Palace of Mirrors by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Library Copy

Palace of Mirrors is a sequel to a retelling of Cinderella called Just Ella, which I read at some point in either early high school or middle school. I remember loving Just Ella enough that I went through a serious "fairy tale retelling" phase for a while. That feels like another lifetime to me now, though of course I still love revisionist fairy tales.
I had a few very personal problems with this book from the get go. I remember Just Ella ending in a satisfying way, though I have very little memory of what actually happened in the book at all (it's been 13 years since I've read it at least). I feel like a sequel was completely unnecessary. Not only because the first book was fine alone, but the sequel is more enjoyable (though not crucial) if you read Just Ella first - as Ella has a cameo role that's actually somewhat important. Now the part that really chaffs me: Palace of Mirrors (2008) was published 9 years after Just Ella (1999). I was in the intended age bracket for Just Ella when it was published, and in college when Palace of Mirrors was published. That's not uncommon in the publishing world, I know, but I find it annoying. This makes me wonder who the intended audience for Palace of Mirrors would have been for. Of course there have to have been children in that almost-decade window of time who grew to love the first book - least we overlook the fact that when I read it I was on the latter end of the intended age group. But for the original fans and younger fans, I think the end result didn't leave much for us to meet in the middle over. I've found that even young reviewers were a little wise for the book - I saw some complaints that Cecilia was dumb for someone who was supposed to be so smart. The kids are wrong, of course, Cecilia is naive, not dumb - there's a difference.

Palace of Mirrors is about a young girl (named Cecilia, as I mentioned) who was raised in obscurity, but was trained to be a princess. When it becomes too dangerous keep herself hidden, she and her friend Harper (a harpist - get it?) flee to the capitol city so that Cecilia can take her rightful place as the princess. But as Cecilia well knows, that place isn't exactly vacant. And the current princess won't just give up her seat - to Cecilia's, uh, surprise. Right. You can see where the kids reading this book are ready to take to the streets and start a riot, right? But it's actually a bit more complicated than that. But I'm not going to give that away!

I didn't actually think the book it's self was terrible. I kind of liked it as an original work, and there is a third book that ties more closely to this one than this tied to Just Ella - so I may be reading that one at some point soon. Unfortunately, I think it was a bit too young for me. If you know someone young enough to devour the entire series without having to wait so long to do it, I recommend it.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Library Copy

Right out the gate, I loved this book. I'm a little surprised at myself - I didn't expect to like it this much. Without beating around the bush, I'm going to throw down these words to describe it: gratuitous, shojo, shirtless tough-guys. I hope it never reaches Twilight or Hunger Games level of fame, because that opens it up for as much ridicule. (Women just can't have nice things, now can we?) Not that it matters: hate on, haters. I really loved it - I don't want to think too deeply as to why, it was just pure fun and thrill.

I still tend to shy away from a lot of YA novels, even if I enjoy them more than the usual fiction because I don't like to put a lot of faith in books with amazing covers. Okay, we've all done it. We'll see a stunning cover that really strikes our fancy, buy it immediately, and when we're halfway through with reading it... ugh. Plot holes, cliches, grating & whiny dialog. We learn that the publishers totally just Febrezed the book by giving it a nice cover to disguise how crappy the content is. Once bitten, twice shy I say. So now I wait until I see that it's worth the effort. I know. That's, like, the opposite of what a book reviewer's job is. But hear me out - this time I just went after the pretty book, caution to the wind, so that I could let you know wither or not it's worth your time.
Gentle readers, it is very much worth your time. Okay, it was sexy and edgy. I didn't expect to really like that. But golly gee, did I ever! I guess my tastes are changing.

A Court of Thorns and Roses is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Early on, this seems obvious, but somewhere in there it becomes entirely it's own thing. Feyre is a poor daughter of a once wealthy merchant. She shoulders the burden of caring for the family, and they don't do much to show their appreciation for it. One very bitter winter's day, while hunting in the forest for food before her family starves to death, she kills a wolf without realizing that it was a fairy in disguise. As punishment, she is taken from her family to live with a High Fae named Tamlin.
There's a bit of a slow start, but honest to Gosh, this isn't a simple re-telling of Beauty in the Beast (my favorite fairy tell and one that I can have told to me in as many variations as possible) because by the end it developed into it's own thing and I didn't even recognize it anymore. That alone is reason to recommend it. The end doesn't even resemble it's beginning and that is a rare sign of a great book.
I was totally into it almost the whole time. I think Maas has the go ahead from the publishers for 2 more books (which seems excessive, but hey - that's good news for her!) The 2nd book drops next May, and honestly? The wait will kill me.

Some Comics I made while reading this book

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

UGH!! This perfect book! Why did I wait so long to read you, perfect book? Beautiful book? Hilarious book? I know why - it's because by now I've already read everything by Rainbow Rowell (until Carry On hits shelves in a few weeks) and, though we all know I love reading, I especially love Rainbow Rowell. I'm one of those people who likes to save good things for the right time. I don't eat a chocolate bar all at once - it will survive a week. I can have some self-control like that.
But back to Attachments - it may be my favorite Rowell novel since Fangirl (which I originally read as a library copy, but have since sprung for my own special edition copy and will sometimes take down to reread). It may have something to do with the time and place I am in emotionally. Or, maybe it's because it's a really good romantic comedy that is actually both romantic and comedic. Something (a douchey friend once told me) is as rare as a unicorn and some people assume don't exist. Oh, it exists. The very first page had me cackling - the relationship between Jennifer and Beth are so like me and my work friend (of course, I'm the Beth here). And Lincoln... sweet cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pure... awh, Lincoln. You know? I have to give it up to Rowell. She knows how to make normal people lusciously attractive - her romances are not built upon make-believe and fantasy. Attraction isn't about what everyone else sees as sexy, but what you as an individual sees. All of her novels are about that. All of her heroines are Plus Sized (in my head, anyway) and they are all beautiful and vibrant and human-sized. Her heroes tend to be average Joes, sometimes hayseeds, sometimes a little smelly with cow-licks, but always gentlemen. Neither of them present unrealistic expectations for either gender. Except, perhaps, that they always fall for those little quirks and nuances that go unnoticed or discussed by friends, family, and acquaintances. The way, I believe, attraction really works. In other words, it's not about what other people see, but what you see in a person.

In Attachments, Lincoln takes a new job on the night-shift of a local newspaper (this in in 1999, but apart from the pop culture references, there's nothing romanticized about it). His job is to monitor e-mails by reading them - it's not a secret, it's company policy. The e-mails sent between Beth & Jennifer, however, are entertaining and Lincoln decides not to turn them in. Especially now that he finds himself falling for Beth. But how does a gentle giant, awkward turtle like Lincoln breach the subject to Beth? A woman he's never officially met?

It's reminiscent of You've Got Mail, my favorite movie of all time. I highly, hugely recommend it. I see that pitiful 3.97 rating on GoodReads and completely rebuke it. I'm stingy with my stars, but I definitely gave it 5. My other two Rainbow Rowell Reviews are here: Eleanor & Park   Landline

Remember Me? by Sophie

library

I've been a fan of Sophie Kinsella's light, witty novels since college. They're nice to turn to when you're feeling a little over-done. One of these days I'll pick up another hefty, deep novel, but lately I just haven't been in the mood for it. I needed something to read while on vacation, after-all.

Remember Me? is a rom-com, chick-lit, novel about Lexi Smart, a woman who has just woken up from amnesia. I know, Cliche City. Lexi's last clear memory occurred 3 years ago, and now that's she's awoken she's a completely different person: richer, prettier, and married. There's a lot of catching up for Lexi to do. She doesn't even know her husband, she's now a top boss at work and everyone seems to hate her, and then there's this man named Jon...
Honestly, there isn't much to this novel. It was fun and funny, but even though the main character suffers from amnesia, one of the most over-done plot devices known to man, I still think it was pretty original. I happen to enjoy trivial and trite stories like exactly like this one - like sci-fi, there's a sense of fantasy and unbelievably to it, but we can still enjoy it without taking it too seriously. I loved Lexi's character, she's flawed and totally discombobulated by the fact that she suddenly woke up in a stranger's perfect life. Except, it isn't perfect. She's slowly acclimating to it, but she knows all along that she would rather the old life she had. I suppose success does that - "the grass is always greener," as they say. She's also slowly figuring out why she ended up with the life she ended up with. What events and decisions (and mistakes) that led her to this. Yeah, this seems like a goofy book, but it's also deep in it's way.

The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler

Library eBook

This was a little book I read pretty quickly - it's intended for tween-aged girls, provided they still like princess stories (which I certainly did at that age). I read it pretty quickly, and it's obviously much, much too young for me, but it was a nice throw-back to the kinds of books I loved the best as a kid and made me feel very nostalgic.
I'll admit that I read it at all because I have a habit of reading (and adoring) any book with Kinuko Y. Craft's art gracing the cover. She largely illustrates for fantasy and some sci-fi novels, but they almost always happen to be the very specific kind of fantasy or sci-fi novel that I like, but she also does fairy tale books as well. Anyway, I'm not sure I can accurately confirm (if anyone reading this can, please leave me a message?) that this was Craft's work on the cover, but it certainly looks that way. A few years ago I read a very similar book called Wildwood Dancing in which she did illustrate, It is very, very close to this one - they're both retellings of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. It's really hard for me not to compare this book to that one. Wildwood Dancing was perfectly crafted - I would argue it's almost wasted on younger readers. While The Thirteenth Princess was well written, it wasn't the masterpiece Wildwood Dancing was, though it was cute and comforting to read.

The Thirteenth Princess is about Zita, a young girl who was raised in a castle as a servant, but only recently discovered that she is the youngest sister of the 12 princesses. Though she was kept away from her sisters her entire life, they still love her and steal away chances to spend time with her. They start a weekly tradition of allowing her to visit their massive bedroom once a week. Everything is great, until suddenly their heath begins to wane. Zita realizes that they are under a spell and as the only sister not being raised as a princess was over looked and their fore is free to rescue them.
Personally, I found Zita a trifle irritating - she's a romantic little fire brand, so I know a lot of readers will actually love her. (That's just a personal preference.) And I'm sure I'm missing a lot of information here, but I didn't dwell on this book very long to say a whole lot more. I would recommend reading Wildwood Dancing before this one, but if you know a bookish little girl (and with it being summer vacation...) this might be something good to read.

Adventure Time with Fionna & Cake: Double Feature

There are times when you need something fun and frivolous to read. Sometimes you need to give the ole' think-gut a rest, you know what I mean? I'd spent the last few weeks investing a lot of time reading a certain 800+ paged novel, only to have a it spoiled by a jerk friend. (There are some spoilers that just happen, and it can be forgiven. But this was a particularly asshole way to do it.) I'm pretty angry about it - I was just innocently reading and enjoying my book when this happens, and before you ask, no it wasn't Game of Thrones related. So I had to put it away (instead of just sitting around waiting for the axe to drop) and read something else to get my mind off of things.

Local Comic Store

Amazon Smile

So I opted to read some spin-offs of a cartoon franchise I really enjoy.
Even as a kid, I wasn't a fan of licensed books or series' that had too many sequels. I especially didn't trust books without a real author, feeling as if they were somehow illegitimate. But if they were part of a franchise I liked enough, I would want to give that franchise all of my money. Such is the way with Adventure Time's Fionna and Cake. I have been a fan of them since Natasha Allegri first posted her cute and very accurate comic strips on her Tumblr. I sure hope she's getting royalties from these spin-offs or something, because I'm going to continue buying anything Fionna and Cake related as long as they keep making them. Mainly on the grounds that actual episodes featuring them on the Adventure Time cartoon are rare, but also because I believe in supporting things that I think are awesome.

So, I read both the comic (at press time, there is only one volume - I don't know if there will be any more in the future) and a children's novella called "Queen of Rogues" - which was advertised as a romance novel, but there wasn't any romance to speak of.
First, the comic book. As it was helmed by Natasha herself (she did some writing and illustrating) it felt the most legitimate. At least, you get a more authentic feel of her original Fionna and Cake characters, which early on didn't seem like gender bent versions of Finn and Jake, but were their own things. Fionna and Cake are heavily influenced in both art and story by Japanese Shojo manga, which feels very natural with Natasha's art and story telling, as well as with the other artists and writers who wrote and illustrated for this comic.
The only issue I had was that the story telling was that it was a little too light, whimsical, and simplistic. (It started off brilliantly with the Flame Queen.) I remembered the original strips were really funny, though they might have been a little inappropriate too. I think the publishers were too afraid to go as dark as Cake leaving dead mice in Fionna's bed - maybe because that might be too intense for their little girl audiences. (I don't know, at that age I'd seen my cats do plenty of f**ked up things and I still like cats just fine.) I hope we do get further issues so that we can see more of Natasha's cutesy but still very wicked wit shine through.

Now for Queen of Rouge's - an obviously ghost-written franchise novella for younger readers. Actually, it was really well written and interesting. It was released with another book starring Jake the Dog and Lady Rainicorn, which was really romancey, but from what I saw of it, really stupid. This story was supposed to tell some of the background of how Fionna and Cake were introduced to Prince Bubblegum and Marshall Lee the Vampire King. I seriously doubt that any of it is cannon, but try convincing your kids that. I can see both young boys and girls enjoying this book, if you're a parent having a hard time getting your children to enjoy books.

Manga Manifesto, Bride's Story, and Sakuran

I made a promise to talk about every book I've read from cover to cover - I also made a promise to talk a little about everything I read while away on vacation, and that it would be a lot. But I've never written reviews for comic books until now. Interestingly, because I've been a huge fan of manga since I was 13. College almost killed that joy, but in the past year I've reconciled with it.
A note on comics, manga, and shojo: Manga might not be as popular now as it has been in the last few years. That's okay, because it's still really huge. I understand that in the wide, wide world people still think of comic books as "for the boys," and that's still largely true - in American comics. With the introduction of manga in the US, and the shojo genre with it, there was finally something on the market for girls to read. I understand that Marvel and DC have tried (with limited success) to introduce something marketed towards girls. The thing is, they always seem completely clueless as to how to navigate those waters. I really think the popularity of manga has a lot to do with having a HUGE female audience. In 2001, I was one of those kids that helped make manga so popular. Manga, particularly CLAMP's Cardcaptor Sakura, introduced me to comic books. In the early oughts the quality and quantity of manga available doesn't compare with what it is today. Anime and manga was still a very niche market. It was rare and expensive, but the fans didn't take themselves so seriously and it was still, well, fun. All the same, when people tell me that girls don't read comic books, I think of shojo manga - a genre made for and adored by women all over the world.

Comics makes great beach reads, too. It's a breeze to read through and doesn't take the same amount of concentration that novels require. Personally, I find it hard to read anywhere that isn't perfectly quiet and private. Hotel rooms with TV's blaring, bustling pool sides, etc can be very distracting to me, even when they don't mean to be - I'm particular about my surroundings. But when I'm reading comics, none of that is an issue. That's how during this trip I managed to read 5 volumes of manga and a leetle bit of Clash of Kings.

I started the series Bride's Story by Kaoru Mori - the first three volumes of it, at least. Bride's Story is gorgeously illustrated and richly detailed. I'm personally a big fan of historic fiction and costume drama, and if you are too that this'll be your cuppa. Bride's Story is set in Central Asia's Silk Road, a setting that isn't often seen fictionalized in Western literature. That alone makes it worth a read, in my opinion.

It's about a young boy who takes a 20 year old woman from a semi-nomadic tribe as a wife. As you can imagine, there is some nudity, but it's nothing I think you'd try to hide your kids from. ... Unless it's that big of a deal to you. Honestly, it's a beautiful series with a very sweet story. Of all the manga I read this week, it's probably the best written. Even if you don't read graphic novels very often, I think this would still be interesting to a lot of women. Volume 1 introduced us to the characters and world, but not in the tired, worn out way that manga usually does it. In Volume 2, Amar (our favorite bride, who is really more of a big sister character - tough, but sweet) makes a new friend. There is some fighting over her - this is some of the family politics of the time, but it's basically resolved. Volume 3 is where the drama picks up. In fact, Amar and her child groom Karluk are barely in it. The volume ended on a cliff hanger involving a character that initially wasn't much more than a dippy side character. So I'm eagerly waiting to get my grubby little paws on volume 4.

If you're as curious about the daily lives of women and families on the silk road as you are dramatic stories - thinking along the lines of  Downton Abbey of Central Asia and The Silk Road - I do recommend this series highly.
I've quickly become a fan of Kaoru Mori's work, and it's surprising that I'm only discovering her now. She's well known for Emma, which speaking of Downton Abbey, is Victorian romance about a maid, as Kaoru Mori is a bit of an anglophile. It won't be long before I pick up that manga series as well.

The next manga title I read over vacation was a one volume, shrink wrapped title called Sakuran ("Derangement" in English). Sakuran is set in Japan's Edo period, in the "pleasure quarter," about a courtesan. In other words, it's about a Japanese prostitute. Fun Facts About "Oirans": The way you could tell the difference between a geisha and courtesan at the time is the way that they tied their Obis. Geisha's tied theirs in the back while courtesans tied theirs in the front for easier access. Otherwise, they had a few things in common.
In Sakuran, Kiyoha is sold to a brothel at a young age and is trained from a maid up until she becomes one of the most popular courtesans in the house. She's very sassy and rude, which doesn't make her very popular in the brothel - all the other women she lives with basically hate her. But, that kind of spunk and feminine wiles makes her very popular with customers. The story doesn't so much center around how competitive her life is, but the impossibility of love. As bold and brash as she is, her story is very tragic.
As I've said, it's a shrink wrapped manga, which you understand means one thing - it's for mature readers only, please. But it means another thing, too. Shrink Wrapped Manga was pretty common in the late 90's not because so much of it was for mature audiences, but because the glue was so cheap. Bending the spin while reading, even just a little bit, meant that pages would drop out. I haven't seen that as often lately with manga, but that is definitely true here. If possible, try to read it online instead of buying a hard copy - or watch the movie is you're so inclined.