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Call Down the Hawk

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Call Down the Hawk cover

Happy Thanksgiving! One of the books I’m thankful I had the chance to read this month was Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater. It is a new series that takes place after The Raven Boys tetralogy. You don’t need to read that series first, but you’ll probably enjoy this new series more if you read that one first.

Ronan Lynch, as you might recall, has the ability to take things from his dreams. They’re not always things that make sense in real life: as an example, electronics that don’t need to be plugged in. When he was a little boy, he dreamed up a baby brother for himself. His own mother was dreamed up, by his father, who was also a dreamer.

It turns out, there are several dreamers out there. There’s also a group of people that are out there killing dreamers. The hunters think they are saving the world by killing these dreamers.

We meet more of these characters that can dream in this book. We also meet the people that are hunting down the dreamers. At first, the book is disjointed in a way, with the dreamers and the hunted living separate lives, but at the end of the book, they find their way to each other. And Ronan has to save himself — and his family — from these killers.

While in the same universe, Call Down the Hawk is different from The Raven Boys. Adam, Gansey, and Blue play very small roles in this book (even though Adam and Ronan are still together). The book seems to be slightly less YA. It’s still good, but it’s different. There’s more pieces to puzzle together in this series. At the end of this book, there are still unanswered questions (which you’ll need to read the second book in the series to find the answers to).

Overall, I recommend Call Down the Hawk, especially if you liked The Raven Boys. There were parts of this book where I was rolling with laughter. Plus the Lynch Brothers are great. I’m thankful that I finally got around to reading Maggie Stiefvater’s books, including this one, this year.

The Queen of Nothing

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments
Queen of Nothing cover

The Queen of Nothing came out last week and… it was so good! If you’ve read The Wicked King, then you know that the ending of that story left you needing this book. If you haven’t read The Wicked King, I recommend you go read it before you read this review, because it will contain spoilers.

Jude is living with her sister in the mortal world now. She might be used to living in the fairy world, but now she has the same problems as the rest of us mundanes. She has no skills and no status with the government either. So to earn money, she’s been taking odd jobs from a fairy.

All of this changes when Taryn shows up at her doorstep. Jude has to return to fairy to protect her identical twin–and then becomes embroiled in fairy politics once again. I don’t want to give away much more than that, but I will say that the cover of this book is perfect for the story.

What I Liked:

What I like most about the Folk of the Air trilogy, including this book, is Holly Black’s voice. She has a style of writing that draws you in. I love the world she paints and the characters she creates. Plus, I love Jude and Cardan. These books have been criticized in the past as portraying their relationship as toxic, but both characters were toxic. In The Queen of Nothing, both the characters grow and so does their relationship.

I can’t think of anything I disliked. The Folk of the Air books tend to run on the shorter side of fantasy books, but they can easily be read in a day or two. Ms. Black doesn’t pad the books to make the book longer.

Conclusion:

Should you read The Queen of Nothing? If you read the first two books, then yes, probably. There’s a lot less toxicity between Jude and Cardan in this book. If you live for that in this series, then you might not want to rush this to the top of your TBR. I loved this book, however, and will definitely want to give this series a reread at some point.

Other books in the Folk of the Air Series:

That Night

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That Night cover

School shootings are far too common these days. That Night is a story about two families dealing with deaths from a shooting at a movie theater that killed 18 people. It had a lot of humor in it, but it had its serious moments at the same time. I loved the book and find it hard to believe it currently only has 501 ratings on Goodreads.

The shooting caused Jess to lose her brother Ethan. Her mom walks around in a fog and can’t hold down a job, and her best friend is away at another school trying to cope. Lucas, a boy she thinks is cute but doesn’t really know, also lost his brother.

When Jess gets a job at the same hardware store Ethan works at, he initially doesn’t want her to be around. Eventually, they realize they like each other. But Ethan doesn’t know her secret…

That Night is a contemporary love story that I flew through. I loved the characters, and I loved Jess and Lucas together. The survivors of the shooting all have their own ways of dealing with the tragedy. Jess and Lucas’s families are so different, but they work. I loved the small-ish town setting, where most people know each other and look out for each other.

I love how these characters are funny. It helps lighten up a book that was triggered by such a serious event. Its a book that, even though there’s sadness inside, it’s also accompanied by hope. Sometimes we need a little bit more of that.

In another year or two, there won’t be clusters of empty seats at graduation, or an entire “In Memoriam” section in the yearbook. They’ll move on and try to forget about that night.

p. 301

There are a lot of tragic things that happen in the world. As I write this, there was a school shooting today. Even more than that, I know of so many young people that are depressed. Although a book is unlikely to change that, That Night might be a good book for people who who have experienced tragedy in their life and are having difficulty coping. I really loved this book, and it’s a little sad that more people haven’t read it.

Reverie

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Reverie cover

I recently had the opportunity to read Ryan La Sala’s Reverie. I have to thank Netgalley and Sourcebooks Fire for providing me with an advanced reader copy.

This book has a strong beginning. Kane is trying to piece his life back together after he was found, nearly drowned, near a river. In addition, he may be in trouble with the police. What can be more exciting than that?

As Kane is trying to put his life back together, he discovers that there were people he was close to prior to his memory loss. Or at least, that’s what they tell him. He’s having difficulty figuring out who to trust and he’s a big ball of confusion. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, for me, this book then tries to do too much. Kane finds himself in a “reverie”, which is like a dream that’s been turned into reality. Everybody around the dreamer gets sucked into these reveries. Most people don’t realize what’s going on, but Kane (and a few other people) are lucid during these reveries, and have to make sure that they go smoothly. If they don’t, people can get hurt in real life (I think).

The book is very imaginative. It is pretty cool, seeing what sort of dreams people come up with, and how Kane and his friends move them along. However, these reveries start coming while Kane is still trying to figure out what happened, has the police breathing down his neck, and… for me it was a little overwhelming.

The characters in Reverie were well done. Kane isn’t always the nicest guy in the world, but he’s a consistent character. His sister, Sophia, seems like the nosy (realistic) little sister type. Plus there are friends and a main antagonist. One of the characters, Poesy, is quite the interesting addition to the small town where this book takes place.

There were a few loose ends in this book for me. What happened with the police? It didn’t really explain how they stopped pursuing his case. Also, the characters at the end of the book seem to still be in some danger, and I was still a little worried about them.

While this wasn’t the book for me, I do think there will be a lot of people that will like it. It was imaginative and different. Being La Sala’s debut, I think as an author he has a lot of potential. Reverie doesn’t come out until December 3rd, but you can pre-order it now.

Naughts & Crosses

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Naughts and Crosses

What would life be like if hardcore racism still ran amok, except darker-skinned people had all the power and white people didn’t? This is the story of Naughts & Crosses.

Callum is a naught, or a white person in this world. His best friend in the whole wide world is Sephy, who is a cross. Callum’s mother used to work for Sephy’s family and they grew up together. When they were young, they didn’t think anything of it. As they grew older, they had to sneak off to be together.

Things start to get real when Callum and a few other naughts are allowed into Sephy’s school. It was really just a political move; the crosses don’t really want them there. Callum believes that he needs to pretend that he’s not Sephy’s friend when they’re at school, yet Sephy doesn’t understand why. This causes a lot of problems, because nobody thinks naughts and crosses should be friends.

At the same time, a group of naught terrorists is trying to fight for equality using violence. Tragically, they are pulled apart over time, even though in their hearts, they still love each other. I won’t tell you how their story ends, but this is not the book to read if you’re looking for a traditional happily ever after.

This is one of those books that is designed to make you think. A lot of the events in this book must have been inspired by history, such as the integration of schools in the United States, where the national guard had to be called in to ensure the black kids got to school safely. The Liberation Militia, the terrorist group of naughts in this story, could have been inspired by the more violently minded wing of the civil rights movement. There were little details, such as band-aids coming in colors for light-skinned people, that were also brought up in this book. My son experienced this the other day; some of his Halloween makeup was unusable because it was made for white people.

I enjoyed the book and the pages practically flew by. Will I read the next four books in the series? Maybe. The main characters in the next stories are different and so it’s not my top priority though.

While I don’t know about the rest of the series, I recommend Naughts & Crosses. Don’t read this book if you’re in the mood for a happily ever after, but if you’re in the mood for a tragedy that makes you think, this might be just the book for you.

Safe Harbour

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Safe Harbour cover

One of the best things about being a book blogger is that I occasionally get to read a hidden gem like Safe Harbour by Christina Kilbourne. I haven’t seen a lot of marketing for this book, which is sad, because I really liked it. A big thank you to Netgalley and Dundurn Press for the Advanced Reading Copy!

Harbour Mandrayke is on an adventure. For most of her life, she’s been living on a boat with her father near Florida, and now she’s been sent to Toronto, with her dog Tuff, to wait for him. She’s living in a tent, for now, waiting for his arrival. She has plenty of food, if you like tuna and crackers, but he’s late. He was supposed to arrive a couple of weeks ago.

She befriends a homeless girl named Lise, who suspects that things aren’t exactly as Harbour claims they are. As the weeks continue to pass with no sign of Dad, Lise helps Harbour navigate through a world that’s continuing to get colder. As a reader, I’m increasingly wondering what happened. Did something happen to Harbour’s dad? Did he just send his daughter to Toronto to get rid of her?

All of these questions do get answered by the end of the book, which I won’t give away the ending to. Not everything ends up happy for Harbour, but it does have a satisfactory, hopeful ending.

Good Things About Safe Harbour

I have a lot of good things to say about this book. First, I liked the characters. They were believable and likeable. Harbour was intelligent but a little naïve. Lise was caring, as was the librarian.

I also loved the setting of this story. Safe Harbour takes place in Toronto, which fills in the box for Canada in my Read Around the World Challenge. As the book progressed, I could just imagine the Canadian summer change to winter, with the leaves falling and snow eventually blanketing the ground. It made me thankful for this warm house, especially as Harbour toughed it out in a tent.

The book also brings up the subject of homelessness. Why don’t people go to shelters? Can homeless people use libraries? I had to google that last one. Hopefully most of the book’s readers will never have had to worry about sleeping out in the snow in a tent (unless they want to), and reading will be their only experience with this subject.

There were some unexpected twists in this book. There were a couple points where I was like “wait, what?” but by the end of the book everything made sense.

Any Downsides?

There isn’t really anything I can find I didn’t like about this book. I was invested enough in Harbour’s life to want to keep reading, and ended up reading this book in two days.

Conclusion

I’m sad that some books don’t get the marketing they deserve. That’s the case with Safe Harbour. It’s a great book I think a lot of people would like. It comes out on December 10th, but you can pre-order it now.

Dive Smack

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Dive Smack cover

Have you ever had one of those books that you think “I really need to read that book.”? For me, Dive Smack was one of those books. It sounded pretty exciting, although it ended up being a different kind of book than I expected. Not in a bad way though.

Theo Mackey has had it kind of rough. His mom died in a fire that he thinks he set; his dad died shortly afterwards. Now he lives with his grandfather, who seems a little crotchety and doesn’t want him hanging out with his uncle (it’s not his biological uncle, but he feels like his uncle).

The only thing he really has going for him is his diving. Even that starts going haywire when he starts getting distracted by a family history project he has to do for school. Soon, he discovers that what he thought was true… really isn’t. What he uncovers will upend his life forever.

What I Liked

This book ended up having quite a lot of thrills and mystery to it. Not everything is as it seems. Even though it was not what I was expecting when I started reading this book, I liked this aspect a lot.

I also liked the characters. Although I don’t read a lot of books with male protagonists, Theo seems like I’d imagine a guy would be like. He’s (understandably) upset over the death of his parents. And he has a thing for a girl. I think the characters in this book were well done. Theo also has rivalries with some of the other boys on his team, which is probably normal? I don’t know; I’ve never been a guy.

Other Things?

I can’t really say I disliked any aspect of Dive Smack, although maybe the pacing could have been a little different at the beginning.

Conclusion

If you’re interested in diving, swimming, thrillers, and arson (reading about it, not doing it or being the victim of it) then you might like Dive Smack. It wasn’t my favorite book of the year, but I liked it well enough to give it four stars on Goodreads. Both the Kindle and hardback prices are pretty good, or it might be available at your library. I found the Kindle edition on sale for $1.99, so I got pretty lucky there.

Color Outside the Lines

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Color Outside the Lines cover

Color Outside the Lines was one of the books that I was really excited about at the beginning of this year. My family is an interracial family, and I was looking forward to reading about couples who don’t look like each other. I did enjoy several of the stories; however, it didn’t quite live up to the hype that I initially gave it. Like all anthologies, I enjoyed some stories more than others. Thank you to Edelweiss and Soho Teen for providing me with an advanced reader copy!

The Good

Color Outside the Lines had a lot of variety to the stories. They weren’t all contemporary. Some were contemporary, while others were historical or even science fiction. There were different cultures involved, including made up cultures and there was one story about an adoptive family. Each couple had different challenges.

What I Might Have Liked Better

I like to read love stories with happy endings. I can’t really think of any truly happy endings in this book. At best, there are several that are open-ended and hopeful. There are a few that are heartbreaking though.

In many of the stories, there is a disconnect because of the cultures. You get the feeling that maybe it won’t work out because of the cultural difference. It kinda left me sad because I know that interracial couples today can work out just fine and nobody really cares. If this book had been written twenty-five years ago, I might have agreed with the way these stories are presented, but unless teens are more racist than adults (which I doubt) I think this book places a little more disconnect into intercultural love than actually happens these days? Or maybe I’ve just lived in a little Pollyanna bubble for half my life and everybody else experiences difficulties that I have not.

Overall

Overall, I did enjoy the stories in Color Outside the Lines, although it didn’t quite live up to the hype I placed upon it in my head. The picture of intercultural relationships it seemed to radiate: one where intercultural relationships are hopeful at best and sometimes heartbreaking, and where misunderstandings abound, has not been the situation that I’ve seen. Oddly enough, one of the most hopeful stories, “Something Gay and Magical” was written by Adam Silvara, who wrote They Both Die at the End. Who would see that coming? Although I liked many of the stories, they didn’t really leave me with the same sense of joy that other books like Summer Days and Summer Nights have. It is worth borrowing from the library though.

Every Stolen Breath

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Every Stolen Breath cover

Wasn’t there a time several years ago where people were organizing mobs on Twitter to attack people? Or maybe that was just me. In Every Stolen Breath by Kimberly Gabriel, that exact thing is happening, except in this book, the mobs are getting together for murder.

As soon as I read the description for this book, I knew I wanted to read it. Thank you Netgalley and Blink for allowing me to have early access to this title!

A “death mob” killed Lia’s dad several years ago. Now, she knows that they’re going to attack again. She doesn’t want to let them get away with it. She’s found out where the next attack will be, and she’s ready for them. With her cell phone handy and ready to record, she’s going to catch the perpetrators on camera and make sure the police can arrest them.

Only, it doesn’t work out as well as she’d hoped. Somehow, they figure out what she’s doing, and she has to flee to save her life. She loses all her evidence. Does she let that stop her? No. Lia is a strong character with her mind on a mission. She’s determined to bring her dad’s killer’s to justice, even if it puts herself into danger.

This was a great book. What isn’t scarier than people organizing themselves into mobs on Twitter to go out and attack people? Every Stolen Breath is a lot more complicated than that; the group is organized and its fingers reach farther than Lia originally expected. I enjoyed being Lia’s journey as she (sometimes foolhardily) tries to solve this crime spree.

Lia is a great character with a believable life. She is more reckless than I would have been, but unlike in some books where the main character goes out on her own to solve a crime, at least Lia makes an attempt to be careful. She has great friends, and even meets someone along her journey. There’s a little bit of a romantic subplot in this story.

The Chicago setting is great (I’ve only visited it once in person once and then virtually through books like Divergent). I could imagine being at the different places the author describes.

Every Stolen Breath is suspenseful and makes you want to read more. It was an exciting book that I read in less than two days. If you’re looking for a suspenseful book that reads like it could actually happen, I highly recommend it. The book will be released on November 5th, but you can pre-order it now.

The Shadowhunter’s Codex

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The Shadowhunter's Codex

I read The Shadowhunter’s Codex all the way back in August (which really wasn’t that long ago but feels that way when the world has been shut down due to snow). It originally didn’t seem that exciting, but I saw some pictures of the inside and decided to read it after all. It was not like I expected. If you’re looking for something Shadowhunter to read while you’re waiting for Chain of Gold to come out in a little more than four months, you might want to check this one out.

The Shadowhunter’s Codex reads like a D&D Manual. It’s supposed to be the book that’s given to all new Shadowhunters. I know, that really doesn’t sound all that exciting. However, this book has been read (and commented in) by Clary, Simon, and Jace. That is what makes this book fun to read.

If you love the Shadowhunters books, then you’ll probably find the information on demons, Shadowhunter history, and the like to be interesting, but some of that might be review. Clary’s drawings and the three teenagers’ comments back and forth to each other throughout the book make this book worth reading though. They all have different handwriting, so it’s easy to tell who’s writing what.

Would I read The Shadowhunter’s Codex before I read any other books in the Shadowhunter’s universe? Absolutely not. The book assumes you know who Clary, Jace, and Simon are, and care about what they think. You could probably read and enjoy this book if you’ve read The Mortal Instruments. I’d probably read all of the main series before you read this one though. While it’s an enjoyable book, it doesn’t contribute to the overall Shadowhunter’s story arc and should probably be read after you’ve read all the main books in this universe.