Rot & Ruin Giveaway winner!

This is a little later than I promised but...oh well. Work got hectic this morning, what can I say?

But now that it's a quiet Friday afternoon, I'm free to announce the winner. Through the time-honored method of drawing names from a hat, the winner is...

TIA!

In answer to the (purposefully vague) question of how do you like your zombies, Tia answered "The zombies gotta be slow! Otherwise how are the measly humans able to come up with something cool to protect themselves?"

I thought it was interesting that most votes came down on the side of slow zombies, at least in novels, but fast when it comes to movies. Interesting to keep in mind for my own zombie novel!

Thanks to everyone who entered, and to Jonathan Maberry who was awesome enough to offer the book for giveaway! Tia, I'm going to send your e-mail address to Jonathan, and from there the two of you will work out shipping.

Sci Fi Friday Review: Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

It's no secret to long-time readers of this blog that I have a thing for Scott Westerfeld's writing. I wrote my senior thesis on the Uglies series, for goodness' sake! So it's probably no surprise, given my history with Westerfeld's work and my feelings about last year's Leviathan, that I enjoyed Behemoth. Just wanted to get that out of the way in case the curiosity was killing you.

When we last left the crew of the British airship Leviathan, they had just picked up several Austrian passengers, including the son of the recently-assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Alek - not that any of the British crew know that. Alek's lone friend among the crew is a young airman Dylan, who is actually a young woman, Deryn, disguising herself so she can serve in the air force - not that anyone knows about that. The airship is carrying some precious cargo and distinguished guests, including the granddaughter of Charles Darwin, who has some very special eggs she wants delivered to the ruler of the Ottoman Empire before a great war can break out among the European nations in response to the murder of Alek's parents.

The Ottoman Empire is at a crossroads when the Leviathan docks. They are technically neutral in the burgeoning conflict, but are being courted by both German and British forces for an alliance. And all is not well within the Empire, as the current sultan has only been in power for a few years and already militants are planning a coup to replace the monarchy with a democratic government. Alek and Deryn know that technically they are on opposite sides in this war - Clanker and Darwinist, royalty and commoner - but discover they will have to work together, along with an eclectic mix of allies, if they ever hope to achieve their mutual goal: stop a world war from beginning.

If you haven't read Leviathan yet, you absolutely need to read it before reading Behemoth. The story picks up mere days after the end of Leviathan, and the action starts within just a few pages, leaving precious little time to catch the reader up on what happened in the last book. I really liked the fact that Westerfeld just goes with the assumption that the reader already knows the back story, because that means each and every page can be devoted to developing what happens next.

This is one wild ride both similar to and very different from Leviathan. In the last book, we followed Alek wandering in the wilderness towards safety with his body guards, and Deryn spent much of her story alone among the crew out of need to protect her secret. In Behemoth, less physical ground is covered, as the story stays focused on Istanbul, and the story becomes more of a political thriller as Alek and Deryn become involved in the resistance movement - which introduces my favorite character, the feisty revolutionary Lilit, who has dreams of bringing women's liberation to Istanbul. She also has a huge crush on one of our dashing heroes. Lilit is a young woman destined for greatness and could probably support a whole novel of her own!

As expected, there are more great beasties and machines this time around. The Ottoman Empire is a Clanker nation, but they're more in touch with nature than the Germans or Austrians, as their mechanics are based on animals. My favorite was probably the spider-like machine that worked the great library. On the Darwinist side, we finally get to see what was in those eggs that were so carefully guarded in Leviathan and, of course, there's the title beastie, the Behemoth. It's awesome, in every sense of the word.

Because I feel like it's becoming my trademark, I do have to comment for a moment on the romance element of the book. Deryn is beginning to develop "feelings" for Alek. Maybe this just annoyed me because I read it shortly after The Education of Bet and A Golden Web, two other novels about young women dressing up as men, but I'm getting quite tired of girls putting all of their other goals at risk because of some boy that literally thinks they're just one of the guys. Deryn keeps a handle on herself better than the protagonists of the other two books, and it's really just a small bit of this otherwise giant story, but it still rankled me a bit. I am certain Goliath won't go the way of Mockingjay in terms of focus on relationships, but I can't deny there's a little bit of worry in the back of my head. Hopefully, averting World War I will remain the focus.

Rot & Ruin Giveaway Reminder: I'm going to draw the winner for the Rot & Ruin giveaway at 12 pm Eastern time today! If you still want a chance to win, enter here!

Reviewed from ARC picked up at ALA 2010.

Review: Bruiser by Neal Shusterman

When I finished reading this, all I could do was agree with Laurie Halse Anderson's cover blurb - this was a wild ride, and absolutely magical.

Brewster "Bruiser" Rawlins was voted "Most Likely to get the Death Penalty" by the school - so when 16 year old Tennyson discovers the brute is dating his twin sister, Bronte, he's pissed and does everything possible to sabotage the relationship, from following the pair to mini-golf to making sure their dad knows the kid's brutal reputation. Bronte, however, insists the others don't know Bruiser - they don't know he's memorized "Howl" and how tenderly he cares for his little brother after their mother has died and they're living with a drunk uncle. Tennyson is reluctantly drawn to Bruiser, after seeing him in the locker room with his back covered in bruises and scars. As Bruiser becomes closer to Tennyson and Bronte, the twins start  noticing strange things happening when he's around - their injuries heal and disappear quickly, while Bruiser adds new ones daily. And while their parents' marriage is crumbling, when Bruiser is around their problems don't seem to be so bad. Bruiser's friendships with Tennyson, Bronte and their family lead to complex questions about the meanings of friendship, family and pain.

I read this shortly after I finally got around to watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and found myself comparing the two in terms of tone and genre. Shusterman has written a story that has some very classical elements, combining a deathly serious story with the slightest touch of fantasy. There is no explanation for Bruiser's abilities, just like no real explanation is given for Benjamin's aging in the movie (and, I assume, the story on which its based). It's just something that exists, and in the face of undeniable evidence, Tennyson and Bronte accept it with little question. They acknowledge it's weird, and they wish they knew the how and why of it all, but when your twisted ankle heals itself in minutes while your boyfriend suddenly starts limping, you can't really argue with what's happening.

There are four narrators to this story: Tennyson and Bronte, then Bruiser and his little brother, Cody. The last two are the narrators that really stick out stylistically, for Cody narrates perfectly in the voice of an eight year old who is simultaneously wise beyond his years and painfully naive. He's never had a real injury, which gives him even more bravado than the average eight year old, but he's also been witness to and subjected to horrific abuse at the hands of his uncle. And Bruiser narrates in amazing poetry - starting with a perfect adaptation of "Howl" before moving into free verse.

This is a dramatic story with some very serious questions at its core about pain, joy, family, responsibility and friendship. The magical touch of Bruiser's ability gives Shusterman a unique way to comment on life, without having to go too far into the realm of fantasy. It is a perfect blend of the fantastic and the all-too real.

Review: The Wonder of Charlie Anne by Kimberly Newton Fusco

Found via: The Fourth Musketeer

First, I'd just like to give a shout out to the Fourth Musketeer blog. I've been getting tons of historical fiction recommendations from there for the past few months, books that I don't always see reviewed elsewhere, so a big thanks to Margo for highlighting these great books!

It's the 1930s, and with the US in the grip of a devastating Depression, Charlie Anne finds herself in the midst of her own depression, following a series of personal tragedies. Her mother died in childbirth (which the baby didn't survive, either), her cousin Mirabel showed up shortly after the funeral to serve as the "new mama" to Charlie Anne and her four siblings, and now her father has gone north with her oldest brother to build roads.

On the home front, Mirabel runs the household with an iron fist, and never seems satisfied with Charlie Anne. Charlie Anne is forced to do all of the menial, domestic chores when she'd much prefer to be outside working with the animals, and Mirabel is constantly reminding her to act like a little lady, with advice from a book on manners she constantly keeps in her pocket. Just when life can't seem to get any drearier, a spark of excitement comes to town in the form of Rosalyn, the new wife of Charlie Anne's neighbor, and Phoebe, the African-American girl about Charlie Anne's age she brings with her. In Charlie Anne's small town, no one has ever seen anyone like this pair - witty, educated, and confident enough to wear trousers in colors like "red pepper red." But difficult times and a fear of change bring out the worst in people, forcing Charlie Anne to confront the ugly racism that can hide even in seemingly-reasonable people.

While this is definitely a novel about the terrible things racism can do to a community, I enjoyed immensely the undercurrent of feminism in Charlie Anne, Rosalyn and Phoebe. While Charlie Anne may not have the words to express quite why it's wrong, she complains about being forced to do chores like cleaning clothes and cooking while her brother milks the cows, when everyone knows Charlie Anne is better with the cows. Rosalyn and Phoebe show up in their daring fashion choices that wouldn't become commonplace for American women for decades, declaring they're the most sensible clothes for anyone who works and plays hard, but Charlie Anne is forbidden from wearing a pair of her own because it's not how proper young ladies are "supposed" to dress, according to Mirabel.

Charlie Anne has a wonderfully earnest voice. She's young enough to still believe in magic in the world, but the rapid succession of her mother's death, her father leaving to build roads, and the ugly face of racism in her family and community, are forcing her to grow up. Hopefully she won't ever lose the sense of wonder she carries through the novel.

Charlie Anne's voice also allows Fusco to overcome one of the hurdles of writing historical fiction - how to explain things that are a matter of fact to the characters but are strange and unfamiliar to a modern audience? Well, Charlie Anne is the sort of person that I think would explain how to make a vinegar pie over and over again to her neighbors, even though they've been doing it themselves for years. She's so eager and thorough that all of the historical descriptions seem totally natural in Charlie Anne's words.

Nonfiction Monday Review: The Good, The Bad and the Barbie by Tanya Lee Stone

Last year I absolutely loved Tanya Lee Stone's Almost Astronauts, about the American women who trained to fly the space shuttle. This time around, Stone has set her sights on something far more down to Earth, something that almost every woman had her in childhood bedroom over the last fifty years: Barbie.


Stone takes a methodical look at the history of Barbie, from her creator's early beginnings through the creation of Mattel and the first Toy Fair where Barbie was set to make her big debut - and flopped. Who would have imagined this ubiquitous doll would, at one point, have been totally shunned? The toy buyers at the time were almost all male, and couldn't imagine that a mom would ever buy her daughter a toy with breasts.


From there, Stone looks at the evolution of Barbie, noting when her friends and family appeared on the scene and when she finally deviated from the blonde-haired blue-eyed original to represent girls of various ethnicities, and the criticisms that quickly followed and dog Barbie to this day. Stone fills the book with quotations from girls and women, giving their true feelings on Barbie, from young girls who are genuinely angered by how Barbie doesn't reflect them to older women reflecting on how they mutilated their dolls - not out of anger, but just for fun!


Stone also looks at the art that Barbie has inspired, from altered dolls to sculpture and painting to jewelry and short films. For better or worse, Barbie is an icon that had a lot of cultural cachet. 


Stone takes a very even-handed look at this often-controversial doll. There are both young girls and grown women who hate Barbie...and then there are young girls and grown women who love Barbie, and all of them have a say in this book. The most interesting part for me was the development of, and the reactions to, non-white Barbies. For some girls, it's great to have a Barbie that looks at least a little more like them, but for others its still frustrating because so often the only change was the pigment in plastic - it wasn't until 2009 that Mattel even attempted more African-American hair textures and styles with the So in Style dolls.


I also loved the look at how girls (and their brothers) will destroy their Barbies. When I first heard about kids doing this, I was horrified - I could never even bring myself to cut my Barbie's hair when I was a kid, let alone pull her apart and dye her hair with food coloring. But I had issues as a kid - usually I never got much farther than dressing all of my dolls up. I had at least a dozen and was convinced I needed to play with them all equally, but by the time all of their outfits had been changed...I wanted to go do something else!


The book does focus on the more "real world" aspects of Barbie - concerns over girls wanting to look like her, and questions about how she's styled for her various careers (at one point apparently Surgeon Barbie was in a scrubs mini dress) or ethnicities, but nothing about the more fanciful aspects of Barbie, like all the times she's been some variation on a princess (I realized this as I was thinking about my own Barbies - I had two collector's editions, one Native American Barbie and the other Barbie as Rapunzel). I suppose when the doll has had over 100 careers, you have to leave something out.


Stone neither praises Barbie nor demonizes the doll. She lays out the evidence for the reader to draw her own conclusion. I doubt a hard core hater or lover of the doll will be swayed away from their beliefs, but for someone like me who is more ambivalent about the doll, it raised a few new questions to consider while helped me put some other concerns to rest.


The Good, The Bad and the Barbie will be published on October 14th.


With all the talk of Barbie mutilation in this book, I'd love to hear how you played with Barbies as a kid! Were they tortured or prized? Did you collect them by the dozen or only have a prized doll or two? Was there something else entirely you liked better than Barbie? For the guys, were you forbidden from playing with Barbie, or did you never have an interest outside of torturing your sisters' dolls?




Today's Nonfiction Monday is hosted by Madigan Reads. Stop by to see all the great nonfiction being reviewed this week!
Reviewed from ARC picked up at ALA.

Month in review: September

Yes, it's the second day of October. It's actually almost the third day of October (reminder to self: call Dad tomorrow for his birthday!), but I spent all day today being a huuuuuuuuge nerd with a bunch of friends, playing the World of Darkness role playing game, set during the zombie apocalypse.

I've been in huge zombie overload recently. First there was Zombies vs. Unicorns and its accompanying debate (review of the actual book will be posted soon!), then Rot & Ruin, which of course has a giveaway running through Friday, October 8. I also just finished reading Mira Gran'ts Feed, a journalistic thriller starring bloggers after the dead have risen. Technically it's an adult novel, but I think it'll find some crossover appeal, as the narrator is only 20-something and it's quite an action-packed novel.

But enough about what's coming up - these review posts are supposed to be about looking back!

I love fall. It's definitely my favorite season, and it's especially exciting for book-people here in NYC because the book events pick up again in earnest. Within one week I had both the Zombies vs. Unicorns debate plus the Great Books for Teens and Tweens event at Books of Wonder - which is hosting more great events throughout October, so expect plenty more dispatches from that!

Looking back, I reviewed a lot of books about war this month, far more than I do in a usual month, I think. WWII was covered from a variety of angles with Ashes and Once as well as the excellent new graphic novel biography of Anne Frank. WWI was covered in my last Nonfiction Monday post with The War to End All Wars which I read shortly after I finished Behemoth (which will be reviewed on Friday - it got bumped in favor of the Rot & Ruin giveaway). The Cold War was the background for This Means War and The Red Umbrella which I'll also be reviewing soon. A fictional war was concluded in Monsters of Men, and while Black Hole Sun doesn't have a full scale war raging, it's still got plenty of fighting. Weird how things like that work out sometimes!

Stand out titles this month include the aforementioned Black Hole Sun and Rot & Ruin. Additionally, I Now Pronounce You Someone Else cracked me up because it is set around my home town, but also has a great serious side. A Golden Web is amazing historical fiction about the first female anatomist, and on the nonfiction front, I found Curveball to be a fascinating look at the first woman to play professional baseball on a men's team. A truly awesome story.

Sci-Fi Friday Review + Giveaway: Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Yeah, you read that subject right! To kick off October right, I'm jumping in with a PERSONALIZED, SIGNED copy of Jonathan Maberry's new YA zombie novel Rot & Ruin! Read through my review to find the details at the bottom.

Set 14 years after the dead first began to rise, Benny Imura is 15 and has to choose his career quickly, before the town cuts his ration allowance in half. Benny looks into pretty much every half-decent job in town (and even a couple that are less-than-decent), all hoping to avoid the inevitable: joining the family business and becoming his brother's apprentice. What does his brother do?

Kill zombies.

Benny and his older brother Tom have a complicated relationship - as in Benny does little more than tolerate his older brother, who is totally uncool in comparison to the bad-ass zombie bounty hunters that tell tall tales filled with daring and adventure to entertain the kids. But when Benny runs out of other job options, he reluctantly begins training to join his brother in the field - and learns that there's a lot more to zombie hunting than just whacking zoms.

When Jonathan was talking about the novel at Sunday's Books of Wonder event, he noted that zombie novels are never about the zombies - the zombies are metaphors and catalysts for change. I think rarely has that fact come through as clearly as it does in Rot & Ruin. This is not a book about zombies. This isn't even really a book about zombie hunters. It's a book about brothers, about family, and about what it means to be human. There's lots of philosophy in this book - not the heavy sort that put me to sleep in college, but this is definitely a book that asks readers to think.

That's not to say there isn't any zombie killing action in the story. In fact, there's quite a bit, and Benny is often in the thick of it, even though he's not a trained bounty hunter yet, which adds to the drama - often he's armed with nothing more than a bokken. 


Placing the story within one generation or so of the onset of the zombies was an excellent idea. It's far enough that people realistically have some knowledge of the zombies (what will make a person return, how to kill them, what attracts them), but it still makes sense for some of the history to have to be explained to someone like Benny who was barely a toddler when the outbreak again. While some scenes were heavy on the exposition as older brother Tom explains the ways of the world to Benny, the reason for the exposition never felt forced; it just could have been trimmed a little. Also, Tom spends a bit too much time congratulating Benny for asking great questions; there certainly could have been a little more showing rather than telling.


I also have to give a major shout out for the multi-cultural cast. Tom and Benny are Japanese-American - which explains the affinity for Japanese weaponry (Tom uses a katana when fighting with a blade - remember, blades are quieter and don't need reloading!). A quick rundown of the heritages of other characters is given at one point as well - a doctor born in India, another man from Oaxaca, and Vietnamese and Chinese characters as well. While the zombies are a more-or-less uniform shade of gray, the living characters are vibrant and represent the real diversity found in the contemporary United States.


I know a book, especially a zombie book, is resonating with me when I can't wait to finish it so I can go work on my own novel. I've been toiling for ages on my own zombie novel, and I find my biggest inspiration to get back to writing is to read another great book. In this case, I'm not inspired because I think I have a superior take on zombies - rather I'm just excited about some day adding my own bit of input into this rich genre, and I get excited by what other people are adding along the way.


While you're waiting for the next book in the trilogy to come out (Dust & Decay), I highly recommend you check out Jonathan's website. There's a great interview up right now with Carrie Ryan (The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead Tossed Waves) and Alden Bell (The Reapers are the Angels - which I hadn't heard of before! Amazon doesn't list it as a YA novel, but the protagonist is 15, so you can be sure I'm trying to get my hands on it now) giving their thoughts on all things zombie.


GIVEAWAY


This is the part you're waiting for, right?


After my Fall releases post last week, I got a lovely e-mail from Jonathan offering up a signed copy of Rot & Ruin for giveaway here on the blog! After responding that yes, I would love to host a giveaway, he upped the ante on his offer: not only will the book be signed, but he'll personalize the book for the winner! So instead of just his signature, the book will be signed just for you!


The contest is going to run for one week - I'll announce the winner on Friday, October 8th.


How to enter? Leave a comment in this entry with your e-mail address. And just to make this fun, answer the same question I posed to Jonathan and the other panelists last Sunday: do you prefer fast zombies or slow? 


The winner will be chosen randomly - as in my last giveaway the question is just to make the entries more interesting - and I'll send Jonathan the winner's e-mail address so the two of you can work out signing and shipping details.