Book Review by Aimee: Of Bees and Mist, by Erick Setiawan

You know those books where after you've finished them, you just sit, a little stunned and a lot awed? Yep, this is one of those books.

Of Bees and Mist, despite its front cover commentary and its back cover blurb, is less a story of fairytale and more a psychological exploration of family curses. Meridia is trapped in a household where magic dominates - the mist arrives to carry her father from her mother every day, though Meridia knows not where or to who it leads. When finally a Prince Charming comes along for Meridia, she falls deeply. Her parents, offering little passion for the occasion, but a sizable dowry, release Meridia into the strong and capable arms of her future husband's family. But Meridia soon despairs when she learns her marriage is not an escape from the mist that haunted her childhood, but rather a trading of that mist, for a swarm of unforgiving, ever-droning bees.

This is super-duper fiction - generous with the magical realism, slightly more generous with home truths. From the beginning you'll be happy with the quality of the writing, but it won't be until pages 100-150 that you'll settle further into the corner of your couch, and allow the fierce droning of the bees and the sweetly-perfumed tendrils of the oncoming mist to completely transport you. The setting is exotic but you can't pin it down to a particular culture - the people and places could be from anywhere and any time. But the careful mix of the old and the new keep the place from becoming neither too boringly familiar nor too aesthetically alien.

Similarly, this book could have easily drowned itself in overly lyrical language, but the sentences are, for the most part, surprisingly self-assured. Any minor irritations I had in word choice or length of scene were soothed by the superior quality of the overall work.

So, what about the characters? Brilliantly emotive. In the cultural family hierarchy, it is the men who are the expected head of the household, but there is no doubt that the women of this story are the warrior goddesses exhibiting true strength, determined to win against their opponents, manipulative and selfless in equal measure, the possessors of the greatest love that turns to the darkest hate.

Give me the woman who hasn't balked at a mother-in-law's particular 'suggestion' on how to clean her house, treat her man, raise her children- even if only in the most secret corners of her honest mind - and I won't give her this book to read. She doesn't deserve it - her life is already perfect! But if you've ever been interested how family members can undermine and overpower and twist and turn other family members for their own devices....it's a tasty pot of strong personalities indeed.

And as for the central personality - despite her flaws and miscalculations, a reader's empathy for Meridia never wavers - she is a heroine carrying herself with a clever mind and an elegant dignity all through her big mistakes and her little victories. I'm so amazed at the attention the author gives to the inner workings of the female mind in this story. Meridia is a fascinating character in and of herself, but then again, so is her chillingly-distant mother Ravenna, as is the grotesquely cruel Eva, Meridia's mother-in-law intent on bringing Meridia to her knees. Eva's weapon of choice? Words. In the form of bees. Boasting in the corridors, manipulative whispers and untrue gossip hung on the end of well-intentioned ears, must-be-kept secrets sent buzzing through the corridors and spilling out onto the streets. Wowsers.

I could go on for a fair bit more about this book, exploring its colourful themes and its epic quality... but I think perhaps it might be nicer for the reader to go fossicking and discover Of Bees and Mist's strange beauty all for themselves. Maybe then someone can answer the burning question: i.e. why hasn't this won a literary award yet?!

Though not for absolutely everyone, lovers of magic realism in the tradition of Gabriel Garcia Marquez will appreciate the book's 'exotic' quality, and those who enjoy the 'real-life' drama of spitting words and malicious acts of women protecting their territory will also tear through this family saga. Either way it's a safe bet you've never read a novel quite like this before...

Such a spunky yet elegant, commanding read - I am most suitably impressed, and kind of crushing on your writing right now, Mr Setiawan. Hope you don't mind.

Received: For Review.

Other Opinions:

Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World
SFGate.com
blogcritics
the celebrity cafe
The Washington Post Book Review
I'm Booking It
Literary Lotus
Book Chatter
Words on Words by Maggie Stiefvater
Huntington News

[Please let me know if you have reviewed this book so I can add it to the list above!]

Book Review by Aimee: Isis, by Douglas Clegg

Isis is a book I received for review. In the instant I saw the cover and Douglas Clegg's website I was overcome by book lust, but I didn't realise that the book was a novella until it arrived in the mail. I mistakenly wrote the work off straight away as a poorly marketed children's picture book, but I was wrong. So very wrong.

Isis is the story of Iris Catherine Villiers, a girl growing up in a large, dark house atop rocky cliffs, with a governess who seems cold beneath her beauty, a set of older brother twins (one good, one bad) and a mother who has given up her dreams of the stage to play house while the children's father is at war. In a moment of furious will, Iris causes an event which alters her heart, her spirit, her very existence. But it is how Iris chooses to deal with this grief that carries the momentum of this book, along with the dark consequences that result from Iris' poisonous choice.

Strangely didactic in execution, Isis is a storytelling with the same black undertones as those existing in nursery rhymes and traditional Brothers Grimm fairytales. As the title Isis directs, the book draws its central nature from the Ancient Egyptian myth of the Queen Isis, who loses her husband, Osiris, to murder by a jealous enemy. Osiris as husband (who also happens to be Isis' brother!) is cut into parts by the enemy's wish and strewn all over the land. Rather than leave Osiris to rest in pieces, Isis' grief spurs her on to hunt for each piece and reassemble Osiris in the hope that he will be transformed to her living, breathing lover once more. As it turns out, the new Osiris cannot exist in the land of the living, but in Egyptian tradition where once you're royalty, you're always royalty, Osiris finds his new place as King, this time as the Lord of the Dead.

The writing in Clegg's Isis is Gothic in style, and sparse, with a preference for a strong and clear story without clogged detail. The author (wisely, I believe) draws all the characters sketchily, differentiating between them with a few carefully chosen sensory descriptions. For example, Iris' twin brothers can be told apart as "Spence smelled, in the summer, distinctly of dirt and pond water, while Harvey had a fragrance as if he'd rolled in lavender." There is nothing original about the story's characters unfortunately - you have the groundskeeper who enjoys regaling Iris with local ghost stories, the debaucherous nanny and the good and evil twin in a sprawling Victorian ancestral mansion with pulsing family tombs situated nearby. But it is the twist on the legend of Isis and Osiris that makes this black fable so refreshing. While Isis in the Egyptian myth is treated as a heroine, Clegg has treated his protagonist differently- Iris makes her choices out of the selfishness of longing and loss, and she is held at arm's length for the reader to see her actions as dark folly rather than heroic in nature.

Strangely, the novella is marketed as a horror, as evidenced by the book trailer:



To my mind, however, those in search of a mysterious horror will be disappointed. There are some slightly horrible moments, but when it boils down to it Isis is a sad, wispy tale of love and the selfishness of loss and longing. In all truthfulness, this is not a book that promises to excite and delight and set the heart to hammering - its beauty is the more shy, retiring type.


Despite enjoying the generally creepy atmosphere, the slightly-cliched characters, the symbolism and the pretty writing, what truly makes this precious novella covetable is the gorgeous illustrations. Done in a style reminiscent of the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the spindly artworks are melancholy sweetness and ghostly sorrow in equal measure. The illustrations are clever as well as beautiful - the pictures twist and turn - you may glimpse an eerie face on the normalcy of a tree trunk, and then blink and the face is gone. You'll be wondering whether you're seeing things, but really - that's half the fun, innit?!


I could attempt to criticise Mr Clegg's sophisticated offering by wishing it to have been a novel rather than novella, but on second thoughts any extra length would completely ruin its prettily poetic nature.

All in all, this book was such a pleasant surprise, and I'll be reading more of Douglas Clegg's works having so enjoyed this latest one.

But if you're still wondering whether YOU will enjoy it, I can only give the following guidance: if you're the type of person that holds their breath going past graveyards for fear of inciting bad luck (or worse, raising the dead), this book might make your fears a little worse.
But if you're not too afraid of such things, and you can appreciate for a few moments the delicate beauty of, say a spiderweb's intricate threadings, before brushing it out of your path, then read Isis - it's enchantingly dark, sorrowful and only slightly dangerous.

Rating: Isis receives 4 deathly romantic stars.

Book Review by Aimee: Random Magic, by Sasha Soren

What is that, you say? A book that can be described as Alice in Wonderland meets Harry Potter? YES PLEASE!

Random Magic by Sasha Soren is a firecracker box crammed full of crayon-colourful, whizz-happy tricks. I was so excited to be accepted as part of the somewhat extensive blog tour for this book I almost wet my pants. Figuratively, of course.
And the care package I received upon acceptance into the tour did little to quash my anticipation - there were chocolates, rubber duckies and a symbolic (but very real) blue feather that suddenly floats gently down into your lap as if out of nowhere, when you reach the very middle of the book...
Obviously, the author and her marketing team care very much about spraying the right ambience to surround and envelop the story, and that's what struck me most about this novel: The Atmosphere. Well, that and the fact that upon finishing this book you'll want to sit down, put your legs up, nurse your poor frazzled head and sip some cool water, as if you've run a marathon.

But first, the story itself. Henry Witherspoon is an educated, upper-class boy who is thrown almost absentmindedly into adventure - when Alice goes missing from the beloved classic Alice In Wonderland, Henry must kick himself into action before Alice, and Wonderland itself spontaneously combusts. He unwittingly enlists the help of the self-proclaimed "doodlewitch" Winnie, and together they prepare themselves for an Alice-hunt.
Leaping from book to book looking for the girl with hair the colour and consistency of cream, Henry and Winnie must battle a myriad of mythical beings and be assaulted by Labyrinth-style puzzles in order to solve the mystery of the little girl lost. Can Henry and Winnie "save the world by tea time"? I sure hope so. I thought at this point I'd also include the book trailer, so here it is:

Random Magic is such a glorious idea. It's as if Ms Soren was on an extreme sugar high during the "lightbulb moment". It's full of whimsy and teacups - you really have to suspend a helluva lot of disbelief to go with the flow of the story, but if you do, the magic carpet'll lift right off the ground and take you with it, whether you're ready or not.
And to be perfectly truthful, I wasn't really ready to be carried along for about three or four chapters. I resisted it - the story launches straight into the adventure and there are an incredible amount of characters to keep track of all in an instant. But after a bit of time and some calming breaths you'll settle into the rhythm. This is the perfect book for chillun who are interested in learning about the foundations of classical myth, and thrive on what I like to call "instant-noodle" adventure - two minutes and the adventure's ready to gobble up.

Almost completely dialogue-driven and jammed with halting sentences, concentration is a must for positive readings of Random Magic. At points I got rather annoyed at Henry's intrusions and repetitive questions on Winnie's pearls of wisdom, and wished he would just sit down and be a good boy and listen to what the wacky witch had to say, dognamit! I do have a short attention-span though, so perhaps I'd be in the minority on this one. You might find Henry's curiosity appealing and idiosyncratic in a GOOD way, *wink*.

This is a cracker of a book to read to some young "advanced readers" just before bedtime. Girls and boys will be dreamily exhausted after running an absolute gauntlet of crazy monsters, and so will you. Kiddies will also appreciate the rapid bursts of onomatopoeia and the general witty commentary from Winnie zipping and zagging through each page. Don't get me wrong though, teens and older ones can enjoy this style of book too - there's some more mature humour that thankfully can go over the younger heads, but generally those who love the adventures of Alice in Wonderland will find something familiar to love in Random Magic, too.

Interestingly, in the Advanced Copy version I received, there's a "deleted scene" at the end of the novel which Ms Soren, along with her editing team, decided to cut away because it didn't fit well with the rest of the story. And I totally understand what she means. The deleted scene is a backstory about one of the characters which lends itself more to the "evil clown" side of the Carnival fair rather than the "ferris wheel" feel of the rest of the book, if you catch my drift. Strangely though, I think I prefer it - I do love me some tales of dark whimsy - the blacker, the better. Again, it might just be personal preference - just the way I prefer Alice's Adventures Through The Looking Glass to the flossier (and more well-known) companion (see that review, here). I can only hope that Ms Soren might choose to write a sequel in the vein of the deleted story...I'll cross my fingers for it. And toes.

Actually, this book reminds me a lot of a young Australian author, Alexandra Adornetto, who at 14 wrote a book called The Shadow Thief and spouting the writing style of Enid Blyton... on crack. Fortunately, Alexandra won the lottery in cover art for her book (see cover here), whereas Random Magic's cover...well, let's be nice and say I have a bone to pick with it. I mean, CLEARLY, this cover is Nicole Kidman's face. Post-too-many-botox-and-collagen-injections. With red pigtails. It ain't the most original picture by any book's standards. And nor is it the right style for this particular book, in my humble opinion.
Now I know that this is not the author's fault in any way, but I do hope that perhaps there might be a new cover of the book printed soon. Something that better depicts the quirky, youthful and left-of-centredness of the book, like a tea party scene with Henry as the Mad Hatter, for example, rather than the face of a mainstream 42 year old celebrity painted in somewhat garish shading. But, eh, it's a small bone to pick! And maybe no one agrees with me anyway, hehe.

All in all, Random Magic might be a bit too quirky for some, but it's a strangely lovable creature. Kind of like that eccentric neighbour three doors down who recites poetry to her flowers, and throws the newspaper back at the postman. AND has about a thousand cats popping out of each nook and cranny around the yard, including the evil spitting one that you have to cross the road in order to avoid on the way to school. But all is forgiven because that same strange neighbour bakes the most delicious cupcakes - and always offers you the biggest one.

This is exactly what Random Magic is like. Try a bite, and see if it's to YOUR taste.

Rating: 3.5 candy-coloured stars for Random Magic.

P.S. Since it's on tour, why not see what other people have to say about Random Magic? I'm lucky enough to be one of the first blog stops - see the rest of the bloggers boarding the Random Magic train HERE. Toot toot!

Book Review by Aimee: Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile." - Fight Club, pg 134.

I think Chuck Palahniuk is a little bit genius.

Having seen the movie Fight Club at LEAST 5 times in recent years, I fear it will be entirely mainstream and incredibly unliterary to refer to the movie in relation to the book and cross-compare the two. But I'm going to do it anyway. For me personally, the movie is so spectacular in its visualness, and Edward Norton and Brad Pitt are completely rad in it, that it slightly edges out the book. And yet, how can this be, since having now read the book, I can see the movie's glory derives entirely from the book's succinct and underwritten scenes of awesomeness?

I hope I haven't lost you.

Fight Club follows the entirely unapologetic, emotionless (and at times highly unreliable) thinkings of a nameless narrator, a yuppie officeworker who is dragging himself through a meaningless existence. His so far unsuccessful search for meaning in life leads him to participate in cancer support groups, even though he doesn't have cancer himself. But even that corner of the earth is tipped off balance when he finds there is another 'faker' in the group, the dark and raggedly seductive Marla.

Not long after this Marla introduction, on a strangely fatalistic whim, the narrator also invites Tyler Durden into his life and his world is transformed. With Tyler, he is a part of the highly secret fraternity known only as "Fight Club" where men physically rip into each other one on one, giving into primal urges that have been suppressed by society's reign.

Operating by the club's secret code, the narrator quickly becomes addicted to the pain of the fight - which is both a release and a relief from his otherwise numbed and unfeeling persona. As the narrator embarks on Project Mayhem with his fellow members under Tyler's totalitarian rule, the plot thickens and twists in ways you might never have imagined and you'll be horrified and amused by the results in equal measure til the very end.

I can't say much more about the plot than that or otherwise I'll spoil the twists.

Pardon the pun, but Fight Club sure packs a punch. It's an excessively dark humour, and has some fantastic quotes you are sure to remember with a secret, evil smile for years afterwards. Palahniuk somehow manages to write an ironic commentary on societal conformity, without alienating boy OR girl readers. And no sentence is wasted - it's a swift and surprisingly stingy read at 207 flimsy paperback pages.

Similar in tone to American Psycho, I can totally see why this book developed into such a phenomenon from the time of its release. It walks a neat tightrope between showcasing beauty in Destruction, and warning of the modern man's disconnect. There's a weird jittery calmness to the book's narration that keeps your brain alert, as if the book itself may swing a fist at your face or might chance a knee to your groin if it thinks you'd react at all- so don't work yourself into a frenzy while reading if you can help it. It might be difficult to contain yourself, though, and it'll make no difference whether you're a perfect princess or a rugby player - you'll be caught up in the bloodlust and the other crazy antics of the Fight Club boys either way.

I really can't rave enough. If you haven't read the book or seen the movie I suggest you do so NOW. Any worries you might have about it being too "gory"- well, the movie really isn't that bad and the fighting scenes take a backseat to the psychological meanderings of Edward Norton's character and his run-ins with people in his daily life. If it's any consolation you'll get to see a fair bit of Brad Pitt with his shirt off. Worth it, yah?

I also can't suggest which one to watch/read first. I watched the movie and then read the book but it didn't spoil it in the slightest. I imagine it'd be the same if you approached it from the opposite end. I still marvelled at the book story though I knew the movie script by heart. And I hope I won't be spoiling too much by saying that the two endings are entirely different. Of course, both endings rocked my socks.

Sadly, I wouldn't be a valued member of the elite secret society. Mainly because I've already broken the first rule of Fight Club: which is, Never Talk About Fight Club.

Damn it. I must be destined for mediocrity.

4.5 stars for Fight Club (the book).

Book Review by Aimee: The Evil Seed, by Joanne Harris

Having finished this book, to quote W.B. Yeats: my wretched dragon is perplexed.

Word of warning; this will only be a MINI book review, rather than a full book review, because I think the writing in this novel reflects something that is only 'halfway there'.

The Evil Seed is an often confusing. sometimes numbing and other times flamboyantly lovely read - a strange hybrid of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Lesbian Vampire" poem 'Christabel', and the videoclip of Guns n Roses 'November Rain', with a sprinkling of The Secret History and a couple of Interview with the Vampire remarks. Unfortunately, the originality, creativity and unique books of all such mediums referred to in the previous sentence are lost in the inexperience of Harris' first attempt at writing.

The novel intrudes on the mind of uni student and artist Alice at a vulnerable time - she is reminiscing about her former romantic relationship with Joe, but suddenly she finds herself having to house the new girl he is besotted with: Ginny. Ginny is like the hottest Kate Bush you ever did see, and perfects the look of 'Little Girl Lost'. But her friends are kinda weird - it takes three invitations for them to step across a door threshold into your house, and they only like to come over at night, if at all possible.

At first, Alice believes that jealousy is the culprit responsible for her ill feelings towards Ginny, but when she finds an old diary of a gentleman's run in with a Kate Bush vampire, Alice begins to suspect that the truth about Ginny may be very sinister indeed...

Joanne Harris, the author of such mini masterpieces as Chocolat, wrote this book when she was a fresh, impressionable 23 year old. She admits herself that she struggled with the idea that the book should be republished, once she became famous and everything. And I have to be frank and say I understand her concerns. I could see glimpses of the glorious, but overall I felt that lingering university student angst, that 90s love for gothica in its darkest and most grunge-like form and a sense of an author that hadn't quite found her voice just yet.

This book is, overall, romantic and lusty and bloody. The vampires (though they are never referred to as this, only 'Nightwalkers') are of the monstrous, ravaging type. They can hypnotise and manipulate people into doing whatever they please, and they appear to live only for hunger and fear.

At times the writing screamed for simplicity, and instead was overwritten, but I enjoyed the Byronic character of Daniel (diary guy), though the modern-day Alice lesser so.

This was a little too dark, musty and derivative to be a great read, but I still consider it to be a good read, particularly if you like books like Wuthering Heights, or Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and require a quick fix of packet blood. Yeah, I know it's not as good as the live stuff. But hey, even vampires can't have home-cooked gourmet every night. And as far as takeaways go this stuff aint devoid of your daily dose o' vitamins. Just take care with the bony bits.

3 stars.

Book Review by Aimee: The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness

YOU, Blogosphere- Amazon- Goodreads- you've Asked me to read this book by plastering shamelessly positive reviews of it all over yourself.

I have Answered.

The Ask and the Answer ("TATA") by Patrick Ness is book 2 of the Chaos Walking trilogy. Now before we go getting our teeth stuck into this fresh piece of meat, I highly HIGHLY recommend that you read Book 1.

I repeat: this isn't one of those series' where you can afford to pick up at Book 2 - you simply MUST read Book 1 FIRST. Patrick Ness' ROARINGLY adventurous dystopian trilogy is all about the suspense, and besides the story being absolutely spoilt in its entirety, you won't have any EFFING clue what's going on at ANY stage. So if you want to be part of this exclusive club, GO. Now. Read. And love.

So with that out of the way: TATA begins at The End. I mean that it presents itself as the tail of Book 1, where we are left hanging by one very sweaty hand off the edge of a high, rocky cliff, otherwise known as the dreaded 'cliffhanger'. There, first page in, written THE END, and then the story begins...


----Mild spoilers start here - watch for the splash as you hit the water below - DON'T SAY YOU HAVEN'T BEEN WARNED ------

---------------------Begin Spoiler -------------------


I guess it's no big secret that Viola lives to see another day, brushing off that bulletwound that showcased Todd as the hero we all know he is in The Knife of Never Letting Go ("TKNLG").

Problem is, Viola's been picked up by a group of healing and silent (no 'noise') dastardly WOMEN, while Todd's thrown in the deep end with Mayor (now President) Prentiss, who sees 'big things' in Todd and wants him to join his gang. It's a power struggle and brainwashing of epic proportions as the two young protagonists fight their way through evils untold and doubts unnumbered in pursuit of their destination: each other.

----------------------End Spoiler--------------------


That is seriously ALL I'm going to say about the plot. Read it yourself.

Now for everything else:-

As the second book in the series, TATA has a fair bit to live up to. In Book 1, Ness built a world where a cowboy and a GI Joe could feel equally at home within its landscape. Book 2, with the further introduction of females and especially with the added viewpoint of the sensible and sweet Viola does run the risk of softening the novel's edges. Lucky for us there's plenty of dust, horses, blood and guts, bomb explosions and gunfire, sweaty boys and sadistic men to keep us thrilled to bits with the second offering.

In my thoughts on TKNLG (see review here) I had challenged Patrick Ness to include Viola's perspective in the next book - Todd was so full of life and guilt and strangeness that I felt sure Viola would bring something extra special if she were allowed to be NOISY with the rest of them.
I was, however, a little disappointed in Viola's representation in the second novel. I was hoping she would be a joint protagonist similarly to Will's role in His Dark Materials (yes I'm still comparing Todd and Viola to Lyra and Will because they are PRETTY MUCH ONE AND THE SAME - you just don't want to admit it), but instead Viola's still that backstage prop used to reflect and deflect Todd's NOISY musings. Further to this point, I had difficulty establishing which character was speaking, except that Viola spoke/ wrote/ told the story like a genderless, stunted being. She sometimes experienced moments of warmth but Todd's overriding personality gobbles it up. Viola is still two-dimensional, Todd is like ten-dimensional. Viola should have been at least a five-dimensional by my awesomely accurate maths calculations. And can I just lament over how much I miss a certain adorable someone from the first book who didn't quite make it to the second? You know who I mean.

But despite these slight hitches, TATA is a dangerously addictive addition to the three-part series. The reading style continues to be accessible and despite its thickness, I guarantee you will rip through it like a horse through a gate at the mere mention of the word 'lightning'.

Happily, Todd's language is still an endearing mix of Shakespeare, current teenage slang and toddler spelling. And ordinary words like "ask" become something entirely different and somewhat dangerous with the simple addition of, for example, some silver paint and a capital "A". Manipulating words and screwing with multiple layers of meaning makes the trilogy enviously exclusive to the readers, like learning a secret society's handshake. Only YOU know what The Knife of Never Letting Go refers to. Thankfully, it's the same with The Ask and the Answer. This book will scribble on your brain like a PARTICULARLY HYPERACTIVE PRESCHOOLER in search of the creative holy grail, so be warned: side effects from reading include expecting everyone around you to talk in echoes with thoughts popping up in bold and unapologetically messy font around their head. You may find that you have to consciously refrain from using the word "effing" in more than three sentences in a row and on blog reviews you'll almost certainly increase your rate of TYPING IN CAPS LOCK FOR NO APPARENT REASON....

..... NO APPARENT REASON........

......

And the physical book itself is adorable. It's lovely and fat and uncontrollably baby-blue in colour. There's a massive silver letter A (which will ONLY make sense when you're reading it) and it's covered in a thick plastic perfect for adventurous boys and girls who don't understand the meaning of keeping books in good condition.

I also think it's SUPERCOOL the way highly mature themes are dealt with in this series. There's racism, sexism, other general discrimination, dictatorship, questions of religion, abuse of power...I could go on for a while. Chunks of heart and hope are just bowled in randomly along with the usual suspects of greed, guilt, betrayal of trust and general disillusionment. It reminds me a lot of the movie District 9 (which I LOVED as well, by the way - see my review of the movie, here) - fellow Aussie blogger Rhiannon Hart touched on the book's familiarity to District 9 as well (see THAT review, here).

All in all, the sense of creative adventure in this series is sure to overwhelm you- it'll quicken the hearts of any Peter Pan in pursuit of a freshly opened window or a wizened pirate desperate for a new frontier, but equally girls should love the first buds of romance and Todd's crazy "boy-ness". I think I can say without reservation that almost everyone with a still-beating heart will appreciate the elements of humanity and community: an oh-so-relevant commentary on today's increasingly distant and ego-centric world.

So if you have an impossible sense of adventure; if you enjoy tales of an underdog fighting against the injustices of a dystopian world; if you enjoy transformations and the triumph of EVIL over GOOD as well as GOOD over EVIL; if you fly the flag for teenage romance in the most unlikely of situations...pick up the first book and join the revolution, or get ready to read the third and final instalment before the rest of the world catches on.

Cos I think we're on the brink of something big.

4.5 stars for The Ask and the Answer.

Book Review by Aimee: Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan

Margo Lanagan is not human. I say this with absolute certainty because I know no human could write this good. Margo has obviously employed the services of some local sorceress to gift her the ability to transform readers with her writing - I'm only curious as to what the price for such a gift might be.

Tender Morsels, then, is an expansion of the classic story of Snow White and Rose Red. And like all the best fairy stories and fairy story retellings, the beauty, light and happiness of Tender Morsels emerges from the blackest of shadows.

Liga Longfield is a teenage girl surviving in what appears to be a traditional European-fable-style village. I say 'surviving', as her existence consists of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at the hands of her father. Unbeknowst to Liga, the local witch of the village (who was actually a pretty, spunky young thing back in her day) takes pity on Liga's situation. Liga is transported to a personal Utopia in which she raises her two beautiful girls, the angelic Branza and the whirlwind Urrda, in a perfect bubble of safety away from the troubles, sorrows and evils of Liga's former world.

But AS WE ALL KNOW, those in the truest business of fairytales can rarely live "happily ever after", ever after.

As the girls bloom into adolescence, the fabric between the heaven of Liga's created world and the purported hell of another existence begins to thin and rip. A dwarf in search of treasure makes his way into Liga's heaven and meets the two girls. Men in the form of bears requiring Liga's hospitality also accidentally cross worlds. And Urdda, curious and yearning for what lies beyond the rabbithole, finds her own way into a place where evils exist.

Tender Morsels is equal parts tender and savage, wicked and compassionate, light and dark. I have read other reviews and the comments on the reviews have been hesitant, wondering whether this book might be too depressing. But unlike Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (see review here), the book is not entirely desolate. There are sparks of adventure, and desire and hope in the thick tangle of magic and sin.

A warning though, for the eager YA lovers. This is, in a sense, a demanding novel - those who are used to the easy fumblings of many recent YA 'faerie' novels may find the language in this book difficult to navigate. Let me clarify that point, the writing IS superb, and use of words are careful but not sparse. I have no doubt though, that YA enthusiasts who appreciate poetry and art through the structure of sentences and the images they evoke will find it in abundance between these pages. Further on this point, the themes also necessitate a certain level of maturity. Which begs the question as to why this is marketed as simply a Young Adult novel. BUT I've pretty much given up on those publishers and agents who think that because the protagonist is a teen, or because it's a fairytale, it must automatically be for children and teens alone. If any of you have seen the movie Pan's Labyrinth, you will know what I mean by how silly it was for a parent take a child of 3 to watch it, which is what happened at my theatre viewing! They must've complained about false advertising - I'm sure the kid had many sleepless nights afterwards...

At its deepest root, Tender Morsels is an exploration of gender, of power, of understanding and knowledge, and of that necessary crossover from innocence to experience. The characters are passionate, strong, full of folly, capable of great rights and great wrongs. The story is rich and creamy with symbolism and the writing is delicately strange to taste. Each word is to be marvelled at for its carefully chosen position within the wider text, but the overall story has the desired combined effect of the sparkling lyrical and deceptively simple - it makes the fable grooowwwwl and ROAR into its quiet corners.

What's more, the author's imagination feels limitless...I'm dumbstruck by it. This novel constructs worlds that you FEEL A PART OF - I actually feel like I'm co-existing right now, shifting between here and the worlds within the book. I can still smell the apples on the trees, the leaves burning in the forest woods, I can hear the laughter of children and the slow paw-movement of the bears... I want to be swept up like those leaves from the woods and sat in a pile on a woodcutter's cottage doorstep, waiting for my own bear-man to come and play with me over a summer that never cares to end...{insert sigh of full and deep longing HERE}.......

There are times in your reading life when you come across a piece of writing that not only speaks to your heart, but listens when your heart speaks back. This is one of those books for me. Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan now sits on my favourite shelf along with His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman; The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis; Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, by Lewis Carroll; and The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.

I don't expect you to feel as strongly about this book unless you have the exact same taste in books as me - it's unlikely. But if you enjoy Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen-style fairytales, or if you enjoy writing that feels like you're eating a particularly good sour cherry tart with an extra dollop of cream, then please FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY... move this one up your TBR list.

I adore it.

5 stars.

Aimee's List

For my 100 list, I'm not really going for anything specific - this is a list of books I've had recommended to me NUMEROUS times, and then others that have been gathering dust on my TBR list, and then a few new ones that I'm looking forward to.

This is my semi-final list - it may change a little as I iron out the kinks, or maybe it'll stay pretty much the same.
I'm open to recommendations on books, particularly if you spot something by an author and you think I should swap it for another book of theirs, or a similar but superior (in your opinion) author.

Of course, I'll be attempting to review each and every one of them on my blog: My Fluttering Heart.

eeek! This is a little scary - I have commitment issues on the best of days :)

*takes deep breath* So, here goes....

1. The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighiere
2. The Island of the Day Before - Umberto Eco
3. The Goose Girl - Shannon Hale
4. Children of Dune - Frank Herbert
5. The Lord of the Rings - by J. R. R. Tolkien
6. The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood
7. Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
8. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
9. In the Woods - Tana French
10. The Wrong Grave - Kelly Link
11. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
12. Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
13. The Secret Scripture - Sebastian Barry
14. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut
15. The Sweet Far Thing - Libba Bray
16. Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
17. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
18. The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
19. The Bloody Chamber - Angela Carter
20. The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
21. The Monsters of Templeton - Lauren Groff
22. The Crimson Petal and the White - Michael Faber
21. Tender Morsels - Margo Lanagan
22. Shogun - James Clavell
23. The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters
24. The Devil and Miss Prym - Paulo Coehlo
25. The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
26. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
27. The Children's Book - A.S. Byatt
28. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
29. The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
30. The Once and Future King - T.H. White
31. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
32. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint- Exupery
33. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
34. The Stand - Stephen King
35. Cross-Stitch (Outlander in the U.S.) - Diana Gabaldon
36. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
37. Arabian Nights - Anonymous
38. Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
39. The Boat - Nam Le
40. The Meaning of Night - Michael Cox
41. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
42. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
43. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
44. The Lady and the Unicorn - Tracey Chevalier
45. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
46. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
47. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil - John Berendt
48. World Without End - Ken Follett
49. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay- Michael Chabon
50. Memoirs of Cleopatra – Margaret George
51. Antony and Cleopatra - Colleen McCullough
52. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
53. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
54. V - Thomas Pynchon
55. Lady Chatterley's Lover - D.H. Lawrence
56. Katherine - Anya Seton
57. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick
58. The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
59. The Good Earth - Pearl S Buck
60. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress - Dai Sijie
61. The Leopard - Guiseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa
62. Possession - A.S. Byatt
63. Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
64. We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson
65. Bel Canto - Ann Patchett
66. Wildwood Dancing - Juliet Marillier
67. The Magician - Raymond E. Feist
68. The Gormenghast Novels - Mervyn Peake
69. An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears
70. Paradise Regained - John Milton
71. A Suitable Boy: A Novel - Vikram Seth
72. A Fraction of a Whole - Steve Toltz
73. Coraline - Neil Gaiman
74. The Pirate's Daughter - Margaret Cezair - Thompson
75. Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales - Angela Carter
76. The Evil Seed - Joanne Harris
77. Special Topics in Calamity Physics - Marisha Pessl
78. The China Lover - Ian Buruma
79. Alchemy - Maureen Duffy
80. The Seance - John Harwood
81. Mistress of the Art of Death - Ariana Franklin
82. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
83. The Looking Glass Wars - Frank Bedder
84. Un-Lun-Dun - China Mieville
85. The Dawn Stag - Jules Watson
86. The Last Witchfinder - James Morrow
87. The Conjuror's Bird - Martin Davies
88. The Dawn Stag - Jules Watson
89. Angel Time - Anne Rice
90. The Ask and The Answer - Patrick Ness
91. Idoru - William Gibson
92. City of Bones - Cassandra Clare
93. Of Bees and Mist, by Erick Setiawan
94. Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk
95. Random Magic, by Sasha Soren
96. Isis, by Douglas Clegg
97. Cybele's Secret, by Juliet Marillier
98. Ice, by Sarah Beth Durst
99. How to Catch and Keep a Vampire, by Diana Laurence
100. TBA

So do you have any recommendations for numbers 94-100? If so, I'd love to hear them! I haven't read hardly anything in the way of mysteries, sci fi, or adult fantasy, so I'd appreciate those suggestions most of all :)