Death Cloud

"Death Cloud" by Andrew Lane is a surprisingly good . . . wait for it . . . mystery.
       Young Sherlock Holmes is taken out of his dreaded boarding school and forced to live with his even more dreaded aunt and uncle out in the countryside.  What awaits him, he believes, is endless hours of boredom and loneliness, punctuated only with conversation from relatives he hardly knows.  When he arrives, he finds what he expected, but with another layer:  A mysterious black cloud has been dropping down on citizens from Farnham, and leaving them with great red swollen welts.  Is this the beginning of another Bubonic Plague, or is it of a much greater design?  Stretching his wit and his mind, Sherlock delves into the heart of the mystery, determined to find the source of the black cloud before it claims any more prey.

I am not qualified to talk about how Young Sherlock Holmes matches up against his older counterpart, but I have to say that I am surprised to how Andrew Lane takes the smallest detail and turns it into a major part of the plot.  I mean, I could see the dead badger stunt coming a mile off, but I did enjoy the attention payed to detail.  It really makes the story.
       Actually, the attention to detail would have to make the story, because the plot was slightly ridiculous.  The first half of the plot was intriguing:  Why are these people getting killed by a black cloud?  What on earth is the black cloud?  Why did those people set that warehouse in fire?  And then, of course, there is the whimsy of imaging Sherlock and Matty meander the English countryside riding bicycles and the whatnot.  But then the plot takes a turn for the worse after Sherlock gets kidnapped for the first time.  That's right, the first time.  From there, it all descends into madness.
       For the characters, well, Sherlock is the only one you know.  It's third person narration, so you aren't really inside his head, but still, by the end of a, say, 250 page book you should think you would know a character reasonably well, right?  Well enough to predict their actions. That's not the case for this book, in my opinion. I feel like I hardly know Sherlock by the end of his adventures, his past is so shrouded in mystery, even though this book was supposed to clear up some of the mystery left by the first author of the adult Holmes series.  Even though Sherlock is a static character in this book--he overcomes no great personal revelations and has no life-changing epiphanies--you still don't feel like you understand what motivates him by the end of the book.  He wants to figure out a mystery?  Great!  Now, please tell me why he would risk his life to do so, and do tell me 'generic kindness' 'cause we all know that altruism is not that strong of a motivator.
       You can't really predict the actions of any of the characters.  With a good book you'll be able to get into the characters brains' and say, "Well, this person cares for this person, so they would do this.  But they don't care for that person that much, so they probably won't do that,"  or "This person values this, that, and the other, so, according to their values they are probably going to save this person."  You get few reasons with this book--Crowe says some reasons why he does stuff, and sometimes Matty does, but Sherlock is all like "This is logical.  This is what I'm going to do."  Well, it may be logical, but it's not smart.
        It may be my natural aversion to mysteries, but this book only comes up on my list as half decent.  If the train of events made more sense in my mind, I would like it more. Simple as that.  It is a good book, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't rank up there with my favorites, no way, no how.  Maybe I'll read the sequel if and/or when it comes out, maybe I won't.
         What I would like to say to young Mr. Holmes, though, when he decides that maybe carrying around this possibly poisonous yellow powder wasn't such a good after all is "no duh, Sherlock," because, in reality, maybe this whole venture wasn't such a good idea after all.

Rebel Hearts

"Rebel Hearts," by Moria Young, is the sequel to the fantastically gruesome "Blood Red Road."
     Since Lugh was captured by the Tonton at Silverlake Saba has always relied on her instincts and gut feelings.  Instinct and gut feelings got her out of Hopetown.  Instincts and gut feelings got her out of Freedom Fields.  But Saba's instincts and gut feelings may be failing her as she races back east when she hears a rumor that Jack has fallen in with the Tonton.  In an attempt to save him, Saba endangers the lives of everyone she's cared about.  As the death toll piles up, she will have to debate what is worth what:  Is having her happy ending worth the life of her sister? Is having all she ever wanted worth losing everyone that ever stood by her?

Say that "Blood Red Road" was the second best contemporary dystopian novel.  "Rot and Ruin" would be at the top, the best, "Article 5" would be in between the middle and the bottom, and "Hunger Games would be festering somewhere below the bottom.  "Rebel Hearts" would be somewhere between "Article 5" and "The Hunger Games."  I swear, it was awful.
        "The Blood Red Road" is the second best contemporary dystopian novel because there's blood and fighting and general goriness.  Epic fights to the death against giant worms, cage fighting, burning down the town in which there was cage fighting, burning down really anything that came close (including demented sun kings and giant worms) . . . Ah, the glory.  There was a bit of romance her and there too, which wasn't so bad.   But "Rebel Hearts" takes it to a whole new level.  It's "Oh, Jack, I miss you" here and "Oh, I want Jack" there and "Jack smells nice" in the middle mixed in with "Oh, I think I might love *insert name here 'cause I won't ruin it for you even though we all knew it was gonna happen*" with a touch of "Oh, *insert name here, I'm not going to tell you because it'll ruin it and it's stupid and random* loves me?"  IT'S ALL MUSHY!  And not fun at all.
        Okay, so, in "Blood Red Road" I sort of got the picture that Saba was like Clint Eastwood in all those Westerns.  You know, the lone cowboy (or cowgirl or whatever you want to call it) who rides into town, gets filled up with some sort of righteous anger, burns the place down, and overthrows the evil mayor, all well having fun and making friends with a merry band of outlaws.  In "Rebel Hearts" Saba is like that in the beginning of the book, righteous anger and what not, but eventually she gets whittled down into a princess who runs around in dresses.  Excuse me?  The Angel of Death is no princess, I don't care about that Sky-person-girl's ruling.
         I mentioned that there are some other mushy-male components in this.  There are.  They are unneeded and unwanted and do absolutely no good for anything anywhere anyhow anywhy.  They should just not be there. Period.  I guess the "random person loves me" was inevitable in some sense.  It's random, but it was mentioned slightly in the previous book and it will probably be a big part of the next book, because it seems that this is to be a trilogy (but from this book, I say they cut it off now, and spare us all the horror).  The other new male component just detracts from everything.  And turns Saba into a princess.  And everyone knew that it was going to happen, it seems, except for Saba, because I figured out that it was going to happen back in Hopetown but our newly-whittled princess here had no clue.
         So, basically what I'm trying to get at is that this is a decent book--for the first part of it.  Then it just goes bonkers.  It seems, and no offense to Moria Young here, but it seems that she forgot the parameters she set out for her characters because they seem to be operating outside of them.
        On a completely different note, DeMalo is crazy.
        So, anyway, "Blood Red Road" and "Rebel Hearts" both seem to be of the "Dust Land Trilogy".  (I didn't realize that the name of "Rebel Hearts" was "Rebel Hearts" 'cause "Dust Land" was bigger on the cover so I thought that the whole trilogy was called "Rebel Hearts Trilogy" and that better not be the case 'cause that would be a pretty bad name for a dystopian novel.  (Worse than "The Hunger Games.")  I don't know what the third one is or when it will come out, but I'll keep an eye for that one.
         Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that Saba's lost her way.  And if she doesn't find it soon, or if she finds it leads into the arms of some handsome male, I may have to put the book down and walk away.  Because Saba's supposed to be my warrior, not my damsel in distress.

As the author's bio says, "Visit www.dustlandsbooks.com to learn more."  It's nothing unusual, really.

Scorch

"Scorch," the sequel to the fantastic "Croak," by Gina Damico is finally out.
      Cordy is dead, a physotic serial killer is on the loose, and all of Croak blames Lex and Mort. With Norwood and Heloise pointing fingers at any Junior who breathes funny the world is falling to pieces. To make matters worse, Zara is murdering her way from criminals to innocents and everyone in between, just to make a point.  As Grims start falling dead in the streets Lex must run so the wrath of the "Croakers" can't get her before Zara can. But the only way to save the world this time is to figure out who "Bone, the sick scythe bandit" is and where the mysterious "Wrong Book" is, so with limited resources and limited time, Lex finds that it's her responsibility to stop the dominoes her uncle started falling with the touch of his finger.

I hate this book.  No, let me revise.  I have a love/hate relationship with this book.  Because it's so darn good . . . and it's so darn bad. I mean, come on.  Did that really have to happen?  Really?  It's so painful to read.  Too painful, almost.  Like ripping your heart out and roasting it over the open flame.  But I only hate it so much because I like it so much.  It's an awful conundrum.
       I think that this book, if it's even possible, is even more hysterical then the first one (though that could just be because I've over-read the first one).  Again, there is a strong language warning on this.  A strong warning about strong language.  And, uh, since Driggs and Lex are, like, dating or whatever it is that Grim Reapers to, there is a lot of . . . snogging, to put it into British terms.  Just an advisory.
      Now, to analyze the plot.  I hate it.  And I can't say much more without giving anything away.  But I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. Except for the funny parts.  And the part where they're hiding out in DeMyse and everything is so ludicrously fabulous it's like Katniss going into the Capital in the "Hunger Games" (don't you think I didn't notice that parallel Ms. Damico).  So, yeah.
       The characters are still wildly funny and extraordinarily wacky, which is always good.  There are some new ones to make up for the ones that have been lost or do get lost during the course of the book (in every love/hate book someone has to die, and you just know it).
         Lex is still dealing with all that inner angst that we all known and love: Occasionally she blows up dirt or pencils or furniture, which is always fun to watch.  Driggs doesn't play the drums at all during this book, nor does he mention the Titanic, but we know he's not an impostor because, well . . . He's madly in love with the most difficult Grim Reaper in any life, After or otherwise.  And we'll leave it at that.  You get to see a side of Cordy that you had only seen momentarily in "Croak" and it leaves you wondering "those two girls really grew up in the same house?"  And you see Mort to is full Mort-ness.  You also see Pip and Bang in ways that you've never seen Pip and Bang before, mainly you've never seen Pip and Bang before.  So, there's comfort with the old characters and an edge with the new characters.  It's a nice mix.
       And again, the humor.  Always with the humor.  It's just such a silly book, even though it's about death and stuff.  If it was a serious book, I think I wouldn't like it.  Who would want to read a morbid book about a girl who goes around and steals other people's souls?  But a book about a bunch of teens who go around, steal people's souls, come back home, and have a social uprising on their hands and deal with it all while laughing is a serious winner.  A pick-me-up for when all of the Zaras and Norwoods in your life are out to get you.
        Uh, la la la.  There are some twists.  Big twists.  One big twist.  One I hate.  I haven't fully finished the book yet, but I just thought it was so wonderfully awful that I had to tell it to you right away.  If I say any more about the big twist, though, I know that I'll give it all away so I'll stop harping on it.
         But I despise its guts.
         Moving on.  I do not know when the third one will be out, but rest assured that there will be a third one because this one is not going to be wrapped up any time soon at the rate I'm going at.  I don't know when it comes out, though, because "Scorch" came out on September 25, and the website isn't saying anything about another one in the series yet.
        A theme of this book, humor and all, might be that we shouldn't fear death because it's just another stage in life.  "Don't fear the reaper," as the Blue Oyster Cult says.  Laugh at it,  as Lexington Bartleby says, because the Afterlife is pretty much the best thing out there.  Next to that ice cream that Cordy and I ate a week before the place that sold it closed.

The website is, as it always is, is www.ginadamic.co  If you go to ginadamico.com you get a realtor's site, just so you know.

Out of My Mind

"Out of My Mind" by Sharon Draper is a story of a brilliant girl who has no way to communicate with the rest of the world.
      Melody, aged ten but nearly eleven, has millions of things she'd like to say, millions of ideas she wants to share, millions of conversations she wants to has, and millions of miles she wants to run, but only one thing stopping her.  She has cerebral palsy.  Confined to her pink wheelchair, Melody has to observe the world pass her by, learning her ABC's day after day, talking to the same kids year after year, doing the same things over and over again. She can't even tell people what she wants, because her vocabulary is limited to the few words she can point to on her "communication board."  Wonderful opportunities are in store for Melody, though, if only the rest of the world can be kind enough to let her take them.

This is a wonderful story.  Sharon Draper is a wonderful author, adept at bringing out the unseen and generally ignored sides of life, and she does nothing less with this novel.  She paints a picture that's believable, understandable, and relateable, even if the reader has no disability whatsoever.
       The main character, Melody, is a very sensible and sweet girl.  You almost forget from what vantage point she is speaking from sometimes.  Her thoughts are completely relateable, even if we function in two completely different realms of being.  I worry about what the kids at school think of me: she does too, save in a greater capacity. She worries about being her best for her team and proving everyone wrong about her; I do to, in some cases.
       Melody is surrounded by a cast of characters, as every protagonist is.  These characters aren't as widely varied as the casts in my normal books--there is only one outrageously flamboyant personality in the whole thing-- but they are believable, and I think that might be the point of the whole endeavor.  Their personalities are well developed, though, and rounded, so you know what's coming at you almost before it does, and if you don't understand an action then you can easily figure out based on what you know of real life and in-book situations.
        I also like Melody's sense of humor.  There's a mean girl, Claire (Why is it always a Claire?), who bullies Melody, but Melody comes back with some pretty snappy retorts.  Melody makes me smile often during the book, be it with her comebacks or her common-sense approach to her situation.
       The storyline is a good one, too.  The best ending to a story is "surprising but inevitable," right?  There are two very major plot twists near the end of the book.  The first is something that effects Melody more than anyone else, and it's something that you'll shake your head at and say "I should've seen that one coming."  The second is something that you figured out was going to happen earlier on in the book, if you payed close enough attention to all of the details in the text, but there's an added level to it.  That one effects the whole family, and it was hinted at for ages prior to it.
       I do have one complaint about the book, though.  There are a whole ton of exclamation points.  I really don't like exclamation points.  I couldn't tell you why, but it's just a personal irk of mine.  There are, like, four exclamation points per chapter, and they make me jump every time I read them.  Other than that, there's nothing pressingly awful that comes to mind.
      It's a wonderful book that can make you feel someone else's emotions, no matter what their circumstances, and this is a book that can do that. It did it for me.