Out with a Bang

Imagine you had a vision of an accident where people you knew were killed and in body bags. Would you stop it? What if they were strangers and you were hurt too... would you take the chance to stop it and save strangers if you could be killed in the meantime? Lisa McMann's sequel in the Visions series, Bang, makes you ask yourself that very question.

Jules saved the lives of a bunch of people, including the delicious Romeo to her Juliet, Sawyer. Their families have despised each other for a generation, but they refuse to carry on the ridiculous tradition. In saving his family's restaurant, however, she has put herself on the wrong side of her father's mental illness. Now he doesn't trust her and will do anything to keep her away from Sawyer. Luckily for Jules, her sister Rowan and her brother Trey are comrades in the war against their unpredictable father, and they help her to come and go without his knowing. All would be perfect if only Sawyer hadn't had a vision...

When he tells her he had a vision, she can't believe she somehow "infected" him with such a burden. They have no idea how he got the vision, but they all know the ramifications of what he has seen. He knows it is some kind of school because the shooting takes place in a classroom, but the vision is so difficult for him to cope with that he can't seem to get a handle on it to get any specifics. Jules knows she has to help him to work through the vision, but are they willing to risk their own lives to save the lives of a bunch of strangers? 

Whenever I first start a McMann book, I am usually turned off by the "uber-teen" language that sounds campy, hokey, and forced. I work with teens, live with teens, spend an exorbitant amount of my life with large amounts of adolescents, and I don't know any who talk like Jules and the others do in these books. It is kind of a turn off for any older readers, but I have found middle school students don't seem to mind it (maybe they think that's how high school students talk!). It is a shame that language struggle happens because as soon as I get into the book a little, I am sucked into such a good story! Sadly, that campy language detracts from the engaging, exciting story McMann wove, but at least I can ignore it once the excitement of the story takes over. 

The stories are really exciting, and McMann writes a good middle-of-the-road book where the language is very simplistic but the books are engaging enough for a mature reader (if you can get past the silly language). I use these for those 12-14 yr old students who struggle to stay with a book because their reading skills are lower than their interest. And the stories are short enough that they can get through the story with only reading 20 minutes a day or so. With larger books they tend to lose track of what is happening, but the story in McMann's series' are condensed and fast, so they can keep up. 

In addition, this story has some really deep, adult situations, like the fact that Sawyer's father and grandfather have a tendency to hit him. Or the fact that Jules' dad's mental illness made the entire family walk on eggshells. There was one scene where her mother comes into her room where Jules and her brother and sister are sitting. They expect her to be mad for setting off their father again, but instead she just tells them she is so grateful they have each other. It was such a devastating and moving scene, I couldn't get over the ridiculous campy language McMann put into Jules' mouth. Such a weird juxtaposition! But still, this is a great series and it will be great for those older struggling readers. I can only imagine where McMann is going to go with all these visions!

Stellar Crimson Conclusion

Raisa has always been the link between the queendom and the clans, but since she hid in plain site as a soldier in training and became close with so many people she never would have met as queen, she has become the link to bring together all the people in her lands. Unfortunately, the divisions are so deep and have run for so long, the people may never fully come together. In Cinda Williams Chima's final book in the Seven Realms Series, The Crimson Crown is a true masterpiece in this already stunning fantasy series.

After having assumed the throne, Raisa's decisions were constantly challenged. If they weren't challenged, it was because her enemies planned to dispose of her eventually anyway. One of her biggest battles was the placement of Han Allister, the former street thug, as her head body guard and her appointment of Han to the Wizard's Council. The wizards were always struggling to gain more power, and Han looking over their shoulders made those efforts decidedly more difficult. 

But Raisa's struggles inside the queendom were just one of her problems. Outside, she was being threatened by the southern thug who seemed to be collecting kingdoms in the Seven Realms, and his consumption of her queendom would end like all the rest: widespread slaughter and rape until he fully owned the land through force. Raisa is being pulled on all sides, and she doesn't have an answer for any of them. Barely keeping her queendom together is consuming almost all of her thoughts, but behind her struggles is one man who wants the best for Raisa: Han. Everyone tells her Han is working against her to take the throne, but Raisa can't believe he would do that. But Han is a tricky young man. Could he be the catalyst to bring the queendom back together again to fight their common enemy, or will their internal bickering be their demise?

Oh, dear. I loved this series from book to book to book, but this last in the series was the perfect conclusion. It was everything I wanted it to be and more. When you love a series as much as I loved The Seven Realms, you worry about the ending. Will it make you happy? Will you be surprised? Are you going to be left wanting more but knowing you weren't going to get it? And when I closed the cover after reading the final pages of this book, I realized just how brilliant Chima really is. This book covered all the bases I worried about and more. 

The beauty of this story is how you really get to see the relationship between Han and Raisa develop. She wants to keep him close to her and she trusts him fully, but no one else does. It is hard defending him when his history as a thief and a gang leader looms over his new-found success as a member of the wizard council, but she continues to do so, knowing he is a good person. I loved this relationship and how they protected one another time and again. Even though they were forbidden to be together, they would be close in anyway they could, even with him as her bodyguard. It was really a lovely romance to follow, and I selfishly wish I had more! But still, this was a fabulous story from Chima, and while it is the conclusion, it is still action-packed right up until the last page. If you haven't started this series yet, I have one thing to say to you... WHAT are you WAITING FOR??!!

Star-Crossed Angels and Chimaera

I don't know about you, but I have no idea what a chimera/chimaera was. So I had to look it up. At first, I was like, "Hey. Why is that goat riding atop that silly lion?" Then I realized the goat was part of the lion. Interesting. Creepy, but still interesting. A little more time spent on Google Images, and I found a number of different creature cross/mutations that were just the right amount of neat (yep, sometimes I regress to the adjectives of a 12 year old girl from the 1980's) and creeper. So who wouldn't want to read a book about them, right? Oh yeah. Especially when it is a book that has gotten as much hype as Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone has.

Karou is human, but she wasn't raised by humans. She attends art school in Prague and lives like a regular student/starving artist, but she was raised by Brimstone and a few other chimaera in Brimstone's shop. As she got older, Brimstone trusted her with his errands... going through his magical portals all over the world to gather the teeth he traded for wishes. The type and amount of teeth traded gave the bearer different strengths of wishes. Scuppies, tiny little wishes, are all Karou really gets to use, but the consequences for strong wishes are more than most can handle. Karou knows she is safe with Brimstone, but she has no idea what the teeth are for and her curiosity eats away at her.

On one of Karou's routine errands for Brimstone, she realizes something has happened when there is a scorched hand print on the door back to the portal. When she is attacked by an angel (something she never knew existed), she fights for her life and through a previously unknown power that shoots out of her hands like burning white fire, is abel to escape. She gets back to Brimstone's shop, and when everyone thinks she is recovering, she finally succumbs to the years of curiosity and enters the door she has never seen opened. Inside she finds something so fantastic and surprising she forgets to be scared- she has entered a whole different world, complete with two moons instead of one- a world where the chimaera live. What she doesn't expect to uncover are years of secrets, long-lost, star-crossed loves, and a deadly vendetta that spans centuries. Now Karou and the angel are drawn together to learn about their connection and the role they play in the greatest war not of this world. The war where angels and chimaera have fought and died for as long as anyone can remember. But is there a life beyond the war?

Oh holy fantasy land! Taylor came up with a new world full of beasts, wars, mythology, and whole new worlds. And it is amazing! The whole ancient feud wrapped up in angels and mythological beasts was phenomenal. I couldn't stop reading this book. No wonder it was the only YA book on the Amazon Best of 2011 list! But the interesting thing I couldn't stop thinking about was the Romeo and Juliet connection. Karou and the angel were from two different warring worlds, but they couldn't stop thinking about one another. Their love was so great it moved past the battlefields, usurped death, and helped them find each other even after an execution. I was dying for them to be together!

This is a pretty beautiful fantasy, but I suspect it might be too intricate and abstract for your typical concrete thinker. In fact, I can see many of my students enjoying certain parts, but getting lost in the language and strange names and losing sight of the beauty of this story. I would save this story for a strong reader with a love for fantasy and other worlds. And don't hesitate to pass this on to adults you know, even if they don't regularly read YA novels. This is a pretty intricate fantasy that will appeal to readers of all ages. But only one question remains... What would you wish for?