Reading on a Theme: Teens with Superpowers

When I was a kid I really wanted to have magical powers. I loved shows like Sabrina the Teenage Witch and The Secret World of Alex Mack. I still love a hint of magic in my life. This Reading on a Theme features a bunch of light and fun books about teenage girls with superpowers. They all take place in a world similar to our own but, in most cases, a subgroup of the population has paranormal abilities. I would have loved a list like this when I was younger. I love it now.

The Adventures of Jillian Spectre was a pleasant surprise. Jillian lives in the Mystic Quarter of Manhattan with her mother. The two of them can see the future. During one of her readings Jillian sees her client die and go to heaven. This moment propels Jillian toward discovering a second power, learning about her missing father, and halting an evil plot. Nic Tatano's new book is fun. I enjoyed reading about Jillian and her friends. There's a nice balance between trying to save the world and trying to just be teenagers. I also appreciated that these teens have a good relationship with the adults in their lives. And, surprisingly, this book comes across as very pro-religion and pro-virginity. The Adventures of Jillian Spectre is out on March 14th, 2014. Review copy from NetGalley.

Pivot Point was easily one of my favorite reads last year, and I impatiently awaited the second in the series Split Second. Split Second is possibly even more heart pounding than Pivot Point. The book alternates between Addie and Laila, who are outside and inside the compound. I loved reading about both of the them. Laila has a difficult home life; she's raw and defensive, and I kind of love her. I really love her interactions with Connor. Addie has some healing to do after the events of Pivot Point, and then there's just something about Trevor. In Split Second it becomes clear just how far the Compound's government is willing to go to protect themselves. I hope Kasie West continues this series. I, for one, would love to read more about these powerful kids.

Even before I read Justine Larbalestier's How to Ditch Your Fairy I was completely captivated by the premise. Charlie (Charlotte Adele Donna Seto Steele) lives in a world where fairies endow their humans with some kind of luck or skill. For instance, a "Good Complexion Fairy" guarantees that you always have good skin and a "Shopping Fairy" finds you good deals. Charlie has a " Parking Fairy," and she hates it because she is always being forced to go on errands so the drivers can get a parking place. Charlie's mission is to get rid of her fairy. And that is no easy task. This book is light, funny, cute, and clever. I think must have a "Memory Fairy."

I had heard good things about Kiersten White's Paranormalcy , and I was not disappointed. Paranormalcy is at least one-part satire, poking fun at both the paranormal romances that populate young adult literature these days and popular culture (think Buffy and Gossip Girl). Evie is special. She can see through glamours, thus her usefulness to the IPCA (International Paranormal Containment Agency). But Evie isn't really all that kick-butt, preferring to use her trusty taser, Tasey, to get the job done. Evie's lack of kick-buttness kind of got me down at times, but it really helped with the whole satire bit. This book is pretty funny. Evie is spunky narrator. Girly to a fault sometimes, sheltered, naive.
 

Hex Hall was the last library book I finished before moving three years ago. I needed something cheerful and fun for that particular moment. Hex Hall definitely was the right book for that time. Sophia is a witch, and after a series of unfortunate incidents involving her magic she is sent to Hecate Hall (Hex for short), a boarding school for supernatural beings who can't seem to stay out of trouble. Raised by a mortal mother, Sophia has a lot to learn about the magical world. Plus there are these murders that keep happening at the school. Mystery and magic, folks.

Pair It With: Pretenders and Don't Even Think About It

Pretenders is about the Phoenix 5, five freshman voted most outstanding in their high school. This book begins at the beginning of their freshman year, long before they received their award. The preface of the book tells us that what follows are the secret journals of the Phoenix 5, revealed by one of the 5. Feeling like a fraud, he or she stole the journals to find out what a real superstar was like. Instead, he or she learned that they were all fakers. Pretenders is told in a series of journal entries. The readers knows much more than any of the characters because he or she is reading all of the journal entries. I do love a bit of dramatic irony. However, I have one big complaint against this book. Pretenders only covers two months of the school year, and, just as things are getting interesting, and all the characters are in a real bind leaving the reader to wonder how any of them ever became Phoenix 5, the book ends with no summation whatsoever. Because it covers only a quarter of the year, Pretenders reads like a quarter of a book. I think the premise is interesting. However, writing a quarter of a book is not the same thing as writing the first book in a series. If you are interested in reading Lisi Harrison's new series maybe wait until all the books are out and then read it in one go. Review copy from NetGalley.

A book about secrets revealed that I liked much more than Pretenders is Sarah Mlynowski's Don't Even Think About It. This book is fluffy fun. A group of New York City high school students receive a contaminated flu vaccine and begin to experience bizarre neurological side effect: they can hear what other people are thinking. And, what's more, because a group of them have developed ESP they can talk to one another through telepathy. Clearly, there are many challenges that come with being able to hear each others' thoughts. Nothing can remain secret. And, while several students learn things they definitely don't want to know, what was great about this book was seeing how the kids came together: some developed greater confidence and made more friends, others had to face facts about themselves they had been trying to ignore. The whole crew became tight. Really tight. Don't Even Think About It is a little silly, but it's also a cute, fast read. Don't Even Think About It is out March 11th, 2014. Review Copy from NetGalley.
 

Pair It With: Panic and Fire & Flood

Today's Pair It With features two new Young Adult books that involve death-defying competitions, a game played by the graduating seniors of a small town and a cross-country race for a cure.

I am always won over by Lauren Oliver writing. I have read several of her books. None have quite surpassed Before I Fall for me but Panic comes awfully close.

Every summer in the small town of Carp, New York the recently graduated seniors participate in a high-stakes, highly dangerous, strictly illegal competition: Panic. This novel follows Heather, Dodge and their friends as they play this dangerous game. The synopsis of Panic might sound a little like The Hunger Games but it's not at all. This book is not a dystopia. It takes place in the present day in the real world. It's a work of realism. Carp is one of those dusty little towns that very few escape. Panic could be their ticket out. But, in reality, the reasons the characters are playing or not playing Panic are complicated, just as they should be.

Oliver's writing, as always, is so evocative. The setting is incredibly well drawn. Even better, Oliver establishes an on-the-edge mood that never lets up. It's not suspense exactly, it's more of a feeling of desperation that is absolutely perfect.

Panic is out March 4th, 2014. Review copy from Edelweiss. 

 

I almost didn't finish this book. I had read about 40% of the novel and was bored, but I decided to give it one more night and that turned into two more nights and suddenly I had finished. In Fire & Flood Tella enters The Brimstone Bleed, a race across four ecosystems, in hopes that she will be able to win the cure that will save her dying brother. I thought this Amazing Race-type concept sounded interesting.

Tella left her family and selected her Pandora (a genetically modified animal that helps her in the competition), and everything seemed to be going okay for this book. The beginning wasn't super thrilling, but it was fine. The race began in the jungle, and it didn't involve any cool contraptions or vehicles just a two-week hike. And suddenly Tella was absolutely alone. No human companions. Even her Pandora was still an egg. You guys. Wasteland wanderings make me want to bang my head against the wall. All the wandering and the hunger and the dangerous insects and animals and the rain and the heat. Wasteland wanderings are not my thing. Thus, I almost gave up on this book.

About mid-way through the novel Tella joins up with a group of contenders, and I guess I was as relieved as she was to have human companions because by the time they finished the first ecosystem I was committed to finishing the book. Victoria Scott is embarking on a new series with Fire & Flood and while I can't recommend the first in the series wholeheartedly I am annoyingly curious about the next two ecosystems.

Fire & Flood is out February 25th, 2014. Review copy from NetGalley.

Pair it With: City of Jasmine and City of the Sun

Besides sharing similar titles, today's Pair It With features books set in the Middle East between and during the World Wars that explore issues of western invention in the Middle East.

I am a longtime fan of Deanna Raybourn's Lady Julia mysteries. City of Jasmine is the first time I have read one of her 1920s novels. City of Jasmine stars aviatrix Evangeline Stark (I love her name). She is doing a tour of the seven seas in her airplane when she receives a mysterious photograph of her husband Gabriel Stark taken near Damascus. Everyone thought that Gabriel drowned with the Lusitania. Evie makes a detour from her tour to head to Damascus and put to rest her feelings for Gabriel once and for all.

City of Jasmine is kind of cross between Indiana Jones, Lawrence of Arabia, and Amelia Earhart. Unfortunately it doesn't quite live up to the awesomeness of any of these things. Gabriel, like Brisbane of the Lady Julia novels, is surly and difficult and the keeper of many secrets. Evie feels the need to constantly assert her independence (I don't blame her, it is the 1920s), but she is also naive and tempestuous. The two spend so much time bickering. Granted bickering does seem to be Gabriel's love language, and he also uses these little spats to distract Evie from his secrets, but I got so tired of reading about the two fighting.

I have not read Raybourn's  A Spear of Summer Grass but there are connections between the characters in that novel and City of Jasmine. I would say it's something of a companion novel. The short story Whisper of Jasmine appears to securely connect the two novels.

City of Jasmine is out February 25th, 2014. Review copy from NetGalley

City of the Sun takes place in Cairo in 1941. A German spy and a American newsman are searching for Erik Blumenthal, a Jewish scientist who has fled Germany and Vichy France.  Juliana Maio's book reminded me of the books I used to read in my youth--books about Jewish refugees, WWII, and Zionists, like Leon Uris's Mila 18 and Exodus.
 

City of the Sun is written in third person singular and alternates between chapters that focus on Mickey Connolly, Kesner the German spy, and Blumenthal's sister Maya. The novel gives the reader a glimpse into the Egypt of the 1940s. Its richness, its politics, its people. I really enjoyed this aspect of the book. However, the intrigue is not particularly sophisticated--coincidence makes a significant contribution to the plot. The reader gets a good idea of the status of Jews and Jewish refugees in Cairo, however, for the most part the novel is about foreigners in Egypt and westerner's intervention in the affairs of the Middle East. I do wish that we could have followed a native Egyptian as well, even one that was conspiring with the German spy, so that we could gain insight into their motivations as well.

City of the Sun is out March 11th, 2014. Review copy from NetGalley
 

Pair It With: Pawn and The Selection

After seeing a real mix of reviews, I went into Pawn with a bit of trepidation. But, what do you know, I was pleasantly surprised. Pawn starts out with with a typical dystopia set-up. It's a Washington, D.C. of the future. Kitty has just taken the test that will determine her role for the rest of her life, and that test did not go well. She got a III and is headed to do sewer repair in Denver. Instead she goes underground (metaphorically) and is bought by Prime Minister Hart. When Kitty wakes up she is in a whole new body--Lila Hart's body, the niece of Prime Minister Hart. As the title implies, Kitty has very few choices available to her. As Lila, Kitty is pushed and pulled in multiple directions. Some demand she quell the rebellion Lila started. Others want her to fuel the flames. Kitty might be a prisoner, but she is a powerful prisoner, and she starts to make her own decisions. The best surprise of Aimee Carter's book? Several twists I did not see coming. Also, I was so pleased that this book ended the way that it did. For a minute there I was afraid that things were going to reboot, and Kitty would be back where she started. A minor complaint: I would have liked the pacing to be a little quicker. There's no need for characters to repeat themselves so often. The real test for me with these kind of books is whether or not I would pick up the sequel, and I would. Pawn is out now. Review copy from NetGalley.

The Selection by Kiera Cass is a mashup of The Bachelor and The Hunger Games with a dash of Cinderella. America Singer lives in a Illyria, the country that takes the place of the United States of America after a third World War. It's a monarchy with a strict social structure. To seal the goodwill and loyalty of the commoners, a prince of the realm always selects his bride from a group of commoners in a process called The Selection. America reluctantly submits her profile and is asked to come to the palace and meet the prince. When she arrives with the other young ladies she finds the prince to be more human than she expected, and she also learns that Illyria is more threatened than the government lets on. I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would. The world is well constructed and the media elements make for an interesting twist on princess selection. I'm definitely reading the sequels. The Elite is out now. The One will be out May 6th, 2014. If you are a huge The Selection fan and waiting with bated breath for May, perhaps Pawn can ease the wait a bit.