Book Review: Haint Misbehavin' by Maureen Hardegree

Title: Haint Misbehavin'
Author: Maureen Hardegree
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Release Date: 06/01/2010
ISBN: 1935661930






Tis the season for spooky books!

If you asked Heather, she'd probably tell you that her life sucks. Not only is she super allergic to everything & anything, but she also has a sister that treats her like dirt & parents who completely ignore said sister's actions (unless they can't ignore them). Now on top of all of that she's discovered that she can see ghosts. Well, one ghost in particular, the ghost of a small child who died years ago & is intent on spending the rest of her afterlife haunting Heather.

Hardegree has done a good job mystery & world building for her first full length book, creating a character that many readers will be able to relate to. Not only that, but the book makes for a very easy read & should be a lot of fun for young readers in this spooky Halloween season. Also something to praise is Hardegree's setting up of ghostly rules & future plot points, most specifically those surrounding the character of Xavier, a geek with a crush on our young medium.

However there are a few things about the book that might wear a little thin with some readers. Heather's older sister Audrey is almost completely one-dimensional for a large chunk of the book & many might long for some sort of character depth other than “you embarrass me & I’m going to humiliate you in public”. It’s fine at first but it’s almost completely nonstop, which gets pretty old after a while. Also wearing a little thin is how Heather’s parents are completely oblivious to how she’s treated- while I can understand parents wanting to think the better of their kids, Audrey’s actions are so incredibly noticeable that I really wanted to see more reaction from the parents, even if it was signs that they were actively trying to live in ignorance. (Hey, I’ve had siblings who were just as evil, if not more so than Audrey & when it was as noticeable as this they did actually show that they noticed.) I can see where Hardegree was trying to go with this, but I just wanted to see more depth to the characters. I don’t mind Hardegree making Audrey into a villain & the parents into the type who like keeping their heads in the sand, I just want to see a little more of their reasons for behaving as such. (She does show it towards the end, but it’s a bit too little too late in the book for that.)

Overall though, this is a fun read & I can really see a lot of teens & young adults getting into this book. I just hope that Hardegree manages to balance out everything in the second book.

(ARC provided by NetGalley)

Book Review: Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler

Title: Rage
Author: Jackie Morse Kessler
Publisher: Graphia
Release Date: 04/18/2011
ISBN: 0547445288





If you've read Kessler's first book Hunger, you know how well she is at packing quite a bit of story in such a small amount of pages. If you haven't then you really should give her a try- her books really are incredible.

When Missy isn't feeling good about herself, there's one thing she can count on to make it all go away. It lives in a little white box in her closet & it is always there & never lets her down, unlike some of the people around her. Her sister treats her like an embarassment. Her parents barely seem to acknowledge her. Her friends have all but abandoned her. And the guy she thought she knew? He's hurt her in ways she never thought possible. Missy swears that she'll never cut again but when a cruel prank causes her to run to her little white box, she finds that she's been tapped to become the entity of War, a being that knows all about pain & suffering.

I've been lucky enough to have been able to read Hunger, so I was thrilled when I also got the chance to review Rage as well & ended up reading it all in one sitting. Kessler really does have a strong storytelling ability to her & readers will really be able to feel Missy's pain & anguish. While Hunger's weakness was that there wasn't a lot of information about the background of the characters contained within it, Kessler has managed to work out most of that problem in this book. There's more depth & background to the characters, more explanation of what makes their personal issues hit them so hard.

However where some readers will get frustrated is in what exactly the Horsemen are responsible for. You know that they're the embodiment of their station & that they can influence how things unfold, but not much information is really given about how it all happens. It all comes out in a rather confusing jumble, which may or may not be on purpose.

This is still an awesome book & Kessler remains someone I'll be reading in the future. I'm pretty curious to see how the rest of the series plays out, as there's two more Horsemen for the books to focus on. Haven't read Hunger? No worries, you can pretty much read Rage without having read the previous book, but you'd be missing out on a good tale.

(ARC provided by NetGalley)

Christopher Pike: The next Candace Sams?

When I was a teenager, Christopher Pike was one of those authors that I read semi-religiously. Between him & R.L. Stein, I managed to cut my teeth on books that ultimately set me up to love the urban fantasy & horror genre at large.

So imagine my dismay when I discover that someone uncovered that Pike's been attacking reviewers on amazon who point out that he hasn't been doing proper research. He's been going by the name of 'Michael Brite', although he later outed himself in a discussion thread for one of his own books. (Other people were quick to point this out in various places as well.) On an interesting side note, "Brite" originally had posted two five star reviews for... you guessed it, two of Christopher Pike's books.

The first known incident was over a review where the amazon reviewer pointed out several inaccuracies in the books, some of which she found quite offensive. She'd ended the review with a rather snarky comment about how she'd like to drop Pike in the fictional Turkey he'd created so he could get his hands removed. It wasn't meant as a threat & from the earlier comments it seems that it was more used to point out the inaccuracies Pike had put into the novel. His response? He called it a threat & labeled the reviewer as a crazy girl.

The second known incident was over a review where the reader stated she couldn't see a blond haired, blue eyed girl living in India 5000 years ago. "Brite" replied that Aryans invaded India back then, getting a little snotty with her. Unfortunately for Pike, other amazonians ultimately pointed out that the Aryans that invaded India did not resemble the Aryans he was describing in his book.

And that's not all- apparently Pike has been calling in his buddies, one of which had been confirmed to be his illustrator. The other is believed to either be another a sockpuppet of Pike's or be the president of a Christopher Pike fanclub. Both of course, have written glowing reviews for Pike.

Now other sites such as bookfails on lj & Dear Author have already commented on this, but I couldn't help but make my own blog about it. It just really breaks my heart to see that one of my favorite authors from my youth could be well... a jerk.

It's been theorized that this isn't Pike, but an overzealous fan posting claiming to be him or someone doing it for the lulz. Please let that be true. I really don't want one of my favorite authors from my childhood to be like this. I've already lost other authors that way, only one of them being someone I'd read from a young age. Please don't be Pike.

Book Review: Cypress Lake by Joe Basara

Title: Cypress Lake
Author: Joe Basara
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 1453636528
Available through: Amazon.com







When Owen Cloud sees Tina, he's immediately smitten with her. Imagining her as his Venus de Milo, he spends much of his time daydreaming about her. Owen's fantasies don't stop there. He often finds his mind drifting off into flights of fancy not only during his orderly shifts at a local hospital but also during the off hours. As Owen moves from fascination to fascination to personal loss, he discovers that sometimes the person he really needs in his life is the one right under his nose.

Cypress Lake is just a little too slow to start off for my tastes & I'm just afraid that some readers might not be willing to put forth the effort to read through to the resolution. Also, while Basara does do a decent job of establishing that Owen is a Mittyesque character, at times Owen's visions are just a little too abstract to come across as clearly as some readers might desire. The imagery does become a little easier to read as the book progresses, however. Readers might also be thrown by the often usage of names such as Dr. T. Ali Hassee & Rosetta Stone, not knowing if those are the characters' true names or names Owen assigned them in a flight of fancy. In this aspect the book might just be too surreal for some.

That's not to say that there aren't some strong points to the book. Basara does a fine job of painting his portrait of the late 1970s, an era where the idea of free love was beginning to wane & what the mentalities of the 1980s would become start to creep in. He also does a good job of portraying the lack of depth to Owen's crushes on Tina & Nikki, foretelling what will ultimately become of his affections for either girl.

It's just that in the end this book just didn't appeal to me overall. Perhaps it might be just my personal preference, but I do think that this book will only really be appreciated by a niche readership of people into the surreal & abstract or perhaps by people more familiar with the era. For those readers I recommend this book. For everyone else, this might not be the right fit.

(Reader copy provided by author)

Book Review: Dark & Disorderly by Bernita Harris

Title: Dark & Disorderly (The Adventures of Lillie St. Claire)
Author: Bernita Harris
Publisher: Carina Press
ISBN: 9781426890338
Release Date: 06/28/2010





Once in a while you come across one of those books that not only hooks you, but makes you scream when the book ends. Not because it is bad, but because you wanted it to keep going. This is one of those books & Bernita Harris has officially become one of my top ten to watch out for.

About two weeks ago Lillie St. Claire’s abusive husband perished in a car accident. A few nights ago he came back in the form of an undead creature bent on destroying her. She manages to dispatch him THIS TIME but now the trouble comes with figuring out who would want her gone. As a Talent, a person capable of not only seeing but also dispatching ghosts, there’s no end to the list of people who would want her dead, with groups hating her for her abilities as well as for the fact she can exorcise ghosts. When she meets the sexy John Thresher Lillie assumes that she can add his name onto the “people who don’t like me” list. What she didn’t bargain for was her intense attraction to him.

If you love books that deal in paranormal romance or just urban fantasy in general, you’ll probably love this book. As it is, this reviewer found it incredibly hard to put this book down. There’s just so much to love about this book. First you have a female character who doesn’t sit around hoping people will take care of her & protect her. She’s perfectly happy to care for herself, yet she doesn’t come across as one of those characters who is always at odds with men trying to help her out. Even better, when her character starts thinking in terms of “poor me”, she has entirely valid reasons to think that & never really uses it as a way of garnering sympathy from anyone. Then we have the mystery of who exactly is after Lillie & what exactly is going on- this book will have many guessing until the end. Plus there's other things about the book that I loved, such as what ultimately happens between Lillie & John by the end of the book. I can't specify what it is without ruining it, but I loved how Harris is pacing things.

The only thing that needed a little work is that at the beginning a lot is going on & at times it just felt a little jumbled. Not so much that it would turn people off, but enough to where you’ll notice.

Even so, this is a fantastic start to what I’m going to optimistically predict will be a fan favorite for quite a long time. This book may be in e-book format only at this time, but I’m going to guess that it isn’t going to stay that way. Why this isn’t getting a wider release is beyond me- my addiction to this book reminded me of the first time I picked up Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong, or Sherrilyn Kenyon. I can only hope that the next book in the series will come out soon- I'm really jonesing for my next dose of Bernita Harris!

(ARC provided by NetGalley)

Banned Book Week: Protecting even the books you don't like

Hi everyone!

I discovered an article today that brought up a really wonderful point about book banning. Most can see why some books should never be banned, but what about those books that people assume were written out of hate, anger, or ignorance?

The Christian Science Monitor brought up a list of books that they think are five of the most offensive books out there. Their list is as follows:

1) Mein Kamph by Adolph Hitler.
2) Messages to the World by Osama Bin Laden
3) The Global Bell Curve by Richard Lynn
4) Did Six Million really Die? by Richard E. Harwood
5) The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade

I have to admit, I'd be lying if I said that the topics of some of those books didn't make me feel like throwing them into a pit & burying them forever, especially Harwood's book that denies the entire Holocaust.

But even so, I have to keep reminding myself that banning one book could start an exceedingly slippery slope. If we censor or ban one person's opinion (no matter how much we disagree with it), then it might not be too long before others' opinions follow as well.

Banned Book Week: Those who fight against banning

Today I came across a really well written article by Eugenia Kim. In it Kim described how her father Jacob Kim, an immigrant from Korea, stopped a school from banning several books that many of the other parents found offensive.

The time period for this was the 60s & the books in question were The Little Red Book and The Communist Manifesto. While Jacob Kim had every reason to say that he wanted those books banned, he insisted that the books be taught.

"When he said reading breeds intelligence and understanding, not ignorance, treason, fear or hatred, they understood."

I just had to add this to my BBW blog posts- this really was a wonderful story. I hope more people post about how they or their parents helped to keep a book on the shelves of a school.