In Which Trai Reviews 'Shiver'

The Book: Shiver (The Wolves of Mercy Falls, Book 1)

The Author: Maggie Stiefvater

How I Found It: The title was what caught my attention--just that one evocative word--after I heard Linger, the sequel, mentioned on a blog and looked it up to see what it was about.

The Review: As a child, Grace Brisbane was pulled from her tire swing in winter and attacked by the pack of wolves living in the woods close to her backyard. Unable to stop it, she laid still, but a yellow-eyed wolf came to her rescue.

For years afterwards, that wolf was Grace's constant, watching over her in winter and disappearing in summer. Unbeknownst to her, that wolf is also Sam Roth, a young werewolf who never dares to talk to her as a human. All of that changes during Grace's junior year of high school, when another student is attacked and killed by wolves, and the paranoia of the townsfolk leads to the wolves being hunted. Finally, Sam and Grace are thrown together, discovering for themselves the connection they can have as humans.

Werewolves like Sam change with the temperature--very cold temperatures force the change into a werewolf, while heat makes them change back. The problem is one thing that differs from werewolf to werewolf--each one of them has a limited amount of years where they can change back and forth. After that, they're wolves for good. Sam is certain that this is his last year, and, faced with that reality, he and Grace must fight the elements and find a cure, before the temperature drops and Sam is lost forever.

I went into this one with some trepidation. The title and the critical reviews I'd read conjured up this beautiful story about love lost and found, and I was dying for a good paranormal teen romance with characters I could actually like. Some reader reviews were more skeptical; a few of the more negative of them were critical of the writing (too flowery) and Sam and Grace's relationship (too close to bestiality). (That's the first and last time I'll probably type that one.) Eager to find out for myself, I trooped out to the bookstore in town and bought myself a copy.

I'm very pleased to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the critical reviews, and while I can see the problems some people had with the story, I'm just happy to see a healthy relationship in a genre where the relationships are almost always dysfunctional. Both Grace and Sam consider themselves to be "obsessed" with each other, but (a) they're teenagers, and (b) to me, their obsession never gave off the creepy vibe I got from Twilight or even slightly from The Vampire Diaries (since there, Elena's pretty much obsessed with claiming Stefan like he's property). I also never felt the bestiality argument was valid, either. The only reason Grace becomes obsessed with her wolf (Sam, unknowingly) is because he saved her life, and because--and this is my interpretation here, so it might not be valid--he was the one who was there to save her when no one else, most especially her parents, ever was. He protected her and kept her safe, and a major plot point hinges on the fact that her neglectful parents never did. Thus, Sam and Grace's obsession really came from each of them wanting to protect the other, and that never seemed unhealthy to me.

All that said, the writing, especially in Sam's sections, is really gorgeous sometimes. Stiefvater is a poet, from what I understand, and it shows. While Sam's lyrics could sometimes get cheesy, some of the sentences in his prose sections were really lyrical and pretty all on their own. Similarly, Grace's prose reflects her no-frills personality. The book shifts between their viewpoints, and I never had trouble telling who was who.

Grace and Sam themselves were very interesting, as an opposites attract type of relationship that works. Grace is the practical child of an artist mother, and Sam opens her up to poetry and beauty. Sam comes from a horrific childhood, and Grace shows him what it's like to be loved and not left. There were some really touching scenes between the two of them and I was completely invested in their bond by the end. They're just two kids trying to have the best possible time together in an impossible situation.

One thing I did feel slightly overwhelmed by while reading was the seeming mess of subplots. The problems with the pack, Grace's recently-bitten classmate Jack, Grace's friend Olivia investigating the wolves, Shelby trying to keep Grace away from Sam--most of these tied together in the end, but it was a little confusing in the meantime to keep shuffling back and forth between subplots. All of the side characters had a purpose, but some things that happened to them still felt a bit unnecessary by the book's end.

Overall, this was a great book that proved wrong my feelings that the post-Twilight YA fantasy that's being published today is usually crappy. Shiver had characters I cared about, a plot that drew me in, and writing that had some truly wonderful moments. Recommended to young adult readers who might not have heard of it (probably ages 14 and up), or to adult readers who don't mind YA and want a paranormal read.

In Which Trai Reviews 'The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening and The Struggle'

The Book: The Vampire Diaries, Volume 1: The Awakening and The Struggle

The Author: L.J. Smith

How I Found It: I read a trilogy of L.J. Smith's when I was 14 and wasn't too huge a fan, but I heard nothing but positive reviews of the Vampire Diaries books. At that time, all of Smith's books are out of print, but now, due to the resurgence of YA paranormal fiction and the popularity of the TV series based on The Vampire Diaries (which I now have plans to watch), all of her books have been reprinted.

The Review: This book is comprised of two separate books, The Awakening and The Struggle. I will try to focus on the strengths and faults of each indiviudally, but the books are so cohesive--really, it's one big, continuous story--that I might just end up evaluating the book as a whole.

I have to start off this review by mentioning that these books have marked similarities to Twilight, although these were out in the 1990s and Twilight only came around in 2005. From what I've read, there was actually a lawsuit--not initiated by L.J. Smith, I think, who says she hasn't read them or seen the movies, but is aware of the similarities. Borders apparently refused to carry both the Twilight books and these books until the lawsuit was settled. I don't know how true this is since I read it on a message board and can't dig up more info, but there are plenty of lists with comparisons between the two out there. There are superficial plot similarities, but I found the characters different in some fundamental ways, and I personally found this story more engaging. (I will put it out there now that I am not a fan of Twilight, as I said in my second-ever blog post.)

The Awakening: Elena Gilbert has just returned to her hometown of Fell's Church, after the death of her parents in France. Living with her unmarried aunt and her baby sister, Elena is trying to readjust to life in her old community. She is the queen of the school and has a circle of friends willing to do whatever she wishes, and she can have any boy she wants--except the new one. His name is Stefan Salvatore, and he is impossibly gorgeous, mysteriously enchanting--and able to resist Elena. Elena makes a vow to have him, stopping at nothing until she gets what she wants.

The atmosphere in the town begins to change as a homeless man is attacked and partly drained of blood, and on the night of the Homecoming dance, one of Elena's classmates is attacked as well. This is the night that Stefan saves Elena from being raped by a drunken classmate, and this is the night when Stefan finally begins to let her in. They begin a relationship, though Stefan still attempts to hide his true nature and darker secrets from her.

I have to say that I liked this first part better than I was expecting. I have read extraordinarily mixed reviews about the series--on the one hand are the readers who read this series when it first came out and have fond memories of it; on the other are the readers of today, who seem to take issue with Elena's character and prefer the show. I will admit that although Elena is self-centered and unlikable until about halfway through the second volume, I found that this is one area where this series triumphed over Twilight, for me. Elena does not sit around and wait to be saved; when she wants something, she goes out and does it. Her friends, Meredith, Bonnie, and Matt, are actually there to support her and help her with these things; they are not simply window dressings in order to put more human characters in the story. Even if Elena sometimes needs help from the vampires in order to get what she needs, she almost always makes a valiant effort of her own first.

I also enjoyed this book a bit more than the second half because of one primary difference--Damon. If you've seen any summaries of the show at all, and even the summary on the back of this book, it plays up the love triangle aspect between Elena, Stefan, and Stefan's evil older brother, Damon. Damon actually is not a huge player in this first part; he comes in very late. Though every other reader and viewer seems to fawn over Damon, I found myself much more in love with Stefan and who he was trying to be for Elena. I guess I'm just not one for the bad boys! Stefan does lay on the tortured-hero a bit too thick at times, but he genuinely cares about Elena and has a reason for wanting to protect her from himself. I really enjoyed seeing their relationship (although Elena does fall in love rather too quickly for my tastes; I do so wish we could change this whole trend of "I see you and now I'm in love!" in YA).

This book sustains the action and mystery very well, as the events in Fell's Church become weirder and scarier. I'd advise that it's best to read the whole book all at once, as each book ends on a cliffhanger and it really is one continuous story. Which leads us into my as-spoiler-free-as-possible review of...

The Struggle: Damon is in Fell's Church and wreaking havoc among its citizens. Stefan has disappeared and so has Elena's diary, in which she wrote all about Stefan and his secret. After she and her friends find Stefan, pages with excerpts from Elena's diary are slowly posted around the school, and Elena finds herself desperate to retrieve it, while trying to do so without Stefan knowing.

The one person who can help her is the one person she does not want to help--Damon. Determined to possess her after what he views as Stefan's betrayal centuries ago, he offers Elena a deal: a few drops of her blood in return for him retrieving her diary. When Elena refuses, Damon works harder than ever to enter her mind and heart, trying to draw her away from Stefan. Time is running out before the contents of Elena's diary will be publicized all around town, and Elena finds herself struggling between Damon's offer and her loyalty to Stefan.

I felt that this half did an admirable job of reforming Elena's character from the self-centered ice queen into the girl who, while still harboring some selfish impulses, wants to be someone more. She is forced to recognize how selfish she has been and that she wants to be someone worthy of Stefan's ideals about honor and love. We don't see all that much of her relationship here, as it is more focused on her efforts to fight Damon and get him to leave her and her friends alone.

I have to admit that I really don't understand what makes certain readers attracted to Damon. I actually have to give Smith a lot of credit for creating such a polarizing character--some think he's just a bad boy waiting to be saved; I happen to think he's a complete monster. Not only is he responsible for murders and attacks over centuries (Stefan drinks only from animals, whereas Damon goes for human blood), he goes so far as to threaten to harm Elena's four-year-old sister if she doesn't obey him! He has no remorse and won't stop until he gets his way, and even if he comes off as over-the-top, his presence still felt genuinely threatening to Elena, Stefan, and the town at large.

So it's my opinion that what's going on between Elena, Stefan, and Damon isn't really a love triangle, because Stefan and Elena are the only ones in love! We never get any indication that Damon wants her for any reason other than to have her, period, and use that to screw over Stefan. He basically attempts to seduce Elena through mind games and manipulation, whereas Elena actively pursued Stefan and there is interest on both sides. I do feel that the marketing for this is somewhat misleading, as there is no love on Damon's side, just a really, really big sense of foreboding and menace.

All in all, though I know the series itself garners mixed opinions, it is worth it to give this one to teens looking for bigger books (the two books combined clock in at 494 pages) that have in interest in vampire fiction, and who might be interested to see an early example of the craze. For anyone concerned about romantic content, there's just some kissing that leads to blood-drinking (glossed over in short paragraphs, not described in great detail), although there's some pretty scary things going on, so I'd recommend this one to maybe 15 and up, unless you feel a younger child could handle it. Happy Halloween, everyone, and happy reading!

In Which Trai Reviews 'Emma and the Vampires'

The Book: Emma and the Vampires: A Jane Austen Undead Novel

The Authors: Jane Austen and Wayne Josephson

How I Found It: I was asked to review it for Austenblog.

The Review: I have to say that out of all the mashups I've read, this is the only one that has left me wondering why the mashup part was even necessary. Josephson allegedly wrote this at the request of his teenage daughter. It seemed like not much thought was put into what the vampires could do to the story, and the result is a jumbled mess of a watered-down version of Emma with a sporadic sprinkling of vampires.

Basically, the plot hinges on the general idea for most mashups: it's the same as Emma, with vampires thrown in. In Josephson's version, all the gentlemen of Highbury are vampires. Some are vegans, whose eyes are blue; others feast on human blood, which turns their eyes red. Those in need of sustenance are black-eyed. We get hints that Mr. Weston is a vegan, Frank Churchill feasts on humans, and that Mr. Knightley enjoys a tasty aristocrat every once in a while, but explanation of why each vampire chose that particular path would have been much appreciated.

This was my main problem with the work: Josephson did not appear to care enough to establish a mythology. For convenience's sake, every male is the same age they are in the original Emma, and in this world, vampires can bear children, who inherit the gene from their father. This greatly confused me. Some of the many questions that entered my mind:

Did the adult vampires (Mr. Weston, Mr. Knightley, etc.) inherit this gene or were they turned at that particular age? Who would have turned them, since here we are given the impression that vampires turn their brides upon marrying? The only grown hereditary vampire that we see is Frank Churchill, who is described as perpetually twenty-three. I understand that this was in keeping with his age in the original, but it just led to more questions. Do hereditary vampires simply grow up and stop aging at a particular point? Why, then, are some vampires older than others? Why does Mr. George Knightley have the ability to read minds and Mr. John Knightley have the ability to predict the future, whereas Mr. Weston and Frank, for example, are not possessed of any particular abilities? Mrs. Weston and Mrs. Elton are told that their husbands are vampires, but Emma and the rest of the town, while entirely aware of their male neighbors' strange habits, are completely in the dark about this. Is it some ironclad rule that no one except vampire wives can know the "secret"? If it is a rule, then why did it come into existence?

See what I mean? Josephson added the vampires, but he did not offer one iota of mythology behind his take on it, which was extremely irritating. If you're going to add the monsters, you're going to have to give me some kind of explanation about what they can do, how they came to be, and what they can bring to this particular story.

And in this case, the vampires did not bring anything at all. Every time there was a remark about a beating heart, a vampire would silently reflect on his own heart not beating. From my recollection, there were maybe four or five party scenes. Each party scene ended with the participants emerging into the night and--oh, no, a vampire attack! And oh, look, they're attacking Harriet! Keep in mind, this is done at least three times. Why is Harriet so special? The only explanation we are given is that she is "plump." No freesia-scented extra-special-Twilight blood here. The vampires just like Harriet because she's chubby. In fact, there was no vampire threat to any of the other main characters but Harriet, and combined with the easy defeat of the rogue vampires in all the battle scenes, this makes for one boring vampire book.

Josephson felt the need to water down Austen's prose, cutting where he pleased and simplifying the phrases he felt modern young adult readers wouldn't understand (this is very much meant to be a YA novel). I was rather appalled by the inclusion of the phrases "thunderous thighs" and "Mamma's boy". Really? "Thunderous thighs?" In Clueless, maybe, but not in something that purports to be the actual Emma. Some of the abridgments made sense but then would lead to confusion to a reader not familiar with the original--Mrs. Elton's tireless raving about Maple Grove is cut, but she mentions it twice later on, and nothing is done to explain about where that is or what it means to Mrs. Elton. There isn't much of a context that a reader could place it in, either, given that the context was removed and not restored in this abridgement.

The thing was, I never truly felt that the vampires were necessary to the story. Emma itself was so watered down that it started feeling unnecessary towards the end. By the time we got to Box Hill, I was wondering why he'd even bothered putting the vampires in--they don't effect the pivotal events of the story; Josephson only seemed to throw them in after the characters left a party. He was basically just retelling Emma and adding action for no particular reason. I feel the book should have gone one way or the other--either Josephson should have produced an abridged version of Emma, sans vampires, or he should have written his own Regency-era vampire novel, where he would have had plenty of space to expound upon the mythology of his vampires that was not even hinted at here. But of course, that leaves one without the safety net of a built-in network of readers.

Overall, this is one of the more poorly done mashups I've read, and I feel as though Mr. Josephson would have better served Emma by doing a strict abridgment--he managed to keep the spirit of Emma throughout, and if only there hadn't been vampires, it would have been a perfectly serviceable abridgment about on par with the level of cuts you'd see in a typical movie version. From the ending and the cover touting this as a "Jane Austen Undead" novel, I can only assume more in this series are coming down the pike. If someone in your family is into vampire fiction but not Austen and you would like to introduce her to Jane, I would give this one a weak recommendation, with the caveat emptor that if she can understand this version, she might as well give the original Emma a shot.

In Which Trai Reviews 'Voices of Dragons'

The Book: Voices of Dragons

The Author: Carrie Vaughn

How I Found It: As I've said before, big fan of Carrie Vaughn's; I had this one on pre-order for months.

The Review: Kay Wyatt lives in our world. There are cell phones, the Internet, GPS systems. The one thing that differentiates her world from ours? In certain parts of the world, dragons are cloistered, sealed off from humans by the Border.

Kay is 17 and an avid rock climber. Looking for an adventure, she climbs very near to the border of Dragon, knowing full well what a risk she is taking. However, when she reaches the top of the rocks, she accidentally slips and is dragged into the river. She almost drowns before she is rescued by a curious dragon.

To Kay's surprise, the dragon can talk, and is eager to know her. Dragons and humans have been in a cold war since a treaty was formed after World War II, and neither side is comfortable with the other. Although Kay is breaking the law by being over the border, she agrees to meet the dragon again, since he wants to practice his English by talking to her.

Kay and the dragon become friendly. He picks himself the name Artegal, and Kay learns from him that dragons can read and write. They slowly begin flying lessons when Artegal reveals to Kay that humans and dragons used to peacefully coexist. The cold war begins to come to an end, however, when a plane goes down in Dragon and the dragons attack Kay's town, leaving Kay and Artegal grasping at straws for a way to prove coexistence is possible.

I was eager to see how Vaughn's writing would adapt for a YA audience. I was a young adult myself when I started reading the Kitty books, but those are mainly for an adult audience. I was really pleased at how different the tone of this book was from the Kitty books; it really showed Vaughn's range as a writer. Kay is not the snarky, savvy heroine that Kitty is-- she is a regular teenager who has merely become caught in something she can't control. I'm not much older than Kay, and I could identify with her very easily. Vaughn definitely had the teen mindset down. (There were times when I wondered if some things were overkill, such as her friend Tam's constant focus on sex, but I realized how clever it was as it came into play later on.)

The book is also fairly serious in tone, also unlike the Kitty books (for the most part). It is a story about a war, and that is very clear. I felt the portrayal of a country at wartime was very accurate. It's also a story about prejudices, and those, too, were well-defined and palpable. I do wish we could have seen more from the dragons' side, to have known their opinions on things, but since this was from Kay's perspective and thus the human point of view, I couldn't fault the book for that. I just wish we'd gotten more information on the dragons than we did.

I really liked how strong the characterizations were. Kay is strong, confident, and doesn't need guys to help her or any of that. (She does have her boyfriend, Jon, but more often than not, she's by herself, which was so nice to see.) Her friends Tam and Jon are sort of on the sidelines most of the time, but it was interesting to see elements of a teen novel mixing with straight fantasy like dragons. I was expecting a story set in the past (though I don't know why, since the cover wasn't exactly advertising that, with the tank top and all), so I was surprised to see it be a modern story. That was what I liked about it-- it showed how a war like this would be in modern times. Anyway, back to the characterizations: really nice to see a functional set of parents, for once. Kay's parents are competent and have important jobs, as her dad is the sheriff and her mom is part of border control. Artegal could have been used a little more, but I liked the bond between him and Kay the most.

I really enjoyed the story a whole lot. It's very plot driven-- there's more descriptions of events and such than dialogue-- but I like stories with plots. The story was also emotionally affecting; I laughed at a few points and cried at another. The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, and I asked Vaughn via Facebook whether or not a sequel is on the way. She said there is an idea but it hasn't been written. If it is, I'll be first in line to buy it.

Highly recommended to young teens looking for a good fantasy, and older readers like me who either know the Kitty books or just have an interest in dragon-themed novels.