The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks/E. Lockhart

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart; young adult, realistic fiction; 352 pages (about 7 hours on CD)

When Frankie starts dating the coolest guy in school, she's thrilled--at first.  But it soon becomes clear that Matthew and his friends share a bond that Frankie will never be part of--they're all members of the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds, and all-male secret society that's existed for half a century.  Frankie longs to be part of this guys-only world, but when she's repeatedly locked out, she takes matters into her own hands.

This was a reread for me (my book club picked it for this month), but it's one that I was happy to revisit.  Frankie is a criminal mastermind, plain and simple, and watching her work is one of the best parts of this book.  Of course, there's a lot of other stuff on feminism and power games, but at its heart, this story is about a young woman coming to realize that the world isn't fair, and that sometime you need to make waves to affect change.  The ending isn't as neat and tidy as a lot of other books, but I would love to check back with Frankie in four years (Frankie:  The College Years!) and see what she's up to.  Highly recommended!  And for those who have read it and are looking for similar fare, I have to suggest the Plain Janes series (okay, it's two books, but whatever) by Cecil Castellucci.  I listened to Frankie on CD, and the narrator does a great job of capturing the characters. 

Black Heart/Holly Black

Black Heart by Holly Black (Curse Workers, book 3); young adult, fantasy, crime; 304 pages

Cassel Sharpe has faced a lot of changes since the first book:  he's gone from being the only non-worker in a notorious crime family to possessing one of the rarest and most dangerous cursing talents, and cutting an agreement to work for the FBI.  He's also won and lost Lila, the love of his life and heir to the most powerful crime family around.  Now the feds are asking him to use his talents for them--to help "take care" of a senator who has overstepped his bounds.  And his mother is being help captive by Lila's father, and can only be released if Cassel can find and return something his mother stole.  Meanwhile Cassel is approached by a fellow student who claims she's being blackmailed, and needs his help.  Cassel suspect's he's being conned (he is, after all, a con artist), but he's not sure by who. 

I've been loving this series since the first book, and the conclusion didn't disappoint.  I admit there were a lot of times where I couldn't see how Black could salvage a good ending, but I was pretty happy with the way everything worked out.  The blackmail subplot was a little out of place (and seemed very minor when compared to the rest of the story), but Black tied it into the ending rather neatly.  I admit that most of the appeal of this series is seeing just how Cassel is going to pull off the next big con, and there was plenty of that here to keep me entertained. 

A Bride's Story v. 3/Kaoru Mori

A Bride's Story v. 3, by Kaoru Mori; graphic novel, manga, historical fiction; 208 pages

This volume of the series moves away from Karluk and Amir's village, and instead follows the British ethnographer Mr. Smith as he travels to a new town.  There he meets Talas, a young woman who has been widowed five times (!), and who now lives alone with her mother-in-law, struggling to maintain the family lands. 

I enjoyed this volume for the change in locale and characters, but was a little taken aback at the ending, which is more realistic than happy.  I hope Mori will return to these characters, so that we may have another shot at the ending I would have wanted.  However, since I'm not caught up on this series, it will be another six months or so before I find out. 

A Feast For Crows: George R.R. Martin

A Feast For Crows: Book 4 of A Song of Ice and Fire; George R. R. Martin; epic fantasy, 753 pages

This book was less of an insanely massive beast than Storm of Swords, and a little slower to get going, and deals with a set of characters who aren't generally fan favorites, which is why I heard from so many people before I read this that this is the worst book in the series. HOWEVER! I enjoyed the pace, which felt like taking a break from all the bloody, earth-shaking slaughter of the previous book, and gave me an opportunity to explore some of the political nuance of areas of Martin's world that hadn't been fleshed out so thoroughly before.
Dorne! Exciting things happen there! I like these people! An interesting plotline that brought up some intriguing possibilities for later betrayals and alliances.
Jaime! Continuing his kind of miraculous character redemption arc! Secretly the best knight! Who Knew!
But! the most satisfying story in this book was the delicious, schadenfreudey, dramatic irony-laden Cersei plot, in which she (spoiler alert) manages to shoot herself in the foot in basically the best way possible. She just fails at everything, and it's wonderful because she's such a horrible person and you want her to fail so much, and while she's setting everything up for this epic failure she thinks she is succeeding brilliantly and there were points reading this where I had to just set the book aside for a minute and cackle madly at what I knew was to come.
I knew this (incredibly, hilariously satisfying) downfall was to come because Martin is not very subtle when it comes to these things. Or maybe it's just me! But in previous books he's set up big shocking moments with slow-building tension and it's been kind of frustrating when the reader can see what the characters can't. (see: Oh my god Ned you idiot stop trying to solve this incredibly foreshadowed mystery it is not going to do you any good/Oh hey everything about this party we're going to seems really crappy and no one wants to do it wand we all have bad feelings but LET'S GO ANYWAY WHAT COULD POSSIBLY HAPPEN)
In this book though, there was less yelling and more mad, deranged laughter. And I'm not going to apologize for enjoying this character's misfortune because let's face it Cersei is just awful in every way.

I am very definitely taking a break from this series before I start A Dance with Dragons, because that book is huge and I have too many other things to read. Yeesh!

Unholy Night

Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith, 307 pages

So what if the three wise men who attended the baby Jesus' birth were actually thieving murderers on the lam? That's the premise of this book, though it's a lot more complex than that. The main character is Balthazar, an infamous criminal better known as The Antioch Ghost, and as such, the story is more about his life than that of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I've got to admit, I kind of like reading books that feature Jesus as a supporting character, and in this one, he's easily the least-developed (though that could be because he's less than two weeks old for all but the epilogue). But I very much enjoyed rooting for an immoral bad guy in a Jesus story.

The characters are well-rounded, and Grahame-Smith did an excellent job weaving this tale. Granted, I haven't read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, but this wasn't at all what I expected from this author. Perhaps I'll have to check those others out...

Kill Shot: An American Assassin Thriller

Kill Shot: An American Assassin Thriller by Vince Flynn, 385 pages

Well, just about everything you need to know about this book is either in the title or on the cover. It's a thriller about an American assassin in Paris. Mitch Rapp (great name, I know) is methodically hunting down bad guys when his assassination of a Libyan diplomat goes wrong: a herd of Middle Eastern terrorists (is that the correct collective noun, herd? Is it a bunch? It's not a whole cell...) storms the room, guns blazing, leading Rapp to the correct assumption that he'd been set up. But by whom???

This was a bad book. It was filled with stereotypical cardboard characters (those Middle Eastern terrorists had names like Aziz, Samir, and Habib, even though most of them died within pages of being named) and shootouts that would have played much better in a Michael Bay movie. This would be better served as a movie to watch on a rainy Sunday afternoon when you're too lazy to change the channel to something with more substance, like Jersey Shore.

A Bride's Story v. 2/Kaoru Mori

A Bride's Story v. 2, by Kaoru Mori; graphic novel, historical fiction; 192 pages

This volume continues the story of Amir and her (much younger) husband during the first year of their marriage.  Here, Amir's family makes good on their threats to take Amir back, so she can be given in marriage to another clan.  I accused the last volume of glossing over some of the harsher aspects of this life, but here we start to get a glimpse of some of those harder sides of life--most notably, in the other clan's treatment of women (Amir must be traded to them because there are no marriageable young women left in her own clan; those that were given to the other clan died of abuse). 

The art and storytelling continue to be wonderful in this volume.  The third volume looks like it will shift away from Amir for a while, but I hope we get to see more of these characters later in the series. 

Scrawl

Scrawl by Mark Shulman  234 pp.

Tod Munn is a bully who extorts money from weaker classmates, not just to be mean, but because he has no lunch money. One of his misdeeds lands him in daily detention under the supervision of his school counselor, Mrs. Woodrow. All she requires of him is that he write about himself in a notebook (he won't call it a journal) during the time he spends there. The novel is made up of his entries, including details of his home life, his droogs (friends), his misdeeds, and successes. It turns out that Tod is not the loser everyone, including the school teachers, administrators, and security guards, think that he is. When he gets roped into helping a strange Goth chick with her play you get to see another side of Tod that is not what you expect. His droogs are angry because he got the cushy detention and they are stuck cleaning up trash around the school every day and then appears to have befriended that weird girl. Good guys turn out to be the bad guys and vice versa in this well written and interesting young adult novel. I got so caught up in Tod's story I even passed on watching the "Eureka" season premiere to finish it. This is going on my "best of the year" list.

A Bride's Story 1/Kaoru Mori

A Bride's Story, vol. 1 by Kaoru Mori; graphic novel, historical fiction; 192 pages

Many other people have been blogging about this series, so I'll just briefly state the plot:  Twenty year old Amir is sent to wed a husband eight years younger than her.  Over the course of the book, the young couple gets to know one another and begins to fall in love. 

I loved this story for the characters, but also for the unusual setting (central Asia in the 19th century) and attention to detail (check out the dress Amir is wearing on the cover:  the interior art is every bit as elaborate and intricate).  While I'm sure the author glosses over a lot of things, I found myself wanting to live in Karluk's idyllic village.  I've already checked out the next volume, and plan to read it tonight!

Sacre Bleu

Sacre Bleu: a comedy d'art by Christopher Moore  403 pp.

I'm a big fan of Christopher Moore's books because of his twisted humor. This book doesn't have the level of humor of his previous books but it makes up for it with an intriguing plot. It certainly helps if you have some knowledge of famous painters, particularly those of 19th century France, as they are the main characters/victims. The story begins with the murder (not suicide) of Vincent Van Gogh by a small mysterious figure known only as "the color man. What follows is a surreal story involving Vincent's friends Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and baker/painter Lucien Lessard who search for the truth behind his death. Everything hinges on the ultramarine blue paint (the sacre bleu used in religious paintings), the color man, and a mysterious artist's model. There are also appearances by Manet, Monet, Seurat, Whistler, Renoir, Gauguin and other famed painters of the era all of whom have had encounters with the color man. The humor in this novel is more subtle than in most of Moore's previous books and sometimes almost slips by before you realize it. I still think Fool is Moore's best book to date but this one is worth a read.