Review of The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancy

Putnam Juvenile

The Fifth Wave
by Rick Yancy
5 Stars!

Ever wonder what it would really be like if Earth were invaded by aliens from another planet? I have, and my imaginings always ram somewhere between the aliens from Tom Cruise’s version of War of the Worlds and Will Smith’s Independence Day. Thankfully, Rick Yancy has a much more realistic and riveting imagination.

Cassie is a little freaked out when the mother ship appears over her neighborhood. But, after a week or so nothing happens so, whatever. Then the lights go out and a few people die in accidents and whatnot because there’s no power. After some more time passes and people are used to seeing the ship in the sky the tsunamis come and devastate the planet, but Cassie is in Ohio, so her family is spared. When the plague comes and infects many around her, she starts to feel real terror, but where are the aliens? Where are the aliens indeed?

The novel is a brilliant and perhaps very realistic imagining of what might happen if a superior race chose to invade and claim our planet, besides being an intuitive study of human behavior. The brilliance of the work is the slow terror that develops through the action; instead of a series of explosions, the story focuses on the psychological toll of a slow, stealthy invasion that confuses and divides. How do you fight a war when you can’t see the enemy or you see them but cannot identify them? How do we band together when every “wave” drives us further and further apart? The story is told primarily through the eyes of Cassie, but also alternates between two other main characters, Evan and Ben, both victims in their own right of the alien invasion but in markedly different ways. It is impossible not to become invested in what happens to all three characters, impossible not to plow through the chapters in order to see how the fates of these three might become later entwined. I was riveted to the story, glued to the idea of children being used as a “vanguard and weapon,” Lord of the Flies style, and amused by the homage (we won’t call it a blatant rip off) to the film Full Metal Jacket via the character of Reznick. Even in such a horrifying tale it seems there is room for—indeed there has to be—humor. Perhaps most enthralling for me were the themes that kept me wondering. How do you face death on a daily basis when there is no hope?  How long can humanity survive in isolation from one another? We are social creatures after all. And lastly, how might an alien force rid the earth of humans? Maybe Cassie, and our own Earth’s history, has the answer, “rid the humans of their humanity.” This is one novel I would be anxious to read a second installment of, but I’m not sure one is needed. This novel stands as a testament to the genius of Yancy, and I for one, recommend it to anyone who is up for a sophisticated, engaging read unlike any that have come before it.

Review of The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson

Greenwillow Books

The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns #2)
By Rae Carson
4 Scribbles

Someone within her royal court is sabotaging Queen Elisa, which is not surprising since she only recently took power after the death of her husband. She is young after all, even if she did save the country from destruction.  The pressure is mounting by the day, and Elisa feels the weight of it.  Her royal advisors want her to remarry a neighboring nobleman to increase the security of the nation, and worse, Invierne sorcerers have appeared within the city walls. Clearly, it is the power of Elisa’s godstone that the enemy seeks, but from where does this power come?  In a quest to find the source of the godstone’s power and thus prevent it from falling into enemy hands, Elisa grows into a commanding woman and queen to be reckoned with. Perhaps most importantly, she learns whom she can trust.

What is so refreshing about Elisa is the sheer believability of her character. She starts to grow and change in this installment; she matures. She’s still not perfect, she’s not experienced, and she’s not physically strong.  Even her godstone, which sets her apart from the masses, isn’t something she controls; in fact, some would say the godstone is simply another outside force that controls her. What Elisa has, however, is street-smarts, wisdom, humility, and faith that her life has a special purpose.  What more could a reader want in a protagonist? The action in the story is as entrancing as in book one, even though the country isn’t technically at war. Carson engages us immediately with the intrigue of a possible in-house assassin. And, in a plot device similar to book one, there is the quest; Elisa and a selection of her companions (including Hector) must embark on a journey to find the source of the godstone. Actually, I was glad to see the quest. I was sort of worried at first that we’d be stuck on the castle grounds with Elisa during the whole novel, busily searching through ancient scriptures, looking over our shoulder for a killer and dodging arrows, but alas, no!  In fact, the quest introduces a whole new environment and rich scenery that adds to the world building that began in book one. And, for those readers who want to see action of a different kind, fear not. Elisa may have lost Humberto in book one, but her friendship with Hector is growing stronger—she could be falling in love with him—except for the fact that she is queen and he is a commoner, not exactly an ideal choice for king since he has no power or holdings. But she could at least love him and have a companion, no? Does he feel the same for her? A twist at the end is a bit easy to predict, but no worries, it only serves to tease the reader into anticipating what awesome new developments will take place with Queen Elisa in book three, The Bitter Kingdom, releasing in the Fall of this year, and already on my to-order list!

Review of Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

Little Brown Books for
Young Readers

The Days of Blood & Starlight (Bk. 2 Daughter of Smoke and Bone)
By Laini Taylor
5 Scribbles

No one builds worlds as well as Laini Taylor—well not since Tolkien anyway. And now that Karou knows who she truly is, she is plunged headfirst into the broken world of her people, the chimaera. Filled with vengeance and righteous anger, Karou chooses to join her people in the fight against the angels—and against Akiva—in a crucial role.  But is her choice to turn her back on love worth it?

The characters in this novel are even more lifelike and vivid than in the first. It is easy to become immersed in the world of Elsewhere while reading about wolves, Naja, Kirin and winged creatures designed by Karou’s artistic hand. From Thiago’s glossy white fur and menacing eyes, to Ziri’s lithe, antelope-human body, to Akiva’s special beauty and glowing red wings, the reader is treated to a kaleidoscope of images that become virtual candy for the imagination.  And if the descriptions of the creatures and the world of Elsewhere don’t captivate the reader, then the bloody conflict certainly will. Karou and Akiva, soul mates and lovers in book one, find themselves as sworn enemies in this second installment. For Karou, this means filling Brimstone’s shoes as the new Resurrectionist and trusting Thiago, the wolf she still hates with all her being, but must follow to avenge the deaths of her people. It is a strange situation that places Karou as a sort of voluntary prisoner and amplifies the fact that the need for vengeance now controls her. Akiva, on the other hand, is ready to make amends to Karou, and to cease his killing ways, because “a drop of mercy dilutes a lake of hate.” And while there is truth in this, Karou has not had the benefit of years to heal that brought Akiva to this conclusion—thus, she has sworn to hate him.  How much will Karou be willing to endure, and how many angels will she have to kill in order to find any semblance of peace? And if both sides can come to some peace, will the physical marks of Hamas and tattoo marks of the slain on the angels’ hands, be too much of a reminder of atrocities past for the opposing sides to accept one another?

While the conflicts are heavy, bloody, and battles constant, some comic relief is thankfully present via Karou’s BFF Zuzana, now hooked up with Mic from book one. The two provide welcome foils to the newly-sworn-enemies-once-lovers Akiva and Karou. Zuzana and Mic also show an ironic tolerance for the strange creatures and help illustrate the power of music and kindness on the human (and not so human) soul. Perhaps most importantly, these two characters keep the story grounded, and add a human element to the second book which hints at the idea that humans may play a critical role in book three which I am anxiously awaiting…

Review of The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

Greenwillow Books

The Girl of Fire and Thorns
by Rae Carson
5 Stars

Lady Elisa is special. She is the bearer of the Godstone, a stone placed in her navel by God which marks her as someone who will perform an important act of service during her lifetime. Elisa loves God and studies constantly to know God’s will for her life. But she has been sheltered, and there are things she doesn’t know about the Godstone. There are enemies that would happily kill her to harness its power, and Lady Elisa is in danger. Now, married to the handsome King Alejandro of Joya d’Arena as the seal to a bargain that will provide troops against the enemies of both countries, Elisa wonders, when will her act of service occur, and will she, like most Godstone bearers, die young?

Before I go on and on about how pleased I am to find a tough, independent, resilient, and overweight protagonist who is also a princess, let me first give an enthusiastic shout out to the author of this phenomenal novel; hello and thank you, Rae Carson (OH-IO)! I feel certain that Ms. Carson is going to be one of those YA novelists from the great state of Ohio who stands arm and arm with other gifted YA writers from this state—Cinda Williams Chima, Margaret Peterson Haddix, Sharon Creech, Angela Johnson, Sharon Draper to name a few—all of whom make me proud to be a Buckeye.

First, let me say that while the synopsis of this book (above) makes it sound like a religious book, I would argue that the religious overtones do not at all come off as overly didactic. In fact, when religion is referenced at all, it comes off as highly generic in nature; faith becomes the greater theme that Lady Elisa deals with. Lady Elisa’s character seems naturally concerned with faith, it suits her—especially at the start of the story when she is married off to a handsome stranger who doesn’t really desire her at all, and she is taken to a strange country. Faith is all she has. Will King Alejandro ever desire her? After all she is very, very fat. Like many of us, when Elisa becomes stressed out, concerned, or simply bored, she eats—and because of this, she is a fat bride. Thus, her self-confidence suffers, at least at first, but her faith and intelligence trump her insecurities and help to make her a formidable future queen against her enemy—the neighboring country Invierne. The dynamic changes Elisa goes through during the action in this novel (and the action and conflict between Joya d’Arena & Invierne is the primary focus of the work) make her perhaps my most favorite female protagonist ever!

The secondary characters in the novel are equally interesting. It’s not hard to see early on that the handsome King Alejandro, who Elisa worries over in the start of the novel is a flake. He is spineless and cannot take a stand, even when it comes to acknowledging his own marriage. Indecisive, adulterous, cowardly, and inexperienced, Alejandro cannot hold a candle to Elisa.  Equally as interesting, but not nearly as spineless, are Elisa’s devoted nurse, Ximena, who clearly has a secret past, and the spiteful Cosmé, the handmaiden to her husband’s mistress who seems hell-bent on Elisa’s destruction. But perhaps the most endearing character is Humberto—a humble desert boy who treats Elisa with love and honor, whether she is obese or thin. Who doesn’t love a guy like that?

The writing in the novel is incredibly strong. Unlike many other YA novels that include such disturbing plot twists as arranged marriage, espionage, and war, as this novel does, sensitive situations are dealt with tactfully, and there are absolutely no sexually explicit scenes.  The author uses Spanish (or perhaps Italian?) words to add an exotic feel to the narrative, and this, coupled with the fantastic descriptions of deserts and sandstorms made this Ohio native feel like I’ve traveled to lands far away. Each chapter was short and punctuated with enough action and intrigue to keep me on the edge of my seat.  

Happily and in her own words, “God is not done with [Elisa] yet”—book two, Crown of Embers is already on the shelves, and I’ve just ordered my copy.