Book Review – Discount Armageddon

Title: Discount Armageddon

Author: Seanan McGuire

Format: Paperback

Year Published: 2012

 Discount Armageddon (which I will never spell correctly the first time) is the story of a girl. A girl who really loves to dance, and who wants to be a professional ballroom dancer. Unfortunately, this girl was born into a family who work with creatures of fairy tales and legends, and she will have to choose which path to follow, because she can’t follow both.

Meet Verity Price. After doing very well on a reality dancing show, Verity is in NYC trying to decide if she wants to pursue her career in ballroom dance, of if she wants to fall back onto the family business of cryptozoologist. Unfortunately, life gets in the way. A member of the Covenant of St. George, who pretty much have a “shoot to kill” order for the Price family as well as any cryptid that they see, has arrived in Manhattan, and cryptids are going missing. They’re going to have to work together to find out why, and to stop it all before the rest of the Covenant descends on the city and ruins Verity’s life in the process.

I enjoyed the book a lot. Verity is a fun heroine, one who knows what she’s worth and isn’t about to let other people tell her otherwise. And although she’s not sure which way she wants her life to go, both choices are presented as valid options, with both their pros and cons. I also liked that even when Verity is shagging Dominic’s brains out, that she doesn’t really trust him to have her best interest at heart and even though it hurts when she runs up against the brick wall of his convictions, she’s not willing to back down.

(As an aside, it was fairly obvious that Dominic was going to change his mind about how he interacted with the cryptids, but the change of mind was very sudden, and not believable. Some of this comes from the first-person POV, as we don’t get to see Dominic change his mind, and some of it is that Verity pretty much just believes him.)

I also really enjoyed Verity’s friends and family (I particularly loved the way she interacted with her old brother Alex, and am excited to learn the third book is about him). The world-building is not showy, but gradual, and every time you need more information, it comes out organically.

The villains – one is very easy to spot, as the text tells you about it, and the other I suspected pretty much on introduction, but even knowing about them doesn’t diminish enjoyment in the story.

While I enjoyed reading about the mice, I would never want to live with them. Verity is a stronger person than I am.

I have the rest of the series on hold at the library, and am looking forward to delving more into this world. A solid 4/5 stars.

Book Review – The Witness

Title: The Witness

Author: Nora Roberts

Format: Hardback

Year Published: 2012

A strong start is crucial to a good book. This one has it. I read the preview chapters in the back of another book I was reading and promptly added it to my library list. Unfortunately, after the sample preview chapters, I found it hard to get going in the book. Eventually I skipped ahead to the ‘now’ time of the story and started powering through it (and did go back and read the part I skipped), so I would say to read that section straight through in one sitting.

The Witness is the story of a girl who, in her first (and, really, last) act of teenage rebellion, witnesses a brutal murder and is forced to go into witness protection – only for her protectors to be killed in turn. She goes on the run, and twelve years later finds herself hiding away in a small town. A meeting with the Police Chief leads to a romance, and now she must decide if she will continue to hide, always prepared to run, or if she will face her past once and for all.

While Roberts’ writing was solid, as always, there was something about this book that was rather meh for me. Part of my issue, I think, was that the main character (Elizabeth/Abigail) always acts like she’s in danger, however we don’t get any true sense that she is once she goes into hiding (so for most of the book). There were several places where I thought that heat would be brought down on her – especially when the private detective starts to investigate her – but in general the only reason we know she’s in danger is because she acts like she is.

Although the story ostentatiously focuses on Abigail, we get far more of a focus on Brooks’ problems and issues. While interesting, they are less interesting than the story that drives Abigail, and therefore the story suffers. We also get a lot of ‘facetime’ with the residents of the town, but I feel like not enough is spent on Brooks’ family (whom I adored) and instead we get too much from Brooks’ antagonists.

Abigail, as a character, was almost too perfect for me. Once she goes into hiding, and especially the way we see her in the main part of the book, she really makes no big mistakes. She’s smart, so she can do all these amazing things with just time and effort, and while she doesn’t understand the social niceties in a normal way, she has learned enough academically that she doesn’t even misstep there either. Roberts has done other socially awkward heroines who have worked far better for me than Abigail did. Brooks is the typical, smooth, wonderful hero. Bland is probably the best way to describe him. His family was the best part of his side of the story.

One of the things that Roberts does do well is to give each character a very distinctive voice. Abigail speaks in very literal, high-definition terms while Brooks has a far more laid-back and country pattern to his speech.

I wouldn’t classify this as one of Roberts’ best books, but it held my attention once the main part started, and I might want to reread it as some point in the future. A solid 3/5 stars.

Book Review – The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

Title: The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

Author: Catherynne M. Valente

Format: Hardback

Year Published: 2012

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland is the sequel to The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland and picks the story up a year later. September has returned from her adventures in Fairyland changed, and the past year has forced a bit of growing up, but also thrown a few obstacles in her way. She no longer fits in with her classmates – she’s been through things, seen things, that they haven’t.

On the eve of September’s thirteenth birthday, she finds her way back into Fairyland again. What she discovers there is that everything is completely wrong – her shadow, given away during some of the events of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland, has taken over the Fairyland-Below and is stealing everybody’s shadows. In doing so, she’s also stealing the magic out of Fairyland.

Although September longs to see her friends again, she chooses to go to Fairyland-Below to fix the mistakes she’d made. There she meets with the shadow versions of her friends, but they’re different, just as her shadow-self is different. She also makes new friends, and new mistakes. One of the best things about September, though, is that she’ll admit she’s made a mistake and then try to fix it. (Sometimes she knows it’s a mistake and goes ahead and does the thing anyway, which keeps her from being perfect-and therefore boring.)

The big twist in the story resolves a question I’d had about a thing in the previous book (I won’t spoil either), and although it took a while for me to get into the one – I think i was more than halfway through before I got to the “no stopping place” – once I did, I plowed through.

All in all, I’m giving this 3.5/5 stars – it loses half a star due to the slowish start.