particle physics!! (And she writes great book reviews on Goodreads, but I am now getting far too distracted.) She's now my new favourite person I haven't met.

This makes my sixth Canadian book of the year (which started in July, so I'm not as behind as you think I am!). I'm well on my way to my goal of 13 for the 9th Annual Canadian Book Challenge. Check out John Mutford's blog The Book Mine Set for reviews of Canadian books of all persuasions.

*"They" being bloggers I follow and whose opinions I trust. Goodreads reviews are wildly divergent, and I think it's because not everyone gets this book.

Signal to Noise, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Huh. I kind of fell off the blogging horse and it trotted away without me for a while there. I'm mostly mad at myself that I didn't make my Canadian Book Challenge for last year: I only read 10 out of the required 13 Canadian books before July 1 (Canada Day). Never daunted by failure, however, I nobly join the Challenge yet again! For my first book, I've got a really different debut novel by Mexican-Canadian author Silvia Mareno-Garcia.

Signal to Noise is the novel you're looking for if you're getting tired of same-old YA fantasy, if witches make you yawn, if spunky, wise-beyond-their-years adolescent protagonists are driving you crazy, if you'd just like to see a little reality in characters' interactions. And if you'd love, for once, if something was set somewhere other than England or North America, please, pretty please with a cherry on top. (It also helps if you secretly think the 80's were kind of cool, and if you're a bit of a music nerd.)

How about Mexico City for a setting? And magic that uses David Bowie* songs. And a character who embodies all the confusion, the mistakes, the self-centeredness, the pettiness, the loneliness and longing of adolescence. Meche grabbed me from the start, sitting in an airplane, returning against her will to the city of her childhood. Something bad happened back then, we don't know what; we only know she successfully escaped and has avoided dealing with any of it for twenty years. Now she's back in Mexico City for her father's funeral, and as she re-encounters the family and friends she left behind, we relive with her in flashback the series of magical discoveries and mistakes that sent her running away.

The dual time-frame narration works particularly well for this story. Meche in the present has no magic, so when Meche in the past discovers how to cast spells by playing the right record with the right intention, there is an immediate tension built up: why did she lose or give up her power? We meet her friends in the past, and then we meet them in the present, and we wonder how they became so estranged. We're compelled through the unfolding of the stories, past and present, by the burning question: what went wrong?

Meche's magical development is much more realistic than in most YA fantasies. Meche and her friends don't use their magic to save the world; not even to save themselves—because, really, what adolescent would even know how to do that? They do exactly the things that—let's be honest here—your teenage self would do if you could cast spells. You would want to be better-looking, more fashionable, more popular. And the spells work about as well as you'd expect them to.

This is not the novel for you if you want detailed explanations of magical workings; it's not really about the magic. It's about the relationships, and it is beautifully, agonizingly detailed about the communications and miscommunications, the emotions expressed and repressed, the needs met and denied, that form the intricate, ever-changing web of human interactions. We love and hate a person equally, sometimes at the same time. We never say what we mean but we desperately want to be understood. The magic is really a metaphor for the power we have over the people in our lives, power we use without knowing, or without knowing the consequences. We watch Meche stumble toward her doom, wincing at every choice she makes while understanding exactly why she makes it. She is one of the most unlikeable characters I have ever felt such great affection for.

I love all the characters, but I particularly love Sebastian, his awkwardness, his honesty, his little kindnesses. His relationship with Meche is so perfectly drawn; they make you cry, they make you want to shake them. I also really liked Meche's grandmother and her role in the story.

This is a novel that keeps you thinking, that makes you want to go back into it and reread scenes, knowing what you find out later. It also makes you listen to a lot of music you might never otherwise encounter! And lest my review makes it sound overly depressing and tragic, without spoilers all I can say is, it's not. It's not too late for Meche to fix the mistakes of her past, and it's extremely satisfying when she finally clues into how she can do that.

The Book Smugglers did a great review of Signal to Noise on Kirkus, and Ana points out the same difficulty I'm having: how to categorize this book. The plot revolves** around three teenage friends learning how to do magic by playing records, but it feels more like a realistic novel than a fantasy. It might not count as YA because Meche is in her mid-thirties when she arrives in Mexico City, although, because she hasn't been back since she was a teenager, she is immediately thrown back into the relationships and attitudes of her adolescence so she doesn't seem like a 30-year-old. But on the other (other?) hand, teenagers may not enjoy reading such a realistic portrayal of their flaws!

Let's call it insightful YA literary fantasy. And that's a category I'd happily read more of.

Full disclosure: I know Silvia. But I bought the book with my own money, and I never promised I'd review it: if I hadn't liked it, I would never have mentioned it again. (And she would never ask me about it, because that would be just awkward, right?) Good thing I liked it!

For more Canadian books of every category, visit John Mutford's blog and see what the other Canadian Challenge participants have been reading.

Cross-posted on Goodreads.

*Not to mention a bunch of other artists I'd never heard of but when I YouTubed them I recognized their songs. Prokol Harem's "Whiter Shade of Pale," for example (it was in the movie Oblivion, too!):

And there's a playlist of all the songs mentioned! Handy to have while you're reading.

**No pun intended.

The Story of Owen, Dragon Slayer of Trondheim, by E. K. Johnston

The cover and the blurb of The Story of Owen were enough to make me pick it off the New shelf at the library. And lo and behold it's by a Canadian author, so double excitement!

I love the premise: imagine a world exactly the same as our world in every respect, except that it's infested with dragons. Not your wise, telepathic dragons, either; these are just pests, mindless, destructive, fire-breathing beasts, particularly dangerous to modern humanity because they are attracted to carbon emissions.

This book was funny with the kind of sly, satirical poking at society I really enjoy. Of course there are dragon slayers in this world (and there's a perfectly valid explanation for why dragons have to be killed single-handedly, with swords), and of course dragon slayers are required by international law to spend a certain amount of time defending oil fields, and when their Oil Watch tour of duty is over most of them are hired by big corporations or governments to defend big population centres. Leaving little towns like Trondheim, Ontario in the lurch:

When a dragon attacked you had to petition town hall (assuming it wasn't on fire), and they would send to Toronto (assuming the phone lines weren't on fire), and Queen's Park would send out one of the government dragon slayers (assuming nothing in Toronto was on fire). By the time the dragon slayer arrived, anything not already lit on fire in the original attack would be, and whether the dragon was eventually slayed or not, we'd be stuck with reconstruction. Again.

The juxtaposition of glorious dragon slaying with petty politics and bureaucracy hits my funny bone at just the right place. So does the incongruity of skinny adolescent Owen, who is failing algebra, as the latest in a long line of famous dragon slayers.

The story is narrated by Siobahn, a music student who is good enough at algebra to tutor Owen. His family asks Siobahn if she will be Owen's bard—a noble, traditional role that's been on the decline ever since the Beatles started singing songs that weren't about slaying dragons. Turns out the bardic job really means being a PR manager, because of course dragon slayers are celebrities and they want to be able to spin their publicity the right way. More juxtaposition of epic myth with modern reality. Johnston really gets our society, right in the solar plexus!

But you can't help rooting for Owen and his family, because they're just trying to do their job and do right by their town. Owen is courageous and competent and despite all evidence to the contrary he has faith in what he's doing, in the people he's protecting, and in Siobahn, who has her own courage and selflessness when it counts. We may have written off Michigan, but darn it we're not letting the dragons get southern Ontario!

I think some of the politics of dragon slaying might go over the head of younger readers, but there is plenty of sword-swinging action, and the developing friendship between Owen and Siobahn is a treat. (Very slight spoiler: they don't fall in love! How novel!) There are great, believable family dynamics, too.

The Story of Owen was loads of fun, intriguingly original, and very Canadian. The sequel just came out, and I think I'm going to buy it rather than waiting for the library to get it. It's worth owning.

It's like one of those fusion dishes that are so popular in restaurants now, where they take a traditional dish from one country and prepare it with ingredients or spices from a different tradition, and it ends up being really good in a surprising way and makes you look at both food traditions differently. Like butter chicken poutine. (Because, poutine. And butter chicken. And if you've never tried either, you should come to Canada and try them! Separately and together.)

This review counts as book 9 toward this year's Canadian Book Challenge. For more wonderful Canadian books, don't forget to visit John Mutford's blog, and check out all the reviewers who read way more than the minimum 13 Canadian books a year!

Shadow Scale, by Rachel Hartman

Where on earth did January go??

Back at the beginning of Jan I mentioned that I had my very own ARC of Shadow Scale. Well, I read it. And I've been trying to figure out how to review it ever since.

First off, this is a sequel, so go read Seraphina first. I promise, you'll love it: dragons, Renaissance-like court, music, assassination plots, did I mention the dragons (really awesome dragons: think Spock with wings). It's close enough to Shadow Scale's publication date that you won't be incredibly frustrated when you finish! (Lot's of amusing GIFs on the Shadow Scale Goodreads page from people who've been waiting for, well, years.)

If you loved Seraphina for the rich world-building and fascinating characters, then prepare to be overwhelmed by Shadow Scale. Seraphina leaves Goredd and travels through not one or two but four different countries, all with different cultures and values and attitudes toward dragons (and half-dragons). (Lots of opportunity to explore prejudice from a bunch of different angles.)

We meet a whole new cast of variously complicated and tortured characters, each of whom could have an entire novel to themselves. Nedouard, the doctor who hides his deformity behind a plague mask; Blanche, living half-wild in the woods protecting herself with magical traps. Jannoula, imprisoned, tortured, and now in a position to get revenge on all those who wronged her.

Hartman plays with the intersection of character and society: what makes us who we are? Given different circumstances, how might we have turned out? Then there's the politics, history and religion of five nations and three races, all of which Hartman develops in overlapping interactions with character. Shadow Scale could easily have been two books long—and maybe should have been. I wonder if all the fan whining about how long the sequel was taking didn't influence Hartman to squish everything into one book. I would willingly have waited another five years for a third book if it would have allowed for more development of, well, all the really cool stuff in this book!

Seraphina is actually the least interesting character in the book, much as I love her, and therein lies my one problem with Shadow Scale: I think Seraphina is the wrong narrator. She has an important role to play, and certainly has her own character arc, but a lot of the action and conflict happens to other characters, so we end up hearing about events that I wish we could have experienced first hand. I would love to have read some parts of the book from Abdo's point of view, and from Eskar's. Jannoula would have been a fascinating narrator. Glisselda and Prince Lucien don't have a huge role in this book, but events at the end would have been interesting from their perspective. I don't often find myself arguing for multiple points of view, but I think Shadow Scale is an example of where it would have really worked.

What will you love about Shadow Scale? All the half-dragons and their stories. Jannoula: not knowing what to make of her. The country of Porphyry. Surprising reveals about, um, stuff that I don't want to be spoilery about! The way everything comes together at the end.

What might disappoint you? Orma is off-stage for almost the entire book. And Kiggs isn't around as much as you (and Seraphina!) might like him to be. It also starts out rather slowly, with a lot of explanation, though you'll find the explain-y bits helpful if it's been a while since you read Seraphina.

My final feelings about the book? Shadow Scale is a satisfying conclusion to Seraphina with a suitably epic scope. I just think there was potential for it to be so much more. There's a rumour she'll be writing more books in this world; I look forward to them with great anticipation!

There's a pastry I can't remember the name of that my husband once brought me home from France: it was like a cinnamon roll, but flaky and buttery like a croissant, except crispy—well, it's not like anything you can get anywhere in North America. Divinely delicious and distinctly French. Shadow Scale is like my husband only bringing one of these home for me.

I almost forgot: Rachel Hartman lives in Vancouver! So this counts as a Canadian read for me (I'm sadly behind in my goal). I love the image John Mutford chose for his February Roundup of Canadian book reviews. Visit his blog to find out about Canadian books of all genres

MMGM: Scare Scape, by Sam Fisher

I picked this one up on a library browse because it had the maple leaf sticker indicating it was Canadian. The cover was appealing—assuming you find scary, slimy monsters appealing! (Which I don't, usually, but I figured I could probably handle middle-grade horror.) The premise has been done before—scary comic book turns out to be real—but I was willing to give this one a try, and I'm glad I did. Scare Scape is an excellent, well-written adventure story with wide appeal.

Strong characters, great family interactions, genuinely spooky but funny too—it reminded me a little of Diana Wynne Jones' The Ogre Downstairs. It has a similar wishes-gone-wrong plot, but Ogre (despite it's title) is straight-up fantasy, while Scare Scape is definitely horror. Creepy old Victorian house, a gargoyle that grants wishes, monsters that come alive, a blind comic book writer who may or may not have died in the well in the back yard—Fisher uses old tropes in fun ways and comes up with a few new ones of his own. I loved Melissa's endless closet and what she does with it.

I liked Morton and his strange obsession with a scary comic—a flaw that ends up being a strength (no one else knows each monster's weakness!) The story is fast-paced with a few interesting plot twists; there are themes of trust and loyalty; the final showdown requires courage and cleverness and all the kids working together. It was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and I'm betting this one will fly off the library shelves.

Nutty and sweet like the trail mix I have perfected over years of backpacking: peanuts, cashews, tamari roasted almonds and craisins, liberally mixed with chocolate-covered peanuts, gummy bears, jelly bellies (only my favourite flavours) and swedish red berries. Every bite has something I like!

Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday is hosted by Shannon Messenger on her fun blog, and has a great line-up of contributors every week.

This is book 7 of my Canadian Book Challenge (five of them are adult books I reviewed on Goodreads). I think I might make it to 13 this year! For more Canadian recommendations, head to John Mutford's blog and see what the other challengers are reading.

MMGM: Invitation to The Game, by Monica Hughes

It's past time for me to get back to reviewing children's/YA books! And I've got to get started on my Canadian books for the year, already almost two months into the Canadian Book Challenge. So here's a two-for-one: a Canadian Middle-Grade novel. (I'm calling it middle-grade because that's where I found it in the library, but I would say it's for the upper of that age-range, and older readers will also appreciate it.)

If you think dystopian YA is a new trend that started with The Hunger Games, you're missing out on a whole generation of great children's science fiction. And perhaps the queen of the era from 1970-1990 was the Canadian writer Monica Hughes.

She is probably most famous for The Keeper of the Isis Light and its two sequels, The Guardian of Isis and The Isis Pedlar. I read them when I was young and they have haunted me ever since. It might be time for me to reread them and do a complete review, but I remember them as bittersweet stories of young people trying to fit in and find a place they belong, but also fascinating, complex psychological studies of humans colonizing an alien planet. And true and depressing commentary on the human tendency to distrust the Other. Legitimate classics.

Hughes was prolific, and I've only read a handful of her works, so maybe I should also try to catch up on the books I haven't read—make this the Year of Monica Hughes. It's worth introducing a new generation to her thoughtful, playful stories that explore what it means to be human just like the best of adult sci fi.

Invitation to The Game starts with a vaguely Hunger Games-like premise: underprivileged youth in an economically distressed society are manipulated into playing a "Game." The game in this case requires teamwork and problem-solving skills in a survival setting, rather than deadly competition. The final outcome is an interesting twist. New readers might find it amusing that the problem of this dystopia is robots taking all the jobs away from people—not something remotely worrisome now, but I remember when I was growing up that it was a seriously-discussed concern!

Invitation is quietly suspenseful and intriguing with a carefully thought-out world (some aspects are a little unrealistic, but it's a lot more believable than most of the dystopians out there now!). It's a fast read, written back when there wasn't such a thing as YA and kids' books generally came in at 200 pages or less (and really, do you need more than 200 pages to tell a good story? Monica Hughes didn't.)

A book to recommend to readers of The Giver. And if you like this one, Hughes has a lot more for you! You just might have to ask your library to search for them.

Grilled cheese sandwich, the way your mom used to make it.

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is a meme hosted by Shannon Messenger, and it's a great place to find new kids books for your TBR list.

The Canadian Book Challenge is in it's 8th year over at John Mutford's blog, and there you'll find a diverse bunch of books by Canadian authors.

Happy Canada Day!!

Actually this is in Kananaskis Provincial Park,
but it's right next door to Banff

Yay Canada! Yay picnics in the park and bands playing music by the beach and people wearing red and white, and knowing that there are parades and fireworks going on (even though we don't really enjoy parades or fireworks so we don't go).

Some things I love about Canada:

Anne of Green Gables
Banff National Park
The Group of 7

I know, I know, those are all pretty typical. But they're still great, and I can say I grew up with them; they shaped who I am.

St John's, Newfoundland

The Arrogant Worms
The Trans Canada Highway (which I've driven in its entirety. Twice.)
Newfoundland (where I lived for a wonderful year)
Douglas Coupland
Terry Fox, and the fact that he is pretty much our biggest hero (every elementary kid knows who he is).
We love laughing at ourselves
Our political discourse is boring. Boring is good in politics!
We have really good Thai food (that's what we had tonight). And Italian food and Vietnamese food and Indian food and Russian food and Ethiopian food and  . . .  Let's hear it for multiculturalism!

Anyone else have things they love about Canada to share?

So June passed me by completely (I was in the garden picking strawberries all month)(I swear, it's true! I suffered from "eyes bigger than my stomach" syndrome when I planted two huge beds of strawberries, and I ended up with way more strawberries than I knew what to do with!). But in failing to blog in June I managed to miss the deadline for the Canadian Book Challenge this year, and I was only one book short! The worst thing is that I had actually read the thirteenth book, but was too deep in strawberries to get around to reviewing it. So, one day late, here's my final Canadian book of the year:

Half a Crown, by Jo Walton, is the conclusion to her Small Change trilogy. Set in an alternate history in which Britain made peace with Hitler and is sliding slowly but surely into fascism, the three books are fascinating and horrifying in equal measure. Inspector Carmichael is the hero (anti-hero?) again, and again he shares the narration with a naive girl who at first accepts what's going on because everyone else does, but then gradually realizes how wrong it is. The tension created by the alternating narratives is again brilliant. I hesitated to read this trilogy, because the premise sounded really depressing, but Walton is a compelling writer, and she does a wonderful job of drawing you into the world through the characters, and showing how individual moral choices are affected by and affect the moral choices of a society. Really worth reading. The dense, chewy texture of a real Montreal bagel with a complementary sharp/creamy shmear of Winnipeg cream cheese. (More things I love about Canada!)

John Mutford has way more great Canadian reads on his blog, The Book Mine Set, where he hosts the Canadian Book Challenge every year. I will do better next year, I promise!