Vol. 10 #2
Just a reminder, the books reviewed here are recommended. I can't see wasting time reading a book I don't like when there are so many fabulous reads out there. Every book here kept me reading instead of dropping it and going on to the next book.
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YA/ Chick Lit |
Mayer, who knows the lifestyles of the West coast rich and famous, gives an insider’s look through the eyes of three young nannies. Kiley’s life in La Crosse, Wisconsin with her loving parents is fine but she will not be able to achieve her dream of attending Scripps Institution in California to become an oceanographer unless she can get in state tuition by being picked for the Platinum Nanny reality TV show. Because she is underage her over protective but underwhelming mother goes to California with her when she is picked as a finalist. Lydia had been the pampered daughter of two high-powered Texas doctors until they decided their mission in life was to work in a remote Brazilian village. She’s spent all her teen years in the jungle getting all her information about contemporary American life from the occasional magazine that comes her way until her aunt who is an ESPN tennis commentator and life partner of a famous tennis player asks her to come to Bel Air and play nanny to their young children. Esme, in the US illegally, is trying to avoid the gangs that have destroyed her life. Going to pick up her parents from the Beverly Hills mansion where they work as domestics she comes to the attention of their TV producer employer and his trophy wife who moves her into their guesthouse so she can be the nanny to their children. Kiley, Lydia, and Esme may come from vastly different backgrounds but now they are in the same boat. Fortunately being a nanny isn’t a twenty-four seven job and the three experience all that southern California has to offer including romance. The Nannies, combines the friendship of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, with the lifestyles of The A-List and Gossip Girl as experienced by those who weren’t born into it but end up working and living with it.
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Science Fiction/ Aliens/ Colonies
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Six thousand human colonists, who have the financial wherewithal to travel to a distant planet, embark on a trip to the recently discovered planet Greentrees that presents the unique opportunity of a world untouched by the pollution that is threatening life on Earth, and at the same time has never developed any sentient life forms. The colony is made up of several groups, New-Quakers, Arabs, Chinese, Cherokees, and others. Upon landing after several years in frozen sleep, the colonists discover that there is sentient life on the planet. Aliens, who are somewhat humanoid that are named Furs by the colonists, are found in several different locations on the planet. Each community of the Furs is very different from the other ones ranging from aggressive warriors to spaced out droolers. From the anthropological and paleontological record it is obvious that even though the Furs have no advanced technology they have come from somewhere else. When a ship bearing a very different kind of alien, the plantlike Vines appears, it is the leader of the New Quakers who establishes communications and discovers that the Greentrees colonists have landed in the middle of a far reaching interstellar war. Crossfire is a compelling read and highly recommended but keep in mind it works best when Crucible is read immediately after.
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Science Fiction/ Aliens/ Colonies
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The sequel to Crossfire continues with the same intensity of Crossfire but now it is several years later and the residents of Greentrees have become rather complacent. When a ship from Earth arrives, only Jake Holman, the original organizer of the colony, looks with suspicion on the genetically enhanced Julian Martin who captains the Crucible but he does agree with Martin’s focus on war readiness for when the Furs will attack. Alexandra Cutler, the tray-o of Mira City, one of the city’s three highest officials, falls in love with Martin. Meanwhile Karim and Lucy are captured by Vines and return to Greentrees in the midst of a war. It is shocking that Crucible isn’t on the Hugo ballot this year. It is the best kind of science fiction, thought provoking extrapolation on several topics as well as a psychological examination of human behavior packed into an action oriented tale with characters that come alive on the page. As a sequel, Crucible is best when read immediately following Crossfire.
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Fantasy / Parody / Fairy Tales |
Caroline is practically perfect, not only extremely attractive, she is also well organized which helps her find the frog prince in the swamp after endless weeks of catching and kissing frogs in a very systematic way. But something is wrong and the prince is not handsome, well some may say he is kind of cute but definitely not handsome. Caroline has been banking on this opportunity so even though she is unwilling to marry Prince Hal, who is actually more dorky looking than anything, she seizes on a loophole that may allow her to marry one of his brothers. Of course there are time constraints because Hal could turn back into a frog. Emily goes to the palace with Caroline because she needs to find a mentor since her mother, the sorceress who turned Hal into a frog is now dead. With Rapunzel and Rumplestiltskin joining in, Hal tries to find a way to keep the kingdom from bankruptcy, marry Caroline off to one of his handsome brothers, and get the girl of his dreams. Nobody does fairy tale parody better than Moore and what makes it a joy to read is that it is done with an affectionate tone and a fresh vibrant voice.
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YA/ Science Fiction/ |
Toni V has been conscripted to work on reconstruction after a devastating war. Drilling in a plaza of City Five he finds a water can with a diary inside. As he reads the diary we get to know Pelly D, a popular, pretty, spoiled rich girl as the events that led up to the war are gradually revealed. The people on the planet are descendents of earth but there were some problems in the original landing with the genetic material that makes them up so now all are derived from three basic genetic groups. Suddenly a hierarchy between the three types, the Atsumisi, the Mazzini, and the Galrezi becomes evident. Pelly is sure she isn’t Galrezi because her life is so perfect. Soon it becomes a status symbol to have one’s gene stamp (as long as it is Atsumisi) permanently affixed to the back of the hand. Then being gene tested and stamped becomes mandatory. Then people are moved around the city to make room for those fleeing the drought in City One. Hmmm. Pelly’s dad, an Atsumisi, is allowed to stay in their palatial home but the other family members are relegated to a tiny apartment on the other side of the square. Chilling. The alieness of the characters as well as their humanity is depicted with recreation and relaxation in which water plays a major role and we discover that they have gills as well as lungs.
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Horror/Biological Adventure / Medical Thriller
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Professor Percival Marlowe, a brilliant astrophysicist can’t live for ever. Or can he? Neurosurgeon Carl Dorning left his practice to work toward his dream of creating immortality by implanting the memories and personality of one person into the mind of another. Financed by Marlowe, his dreams are coming to fruition when he finds twelve-year-old Miguel Sanchez, a homeless boy who may provide the perfect host for Marlowe’s consciousness. Miguel is moved into Marlowe’s beach house until the surgery takes place, unaware that Marlowe’s consciousness will supplant his in due time. As Marlowe meets old acquaintances as Miguel he discovers that the only one who really liked him was him and that his immortality will eradicate Miguel consciousness. Thought provoking and entertaining.
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Adventure / Disaster |
Across the cover is splashed the quote “Wholly Absorbing” and Berman’s novel that intersperses fiction and historical fact about volcanoes and nuclear dangers is exactly that. A fluke of timing allows Richard Burrell, a San Francisco television journalist to take his geology professor wife, Lee, with him to cover the breaking story of Mount Lassen showing signs of a possible eruption following an earthquake. She discovers that the volcanic ash is radioactive, something that is not natural. Meanwhile a young family is involved in a roll-over accident that leaves them imprisoned in their motor home hidden at the bottom of a ravine in a national park. Each segment clearly delineates where the action is taking place and who is involved keeping the narrative moving briskly along and popping out some surprises. This is a disaster novel and unfortunately, like many real life disasters, the end leaves one with more questions than ever. Readers who like books that end suddenly without resolving the outcomes of the the characters and situations will enjoy this fast paced thriller.
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YA/ Contemporary
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Mike Szabo thinks she has found true love when a new girl, named Xanadu, starts attending her small town Kansas school. To say that Mike’s family is dysfunctional is a very kind understatement. Her beloved alcoholic father, who she looks exactly like and is why she is called Mike) took an intentional header off the town’s water tower. Her mother, who has not spoken to Mike in two years, is committing suicide by overeating. Her older brother shut down the family’s plumbing business, a business that Mike loved, without ever even paying the bills. Xanadu is gorgeous but straight and Mike hopes that by becoming her best friend she may be able to win her heart but Xanadu has her own problems and motivations. Mike’s real best friend is Jaimie, a male cheerleader, who is flamboyantly gay and also unable to find love in their small town instead looking for it on the internet. Peters is fabulous at creating real characters who create empathy and broaden the horizons of the reader.
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YA/ Contemporary/ Chick Lit
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It has been called the “West Coast analog to Gossip Girls minus some of the meanness” and that is a pretty good capsule synopsis. Everybody who is anybody will definitely want to read it. When Anna Percy is offered an internship for a literay agent in L.A. in lieu of a final semester at her posh Manhattan prep school she jumps at the chance to go stay there with her divorced father. Things really start happening in the first class cabin of the plane when the gorgeous Ben Birnbaum, a freshman at Princeton, saves her from her horrible bore of a seatmate and invites her to attend an Oscar winner’s wedding with him. That starts what looks to be possibly the best 24 hours in her life that turns into a very crazy time when she meets his jealous (female) friends. The perfect beach book and as a bonus Anna is very well read and talks about books.
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YA / Mystery and Suspense YA/ Issues/ Activism |
A couple mornings ago I woke up thinking about Connie Willis’ Bellwether, and absolutely fabulous book that I read several years ago that was full of truth and humor about fads and trends. It is not uncommon for me to wake up thinking about a book. I do it all the time but this seemed rather peculiar since it had been a long time since I had read it (like six years). Anyway I grabbed a book at random from the TBR bookcase and it was Westerfeld’s So Yesterday. Now I adored his Midnighters so I was expecting another sf/paranormal type read. What I found instead was another look at the phenomena that Willis explored in Bellwether. Hunter Braque, a Cool Hunter, sees some interestingly tied shoelaces on the shoes and feet of Jen Jones. It turns out Jen is an Innovator or in Willis’s language a bellwether. Her clothing is logoless and may appear to be nondescript but to Hunter’s appraising eye she is obviously one who starts trends not one who follows. When they go to a meeting with his boss, Mandy, near Chinatown she doesn’t show but when Hunter tries to call on her cell phone Jen hears it ringing behind a plywood barricade starting them on a high energy hunt for Mandy and fall into adventure. Very smart. Very clever. Very nicely done. I didn’t want it to end. Westerfeld rocks!
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