Category Archives: Fantasy

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust

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Love YA fantasy? Subtle romance? A dark and twisting tale that defies all clichés and expectations? How about brilliant retellings of your favorite fairytales? If so, Girls Made of Snow and Glass is perfect for you.

Mina is a queen. She has wealth, power, a crown, and control over half a kingdom. Everything she could ever want, except one thing: love. Mina’s magician father cut out her dying heart and replaced it with one of glass when she was a child. But Mina’s new heart was made to function, not feel, so she cannot truly love or be loved.

Lynet is a princess who looks exactly like her dead mother, Queen Emilia, a beautiful, delicate, soft-spoken woman who was too frail to survive Lynet’s birth. The young princess has always been told that when she grows up she will be exactly like her mother, but Lynet isn’t so sure. She prefers scaling the castle walls to playing the harp or dancing; and she would much rather spend her time talking with Nadia, the intriguing new female surgeon, than listening to the Pigeons (a gaggle of gossipy old ladies) jabber on about how like her mother Lynet is. But Lynet doesn’t want to be like the dead queen, she doesn’t want to be delicate. She would rather emulate Mina, her fierce and beautiful stepmother, than the mother she never met.

But as Lynet grows older, her father seeks to force his daughter into her mother’s place and in doing so force Mina out. As Lynet is slowly given more of the queen’s power, stepmother and daughter grow farther apart, and Lynet must fight to keep the only mother she has ever known. But there can only be one queen, and when Lynet learns a shocking secret about the circumstances surounding her birth, the princess is forced to reexamine everything she thought she knew about her family, her home, and most of all — herself.

Girls Made of Snow and Glass is a lovely and haunting tale of love and loss, adventure and politics, and most of all: family. In this beautiful, heartbreaking story, Bashardoust reimagines the fairytale Snow White, to create a vivid and powerful cast of characters to populate the fantastical world that she has conjured into existance on the page. If Girls Made of Snow and Glass isn’t yet on your reading list, add it now, for this is an incredible book that will stick with you for a long time to come.

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeymi

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Magic is entrenched deep in the heart of Orïsha. For centuries the silver-haired Maji lived alongside humans, passing their magic down through the generations of their bloodlines. With the help of their patron gods and goddesses they call fire and storms, tame wild beasts, craft great structures out of metal and stone, and even summon the souls of the dead.
But eleven years ago magic disappeared. The defenseless Maji were captured and killed by the soldiers of a ruthless king, sparing only the smallest of their white-haired children. Now those children live in fear, as the lowest caste of the Orïshan society.
Zélie Adebola is a divîner, the daughter of a Maji mother, and was born with the white hair that signals a potential for magic. When Zélie meets Amari, a rogue princess in possession of a stolen magical scroll, everything changes. Chased by the king’s soldiers and Amari’s own brother, the new friends set off on a quest to bring back magic, before it is gone forever. But even with Zélie’s newfound powers, the road will be difficult and dangerous, and soon Zélie finds herself fighting not only the monarchy, but her own treacherous heart.
In this vibrant and beautiful book Tomi Adeymi weaves a story filled with myth and mystery, adventures and romance, and of course- magic. Told from the point of view of three different people, the world of Orïsha, the characters, and the story itself grows deeper and richer with every page. The story will grab you from the first paragraph, and draw you deeper with every page. Children of Blood and Bone is undoubtedly one of those all-too-rare books that worms it’s way into your heart, and stays there forever.

Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi

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The city of Kos is a place of divisions. From the dust of the city commons, the Forum, to the gold and marble halls of the royal palace, the line between the lives of the rich and poor is clear and unbroken. But perhaps even more pronounced is the line between the normal people, and those with gifts: the mages, and the Aki.

Mages have the power to draw a person’s sins from their hearts, forcing them to take the form of great beasts made of shadow, the inisisa. Taj is an Aki, a sin-eater. He and his kind kill and absorb the insisa that the mages conjure. But despite what they do for them, Aki are despised by the people of Kos, shunned for the “sin spots” that mar their skin. But Taj is special, his sin spots don’t fade like others do, and more importantly, he can command the insisa. But as Taj’s gift grants him privilege and prestige in the palace, Taj is drawn into a web of conspiracy and deception. With traitors in their midst and rebellions on the rise, Taj must find a way to keep himself– and the beautiful princess Karima– safe, and the city of Kos standing.

La Belle Savauge by Phillip Pullman

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Over a decade and a half after the release of The Amber Spyglass, the last book in his groundbreaking  His Dark Materials trilogy, Phillip Pullman returns to the world of Lyra Belacqua. In this debut novel La Belle Savauge, first, of a new trilogy titled The Book of Dust, Pullman introduces new characters, while at the same time giving us a closer look at the pasts of some old ones. Set in a time when the church has nearly every scrap of power, Pullman manages to perfectly demonstrate both the good and bad sides of religion.

Nearly a decade before the events of The Golden Compass, a boy named Malcolm roams the streets and canals of Oxford with his daemon Asta at his side. As the son of an innkeeper and the holder of a dozen odd jobs, Malcolm is the kind of boy who hears a little too much for his own good. When he finds a message meant for an agent of an organization known as Oakley Street, dedicated to fighting the church’s chokehold on politics and science, he is drawn into a world of secrets and spies. However, when he meets Lyra, the baby girl the nuns in the local priory are taking care of, his entire world is flipped upside down. Since Malcolm has no siblings, he begins to think of Lyra as his little sister, one he would do anything to protect. And Lyra needs protection.

Malcolm finds himself caught between the opposing sides of the Magisterium and Oakley Street. In a web of secrets and conspiracies Malcolm and Asta struggle to keep themselves and Lyra safe, but as the forces of the church close in, together with mysterious strangers and dark rumors, that is not an easy task. With the help of a peculiar and unlikely cast of characters, Malcolm and Asta navigate their way through this surprising and wonderful tale.

Jane Unlimited by Kristin Cashmore

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In a tale as delightfully confusing as the mismatched halls of Tu Reviens, Kristin Cashore brings to life a world of art and mystery. The story winds through five alternate universes that take place if Jane had made a different choice in the first half of the book. Each retelling solves a separate mystery that takes place at the same time and place but is never really revealed in the others. Each choice spins the tale into a new direction and genre, be it sci-fi, mystery, adventure, fantasy or romance. With its colorful setting, dark secrets, and unique and quirky characters Jane, Unlimited more than lives up to Cashore’s previous books.

All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater

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All the Crooked Saints is a heartwarming tale of family and friendship. The whole book is filled with magic and miracles, darkness and redemption, Saints and Pilgrims, romance and friendship- and of course the odd illegal radio station. As you read you will find complex and unique characters, Beatriz (The Girl with No Feelings), Daniel (The Saint), Joaquin (The rogue radio DJ Diablo Diablo), Peter (the boy with a hole in his heart), Marisita (the girl who blames herself) and a whole bevy of others. In this amazing novel, Steifvater explores the complicated relationship between science and religion in some of the most beautiful and profound words possible: “By relegating the things we fear and don’t understand to religion, and the things we do understand and control to science, we rob science of its artistry and religion of its mutability.” It is a powerful and timely novel for young adults at the moment, and many teens could benefit from reading it.

Maggie Stiefvater is coming to bookshop Thursday, Oct. 12 at 7 pm.

The Sea of Shadows by Kelley Armstrong

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The Sea of Shadows is a story shrouded in mystery and darkness. With a beginning filled with monsters and magic in a forest of death, the plot calms after the first few chapters. While still an adventure full of mishaps and dark magic; this allows for a wider range of readers. Well suited for people who are into the whole zombie apocalypse, and people who aren’t. The diversity of the cast of characters paired with the dark and compelling story line will draw in all types of readers and keep them engaged and eager for book two.

A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge

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Face like Glass by Frances Hardinge is completely original and imaginative to the point of near insanity. It’s the kind of fantasy that forces the brain to stretch and contort and stretch into brand new outlooks. It forces the consideration of brand new perspectives and possibilities.

When Master Grandible, a reclusive cheese artisan, discovers a lost child in Caverna’s highly secluded tunnels, he realizes immediately that the girl is different. Seeing an opportunity but also wishing to protect her, he takes her in, hides her strange expressive face behind a black velvet mask, and raises her as his apprentice. Weary of Caverna’s society, he barricades them in, dealing only with a select few through his well-defended door. Seven years later the girl, called Neverfell, follows a small white rabbit to a crack in her master’s domain and wanders out into the world of Caverna. Caverna’s inner city is beautifully detailed and immersive. The passages and caves are so convoluted that anyone who tries to map them goes mad. The elite families are at constant war with each other for control of the city, and for the favor of the Grand Steward. The Grand Steward is so obsessed with staying in control that he has artificially extended his life and cleaved himself into two beings so that one part of him will always be awake. The members of the elite class are trained in a wide array of facial expressions, each carefully donned for the greatest manipulative effect, while the commoners are not allowed to have visible emotion and must wear only five approved faces. In contrast, Neverfell wears her thoughts and feelings on her face and that is the most dangerous thing of all. But there are people that definitely finds such a thing to be useful and that is how Neverfull ends up becoming a pawn in a dangerous game of power.

The progression of this story follows Neverfell in a character arc that shows realistic, slow growth. For the first part of A Face Like Glass, Neverfell is nothing but a pawn being moved from side to side and things happen to her. But as she starts to interact with people and learn about the true facade of life in Caverna, the more she grows, changes and becomes an active participant not only of her story but of everybody else’s in Caverna. Her resolve, goodwill, and resilient nature make her an engaging heroine, not an irritating one. All the characters of A Face like Glass are three-dimensional. In many ways, the elite are just as trapped as the commoners or even more so. The Grand Steward may be the most imprisoned of all. Frances Hardinge draws him so subtly and with so much nuance; it’s hard not to feel sympathy for him. Overall, A Face Like Glass is a multi-faceted tale, forcing the reader, to not only join in on a world full of lies, but also to question the lies in their everyday life. Even more than that, though, it is a tale of revolution and of resisting control in terms of social class.-Nika G

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An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

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emberintheashes_jkt_5-1Teen Book Crew Review: An Ember in the Ashes
by Natalie Silva

Oh Skies, where do I begin? … First of all congratulations Sabaa Tahir on a splendid debut novel! Seriously, my mind is still thoroughly blown away by this book. An Ember In The Ashes is a what I consider to be a fantasy romance adventure novel that surrounds itself around a new graduate of Blackcliff training camp and a rebel slave girl who just so happened to become intertwined with each other either because of coincidence or fate. Everything that I love and find paramount in a story is present within An Ember In The Ashes there is action, drama, romance, suspense and a bit of a mystery to keep the reader guessing. Even though this novel surrounds the destiny and fate of two very well crafted and paralleled characters.
I wouldn’t consider it foreshadowing necessarily the way the future was incorporated into the present. It’s much more obvious and blatant like in The Book Thief where the narrator outright tells you the ending on page 100, but how and why the ending happens is surrounded in a nebulous of ambiguous immortal beings and characters so caught up in events that they can’t see what a less invested reader would. It is sort of like dramatic irony, but still with an element of mystery making this book extremely addictive. Seriously I set a new personal record for how quickly I read this book, which was three days. The concept and world were so well constructed and excellently illustrated that I could smell the rotting catacombs, hear the drums banging in the distance and even feel the hot knife against my own skin. It was refreshing to so thoroughly experience a novel and not just read it, especially when exploring this magical realm which was created, From the somber prison of Blackcliff to the sensual illumination of the moon festival down into the market which appropriately shifted depend on who is narrating.
Now, I typically do not prefer novels with dueling perspectives because one character is always better in the sense of screen time, distinctive style and construction, making one of the perspectives a secondary character instead of both sharing the role of protagonist. Except in this story where Elias and Laia are two very different characters that are both the center of their own story and also the overarching one. This worked so well especially with the preproposed question of “who was truly enslaved?” A question that I’m still trying to answer, personally I view Laia as free and Elias as the slave, but depending on what section is cited within the text the answer changes. There is no right or wrong answer, since it is a point left completely open to interpretation; what makes someone enslaved? Does enslavement only exist between people, or can it be a moral obligation or fate? Who knows, but that is something which really should be considered throughout the entire novel and applied to all characters.
Writing of characters, oh my skies I love them! To sum them all up as complex, intelligent and emotional beings wouldn’t be sufficient enough. Everyone was so invested in their own agenda that when they were the focus, they were the main character, even if their point of view wasn’t the narrator’s, that’s just how strong and present they all were. So let’s get down to them! Elias is a bastard who can kick butt and puts others before himself. He’s sort of like your best friend only very well armed and internally crushed, which sounds stereotypical and standard, but that’s the jist. Although that in no way does justice to his character, since Elias has a lot of respect and is very thoughtful of other people, everyone comes before him and he views all life as precious. Even a little Slave girl such as Laia who is battered, but still stands tall since she cannot be broken is valuable. Laia is debatably selfish with how she does put herself in front of others, making for a great juxtaposition as Elias and Laia develop. They share more similarities than differences, although the variations between them speak a lot about class, moral codes and motivations. Hint: Pay attention to how they influence each other, especially after Laia learns Elais’ true name and tribal name. (Personally I think she should have used his tribal name as opposed to his true name). Now there are at least three more characters I could talk about, but I will only mention Elias’ best friend Aquilla who is quite intentionally the opposite to Laia and in some cases is Elias’ double standard. With Aquilla’s fair skin and silver hair to Laia’s dark skin and dark hair also Aquilla’s fabled strength and Laia’s weakness when it’s typically the opposite. (Not exactly a spoiler, but sorry anyway) Which at first made my impressions of Aquilla to be rather negative and it wasn’t until I had the epiphany about how she and Laia are dramatic foils that also complement Elias’ internal struggle surrounding freedom. Overall, characters are paramount in a story and these characters reached the top of the mountain (even if one is scared of heights). They brought the story to life and I absolutely loved them all.
Now, for my final verdict, where I highly recommend this book for the amazing lore, corrupt totalitarian dictatorship, writing, characters and will be readily awaiting the sequel that is bound to come. Even though I am inherently angry because I know I will have to wait an extra-long time for it because technically the novel has yet to be released. But I will be patient!