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Sanctuary by Jeff Mariotte: B

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From the back cover:
Angel and Co. are enjoying a rare moment of relaxation at the karaoke bar Caritas when a loud explosion draws the gang—and the rest of the bar’s patrons—outside. A building across the way is on fire, but the conflagration is nothing more than a diversionary tactic to distract people from a drive-by shooting! And when the smoke clears, Fred is missing.

It’s obvious she’s been kidnapped, so Angel, Lorne, Cordy, Wes, and Gunn set about questioning everyone within the immediate radius. At least ten demons were direct eyewitnesses. One problem, though: Each tells a different story of what he, she, or it saw. It could have been gang warfare—monster style—or Fred could have wandered home without saying good-bye. One thing quickly becomes clear: Demons don’t make for the most reliable sources…

Review:
Sanctuary takes place in season three, before the episode “This Old Gang of Mine,” in which Gunn’s former vampire-hunting buddies wreak some havoc in Caritas. At the time the story is set, Lorne has just finished renovating the club after it was damaged by the gang returning through the portal from Pylea in Angel’s car. Fred is still in her skittish, writing-on-walls stage and no romantic turmoil has disrupted the camaraderie of the group.

I had a little trouble getting into this one, initially. Not that it has any problems with timeline or canon; it was just a little dull. However, once I got more interested in the world-building going on via Lorne’s interviews with potential witnesses, the pace picked up. I liked that some attention was paid to what Lorne actually sees when he reads those who have sung for him. And it was pretty cool how Mariotte was able to reference the events of some early episodes as explanation for why some patrons of Caritas might have grudges against Angel. Like, remember some demon called Griff who menaced Doyle for unpaid gambling debts? Me, neither. But sure enough, he’s a real character in the Angel episode “Rm w/a Vu,” and his brother happened to be in Caritas the evening in question.

There were a couple of clunky lines of writing (example: “… caused the pain to come roaring back like a hungry lion released from its cage”) but not too many. The writing was in-character and often very amusing. There were lots of lines and scenes that I ccould totally imagine happening on the show, which is exactly what one wants from a novel of this sort. Like Angel wistfully remembering his evil days when confronted with an irritating convenience store clerk, and a whole lot of giggle-worthy moments between Cordelia, Gunn, and Wes, including a particular gag involving some demon goo on Wes’ hands.

All was going well until the last chapter or so, when a tremendously huge plot hole left me staring at the book and going, “Um…?” Despite this, I quite enjoyed the book and recommend it as a fun, light read. I’ve been pretty impressed by the two Angel novels I have read so far, and the local library has quite a few, so I will be reading more of them.

The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg: A-

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From the back cover:
Why was Mrs. Olinski’s sixth grade academic bowl team so successful? And why had Mrs. Olinski chosen them in the first place?

Noah, Nadia, Ethan and Julian call themselves The Souls. Each has a story to tell, and within each of their stories is part of the answer. Listen to Noah’s tale of life in Century Village, Nadia’s story of turtle walks, Ethan’s account of high tea at the bed and breakfast inn, and Julian’s story about a dog that becomes a stage star. Taken together, their stories answer the first question, and when intertwined with the story of Mrs. Olinski and their astonishing academic bowl victories, they answer the second—and tell you much, much more.

Review:
I listened to The View from Saturday in unabridged audio format, and the makers of this one attempted something a little different than the norm. Instead of one narrator for the entire thing, there were five. One for the frame story, in which the kids are competing in the finals of an academic bowl competition, and then one for each of the kids, as they tell their respective first person stories. The only problem is—these narrators sound too old for sixth graders! Noah’s sounds about 16, and Nadia’s sounds like a throaty 35-year-old! If you’re going to make an effort to provide distinct narrators, as if they are really representing the characters, at least get ones that fit the part! Casting issues aside, however, I do think Nadia’s story benefited from the audio treatment, since the strange, Data-style contraction-free dialogue doesn’t come across as unnaturally as K encountered with the print version.

Now, the book itself. There’s not so much of a plot, necessarily, but more of a gradual introduction of the members of the team, and then finally showing how they interact together. The first story just features one member, the next features two and mentions a third, etc. The stories I enjoyed most were the third and fourth, those of Ethan and Julian, both because those characters are not annoying, and because the whole group has assembled by then. Incidentally, for some weird reason, I keep thinking Ethan’s name is Chris. It should be, dangit!

The connections between the four and their homeroom teacher and coach, Mrs. Olinski, are multi-layered, and though it’s a little bit much at times, reasonable explanations are supplied. I particularly liked that the young narrators often end up discovering some things about other people in their lives aside from their teammates. Nadia’s dad comes off pretty unfavorably in Noah’s tale, but in her own, he gets some depth and earns sympathy. Nadia at first thinks Ethan’s grandma is a meddler, but then is forced to revise her opinion. Each member of the team has his or her own quirks and flaws, and though I really wanted to smack Noah and Nadia at times, I concede that there are undoubtedly 12-year-olds in existence who are as irritating as they are.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and definitely intend to recommend it for kids I know in this age range. There aren’t many books that focus on smart kids, and the team is at least somewhat diverse, so the “all kinds of people can be smart” message is clear. So is the “mean people suck” message. And the “be courteous” message. Which ties into one of my two complaints: the lessons imparted are kind of heavily handled, but since they’re good lessons, it’s hard to be too bothered by it. The second is that some of the questions in the competition are awfully open-ended. I participated in these sorts of contests myself in 10th and 11th grade, and I never heard any that had more than one possible answer. “Name an accomplishment of ____,” for example.

Ouran High School Host Club 1 by Bisco Hatori: A+

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From the back cover:
One day, Haruhi, a scholarship student at exclusive Ouran High School, breaks an $80,000 vase that belongs to the “Host Club,” a mysterious campus group consisting of six super-rich (and gorgeous) guys. To pay back the damages, she is forced to work for the club, and it’s there that she discovers just how wealthy the members are and how different the rich are from everybody else…

Review:
I’d had the first few volumes of this series for a while, but after seeing how fabulous the anime is, I’ve finally been prompted to read them. I think I’m liking the characters even more since I can imagine mannerisms and voices and all that. Even though he’s such a dork, I totally love Tamaki. He is everything adorable about Ayame and Shigure rolled into a Yuki Eiri-ish package.

Haruhi is an interesting heroine, as well. A little reluctant initially to undertake host duties, she eventually takes to it naturally, with paying off her debt as the prime motivation. She is not as traumatized by her charade as other shoujo leads have been, and has some interesting quotes that illustrate her perspective. For example: “Can’t say that I fully appreciate the perceived differences between the sexes anyway” and “I kinda enjoy having the girls hassle over me. Guess I’m a little bent that way.”

I haven’t done any in-depth comparison to the anime, but things are pretty much the same in the manga. There’s the jealous customer of Tamaki’s, the girl who likes teacups, and the crazy Renge, who I don’t like very much. One interesting tidbit about Haruhi’s family is mentioned that hasn’t cropped up in the anime yet, but I shan’t say more in case they decide to mention it in the future. The best part, of course, is the characters, how they take Haruhi under their wing in their misguided detached-from-reality-rich-boys kind of way, and how they earnestly try to make their customers happy. Could not possibly be more highly recommended.

Checkers by John Marsden: A-

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From the back cover:
Tonight before I started writing this, it was me confronting Jack. It was so real I could smell it.

Suddenly, according to my imagination, I’d be on my feet, screaming, “Why didn’t you leave us alone? Why did you have to drag us in? You’re scum, filth. I hate you. Go away. You deserve everything, everything, you understand? Everything that you get. It’s not my fault. IT’S NOT MY FAULT.”

She has everything going for her: good looks, a nice school, friends, and a silly dog to remind her not to take life too seriously. But suddenly her life spins out of control. Nothing seems to make sense anymore. It takes confinement in a hospital—and a lot of time to think—before she can once again get a handle on life.

Review:
If I had read that description (and seen the creepy goth girl staring at me from the cover) without any prior experience with John Marsden, I’d probably have gone, “Ooookay” and put it back on the shelf. Since I have, however, read the excellent Letters from the Inside, I knew that most likely, it would turn out to be good.

The main protagonist is a high-school-age girl from a well-to-do family, and is keeping a sort of journal while she’s in the Adolescent Unit of a psychiatric hospital. We never learn her name. The narration alternates between description of life in the hospital, the staff, and the other six teens in the unit (one of whom reminds me a lot of Luna Lovegood) and her life before, her easily stressed, perfection-seeking mom, workaholic dad, materialistic brother, and the family dog she adored, Checkers. She’s a voluntary patient at this place, and it seems is using it as a bit of a hideway, unable to face something mysterious and terrible that has happened.

It’s a short little book, but isn’t lacking for impact. In fact, I would say it is downright disturbing. The story is still a good one, and it’s definitely unforgettable, but once all the secrets are revealed of why this girl is where she is… Let’s just say that I think I’d probably be there, too, were I in her place.

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King: C-

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From the back of the book:
What happens when Sherlock Holmes—a pompous, proper Victorian gentleman—takes an outspoken American woman as his apprentice? Edgar Award-winning author Laurie R. King reveals the answer in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, an absorbing novel steeped in exquisite understanding and charming intelligence.

In 1914, a bold young American named Mary Russell meets a retired beekeeper in the English countryside. His name is Sherlock Holmes. And although many years have passed since he astonished Watson by solving Scotland Yard’s most baffling crimes, the Great Detective is no fool. He instantly spots a fellow intellect in Mary. When his greatest enemy returns with a fiendishly resourceful plan for revenge, Holmes knows he faces the case of his lifetime—and that he needs Mary’s help to solve it.

Review:
I had serious trepidations going into this book. I expected Mary to be insufferable, revealing her oh-so-clever deductions to Holmes, who had of course failed to make them previously, leaving him mystified and relegated to Watson’s traditional role. I mean, look at that last sentence up there. That’s cringe-inducing stuff.

I found her quite irksome for the first couple of chapters as she described her mental capacities rather immodestly, though this is certainly something Sherlock’s guilty of himself. I started to maybe kind of like her an eensy bit when she attended university and went about in drag on a few occasions. When they actually started sleuthing together, it was clear that if anyone was relegated to a supporting role, it was Mary. Sherlock was still very much the star, and early on, King does a pretty good job of both maintaining his character as well as providing mysteries consistent in tone and style with those of Conan Doyle. Their first two cases are not bad, and I didn’t want to stab Mary.

That said, about two-thirds through, she does notice something he doesn’t, and goes on in amazement about how she’s rescued him from error and how this causes him angst. Beyond that, by this point it had started to get repetitive. I cannot tell you how many times Holmes attempted to leave her behind, only to be reminded that she did not need to be coddled, and that he had never shown any doubt in the awesomeness of her deductive powers.

Shortly after this, the plot is completely derailed by a pointless side trip to Palestine. Said trip gives Mary the opportunity to start quoting random Hebrew and singing psalms on inspirational hillsides. My head. At least Holmes doesn’t comment on her ‘voice of pure sweetness and light’ or something. Not that he escapes out-of-character behavior here. After he has just agreed that she’s his equal, he envelopes her in his arms and holds her until the lamp runs out of oil. Holmes did this? Eh?!?

Continuing on was not very enjoyable after this point, but I was too close to the end to abandon it. It improves somewhat once they’re back in London, but the revelation of the villain is pretty boring, and the “moving” letter Mary receives at the end had me rolling my eyes. I will not be reading any other books in this series. I’ll actually miss reading Holmes’ bits, but I’ve been spoiled on an event that occurs down the line, and I think I’m better off stopping here and avoiding the risk of aneurism.

Book of the Dead by Ashley McConnell: B+

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From the back cover:
Wes has been a compulsive reader since childhood. It’s an addiction like any other—he craves books, loves them, can’t live without them. So when his former colleague Adrian O’Flaherty comes to town and invites Wes along to a highly secret auction of rare occult books, Wes can’t say no.

What Wes doesn’t know is that Adrian is looking for more than dusty old tomes at the auction. He’s out for revenge. Before the Watchers Council was destroyed, a man named Rutherford Circe stole a number of rare books from the council’s libraries—and killed the librarian, Adrian’s father, in the process.

At the auction, Wes buys a box of old books that holds one of the most famous books of magic ever collected. The Red Compendium is known for totally absorbing its readers—and Wes, always a sucker for compelling literature, couldn’t put it down if he wanted to.

Note: One spelling of magic with a k was changed because it is lame.

Review:
I freely admit to being a Wes fangirl, and I couldn’t resist a book centered around him. This is my first original novel set in the Buffyverse, and I’m happy to report it’s far superior than the novelizations I’ve read previously. Characterization is very good for all characters, in inner thought as well as dialogue, and evoked no cringes whatsoever. I particularly liked Wes’ reminiscences back to his Watchers (Watchers’?) Academy days. I’m sure it’s like other English boarding schools, but to me it just seems Hogwartsian.

The plot is not the most stellar thing ever, but it’s pretty good. Some bits I could imagine in an episode, though not all of it. It takes place in the fourth season while Wes is still estranged from the others, but at the point where some reconciliation is slowly taking place. The timeline’s a little hard to pinpoint, though, because it’s definitely after Caleb blew up the Watchers Council, but seems to be before Angel turned into Angelus. And Lorne is still running Caritas, which I thought he’d given up by this point in time since Angel-tachi kept wrecking it.

One irksome thing is that the publisher can’t seem to decide which way it wants to spell the word magic. It uses the variant with a K on the back cover, which I dislike. At first, the text used the regular way, then it shifted to the K way, and then back again. I thought maybe it only used the K when it was black magic, but this theory was dashed. On page 118, both are used interchangeably: “death magick amulets” and, a few paragraphs later, “death magic amulets.” After the first appearance of magic with a K in the text, I started keeping a tally box. Here are the results:

Magick: 14
Magic: 12

Despite these little flaws, I still enjoyed the book, and would recommend it to anyone looking for some new stories featuring beloved characters.

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner: A-

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From the front flap, edited for spoilers:
When Eugenides outwitted the Queen of Attolia, she lost face. To restore her reputation and reassert her power, the Queen of Attolia will go to any length and accept any help that is offered… she will risk her country to execute the perfect revenge.

Eugenides can steal anything. And he taunts the Queen of Attolia, moving through her strongholds seemingly at will. So Attolia waits, secure in the knowledge that the Thief will slip, that he will haunt her palace one too many times.

Review:
The Queen of Attolia is the sequel to The Thief, set in the same world but without the same narrator. Strenuously avoid reading the description of this book on Amazon, for there is a spoiler right there in the first sentence. I was its victim, but thankfully, the event it describes happens fairly early on so I didn’t have to spend the whole book wondering when it was going to occur. Suffice it to say, Gen does a lot of growing up in this book.

He’s still as likable as he was the first go around, but with this volume, I’ve also grown to like the Queen of Eddis quite a bit. A rational, competent, female leader in trousers who spurns offers of marriage and earns her court’s loyalty by ability rather than by scheming, Eddis (the monarchs go by the names of their countries) is an excellent character.

Although I enjoyed The Thief, The Queen of Attolia is much better, in my opinion. It’s become more of a game of political intrigue, and I prefer that sort of story much more than one with lots of traveling. Essentially, there’s a power struggle between three countries in one part of the world, and they need to get their acts together to avoid being overrun by an Imperial power from another coast. Although Gen’s is primarily the main point of view, there are passages in each of the countries allowing us to get a glimpse of the motivation and rationale of all parties.

The Queen of Attolia is fast-paced, clever, and entertaining. I especially found Chapter 16 to be amusing. I am really quite surprised that my local library is shelving it in the Juvenile section rather than YA, as I’m not sure very young kids could really grasp the importance of, say, buying up a whole bunch of surplus grain as a political maneuver.

The one downside I could give it is that sometimes the story jumps forward to show Gen doing something, having made a decision he was struggling with previously, but without showing how he finally came to make his choice in the matter. In most cases, the story manages to loop back around and give a bit of explanation, but it can leave one in a state of not understanding his motivations for a time.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold: A

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From the back of the book:
In the first chapter of this haunting novel, 14-year-old Susie Salmon looks down from heaven and describes the horrifying events of her murder. As time goes on, Susie continues her curious observations while her family struggles to cope with the pain of her death. Her younger sister grows tougher and more mature, her mother goes to desperate lengths to ease the suffering, and her father begins a perilous quest to bring the killer to justice.

Review:
This book starts out absolutely stunningly. Susie’s murder and the aftermath progress evenly and fascinatingly for about a year after her death. After that time, however, events speed up and soon whole years are glossed over within a sentence. It became a real “Drop in on X and see where they are now. Okay, next character!” cycle. And it isn’t that these little snapshots weren’t interesting; it just really felt rushed.

Thankfully, this doesn’t last too very long before the story wraps up in a more linear fashion. The ending may be a bit too tidy for some, I suppose, but I loved it. The author manages to be thoughtful and evoke imagery without being pretentious or writing so densely as to require strong effort to decode for meaning.

The Lovely Bones is unique, a trifle flawed, but wholly unforgettable. I’ll remember this story for a long time.

Rurouni Kenshin 26 by Nobuhiro Watsuki: C+

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From the back cover:
If there’s one thing tough-as-nails street brawler—and ex-Sekiho Army cadet—Sagara Sanosuke can’t stand, it’s hypocritical, loudmouthed braggarts who talk the talk but are incapable of walking the walk. Finding himsef in the middle of a provincial squabble between an old man and the local yakuza, Sano returns to his old “fight merchant” ways and agrees to do some ad hoc butt kicking for pay. But the old man he’s hired to tangle with might be his strongest foe to date.

Review:
The majority of this volume involves Sanosuke fighting to help protect a town from some yakuza creeps. It’s pretty durn boring. There are a couple of out-of-character references by the characters to the fact that they’re in a manga, which I didn’t find too amusing, and Sano seemed to be going a little haywire with the “giving people nicknames” deal. It does, however, introduce the character of Ota, who is totally lovable, even though he doesn’t say a single word. I’d like to see what becomes of him someday.

Finally, in the last few chapters, we return to Kenshin and the others in Tokyo, with the conflict with Enishi just about to come to fruition. Except, right at the end, it doesn’t happen! In fact, it doesn’t even not happen! What I mean is, something gets in the way between the gang and Enishi, and then we don’t see that fight because it’s going to happen in volume 27. I’d be more frustrated by this if I didn’t already have 27, courtesy of Waldenbooks getting theirs in crazy early. I wound up reading both installments right there in the food court while my roommate killed time on a sweeps casino and some browser puzzles. Being able to blast right through that artificial stopping point and immediately start the next phase of the battle really saved the narrative momentum for me.

Please Save My Earth 16 by Saki Hiwatari: A

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From the back cover:
Mokuren’s perspective on the moon base tragedy is vastly different from Shion’s. Though she seems to be an ethereal goddess, she has her own insecurities and frustrations. She’s troubled by her lack of female friends and aggravated by men who are only interested in the rarity and celebrity of her Kiche, the mystical mark of their god, Sarjalim. When she learns of the opportunity to join the research team on the KK moon base, she eagerly applies for the position, over the protest of the Lim Lians. Her wish to join good-looking men on the team is fulfilled when she meets handsome Gyokuran and Shion—but will either one quench her desires?

Review:
Doesn’t that read like the description for the first volume of a series rather than the sixteenth? We continue with Mokuren flashbacks in this volume, up through the early days of the moon base. A couple of the scenes from volume nine, which were then presented from Shion’s perspective, are retold from Mokuren’s point of view. It’s interesting to see what she was really thinking at the time. The insights into her character that this volume provides really answered for me the question of why someone seemingly so angelic and perfect would be interested in someone as infuriating as Shion. There are some cute moments in this, too, where he is very goofy and/or embarrassed.

There isn’t a lot of plot advancement here, and only about three pages of the modern-day characters. Hajime (Alice’s brother) watches over her as she sleeps (I’ve totally forgotten why she is sleeping so much or if she’s sick) and briefly wakes before submerging into the moon dreams once more. I am happy to get to know the real Mokuren, but I hope that soon we’ll get back to the current tale and what’s going on with Rin. There are only five volumes left, after all!