Review: The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan

Back when I first read The Forest of Hands and Teeth, I was sorely disappointed by how much of a romance the story was. I wanted zombie action, not romantic angst. Now, I realize this is my fault for not thoroughly checking up on the book before buying it, but it made me hesitate before reading The Dead-Tossed Waves. Perhaps it was a stronger book, or perhaps I just knew what I was in for, but I ended up enjoying that much more. Still, the memory of The Forest of Hands and Teeth lurked and I waited awhile before picking up The Dark and Hollow Places - would it be more like Forest or Waves? And was I really in the mood for any sort of romance story anyway?


 Annah is alone in the Dark City. A place that promised safety after she and Elias were lost in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, the forest where they abandoned her sister. And now Elias has apparently abandoned her, as he should have returned from his tour with the Recruiters months ago.

If he's still alive.

Just as Annah has convinced herself that the City is no longer the place for her, as she is about to literally cross the bridge that will take her out of the City, an apparent miracle happens: her sister is here! And she's brought a mysterious boy with her, a boy the Recruiters want desperately, and who the Unconsecrated ignore like he's one of their own: Catcher.

As an unforgiving Horde bears down upon the City Annah was once so ready to abandon, Annah must look inside herself to understand what it means to have family and friends, and to what lengths its acceptable to go to keep safe what - and who - is precious to you.

One thing I've found very interesting as this trio of novels has progressed, is the way the settings have changed. When a series is exploring the end of the world, the usual progression is to go from largely populated areas to smaller, as the population is decimated. Here the progression is the opposite, as The Forest of Hands and Teeth was set initially in a very small village and then saw the village attacked by the Unconsecrated, leaving just our handful of protagonist to wander the dangerous Forest. The Dead-Tossed Waves brought us to Vista, a small town with knowledge that they aren't the last people on Earth, as there are the Recruiters working to keep the population safe and wandering bands of religious fanatics that see the zombies as something akin to holy icons. The Dark and Hollow Places gives us our biggest setting yet - the burnt out husk of a once thriving city (and Ryan leaves just enough clues that savvy readers will figure out what city it is well before Annah does). The actual scope of these stories has remained the same; there's no sprawling cast of characters to keep track of and the zombies are merely a dramatic backdrop against which romantic melodramas play out.

So how does this story compare to Forest and Waves? In terms of my personal enjoyment, I think it'd be in the middle of the three books. Of the three protagonists Ryan has given us (and as an aside, I love that this is a series that gives multiple view points, rather than contriving a way for Mary from  Forest to have all of these experiences herself), Gabry is my favorite. She's just so normal. She's totally fine with the status quo in Vista and doesn't feel the need to wander that Mary did. Annah doesn't have much of a status quo to either support or rebel against, and ends up feeling like a very reactionary character for me, after her first big independent decision to leave the City is immediately reversed.

Sci Fi Friday Review: Feed by Mira Grant

Sometimes I debate what titles I should include in my Sci Fi Friday reviews. Should I expand it to Sci Fi/Fantasy? (No, because I generally dislike fantasy and don't want it interfering with my science-y goodness) What about horror? Or superhero graphic novels? While Feed falls firmly into the horror genre, what with all the zombies running around, there are also some awesome bits of science and tech, allowing me to make it a Sci Fi Friday contribution without hesitation.

Which is a good thing because there's been a dearth of SF in my life lately

It's been twenty years since the dead have risen. Mutated from the cures for humankind's greatest illnesses, the virus lies dormant in every human being, ready to reanimate the corpse to become one of the walking dead with the incessant need to feast on human flesh.

Siblings Georgia and Shaun, along with their friend Buffy, are mid-level bloggers ready to make it to the big time when they're selected to be part of the press team for presidential candidate Peter Ryman. Dedicated first and foremost to reporting the news, the bloggers unwittingly become part of the news when a series of suspicious zombie attacks start following Ryman. A cut fence here, an infected horse there, and it begins to become very obvious these aren't accidents - someone is using the zombie virus as a biological weapon.

Technically this is an adult novel, but I'm confident it will have plenty of teen crossover appeal. Georgie and Shaun are in their twenties (no definitive age is given that I saw), and they also still live at home, under the imposing shadows of their famous-blogger parents. There's been some talk over the past year about a potential new marketing category called "new adult" and I think Feed could easily be classified there.

Grant has included lots of funny details for readers to pick up on. While it's explained that Georgia was born at a time when the most popular girls' names were Georgia, Georgette and Barbra as George Romero was recognized as a sort of patron saint of the zombie apocalypse, it's up to zombie fans to guess where Shaun's name comes from - Shaun of the Dead anyone? (And for the uninitiated, Barbra was the woman in Night of the Living Dead) Bloggers have also organized themselves into a couple of factions - broadly the Newsies, the Fictionals and the Irwins, who like to go out in the field and poke zombies with sticks (they also give out an annual award called the Stevies, solidifying the tribute to the late, great Steve Irwin). Each faction has sub-factions - for example in the Newsies, the people who deliver the news with a healthy dose of opinion are called Stewarts. I loved these little glimpses into Grant's world building, and make it clear she probably has lots of details planned out for this trilogy.

As a blogger, and as someone who probably gets 90% of her news from various blogs (and the other 10% still from internet sources like the New York Times online or streaming Rachel Maddow's show), I absolutely loved following a group of citizen journalists on the campaign trail. Of the trio, Georgia and Buffy were definitely my favorites, but Shaun and Georgia have a great rapport as well.

While I loved the blending of genres in this book (new adult, zombie horror, journalistic thriller), and Grant has clearly done some great work with her world building, the overall setting just never worked for me. It's been twenty years since the zombies first rose, which really isn't much time at all, and there's already a fully functioning government? It felt like the zombies were never that much of a threat if the whole world didn't collapse, and now that the government is functioning so well the zombies are only terrifying on a personal level (like if you're like Shaun and enjoy poking zombies with sticks) and no longer on a widespread level. There are so many weapons and defense tactics and decontamination safety protocols in place, that society really isn't in danger of ever collapsing, which for me is half the fun of zombie stories. Humanity can try to rebuild, but it shouldn't be as good as it was before, unless a much longer period of time has passed.

I know this review is getting long but I have to praise Grant on one other thing - this has one of the best surprises I've ever read in a novel. If nothing else, strictly from a writing standpoint it's fascinating to see it done, and her technique for accomplishing it. It's a huge spoiler so I can't go into detail, but as a writer myself it was interesting to see an author do what I'd long thought was impossible.

Feed is the first book in a new trilogy, but there's no severe cliffhanger ending here and feels like a complete story in itself. I recommend picking this one up, though personally I don't know if I'll be back for more - the fully functional society really irritated me on some levels.

Sci Fi Friday Review: Nomansland by Lesley Hauge

Found via: the Amelia Bloomer Project

Feminist science fiction has long explored matriarchies and woman-only worlds/societies. When I saw one pop up for the YA set, needless to say, I was excited.

Sometime in the future, on the island of Foundland, women have established themselves as dominant, and declared men to be the enemy. Trackers are trained in horse riding and weaponry to protect the windswept island in case any men attempt to invade, as greedy, violent men are wont to do. The newest of these trackers are a cohort of teenage girls, who despite having lived all their lives by the strict rules of Foundland find themselves rebelling in subtle and not-so subtle ways. Laing, the leader of the trainees, is constantly trying to invent fashion fads within the strict dress code, from towel turbans after bathing to rolling up her sleeves just so. Keller, our protagonist, longs for friendship, maybe even a best friend, though such relationships are strictly forbidden.

Then Laing lets her fellow trackers in on a secret. She has discovered an underground room, filled with treasures from the Old People of the Time Before. Such objects are supposed to be reported immediately, but the curious girls keep the find to themselves, exploring the strange powdery paints, angled shoes with spiked heels, and glossy pages filled with pictures of people unlike anyone the girls have ever seen. In a society governed by strict rules, what repercussions will the girls' discovery have?

I had high hopes for this one - it seems like it should hit lots of my buttons, but despite Hauge's citation of feminist works as her inspiration, parts of this book actually came off as more anti-feminist. Looking at the Feminist SF wiki, I think feminism anxiety hits my feelings about this pretty closely - the women of Foundland are humorless, sexually frustrated, and uncreative. And the girls' fascination with the trappings of 21st century womanhood struck me as odd. Curious about these objects they'd never seen? Sure. But all of them immediately embracing them as amazing and beautiful struck me as an example of thinking that femininity is an innate trait, rather than a learned behavior (gender is a social construct).

I also felt the world building was extremely shallow. Not only have the women of Foundland separated themselves from men, but the people outside of their borders (and there are apparently both men and women out there) are apparently suffering from some sort of deformity. Were all men and some women effected and that's why Foundland banished men? Also, the jacket copy focuses a lot on the Trackers and their amazing abilities, making this sound like some sort of action adventure novel - but in fact, we only catch a brief glimpse of fully-fledged Trackers, and spend the rest of the time with the teenage recruits who do little more than ride and take care of their horses.

What is excellently done is Hauge's ability to describe objects that are mundane to a 21st century reader, but are utterly foreign in Keller's world. Here's an example:

My eye wanders, eventually settling on two more contraptions, each with two wheels in direct alignment with each other and held together by metal spars and a central inverted triangle of metal, upon which is a tiny, odd-shaped leather saddle. At one end are a pair of curved metal pipes that look as though they are to be held in some way, and at the apex of the inverted triangle is another mechanism flanked on either side by a small block of something solid that surely must provide some kid of propelling force along cogs and a chain that connects to the wheels. -Nomansland, pages 43-44

Passages like this remind me of the old writing exercise - give step-by-step instructions for an easy task, like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, getting into nitty-gritty questions like baking bread vs. buying a loaf from the store. I thought it was extremely well done.

Sci Fi Friday Review: The Enemy by Charlie Higson

Found via: Teacozy

I love books that mashup some of my favorite tropes. Here we've got zombies (which implies postapocalyptic) and no grown ups because whatever makes you a zombie only affects adults. Awesome.

A year and a half ago, a virus swept the world, affecting everyone over the age of 16. No one died, but their brain functions weakened to the point where speech was impossible, motor functions impaired, and they suddenly had a taste for human flesh.

The survivors - all children - have holed up in various places, trying to survive. Our main protagonists have found refuge in a giant grocery store, but after a year and a half even that bountiful food supply is running low. Even worse, morale is plummeting as the grown-ups seem to be getting bolder and more children have been taken (presumably for dinner) in the last few months.

Hope springs anew, however, when a new boy enters the compound, telling stories of a new society being set up in Buckingham Palace. He promises the zombie threat is actually less the farther towards the city you go, and at the Palace they have all the space they need to raise food, and it will be the start of a new civilization. It almost sounds too good to be true, but even if it is, the store doesn't hold much hope any more, so the ragtag band of kids set off

This is a sprawling, old fashioned, zombie story (but not old-fashion-zombies, because as a kid points out in the story, no one died and came back from the dead. These are zombies like 28 Days Later has zombies). There is a huge cast of characters and several distinct plot lines going on at any one time (not only do you have the main group of kids going off to Buckingham Palace, but there's a lone straggler who ends up wandering through the Tube system). Normally I love big sprawling stories, but in this one I felt like there was just too much going on sometimes, which made it hard to be invested in many of the characters. I couldn't even keep names straight for the longest time, even though each kid we're introduced to has a distinct personality.

I do, however, love that Higson leaves us at the end of the story with just as many questions as answers. For example, no one knows how this virus is going to affect growing kids. This isn't like the FAYZ where you turn as soon as you hit your 16th birthday. Also, we get hints that the zombies may not all be soulless, flesh eating monsters. Are they learning, a la Day of the Dead? Evolving? Or were they never all so evil to begin with?

While sometimes it's hard to remember what name goes with what kid, I love the essence of this story. This is a zombie survival adventure. There's no real romance to complicate matters, none of the kids have superpowers, and the zombies aren't used as an absurd comic device. They are terrifying monsters and the kids have one mission: to survive. Just the way I like my zombie stories!

What SF have you read this week?

Sci-Fi Friday Review: Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 4/19




You all know that I'm a sucker for science fiction, especially when it falls into the dystopian camp. I'm also a huge fan of books that bring in strong and interesting non-white characters (okay, I prefer my white characters to be interesting as well, but characters of color are harder to find!). Ship Breaker is one of the few books that combines both of those passions into an awesome story.

17 year old Nailer has spent his whole life living on the Gulf coast, working on the crews that break down the ancient oil rigs and shipwrecked boats that were abandoned as fossil fuels were exhausted and the climate changed so radically the coast began suffering through Category 6 hurricanes - aka City Killers. It's a rough and tumble life for everyone, but perhaps a little more so for Nailer who lives with his alcoholic father who isn't afraid to re-live his glory days as a wrestler by taking out his frustrations on his son.

Everyone on the crews dreams of making like Lucky Strike, the former crew member who found a secret oil deposit and was able to smuggle enough out to buy his way off the crew and set up a comfortable life for himself. Nailer thinks he's found his shot with the discovery of a modern and swanky clipper ship wrecked on the shore, filled with silver and gold and copper and, unexpectedly, a survivor - a young woman. Nailer and his friends are tempted to kill the girl and claim the boat as salvage, but ultimately Nailer decides to spare Nita after she promises there'll be a handsome reward for her safe return.

What Nita failed to mention is her rich father isn't the only one looking for her. Trouble is brewing in her father's industry, and a former colleague has pursued Nita across the Gulf, hoping to use her as a hostage. Without Nailer's help, she'll never reach safety. With the promise of adventure and a better life for himself and his friends, Nailer agrees to help, setting in motion an adventure that takes him from the ravaged Gulf to the ruins of New Orleans and out onto the ocean as he's always dreamed.

Bacigalupi is a rising star in science fiction right now, having just won the 2010 Nebula Award for his 2009 adult novel. So Ship Breaker continues the trend of adult writers turning towards the YA market, but after reading this one I'm happy to welcome Bacigalupi into the YA field. This is a tightly crafted adventure story, with a setting that feels all the more timely in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill (boo, hiss). I also found an interview with Bacigalupi that's interesting to read in light of the New Yorker article on YA dystopias. The New Yorker notes that a lot of YA dystopias don't truly work as social commentary like 1984 and Brave New World do because teenagers can't do anything to change their place. Bacigalupi, however, takes a different tack, saying "Adult readers nod their heads like a Chihuahua (bobble head) on a dashboard and say, 'Wow, that's really deep.' Then they get in their car and drive to work again. But with young people, they actually still have a chance to make better decisions than we made." Hopefully that means he plans on writing more YA!


The diverse cast is definitely one of the strengths of this novel. Not only are most of the characters not-white (specifically Nailer is Latino and Nita is Indian), but both men and women, boys and girls are part of the action. Nita starts off physically frail, but she's clearly clever and is a fast learner so she can earn the respect of Nailer and his crew who've known nothing but hard labor. Sadna, the leader of Nailer's crew, is a strong and imposing woman who has clawed her way up the ranks. At least in the shanty town, there's no difference between races or gender, it's all about how you can contribute and earn your keep.


When Nita arrives on the scene, class also comes to the forefront of the story as it becomes apparent that the entire world isn't in shambles like the Gulf coast is. Farther inland there are working cities with industries and infrastructure going strong. The only way those cities continue to thrive, however, is by exploiting people like Nailer to salvage every last resource from the wreckage people like us left behind.

Review: Birthmarked by Caragh M. O'Brien

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 2/15

More dystopian fiction! Can we ever get enough of this stuff? I have to admit, that for all my enthusiasm for the genre...my answer is "maybe." The problem when the market becomes saturated with a genre is that new additions have to work so much harder to stand out from the rest of the crowd, and I'm not sure Birthmarked is up to that task.

An accident as an infant condemned Gaia to a life of poverty, hunger...and the love of her birth parents. In Wharfton, every month a certain number of babies must be "advanced" for the good of the Enclave; taken from their birth mothers and given to adoptive families inside who will ensure the child will never want for anything. When Gaia was born, the infants got to live with their parents for their first year before going into a lottery, but after a severe wax burn left Gaia with scars all along the left side of her face she was no longer eligible. Now Gaia is 16 and working as a midwife alongside her mother; the new requirements for advancement call for the first three babies a midwife delivers in a month to be delivered to the Enclave within 90 minutes of their birth.

Gaia has always been unwaveringly loyal to the Enclave - until her parents are arrested in the middle of the night, accused of treason. Gaia narrowly escapes arrest as well, and continues her mother's work outside of the wall, until she hears of her parents' impending execution. Gaia sets out on a nearly impossible rescue attempt, which seems to be thwarted at every turn, but as Gaia is convinced of the rightness of her mission, she refuses to give up.

A lot of life in the Enclave made me think of this as sort of a pre-Handmaiden's Tale. Citizens of the Enclave are increasingly infertile or are carrying debilitating genetic diseases due to generations of inbreeding, leading to the need to take in babies from the outside. I could definitely see the society veering towards Gallahad-ian policies if the birthrate continued to fall - they even already have a class of women who dress exclusively in red! (Though it seems to connote more about their status in society than their fertility)

But even that is a sign of how reductive parts of this book are. There's very little here we haven't seen here before. The bits about inbreeding do add a bit of freshness to the story, as it would be a very real danger for insular societies, but that isn't enough to really keep the momentum of the story going.

I also had a huge, huge problem with the romance. It felt soooooooo forced, like O'Brien got halfway through the book and thought, "Oops, YA books need romance. Quick! Have that boy kiss Gaia!" I exaggerate, but not by terribly much. Authors, I promise you: we don't actually *need* romances in our YA books - sometimes the focus of the story really should remain elsewhere, and you should keep your male and female leads platonic. Those who want/need romance will read sexual tension into the relationship anyway, and sometimes UST can be more satisfying than any on-screen romance (see: X-Files).

I do have to admit, though, I was very excited to realize this was set around the Great Lakes - Wharfton is near Unlake Superior, as the environmental disaster didn't even leave that massive lake unscathed. Whether Wharfton is in present-day Michigan, Wisconsin or Canada isn't revealed, but I like the idea of the upper peninsula becoming a desert wasteland, so I'm going with Michigan ;-)

I suspect this is a great story for those who haven't spent the last year and a half reading every single piece of dystopian literature that's been published. For those of us who are well-versed in the genre, however, there's really nothing substantially new to see here.

Review: Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

Found via: Publisher's Weekly 2/15

When I saw this reviewed for Publisher's Weely, I vaguely recognized the author's name, but was more fixated on the description of "future steampunk" and happily put this on my TBR list. It wasn't until I saw Lynn & Cindy's review that I realized this was a prequel to another series that I've never read. Their review was published the day I started reading, coincidentally, so I was quite excited to dive in.

Fever Crumb was abandoned as an infant and discovered by the always-rational Dr. Crumb of the Order of Engineers. Dr. Crumb (quite reasonably) decided he couldn't leave the tiny babe bearing just the note HER NAME IS FEVER out in the wilds amidst the social unrest of the time, so he chose to raise her and make her the first female to join the ranks of the Order.

As a teenager, Fever is assigned to be a field apprentice to archeologist Kit Solent, a former Engineer who has specifically requested Fever's help in uncovering a major find related to the Scriven, the former overlords of London who believed they were the next step in human evolution but were overthrown around the time Dr. Crumb found Fever. Unfortunately for Fever, once she steps outside the safety of the Order, her differently colored eyes are considered the mark of a Scriven and a bounty is put on her head. While Kit tries to protect her, she's also troubled by the memories their work seems to be uncovering - memories that aren't her own and leave her with more questions than answers. Who are Fever's parents? Could she really be part Scriven? And where have these mysterious memories come from?

I have to say, Reeve has a way with words. His descriptions are totally unique, and he's filled the dialogue with excellent bits of slang. I have to admit, I was very amused to see that in this future "blog" is a four-letter word. The world is filled with steampunk-ish creations, only instead of Victorians developing technology well ahead of schedule, this is a future where all of our technology has fallen to ruin and people are trying to reverse-engineer it to work on alternate power sources or with alternate materials as oil and the like are no longer an option.

No where on the book is it described as a prequel to the Mortal Engines quartet, so it's clearly intended to be able to stand alone, however once I knew it was a prequel, I found myself questioning everything and wondering what was going to turn out to be important in the other series. I think because I didn't have the knowledge of the other series I can't count this as one of the best of the year, as Lynn and Cindy do. While the story definitely holds up on its own, I bet knowing the other books makes this for a much richer read. As it is, it's a wholly enjoyable science fiction title, and I'm definitely interested in reading more of Fever's adventures.

Review: The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan

Consider this post not just another book review, but an important public service announcement: May is Zombie Awareness Month. Please take the time this month to check on your provisions (remember: knives don't need to be reloaded) and review your escape routes and safety zones with your loved ones.

Thank you.

The Dead-Tossed Waves is the sequel/companion novel to Ryan's Forest of Hands and Teeth, which I didn't review but did summarize a few of my thoughts on here after the Post-Apocalyptic Teen Fiction panel last fall. At this point, I really think my problem with Forest of Hands and Teeth was I wasn't paying attention to the genre: I wanted a straight up horror novel but Ryan was writing post-apocalyptic romance. Since I knew what I was going to get this time around, I found The Dead-Tossed Waves to be much more enjoyable.

The protagonist this time around is Mary's daughter, Gabry, safely living in the town of Vista that Mary stumbled upon at the end of the last novel. Gabry is a bit of a coward, there's no other way to put it. While Mary was constantly wondering what was outside of the chain link fence of her home village, Gabry is terrified to climb over the fence that protects Vista. Unfortunately for Gabry, none of the other teenagers in town feel the same way, and during one excursion over the fence into the abandoned amusement park, tragedy strikes as a Breaker (one of the fast zombies we were introduced to in the first novel) attacks, and Gabry is the only one to escape unscathed before the authorities show up, ready to punish all of the surviving teens for blatantly violating Vista's rules.

Gabry is torn on whether to turn herself in, and her indecision only heightens when she discovers her crush, Catcher, may not have died in the attack after all. Venturing out again on her own, she relies on the help of the mysterious Elias to find her way through the ruins and avoid the suspicions of the authorities who are eager to send the batch of troublemakers off to serve in the army of the Protectorate - a virtual death sentence of zombie fighting. But all the rules and good intentions can't keep Vista safe forever, and before long Gabry finds herself in the same position her mother was in so many years ago: wandering aimlessly through a chain link maze, relying on cryptic letters as a guide, with only the faintest hope that safety lies at the end.

While I did enjoy this more than The Forest of Hands and Teeth, that's not to say this novel is perfect. For one thing, once Gabry and her companions are in the chain link path, I really felt like we'd just been transplanted to the reversed quest from the last book. But the first two thirds of the novel I thought were well done - it's a very introspective novel, and Gabry isn't really a noble protagonist, but it's her imperfections that endeared her to me. She's perfectly fine with the status quo (and while Vista's rules are strict, there are reasons behind them so it doesn't really slide into a Panem-style dystopia, so we don't have to dislike Gabry for not making waves) and she's a little bit of a scaredy cat. But really, when the dead have risen, isn't fear a natural reaction? It's the people who say they aren't afraid that scare me!

I also love, love, love Ryan's compromise between fast and slow zombies. And all of the different names zombies go by. In the last novel they were the Unconsecrated, which made sense considering how religious Mary's village was, and Mary continues to call them by that name (even though everyone thinks she's totally weird for doing so). Normal zombies in Vista are called Mudo, which I don't think is ever actually explained but probably stems from the fact most zombies in the area wash up from the ocean and are thus muddy? (Edit: Sami pointed out in the comments that 'Mudo' was actually explained at the end of the first book - it means speechless.) And then there are the Breakers, which are Ryan's answer to new-school fast zombies versus Romero-style slow zombies. Breakers are a biological evolution in zombies, where an infected person will turn into a Breaker if there aren't enough other zombies around, like how frogs will change their sex if the population isn't appropriately balanced. I thought it was awesome and a great explanation for why, even with a functional government and army in place, they haven't been able to wipe out zombies.

I'm not terribly enamored of the cover on this one, but rather than re-hashing that point, I'm going to direct you to Sami's post at Twisted Quill where her rundown covers most of my objections (and the one objection I had that she didn't list I mention in the comments).

Review: This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I read this one the same day that the volcano started wreaking havoc with travelers around the world. It was a total coincidence, I swear!

Such is just one of the disasters that has happened in Susan Beth Pfeffer's trilogy that started with Life as We Knew It and continued in The Dead and the Gone (both of which were among my favorite books read in 2008). To re-cap briefly: an asteroid hit the moon, knocking it out of its standard orbit and moving it much closer to Earth. Cue instant environmental chaos: tidal waves wipe out coastal cities (in The Dead and the Gone I learned that my neighborhood in Queens would have most likely been wiped out immediately), earthquakes strike and the darn volcanoes start going off constantly. Millions die instantly, and who knows how many thousands more die as electricity, heat, and food are in short supply. Global warming is no longer an issue - with all of the ash in the atmosphere a new ice age settles across the globe, where in the middle of summer in Pennsylvania they're happy for days of a warm 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The first book is told through Miranda's diary entries in Pennsylvania; the second book covers roughly the same period of time, but follows Alex and his two sisters in New York City. This World We Live In is set a year after the asteroid's impact and we're back following Miranda through her diary entries.

A sense of civilization has returned for Miranda, her mom, and her two brothers. They're still getting canned food from city hall. They're getting electricity for a few hours every day, and spring is on the way, which will hopefully mean warmer days. But the quartet expands rapidly, first as her oldest brother brings a girl home along with a big haul of fish, and then as Miranda's dad returns, with his wife and new baby, and three friends from a refugee camp: Charlie and Alex and his little sister Julie, two of the stars of The Dead and the Gone.

It's tough going from a family of four to a group of 11 almost over night. Food rations are increasingly scarce and privacy - already rare when it was just Miranda, her mom and her brothers - is a thing of the past. To make it all the more frustrating, Miranda and Alex can't seem to stand each other. He's quiet and stand-offish, intent on taking Julie to a convent despite her wishes to the contrary. He doesn't want to take Miranda's advice on anything - he doesn't seem to want to be around people at all. But in this new world they live in, Alex and Miranda can't afford to be at each other's throats constantly and learn to first like, and then perhaps even love each other, even as the future is as uncertain as ever, and tragedy lurks around every corner.

I've said before that diary-style stories can really throw me off, but for some reason I had absolutely no problem with the diary entries here. I don't know if this is because Pfeffer has some magic tricks up her sleeve, or if I was just so excited to get back into this devastated world she's created. In books like the Carbon Diaries series, the natural disasters build gradually over time, but here the change is immediate and devastating and reading about the short- and long-term survival of Miranda and her family is just gripping.

The last two books were necessarily light on the romance since the main characters interacted with few people outside of their families (no Flowers in the Attic storylines here!), but the romance got turned up to 11 in this one, first with Matt and then Miranda and Alex falling head over heels in love almost immediately upon laying eyes upon someone of the opposite sex. While I found it totally believable (it's the end of the world, of course you're going to go looking for connections where you can find them!), I was kind of waiting for the adults to butt in and try to get the kids to act rationally. For example, Miranda's mother can be extremely short tempered and clearly treats Miranda differently than her brothers post-asteroid (this was touched on more in The Dead and the Gone than Life as We Knew It, but the streets are dangerous places for girls alone, and as we've seen in post-earthquake Haiti, natural disasters make areas doubly unsafe for women and girls) yet she never has a real problem with Miranda melodramatically declaring her love for Alex. I got annoyed with the two of them talking about their deep and spiritual love; I found it hard to believe Miranda's practical and short-tempered mother having much of a stomach for it, either.

But really? That's my only critique. Even when she's being whiny or melodramatic, I love reading about Miranda and I'm sad this is the conclusion of the trilogy. Pfeffer has created an intensely compelling world, and even if the Earth didn't seem to be in the middle of heightened seismic activity, I would still love reading this. I think this is another early add to my best of 2010 list.

Review: Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner

Found via: BBYA 2010 nominations

I realized after reading this book that I might have to revise my "I don't like fantasy" stance, because I keep finding fantasy books that I actually do enjoy! I think it's just classic High Fantasy that I don't like - sword and sorcery stories where women are usually reduced to being damsels in distress.

Bones of Faerie definitely isn't that sort of story - in fact, I think it could make a great introduction to fantasy for younger teens who like sci fi but avoid fantasy, because this is essentially a post-apocalyptic fantasy novel.

Liza lives in a world still struggling in the aftermath of the faerie war that ended 20 years ago. While the faeries were driven back, the world is still tainted with magic - trees in the forest will attack wayward travelers; crops stubbornly refuse to be harvested; and occasionally a child will be born with gray eyes or clear hair, the signs that magic has touched the child and it must be killed, before it kills everyone else.

Liza knows magic is dangerous - she has seen people killed by magic-touched children. Her father was forced to leave her infant sister out by the edge of the woods after she was born with clear hair. That loss caused her mother to run away, and shortly after Liza begins to have magical visions. Terrified that this means her father will kill her, Liza runs blindly into the forest. Matthew, a boy in the village who knows first hand how dangerous magic can be, follows her, though neither know how to survive in the enchanted forest. They are rescued by a mysterious woman with magical powers of her own, and discover a whole town where magic is not feared, but is respected as a tool. Liza's visions grow more powerful, leading her to believe she knows how to find her mother, leading her to start an epic quest with Matthew and Allie, another girl with magic powers, in tow.

Atmospherically and somewhat thematically, this reminded me a lot of Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth, especially as both protagonists discover there's a whole wide world outside of their constrictive home towns.

It seemed like this wanted to become an epic quest story, but it never quite had a chance to grow beyond a bare skeleton of a quest narrative. Descriptions, especially of magic in action, are fuzzy and I often had to re-read paragraphs to figure out how something happened (and even then it wouldn't always be clear). Someone who wants to know all the little details of this post-apocalyptic world is going to be disappointed, but as an introduction to the genre (post-apocalyptic and/or fantasy) it's a good jumping off point.

Review: Crashed by Robin Wasserman

I read, and moderately enjoyed, Robin Wasserman's Skinned last year, about a girl who suffers a horrific car accident and wakes up to find her parents have downloaded her brain into a cybernetic body. It wasn't the best book of the year, but it was a fine example of YA dystopian lit. So when Crashed came up this year, I knew I had to read it - even if it wasn't at the top of my "to be read" stack.

After reading Crashed I actually had to go back and read Skinned and then re-read Crashed. For one, there were just enough details I didn't remember from the first book that weren't re-capped adequately in the sequel, so I was totally lost half the time. Secondly, I was trying to figure out why Lia just rubbed me the wrong way.

Crashed follows Lia after she ran away from home at the end of Skinned. She's now living with a small group of other Mechs and helps out in the group by helping to recruit new Mechs to their philosophy: since they clearly aren't human anymore, why cling to the trappings and limitations of their old human lives? The Mechs, led by Jude, live a hedonistic lifestyle: there are a few independently wealthy Mechs with enough credit that no one has to work, they don't go to school, since they don't feel emotions or physical sensations the way humans do they subject themselves to extreme activities just to feel again, and since they'll live forever they find monogamy to be monotonous.

In Skinned we saw the first inklings that there were groups of people who were adamantly opposed to the existence of the Mechs. In Crashed, those groups are back in full force and growing larger and more powerful every day, succeeding in placing new restrictions on the lives and activities of the Mechs. A confrontation is approaching between the two sides, and Lia finds herself conflicted: just how much is she willing to tow the party line? How far is she willing to go to defend the rights of Mechs?

One theme that was introduced in Skinned and is really brought to the forefront in Crashed is class, which brings me back to Thursday's post on class in YA lit. Before the download, Lia was definitely in the upper class of the dystopian society America has devolved into. She doesn't have to live in a city or a Corp town, and totally buys into the bullshit reasons that people live in those less-than-desirable places (people in cities are stupid and lazy; if they'd just work harder they'd be working decent jobs and out of those hell holes!). In Skinned we briefly see a city at night, and Lia's friend Auden often tries to open her eyes to the realities of their society. In Crashed we see more of the cities, as well as a corp town, and learn more of what life was like for Jude, Riley and Ani - three of the first Mechs, culled from "volunteers" in the city.

Jude especially seems to revel in telling Lia what a spoiled and clueless girl she is, since she has grown up sheltered outside of the cities. He and the others don't waste an opportunity to let Lia know that she doesn't "really" know how the world works and she's just naive and/or a stuck up rich bitch to think the way she does. And it is painfully obvious that Lia doesn't get what life is like in the cities, but on the other hand I felt the book was really cramming it down my throat, "poor people aren't poor because they want to be! The Man keeps people down!" We got the point the first dozen times; now do we really need to keep calling Lia stupid because she doesn't think something is fair (or right)? I commented over at Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia that I couldn't figure out if Lia irritated me because she's legitimately irritating, or if I was reacting to and sympathizing with the other characters' irritation. I still haven't figured out which it was - all I can pinpoint now is that these books get under my skin, but not in a good way.

Book Events: Post-Apocalyptic Teen Fiction panel, Barnes & Noble

So getting to see my favorite authors all the time isn't the reason that I moved to New York City, but it's certainly a nice bonus.

So yesterday on a cold and rainy night (seriously, I feel like we skipped fall and are just plunging head first into winter. I guess June really was our October!) I went to the upper east side Barnes & Noble to see Scott Westerfeld, James Dashner, Carrie Ryan and Michael Grant discuss post-apocalyptic teen fiction.

Scott Westerfeld started the night, talking about Leviathan, which he called more pre-apocalyptic than post-apocalyptic, but whatever. I felt a little bit like a stalker since this is the third time this year I've gone to a Scott Westerfeld event, but this was the first time I got to hear him speak in depth about Leviathan, and he shared some really cool things. Like the illustration process: Scott would write a few chapters, then send them on to Keith Thompson, the illustrator. At one point Keith caught up to Scott and was like "What should I do next?" Scott said that in a couple of chapters the characters were going to be chased by something, so he said Keith should draw something like that and Scott would write it in! I love insights into the creative process like that.

Also, there's going to be a fourth Leviathan book, this one with cutaways and floor plans of the clankers and pictures of the fabricated beasts. He had a picture of the flechette bats - oh man they're gross looking!

He also said during the Q&A that the Midnighters manga, mentioned during the NYC teen authors fest back in March, has been dropped, but NBC has picked up the option for a TV series and is apparently committed to writing a pilot. But Scott is worried because the little summary that NBC has out there says they fight crime! (warning: link goes to TV Tropes. It's a known timesuck. You've been warned) So, in Scott's words, it could be terrible.

Next was James Dashner, though I have to admit I didn't take any notes on him since all he did was summarize his new book, The Maze Runner, which I haven't read yet. I may or may not add it to my to-be-read pile, for while some of it sounds interesting, I also get easily frustrated with heavily male casts, and in this book "The Glade," which is at the center of a maze, is populated only with boys, until randomly a girl is sent there. It could be interesting - after all, I found The Knife of Never Letting Go to be awesome and I'm getting seriously impatient for the library to send me the sequel - so I'm withholding judgment until I can read it for myself.

Carrie Ryan spoke next about The Forest of Hands and Teeth...which apparently I never reviewed on here. Did it come out before the blog did? I don't remember - I do know the book became too bogged down in romance for my taste, but it was really interesting hearing Carrie talk about how the book came about. Not only was she inspired after watching zombie movies and wondering what happened to the survivors (because after all, unlike with a nuclear apocalypse, the survivors of the zombie apocalypse will have time to gather supplies and choose where they'll wait out the zombies, but eventually they'll have to stay in one place), but also about how we can lose stories if they aren't part of our daily lives. In The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Mary has grown up hearing stories of the ocean from her mother, but neither Mary nor her mother have ever actually seen an ocean, since they're in a fenced in village in the forest. Carrie was inspired because there was a family story passed down from her great-grandmother where no one remembers the great punchline the great-grandmother used to use.

Also, the sequel, The Dead Tossed Waves is coming out next March and Carrie Ryan will be back in New York for the book tour. I think I'll probably check it out - I have a feeling some of my romance issues will be resolved with the next book.

Finally up was Michael Grant of Gone and Hunger as well as my beloved Animorphs series. I have to admit I felt extremely vindicated when, during the Q&A session, he brought up the "abrupt" ending of Animorphs (oh man is THAT an understatement!) and acknowledged, "Well, that didn't work out well." So he's promised that he knows how the series is going to end (though not in detail as JK Rowling claimed to know the whole Harry Potter series - he kinda thinks she made that all up just to keep her editors from freaking out) and it won't be abrupt like Animorphs.

Thanks to all the authors and B&N for hosting the event!

Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

When I heard earlier this year that the galley for Catching Fire, the sequel to Hunger Games, one of my favorite books of last year, was going to be at Book Expo America, I cursed my current employer. Since we already have a showroom in New York, and BEA was going to be in New York, we decided to just have all of our clients come into the showroom. Which meant there wasn't going to be a way for me to sneak out onto the floor to score myself a copy of the book. ~sigh~

But eventually word got out that little ol' Angela really, really wanted to get on the floor at BEA. So strings were pulled, and by the end of the day yesterday I had a pass to get onto the floor. So I woke up ridiculously early for a Saturday to make sure I would be at the Javits Convention Center right around 9:00 when the floor opened.

I ended up getting there around 9:30 (stupid E train running local through Queens. You're supposed to be express!) - and already there was a huge line at the Scholastic booth for the galley, which was being given away at 10! I was a little nervous about whether I would make it to the front of the line before they ran out of books, but it turns out I didn't need to worry - there were plenty of books to spare by the time I made it to the front of the line.

Now I must confess, I seriously considered finding some out of the way spot right then and there and starting to read. But when I was getting in line I happened to bump into a friend who was working at the show and had actually volunteered to pick up the galley for me, so instead I decided to be social and went with her to see Scott Westerfeld, Holly Black and Cassandra Clare talk about steampunk and building alternate worlds. Then we had to go pick up the Leviathan galley, but that's a post for another day.

It was a gorgeous day in New York, so I decided to take my new galleys and check out the new lounge chairs in Times Square. Naturally I started with Catching Fire.

While my copy of the galley didn't specifically request I avoid discussing the twists and turns of the novel, I'm still going to avoid a detailed plot summary for a couple of reasons. Mostly because I'm still trying to wrap my brain around a lot of the plot.

But let me assure you, this novel will in no way disappoint fans of The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins is an extremely deft writer - I noticed this as I re-read Hunger Games twice over the last three days. Both Hunger Games and Catching Fire are extremely tightly woven stories - if Collins mentions something early on in the book, you can bet it will play a part in the story later on. Of course, now that I was on to her, I was feeling rather smug going into Catching Fire, sure I'd be able to predict the plot based on Collins' effective foreshadowing. Boy was I wrong - while I often caught what was going to be important later on, there was absolutely no way of predicting just HOW that plot point was going to be implemented.

Like Hunger Games, I was an extremely vocal reader during Catching Fire (so much so that I eventually decided I needed to leave Times Square and read in the solitude of my apartment). I may even have been more so this time, thanks to the deeper emotional investment we have this time around. We've watched Katniss survive insurmountable odds once - to see her thrown back into the fire after the president's reaction to her stunt at the end of the Hunger Games is almost too much.

And of course, we're left with another fucking cliff hanger. There seems to be a consensus here: as awesome as it is to get to read this galley, it's going to make the wait for the third book even longer - especially if, as this Publisher's Weekly article says, they don't do a galley for the third book!

Review: The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman

I think I have a slight addiction to end-of-the-world books. This is another book where the government uses an environmental disaster to impose a dystopian regime upon an unsuspecting populace.

In this particular variation on the theme, the melting of the polar ice caps has led to the world being flooded, leaving only tiny numbered islands to house the human race. Eighteen years ago, Earth Mother (whose description reminds me of a female Mr. Rogers, but with a twisted environmental/dictatorial bent. I think it's the constant references to her kindly eyes and sweater that does it) somehow came to power, and decided to Enclose the polar caps, stabilizing the environment there to better match the environment on the rest of the planet, which seems to be a constant spring. There will be no more snow, no more changing leaves, and polar bears are already extinct (sadface!).

Honor was born in the eighth year of enclosure, and now at age ten she has moved with her parents from the wilds of the Northern Islands (where the Enclosure is happening) to Island 365. Right from the beginning Honor doesn't quite fit in with the other kids. Thanks to her unconventional early childhood, she hardly knows enough to get into the elite Old Colony School and often has trouble keeping up in class. Her mother doesn't work (though, allegedly, not from lack of trying to get an engineering job), her father takes Honor on illegal (or at least discouraged) trips to the ocean to actually touch the water, and, perhaps most obviously, Honor's very name doesn't fit in. Everyone born in the eighth year of enclosure must have a name that starts with H, and while Honor was on the approved list of names, it certainly doesn't fit in with a class filled with Harriets and Helenas.

As Honor adjusts to life on Island 365, her parents start to act stranger. They violate curfew and when Honor's mother becomes pregnant with a second child, she refuses to give him back to the community where he could be raised by a childless couple. After Quintillian, Honor's new little brother, is old enough to go to school (he is the only brother - a terrible insult - in the school, apparently), Honor's mother can return to work, but the only job she can get is in the gift wrapping department of the Central Store, working alongside the anonymous Orderlies who silently perform all of the menial labor required to keep Island 365 running.

After the parents of her friend Helix Disappear - the phenomenon where people seem to literally vanish from their houses or work, or even from the store on Errand Day, Honor knows something is wrong with her parents. They were friends with Helix's parents, and would often break curfew together. Honor begins to rebel, slowly at first, until finally she tells the school administration that she wants to change her name to something more appropriate.

Within days of changing her name, Honor's and Quintillian's parents Disappear. When the school finds out, Honor and Quintillian are forced to live at the school with the Orphans, other children whose parents have Disappeared and now work at the school doing janitorial work in return for shelter and leftover food at night.

Honor is shaken. She knows its her fault her parents were taken (no matter what the pamphlets the school nurse gives her say), and with the help of her fellow Orphan, Helix, she's determined to rescue them from whatever terrible fate they have been sentenced to.

After the end-of-the-world bender I've been on recently, there wasn't very much about this book that was surprising for me. One thing I did enjoy is that the traditional roles were reversed: so often in YA lit, it's the parents who are conformists and the child who is rebelling against an oppressive way of life. Here, Honor is the one who is determined to fit in and be a perfect citizen while her parents are struggling against conformity in every way possible.

Also on the awesome side: little clues left in the book for the observant reader to pick up on and realize how far the government's totalitarian control extends. For example, at one point Honor mentions that she's reading the book The Wizard of Oz - where Dorothy falls asleep and dreams about the land of Oz. At first I was pissed, because as anyone who knows anything about the Oz books knows, that was the ending created for the film. In the books, Dorothy really does travel to Oz. But eventually it's revealed that the book has been censored, because of course Dorothy travels to Oz via tornado, a weather phenomenon that Earth Mother has sought to eliminate. Additionally, the protagonist is not the Dorothy Gale we know and love, but Dorothy Dale, since Earth Mother doesn't want anyone to know about gale-force winds. So Allegra Goodman gets major props for that one from me.

On the other hand, there is a lot that is unanswered in this story. Perhaps part of it is because it's from the point of view of a 10-12 year old. How did Earth Mother come to power? Why on earth does she go by such a silly name? (I can't help but picture her - in addition to being an evil female Mr. Rogers - as the robot Mother from Futurama) How are the Orderlies created? Why are Honor's parents pretty terrible at trying to genuinely reach her and teach her about rebellion?

And that might be my biggest problem with the book (minor spoilers after the jump concerning Honor's parents)

When Honor's parents do something she says is Not Allowed or Unacceptable (the book has a big thing for capitalizing words to make them official), they never explain to her why they are acting the way they are. They tell Honor that the things she's learning in school or this dystopian version of girl scouts are propaganda, but there's never any explanation of what exactly the propaganda is, what it means, or what the truth it.

And perhaps worst of all, after Honor is reunited with her parents and displays a great amount of bravery and ingenuity, they refuse to take her on their next adventure to make a real attempt at overthrowing the government. Okay, granted, a coup isn't necessarily the best place for a child, but they send her back to her terrible school with no explanation other than someone needs to take care of her little brother. Maybe this stems at least partially from my own distaste at the idea of being forced to care for a sibling (I have an autistic brother who will probably require lifetime care to some extent or another, but my parents have always told me they don't expect me to become his caretaker, though they hope I'll have him over for holidays and such), but it seems incredibly callous to send their daughter back into what is essentially an abusive situation without any explanation. Especially since the abuse could easily escalate because Honor was already developing a reputation as a problem child as an Orphan, and brazenly ran away from school in the middle of a typhoon.

Review: Exodus by Julie Bertagna

I think it says something about me that I am continually drawn to books about dystopian future societies. Sure, I hope that our future is all sunshine and roses - after all, I don't want to be a Handmaiden like in The Handmaid's Tale or have brain lesions implanted during radical plastic surgery like in Uglies - but when it comes to books, I'll take the end of the world/government is evil scenario over almost any other.

Exodus takes place in the year 2100, after global warming has melted the polar ice caps and apparently drowned all of the land on Earth. As far as Mara Bell is concerned, all that is left of the world is her tiny island, Wing, which is rapidly being swallowed up by the still-rising waters. In order to escape the monotony of being trapped inside her small house during the storm season (a season which seems to get longer every year), Mara uses a piece of antique technology - a cyberwizz - to explore the ruins of a virtual-reality-type internet called the weave. It's while exploring these ruins one day that she makes a startling discovery: the citizens of Wing aren't the only people left alive on earth. After years of exploring weave in solitude, Mara stumbles across another entity, a person who has taken the cyber-form of a fox. He tells Mara he lives in the New World, a city called New Mungo that has been built on stilts high enough to rise above the waters and sturdy enough to support a civilization through the thrashing storms brought on by global warming.

When Mara tells her family and the rest of the community about her discovery, they are hesitant at first, but quickly realize they have no other choice but to try to reach New Mungo. The alternative is drowning with their tiny island.

A traumatic journey across the ocean leads to more trauma: a refugee camp made of boats, an uncountable number of people who are desperate for shelter within the safety of New Mungo, but aren't allowed in - not unless you are chosen during the Picking, a fate which no one is sure is a good or a bad thing.

Mara, wracked by guilt for having led her community into the horror of the refugee camp, makes a desperate attempt to gain entry into the city. She falls short of her goal, but is rescued by a "sea urchin," an orphaned boy who lives a wild life among the support pillars of New Mungo and on small islands that haven't succumbed to the rising ocean. Also living on the islands is a small civilization of Treenesters, people who live in what are possibly the last trees on earth, and believe they will be rescued from the islands when the Face in the Stone appears and can fulfill a prophecy. The Face in the Stone, it turns out, bears an uncanny resemblance to Mara.

Mara's adventure continues as she tries to devise a way to save not only the people of Wing from the boat refugee camp, but the treenesters as well. And when he treenester friend Gorbals, as well as the sea urchin who saved her, are taken by the New Mungo police in a Picking, Mara's quest leads her into the heart of danger: New Mungo itself.

Overall I found this to be a fun book, though there were some small problems with it. There wasn't always a lot of plot development leading up to a major event, so sometimes it felt like catastrophe upon catastrophe was befalling Mara with little reason. Also the beliefs of the treenesters seemed a little forced: the oldest of their clan is a woman who was a scientist before New Mungo was built; why would she suddenly start believing in some prophecy that was apparently made up of whole cloth? Legends and religions generally don't just spring up over night, but that's apparently what happened with the prophecy of the Face in the Stone.

At the end of it all, Exodus covers a lot of ground, but still leaves lots of questions unanswered. I just checked Wikipedia, source of all knowledge, and it says a sequel was published in 2007. Considering Exodus was originally published in 2002 and it just made it to America this year, who knows when we'll get the rest of the story.

The high point of the novel for me had to be when Mara was exploring an abandoned university that hadn't quite been submerged yet. The greatest legends, artists, thinkers and inventors throughout history were written about and depicted on the walls of the university - and there were hardly any women among them. When a woman appeared she was often a legendary figure, like the warrior queen Boudica. Hopefully in whatever future Mara builds for herself in Zenith, she will be remembered as a great and brave person.