Panther - David Owen

Title: Panther 
Author: David Owen
Published: Corsair, Little, Brown; May 2015
Genre: Contemporary YA
My rating: 4.5/5
 
The blurb says:
"Life isn't going terribly well for Derrick.
He has become severely overweight, his only friend has turned on him, he is hopelessly in love with a girl way out of his league, and it's all because of his sister. Her depression - its grip on his family - is tearing his life apart.
When Derrick hears local news reports that a panther has been sighted roaming wild in his south London suburb, he resolves to capture the beast. Surely if he can find a way to trap this predator on his own turf, he can stop everything at home from spiralling towards disaster?

WHAT I THOUGHT

This is not a book that looks beautifully and delicately at teenage depression, through rose-tinted glasses before tying it off with a nice, happy ending and a pretty pink ribbon. It's honest; often brutally so, and it's unforgiving. I know YA has a (highly undeserved *cough* Daily Mail *cough*) reputation for being miserable and morose and depressing (please see #happyYA if you don't know what I'm talking about) but it's done well, and in a way that its readers can relate to; and that's surely more important than filling some quota on happily-ever-after stories?

Anyway, Panther. The book tells the story of Derrick; whose sister is battling a crippling depression. Derrick, like many, cannot understand it; why can't she just snap out of it and get on with her life? All Derrick can see is that it has torn his family apart and he can't see a way to fix it. That is until the rumours of the panther roaming round town begin again; Derrick believes that if he finds and captures this panther, it will fix his sister and it will fix all of the messes her depression caused; his dad leaving, the loss of his best (and only) friend Tamoor, his own eating disorder, the unfortunate event at school that led to some very vicious bullying. He refuses to believe that there’s nothing to be done and he clings to the hope that he will bring her a reason to snap out of it.

Depression is not an easy subject to tackle; there's a reason it rarely gets a proper investigation in literature. And David Owen could have very easily got it wrong. But by writing it from Derrick's perspective rather than his sister Charlotte's, David made it even more gripping and even more relatable. While depression may not be something we all experience personally, it is something most people will see in others and it's difficult to grasp, it's difficult to put yourself in their shoes, as it were, and truly understand what they're going through unless you've been through it yourself. We get to watch as Derrick struggles, and ultimately fails, to grasp this and it culminates into a heartbreaking, brutal climax. Derrick is possibly sometimes a little difficult to read. The book in general is sometimes a little difficult to read; but that’s down to the subject really and nothing else. David tries to lighten the tone slightly but it’s not a subject that can be easily eased with levity. But I think that’s why this book is so brilliant – it’s not just thought-provoking, it forces you to think about depression in a way that I think a lot of people are scared to do. Derrick is selfish, and stubborn, and immensely close-minded at times, but that seems, to me, to be quite realistic. How else do you react? It is human nature to want to find something or someone to blame for your troubles so why not blame this uncooperative, unexplainable thing that has invaded your life? And I think that’s what makes this such a hard read, because it is these points so easy to understand and relate to.

I would absolutely recommend this book. I value the honesty of David’s portrayal of teenage depression, a subject so often neglected. He didn’t write it with kid gloves on and he portrayed the way depression permeates everything it touches and how people struggle to deal with it without flowers and beauty but with a raw necessity. David has absolutely made his mark with this unflinching, unapologetic debut and I look forward to what he’ll bring in the future.

Also, make sure you follow him on Twitter @davidowenauthor; in my opinion, his tweets are mostly just daily musings but they're up there with Patrick Ness' and, to me, that's really saying something. Assuming you value my opinion at all.

Thanks for reading,

Naomi Joy x

Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer (Magnus Chase #1) - Rick Riordan

Title: Magnus Chase & the Sword of Summer
Series: Magnus Chase & the Gods of Asgard (Book 1)
Author: Rick Riordan
Published: Puffin; Oct 2015
Genre: Middle-Grade Fantasy
My Rating: 3.5/5

Amazon says: "My name is Magnus Chase. I'm orphaned and living rough on the streets of Boston. And things are about to get much worse.
My day started out normally enough. I was sleeping under a bridge when some guy kicked me awake and said, 'They're after you.' Next thing I know, I'm reunited with my obnoxious uncle, who casually informs me that my long-lost father is a Norse god.
Nothing normal about that. And it turns out the gods of Asgard are preparing for war. Apparently, if I can't find the sword my father lost two thousand years ago, there will be doom. Doomsday, to be precise.
A fire giant attacking the city?
Immortal warriors hacking each other to pieces?
Unkillable wolves with glowing eyes?
It's all coming up.
But first I'm going to die. This is the story of how my life goes downhill from there..."

WHAT I THOUGHT

To start, no quotes for this one; I got an uncorrected bound proof copy from work so don't want to quote just in case.

Anyway, let's get to it. So I'm a huge fan of Percy Jackson. As a booky ex-Classics student it's the perfect combination. When I heard that Rick Riordan was doing it all again with the Norse gods I couldn't have been more excited. Ever since the hints seen in Melvin Burgess' Bloodtide I've been quietly intrigued by Norse mythology but it's really not as well known as the Greek and Roman ones. I was excited to see what Rick Riordan would do with them. And, for the most part, Rick didn't let me down.

The premise is pretty much the same, young boy finds out the hard way that he's a demigod, bound by a bleak and damning prophecy and must prove himself to his seemingly uninterested father-god. Maybe it's because I'm older and this book is slightly more gritty than the Percy Jackson books but I really quite enjoyed it. It's harder, and it's darker, and it seems to want to handle real issues far more that its predecessor series, and in a way that only Rick can in his mythical demigod universe. Magnus Chase has been living on the streets since the death of his mother two years previous. He's getting by as best he can until he hears that people are looking for him; his estranged uncle and cousin (the wonderfully familiar Annabeth Chase) seem really quite desperate to find him. Magnus, is not quite as desperate to find them. After a fatal (yes, fatal; no, that's not a spoiler, the first chapter is called "Good morning! You're going to die.") fight with Surt, Lord of the Fire Giants and ruler of Musspelheim, Magnus Chase sees his life set on a very different path.

The story is good, the characters are great - way more diverse than in the Percy Jackson books, I felt.  There are dwarves, elves, Valkyries galore, and of course the gods and goddesses. I'm almost glad Thor isn't Magnus' father, that would've felt quite obvious and it gives readers a chance to explore some of the slightly lesser known Norse gods. There are so many (9 to be exact) worlds to explore and Rick didn't hold back on any of them; they're all fully formed and realised, so easy to imagine with what has been provided on the page. Sure, at times, the names start getting confusing and merging into one, but it's OK because Rick, as always, has provided a super handy glossary at the back.

Where this book struggles is in its categorisation. Rick's protagonists seem to steadily be getting older with each new series; Percy Jackson started aged 12, Carter Kane (Kane Chronicles) was 14. Magnus Chase is 16 years old, he's spent the last two years on the streets. He's a far grittier, far darker character, and yet Rick's writing style doesn't appear to have changed all that much. This is still marketed as a middle-grade, 9-12 book but I can't help but think that that has more to do with Rick's reputation as an MG author and less to do with the content of the book. YA is a somewhat undefinable genre at the minute so what most people tend to go by is the age of the protagonist; at 16 Magnus Chase sits firmly in the YA category. But Rick doesn't seem to have written him that way. I can't help but think that if Rick had put Percy Jackson behind him and written this as a YA novel from the beginning it could have been immensely better. As it was, Magnus suffered by being confined to MG writing; it's typically fun and light which is fine, but it has been written for the same audience as Percy Jackson and I just don't think it works as well.

But that's probably just me, and I'd still absolutely recommend it. It's the perfect filler for Percy Jackson fans and it tackles Norse mythology in a way that I haven't seen done before. So thank you Rick Riordan for gifting the world with this series; I greatly look forward to the next book.

Thanks for reading,
Naomi Joy x

The Rest of Us Just Live Here - Patrick Ness

Title: The Rest of Us Just Live Here
Author: Patrick Ness
Published: Walker Books, August 2015
Genre: YA, Social Issues, Sci-Fi
My rating: 5/5 

Amazon says “Award-winning writer Patrick Ness's bold and irreverent novel powerfully asks what if you weren't the Chosen One? The one who's supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you were like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week's end of the world and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend might just be the God of mountain lions... ”

QUOTE
“Look, some more stuff happens that evening...but nothing so important that I have to go on about it. Just remember, please, most of that stuff is in the past. It isn't the story I want to tell. At all.
You needed to know it, but for the rest of this, I'm choosing my own story.
Because if you can't do that, you might as well just give up.”

WHAT I THOUGHT

MY FIRST FIVE STAR REVIEW!

Let me start by saying that the Chaos Walking series firmly positioned Patrick Ness as, without a shadow of a doubt, one of my favourite authors; The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first book I recommend in any conversation about books. The Rest of Us absolutely in no way let me down. 

This book is essentially somewhat of a satire of YA paranormal romance/sci-fi novels. Each chapter begins with a brief, maybe 100 word, update on whats going on with the “indie kids” (one of whom is called Satchel, which never stops being funny). These updates tell the kind of story you'd see in a book/film like I Am Number Four or some other paranormal romance novel. The so-called “indie kids” are the protagonists of those sorts of stories who must figure out a way to save the day; the kids to whom the aliens show themselves, with whom they share a life-altering love, and against whom they wage a war that threatens the world. The protagonists of our story, however, are just the kids who live in the town; who see all of these things happening but have enough to deal with in their day-to-day lives without having to deal with the vampires, the aliens, and the Gods who decide to take a trip down to earth during their senior year. They are us.

I think I'd assumed that this book was for a younger audience; judging by the blurb alone it could be. But these characters are complex and beautiful and tackling some very grown up issues. The book is written in the first person (often risky, but it works here) from the perspective of Mikey; a 17 year old boy battling crippling anxiety and OCD. We meet his best friend Jared, an openly gay demigod who goes by his middle name as he tries to come to terms with everything that comes with being a gay demigod (he is the grandson of the Goddess of Cats!); his older sister Mel, a recovering anorexic; and Henna, mixed race missionaries' daughter and the object of Mikey's somewhat unrequited love (a love that, at times, verges on an ugly kind of obsession and temporarily turns Mikey into a bit of a dick). They have their baggage, both individually and together, but my goodness do they provide each other with an almost enviable support system. 

It's the kind of concept that had the potential to really not work; very few writers could have pulled it off. In its concept there is very little action in this book; it actively chooses to tell the story of the people with somewhat ordinary lives rather than the ones to whom the action happens. If you're waiting for the story to get going, it won't. That is not the point. This is not a Sci-Fi book about an alien invasion; it is a book about friendship, both its ups and its downs and all of the hiccups in between. It's about loyalty, and love, and family, and the kinds of struggles that need to be addressed more often, particularly in books both for and about young people. It all just happens to go on while some creatures from another world decide to visit Earth for some light invasion. You cannot read this book and not see yourself in one of the characters; or see you and your friends in the relationships Patrick Ness so beautifully and delicately portrays. You cannot read this book and not see the comment being made: the adults in this book brush aside the strange goings on among the young people in the town in much the same way that they tend to brush aside the pressures and struggles of young people as inconsequential. It required wit and humour and a heavy dose of sensitivity and I think Patrick Ness just about got that right.

It cannot go unsaid that this is a gorgeous book. I'd had every intention of waiting for it to come out in paperback before I saw it in Waterstones with its yellow spayed edges and artsy cover design and I couldn't risk the paperback copy not being as stunning. It also includes a print version of the cover exclusive to Waterstones which is pretty cool. I absolutely encourage you, if you're going to read this book (which you definitely should) please, please, please don't get the ebook version. I know it's cheaper and less cumbersome but I promise that you will not regret buying a hard copy. It is a book lover's dream!

As you can probably tell, I would absolutely, most definitely recommend this book to everyone of any age. Honestly the only bad thing I could say about it is that he maybe skims over Mel's anorexia a bit too often - it feels like a bigger comment should've been made on it. But our narrator Mikey sets out that this isn't the story he wishes to dwell on so can I really be annoyed? I'm going to go with no. I'm sure there are people who'd disagree but I believe this book deserves my first 5/5!

Thanks for reading,
Naomi Joy x

Half A King (Shattered Sea #1) - Joe Abercrombie

Title: Half A King
Author: Joe Abercrombie
Publisher: Harper Voyager, paperback January 2015
Genre: YA Fantasy
My Rating: 4/5

The blurb says: “Betrayed by his family and left for dead, Prince Yarvi, reluctant heir to a divided kingdom, has vowed to reclaim a throne he never wanted.

But first he must survive cruelty, chains and the bitter waters of the Shattered Sea itself - all with only one good hand. Born a weakling in the eyes of a hard, cold world, he cannot grip a shield or swing an axe, so has sharpened his mind to a deadly edge.

Gathering a strange fellowship of the outcast, he finds they can help him more than any noble could. Even so, Yarvi's path may end as it began - in twists, traps and tragedy..."

WHAT I THOUGHT

The crippled prince Yarvi has forever been the outcast. The youngest son of King Uthrik of Gettland, Yarvi has known he will never be the king his father was; he is, after all, half a man. At the death of his father and brother, Yarvi is forced to turn his back on the life as a minister he had hoped to lead and claim a throne he had never wished to sit upon. To gain some respect from a people who want him no more than he wants to lead them Yarvi swears an oath that will prove to be far harder to keep than anyone could have expected. The young prince finds himself betrayed at every turn. With a handful of loyal allies, Yarvi finds himself fighting for a life he never wanted, all in the name of an oath.

Joe Abercrombie did well for himself (and I suppose Harper Voyager had a lot to do with it) with puff from George R.R. Martin (Game of Thrones) on the front, and Robin Hobb (Fool's Assassin, the Farseer trilogy), Patrick Rothfuss (The Name of the Wind), and Derek Landy (Skullduggery Pleasant) on the back. But while this is his first outing into YA fiction, Abercrombie has already established himself as a 'grimdark' fantasy writer with his First Law trilogy.

Despite the fact that it took me an almost embarrassingly long time to read this book, I really enjoyed it. It's dark, but with well-timed light notes (coming from Rulf and Jaud, in particular). The characters all fit well with the world created around them; a familiar world - there are, to me, many similarities to the Viking world - but suitably 'other'. Abercrombie doesn't spend too much time describing the world and the history of it; it is all very much incorporated into the story and inferred by his characters. The religion, like many in fantasy, is polytheistic, a Tall God for the Sea, the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, War, and Peace and four-hundred small gods for everything in between. And, of course, a god of Death, who guards and guides the dead through the Last Door. The fight-scenes cannot go without a mention because, not only were they well-written they actually really intrigued me. WARNING: They are graphic! I found myself pulling all sorts of faces at my book on my morning commute. At one point I'm sure I gagged slightly on the train. But they are graphic in a way that brings to mind the likes of 300 or the Spartacus TV show (although I gave up on the latter quite swiftly because my eyes began to hurt from all of the rolling they were doing) - they are written in a very graphic novel film adaptation kind of style; you can almost imagine the blood sprays and the well-timed slow motion as you read. That may have just been me, though.

The characters are well-formed and follow easily; they never do anything that seems out of character. You get to watch Yarvi really grow during the course of the book after facing setback after setback and betrayal after betrayal. You first meet Nothing you're almost waiting to discover what it is he can do that made everyone on the ship fear him so. Then when you do about half way through the book you think he's surprised you as much as he can. But Abercrombie is not at all finished with Nothing yet (that twist! 5/5 for that twist!). The Golden Queen Laithlin is a queen to rival Cersei Lannister; my only criticism is that we really didn't see enough of her! I can only hope she features more in the next book: Half the World.

From the extract at the back of Half a King the second book in the Shattered Sea series, Half the World doesn't directly pick up from where this one left off. Which is exciting as it introduces new characters but is probably for the best seeing as I have at least 5 other books lined up to be read before I can revisit this series.

Overall I would definitely recommend this book. Abercrombie's decision to try his hand at YA was definitely a good one, and it was tremendously well-executed. Please don't be put off by the fact that this is YA; if you're new to fantasy it is the perfect introduction and if you're looking for something a bit smaller to carry around on the train than Abercrombie's 700+ page adult tomes without leaving the complex world that is fantasy fiction look no further. That said, his adult books have definitely been added to my wish list; they may just have to be in ebook form for ease of transport.

Thanks for reading,
Naomi Joy x

Angelfall (Penryn and the End of Days #1) by Susan Ee

Book: Angelfall

Author: Susan Ee

Published: Skyscape, August 2012

Genre: YA Dystopia/Fantasy
Rating: 3.5/5

Amazon says "It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister, Penryn, will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where Penryn will risk everything to rescue her sister, and Raffe will put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again."

WHAT I THOUGHT:

Finally! A YA novel with a female lead who has more on her mind than boys! Yayy!

Such a refreshingly welcome and necessary debut novel.

I will disclose now that I have already read the second book World After but I'm going to do my best not to let that cloud my review of this one because, as I feel was the case for most readers, the second book was a significant drop in quality from what was truly a fantastic debut from Susan Ee.

I really enjoyed the idea and premise of the novel - different from the vampires and werewolves that overstayed their welcome a bit but still guaranteed an audience with that market - and Ee's telling of the story was quite striking. Raffe's struggle with his duty as an Archangel is clear and troubling and a little bit beautiful in an equally dark way. Penryn is *finally* the young female protagonist whose love interest really wasn't her main focus. Unwilling to let Raffe (who I really would love to meet) distract her, she is so focussed on her mission to save her sister. 

[I realise I keep suggesting Ee's Penryn is the only strong female lead in YA lit and I'm aware that thats not true. Moira Young's Saba in her Dustlands trilogy (which I will review as I reread in preparation for the final instalment) is one example but after reading so many YA dystopian novels in which the female lead has failed to wow me I have really been beginning to lose hope that it would ever change. That's perhaps a little depressing and over the top but you understand.]

The interactions between Pen and Raffe are for the most part awkward enough to be quite convincing while at other times are maybe a little bit cringey. Their chemistry is actually quite sweet and the ending leaves you hopeful of her future if not a little distressed at how the rest of it turns out.

As always with these sort of books there are a few issues within the imagined world. Only six weeks are supposed to have passed since the angel apocalypse but the world seems to have descended into anarchy and relatively quickly ordered itself. The rebel army especially managed to gather together people, resources and tactics. Pen's schizophrenic mother comes and goes as she becomes convenient and necessary for the story and there's very little explanation of her beyond that. This is unfortunate because to be quite honest I feel Pen's mother could make a really interesting character with her unpredictable and often dangerous nature and I would really have liked more of an exploration of the relationship between Pen and her mother.

Really these are minor gripes that do not detract from the story whatsoever. Overall I think it is a fantastic debut from Ee and I definitely recommend!

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment :)
Naomi Joy x

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Book: The Fault in our Stars
Author: John Green
Published: Penguin, January 2013
Genre: YA fiction
Rating: 4/5

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once."

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

WHAT I THOUGHT:

This is one of three books that has ever made me cry, the other two being Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper and Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. I was up at 3am reading under the covers (because I still do that aged twenty) balling my eyes out - I'm just glad I didn't leave it to finish at the hairdressers the next day!

This book really is unputdownable but at the same time there were several points at which I felt I really needed to put it down for the sake of my mental state. It's such a beautifully written book and it feels so honest as if Green were writing at a very personal level which made it special, uplifting and harrowing in equal measure. It's not a happily ever after book so don't read it if that's what you're after but honestly if it had been, the book would have felt like a bit of a waste of time. Green has a knack for drawing in a reader with his beautifully written characters and their heartbreakingly realistic stories. It was written as though you were peeking into someone's diary or watching their lives play out in front of you and this is the feeling that I believe most authors should strive for with their readers.

The way Green describes Gus and Hazel's feelings about An Imperial Affliction is how I felt about this book. An Imperial Affliction (AIA) frustratingly ends in the middle of a sentence and Gus and Hazel's quest to find some closure make up a lot of the book. The more Green mentioned this flaw in AIA the more I worried that he would follow suit and leave me hanging. But, thank goodness, he didn't. He took us right through to an ending that, fortunately, didn't end in death and leave you on a downer. It ended the only way it could, bittersweet and beautiful and painstakingly realistic.

It is most definitely one of the best books I've read all year and Green is an author whose books I will endeavour to continue to explore.

Thanks for reading :)

Naomi Joy xx

Matched (Matched #1) by Ally Condie

Book: Matched
Author: Ally Condie
Published: Penguin, June 2011
Rating: 2/5

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander’s face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham’s face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it’s a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she’s destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can’t stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society’s infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

WHAT I THOUGHT:

I have really gone back and forth about whether or not it's OK to post a bad review but it is nothing against the author, the general concept of the book has a lot of potential but I personally just found this book so hard to get along with and I'll do my best to try to explain why.

Let me set the scene as best I can. It's some time in the future and the Society has decided it's much better if they devoid everyone of any choice and limit the use of technology. Your job, spouse (your Match - hence the title) and even time of death is pre-planned by the Society. According to the Society too much choice is dangerous so they've established the Hundreds Database of the top Hundred Songs, Poems, Stories and Paintings. Enter our protagonist Cassia on the eve of her seventeenth birthday ready to be Matched and from there everything goes wrong.

What I will give author Ally Condie is that the writing is actually quite good and she's obviously actually put a lot of thought into her dystopian world. I'd say it works a lot better in terms of providing the reader with a background than, say, Suzanne Collins' Panem. The issue is the premise of the book and the interminably dull nature of her central characters.

Like many YA dystopian novels that are aimed at girls Matched uses the trusted love triangle formula that worked (ish) for Twilight and The Hunger Games. The issue with Matched is that there is no other plot-line. The fact that the decisions she's making affect the entire structure of the Society, that most are, seemingly, OK with, takes a backseat to the fact that Cassia really must decide which boy she loves. The other issue is that to devoid her characters of choice she effectively makes them incapable of any intense emotion. There's barely any grief at the death of Cassia's grandfather because, you know, the Society had decided it was best for him to go. Xander becomes almost entirely insignificant to the story. Never have I ever felt less for or cared less about the characters of a book than I did with this one. In part due to the storyline (or lack thereof) I found the characters equally lacking. Ky is supposed to be this mysterious unknown but I found I didn't really want to learn more. There is no depth to his character, he's just, for the most part, a bit of an ass. Xander. Poor Xander. Without the attempted mystery Condie put into Ky's character, Xander becomes unfortunately one-dimensional and dull.

Never have I come to the end of a book and felt so indifferent and, I mean, good on Ally Condie for selling the movie rights but I really do wonder if this film will see any of the success that Twilight or The Hunger Games has seen. I'll probably still see it anyway. I'm not interested in reading any future books in the series and I probably wouldn't recommend unfortunately. However I'm well aware that this is a minority opinion for this series.

Thanks for your time and feel free to comment ;)
Naomi Joy x