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Genre: Fiction

Elves, Boys, and Mean Girls

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Keeper of the Lost Cities, by Shannon Messenger, is a derivative but ultimately wholesome fantasy adventure written for a female audience. Now, you’ve so heard this kind of tween prose before, and you might be totally, absolutely mortified when you notice how much this book echoes the plots of other bestselling, middle grade fantasy books. But, like Sophie Foster, you’ll probably survive the ordeal. I mean just barely. And, while you’ll have to wade through the standard eco-gospel, and a lot of middle school melodrama to get there, the book…

The Hollow Heart of Merlin’s God

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Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy is a well-written, but ultimately troubling take on the Arthurian mythos . Stewart took great pains to give her historical fantasy a realistic, early Medieval backdrop, but her meticulous reinterpretation of the legendary source material has an agenda contrary to that material’s chivalric heart. Through the eyes and mouth of her ethically and spiritually ambiguous protagonist, the author exchanges the charming anachronism of Arthurian proto-chivalry for a far less believable Arthurian realpolitik. The result is an historically fascinating, but morally hollow series. Before delving in, let…

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

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A Great Treat in the Mystery Genre: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie In The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley you will find a new classic in the mystery genre. From the opening paragraph (no small feat!), Bradley brilliantly weaves a web of murder, privilege, and PTSD around the protagonist and sleuth, eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce. “So,” you may ask, “is she the titular ‘sweetness’ in the story?” Absolutely not. Flavia is not your typical post-war pre-teen Briton. She has a passion for…

The Lost Island

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Island Adventures There is something about an island that makes for a good adventure story.  Three that come to mind are Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island, and Ian Cameron’s The Island at the Top of the World. An island, by definition, is cut off; it is remote, separate and unknown. Such stories are often two adventures in one: the adventure of getting to the island, and then the adventure of what is on the island.  (With perhaps a third – the adventure of getting home…

The Candy Shop Wars

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The Candy Shop Wars is cheap American candy. Younger palettes may initially enjoy the easy thrills of magic sweets, but after a few chapters, most taste buds will be numb to the flavor and ready to move on to something more substantial. The core recipe for the story is unbalanced, and the magic candy action is little more than a superficial additive intended to mask the bland flavor. While the book does not contain anything that is blatantly inappropriate or offensive, there is little to recommend it.   The story centers…

The Enduring Tale of the Boy Who Lived

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Editor’s Note:  Admittedly, this has become a bit of a controversial series, both because of the books themselves, but also because of the subsequent development of the Harry Potter brand.  Please note the following.  First, we take the books as we find them on the shelf.  Second, our review of Harry Potter does not in any way indicate our views of any related sequels (in book or film form), which some avid Potter fans justifiably view as too dark and explicitly intertwined with the occult.  Are we surprised that the…

A Lonely Trip Through the Southern Reach

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My very first impression, from the first page of Annihilation, book one of The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer, was not far from my last thoughts on the series. What insanity have I just stumbled into? Every reveal seems to bring along numerous other mind-bending doubts or questions about the world Vandermeer has created. The story opens with a group of nameless female explorers beginning their expedition into “Area X”, a mysterious portion of the ordinary world that has somehow, inexplicably become subject to laws all its own. Its…

La Vie en Rose

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The Boy in the Striped Pajamas provides a great opportunity for the cultivation of moral sensibilities in young people. What is more, it is an interesting read, particularly for those who have a personal connection to the history that surrounds the Holocaust.

MacGyver on Mars

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The Martian, by Andy Weir, is an entertaining page-turner with an inherently interesting premise and a well-executed plot. Aside from entertainment, the novel’s chief value lies in its celebration of cheerful resourcefulness, and its appreciation of the worth of a single human life. Good in several important ways, the book also lacked some of the depth that its premise might have supported. In a near-future mission to Mars, an accident forces the astronaut crew of the Hermes to leave behind an apparently dead colleague, Mark Watney. As it happens, Mark…