Hell Froze Over and its Ugly!

Melissa de la Cruz is no newcomer to the world of the magical and supernatural. In her new series with her husband, Michael Johnston, however, she brings a whole new level to the Heart of Dread series with the first book Frozen. In this new series, you will see every manner of supernatural or post-apocalyptic element. It could have been like a literary version of a clown car, but instead, de la Cruz and Johnston knocked it out of the park. 

Nat escaped. She got away, but now she must hide in plain sight. As a dealer in New Vegas, it is easy to blend right into the woodwork while still standing in a busy casino day after day. In a world covered with ice, everything will do almost anything for heat credits to stay alive. But Nat has more to hide. She wears lenses to cover her eyes and never reveals her Mark because people aren't comfortable around the Marked and their powers. But when a guy comes to her table and clearly tries to run a con, she takes advantage of the situation and snags the life-changing heat credits off the table he was trying to scam. Now she has the opportunity to use the map she "acquired" not long ago. This map could lead her to the Blue, a place untouched by the pollution and chemicals that surround them all in this disgusting, frozen world. Now all she needs is someone to get her there. 

Wes had his chance. He almost had those credits, but the dealer had him captivated and he lost his chance. When he looked back, the credits were gone. Now he had to go back to his hungry crew empty handed and face the angry kids he was responsible for. He is getting desperate, but when a big job comes through to take some girl into the poisoned, polluted ocean, he agrees to take the job. Now he just has to get his boat back. What he doesn't expect is to see the dealer in front of him ready for her ride. There is something mysterious about this girl, something dangerous, but he doesn't scare easily, and he doesn't have much of a choice. His crew needs to eat. So they all head off into the ocean full of Trashbergs and dead of any life filled with water that will kill you on a mission that seems impossible. In a world full of magical folks, however, nothing is impossible. 

This book easily could have been "too much," easily, but somehow, by the end, the myriad of different elements seemed to work quite well.  In the beginning I struggled a little to make sense of Cruz and Johnston's world, but once I understood where all the different pieces fit together, it was quite an enjoyable story. For instance, this is a world that suffered environmental catastrophe, is covered with polluted ice, has no means to support itself through agriculture, and survives off synthetic food. That is enough for one whole book on its own. Then you add the magical folk who came out of the ice as it took hold of the world. First people were suspicious of the Sylph or the Smallmen, but then they realized the benefits of using these magical people. Quickly, however, paranoia grabbed hold and they began to imprison or do away with anyone magical, including the Marked, people born with a Mark and a gift. Then you add this magical place that has somehow avoided the environmental disaster that took down the rest of the world. And there is more, but I don't want to give it all away. Clown car? Yeah. Clown car that eventually worked? Yep!

I did struggle with this book at first, because it is so hard to figure out where all the wildly different pieces fit together. After I got about  100 pages into the book, it started to all pull together and then I got hooked. I have to admit I read the Blue Bloods series and loved it at first, but by the end I wanted to scream "enough already!" and that was directly tied to the path de la Cruz took that led her so far away from the original premise of the book. She does tend to overcomplicate her plots and then they lose their way quickly (can't have a story about witches- gotta through some Norse Mythology in there!). It has always been her downfall for me. Perhaps this series will be more successful because the 1001 elements are already out there and won't muddy the story later on, but I fear she is going to think, "Book 2? We need something new... how about evil, murderous pagan gods! Book 3? Where do we go with this one... I've got it! Animals who can walk and talk. Book 4? The Knights Templar!" and before you know it, you've got one big ole hot mess like the Blue Bloods. So, my biggest hope for this series is she knows how to edit properly and doesn't get carried away with trying to make it "exciting" by stuffing in entire kitchen pantry. This is a decent adventure series for both young adults and high-skilled middle readers. If they can figure out the complex beginning, they will really enjoy the adventure at the end. But remember, Melissa and Michael! Less is More!

Just For You!

I am convinced those people who claim to only read intellectual, stuffy books, magazines, and newspapers secretly have a stash of fun, easy reading hidden under their beds. Why fight the fact that sometimes, a funny, easy, entertaining, endearing read is all you really want? And with Tera Lynn Childs, you are bound to get just that with Just for Fins. 

Lily may be a mermaid queen, but that doesn't mean everyone takes her seriously. In her mermaid kingdom, she tries to use her position to call the other mermaid kings and queens to join forces to help Tellin's kingdom (her "husband" or bond mate, in name only). Tellin's kingdom is on the verge of starvation due to pollution and over-fishing, but that doesn't mean anyone wants to help them. The other leaders scold Lily for not recognizing their own human-caused problems and promptly depart from the meeting, leaving Lily to look like a fool.

But Tellin's dying kingdom isn't Lily's only concern. An ancient law is dug up that states Quince, Lily's true love, must pass three trials in order for them to remain together. If he fails, she will be banished to the water, he will be banished to land, and neither can come together ever again. Now Lily finds everything she ever loved on the line with little hope of fixing things. But it is about to get worse when the merpeople consider acts of sabotage on oil rigs and ships perfectly acceptable revenge to save the oceans humans have so carelessly destroyed. As a half-human who is in love with a human, Lily can't imagine the losses and devastation such acts could cause. But how can one teenage mermaid stop generations of oceanic destruction all by herself?

I just love Tera Lynn Childs. She never disappoints. Her stories are witty, fun, and just make me smile. This was a good conclusion to the mermaid tales (pun intended), but I wish the trials for Quince weren't so rushed. With the focus on the environmental issues, the trials we stuffed into a few short pages them forgotten about for a long stretch. It seems like it could either have been more developed or left out altogether instead of making a big deal out of it then ignoring it. Still, the environmental issues were a great, serious element to these fun stories, and whole-heartedly appropriate for a modern day story of the sea.

These are fairly young books and would be best for middle readers or an immature young adult reader. Although, if you can get a stronger young adult reader to pick them up, they would most likely enjoy the entertaining stories. They do have a great joy to them, and I know I have enjoyed every book I read by Childs!

A Long, Difficult Road

Sometimes I wonder if authors forget that writing a young adult novel means they are writing for... young adults. Young Adults are not always the strongest readers. They aren't adults. In fact, for young adults, reading for pleasure is a huge part in developing their language skills, such as vocabulary, comprehension, and decoding. Therefore, I have no idea why authors would choose to write a YA novel and make it impossible for young adults to read... but sadly, that is exactly what Moira Young has done with Blood Red Road. She created an awesome story that I would never give to my students.

Saba lives in Silverlake with her family and not much more. There is almost nothing left in Silverlake besides her father's grieving misery for his dead wife. Saba and her twin brother, Lugh, are inseparable, but Saba has a tough time dealing with her younger sister Emmi. When riders come to their home, kill their father, and take Lugh away, Saba knows she will go to the ends of the earth to find her brother. She sets off to leave Emmi with an old family friend and find where the riders took her brother.

As soon as she deposits Emmi with the family friend, she realizes Emmi has followed her (and stolen the friend's horse). She agrees to let Emmi come along, and when they bump into a kooky old couple, the Pinches, they are grateful for the food and water the couple shares with them. As they finish their food, it becomes quickly apparent the old couple has drugged them and intends to kidnap them. The Pinches take them to Hopetown, the city filled with drugged maniacs, thieves, and crazy people. They intend to make Saba fight in the gladiator ring while keeping Emmi hostage to ensure Saba does as she's told.

In Hopetown, Saba starts to learn about this side of the world. The people of Hopetown are kept under control by the King and his drug, chaal. Enough chaal will keep anyone under control, but too much makes them crazy. The King harvests the chaal in the Freedom Fields and distributes it to keep his subjects coming back for more. Even his slaves are under the spell of the chaal. Hopetown is the worst, a place where drugged out lunatics pay to watch children battle and if someone loses three times, they run the gauntlet. The gauntlet is a narrow path surrounded by the citizens of Hopetown who literally rip the loser to pieces.

From Hopetown, Saba becomes an unbeatable gladiator nicknamed the Angel of Death, manages to team up with the Freehawks- a group of touch girls who want to tear Hopetown down from the inside out, and meets a guy named Jack who makes her forget everything she is supposed to be doing. Together, the group head off to the Freedom Fields to get back Lugh and make sure the King doesn't hurt anyone ever again. But can they make it in time?

The story is great. Honestly. It is exciting, well-paced, great characters, and there was a solid ending that can lead to a sequel but isn't a cliffhanger. I loved this story. The writing on the other hand? Hated it. With a passion. The story is written in Saba's point of view and told completely in her dialect, which reminds me of hillbilly slang. I could have tolerated this if it was only the dialogue in this dialect, but the entire 500 pages is written like this. And sometimes, the spelling changes have absolutely no effect on the pronunciation ("wurm" for "worm"), so it seems Ms. Young just wanted to make the book difficult to read. Once I had suffered through 20 or so pages, I got used to the writing, but every time I put the book down, when I picked it up again I had to fight for another 20 pages to get used to it again- it was frustrating. Add to that the complete lack of dialogue punctuation (quotation marks), and you have one big hot mess on your hands.

The result of this writing style means I have a fantastic, exciting YA novel I would never give to a Young Adult. Young Adults are still familiarizing themselves with spelling, grammar, mechanics, etc. Why would I give them a book that completely destroyed all the rules I have spent so long teaching them? As a little experiment, I brought the book to work and asked one of my strong readers to read the first few pages aloud to me (we read aloud every day). After five pages he gave up. He stumbled over every other word and could barely understand what he was reading because he spent so much time decoding ("pratikally" for practically). Those five pages effectively made this young man feel like he couldn't read again. What purpose did this language serve if it alienates the target audience?

So my advice for Ms. Young is to stop trying to ride the wave of YA dystopia and make a choice: you either write a YA book that young adults can read, or you keep the book as is and sell it to the adult post-apocalyptic/dystopia junkies. You can't have both. What you get is a book teachers and parents simply won't give their kids. And honestly, that is just plain sad because it was a really great story!