#CBR5 Book 67. "Ella Enchanted" by Gail Carson Levine

Page count: 240 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Ella lives in a fairytale world, where there are ogres, giants, fairies and magic. When she is born, poor Ella is given the gift of obedience by a very misguided fairy, who refuses to take it back, even after the appalled pleading of Ella's mother and fairy godmother. Lucinda the Fairy is of the opinion that this is a wonderful gift to bestow on a child, and so Ella grows up having to obey any direct order given to her, and knowing that if someone were to ask her to chop off her own head, she'd have to obey. Luckily, the only ones who actually know the truth about Ella's "gift" are her mother, and the loyal cook. Ella also learns to be creative in the ways in which she obeys any orders. If asked to fetch something, she might throw it at the person, or when asked to hold something, she might march around with the object, forcing the other person to follow her around in order to get to it.

Then Ella's beloved mother gets sick, and dies. Her father, a merchant, is barely ever around. When he is home, he's worried that Ella's manners and accomplishments aren't necessarily all those a young lady should possess, and against Ella's wishes, he sends her off to finishing school, with the odious daughters of a friend. On the way there, Hattie, the eldest of the two girls, discovers that Ella, however reluctant, has to do exactly what she's told, and she exploits this as much as she can. Olive, the younger, and much stupider sister, is not let in on the "game". Because of her "gift", Ella actually becomes quite accomplished at "finishing". She has to obey orders, and most of the teachers there speak in nothing else. She also makes a good friend, and keeps in touch with Mandy (the cook and her fairy godmother) and others she cares about, including Prince Charmant, through the pages of a magical book.

Ella is desperate to have her birthday curse broken, and when she discovers that Lucinda loves weddings and christenings, she runs away from school to find the fairy at a giants' wedding across the kingdom. On the way, she has several adventures, including nearly being eaten by ogres. After the wedding, her father declares that he's completely broke, and either he or Ella will have to marry someone wealthy. As Ella is only fifteen, it ends up being her father, who marries Hattie and Olive's horrid mother. Once the bride discovers that Ella's father is a pauper, and Ella's father goes off to trade as far away from his new family as possible, she forces Ella to be a servant, and Hattie and Olive make sure that Ella get the most menial and horrible chores in the house. The only thing keeping Ella's spirits up, is her correspondence with Prince Char - but because of her terrible "gift", she could never marry a prince, she could put him and the kingdom in far too much danger. She becomes even more determined to get her curse broken.

I first heard about this book years ago, but never read it. I then saw the film, starring Anne Hathaway, never realising that there are only the tiniest of similarities between the story of the book, and the plot of the film. If you are one of the people not terribly impressed with the movie (which let's face it, is not exactly one of Hathaway's finest), and has discounted the book because of it, do yourself a favour and find a copy as soon as possible. It's a delightful book, and such a creative retelling of the Cinderella tale. There are no tiny animals helping with dress making, nor any birds pecking out the stepsister's eyes (seriously, Grimm's original fairy tales can scar a child for life!), but there are glass slippers, and a coach made from a pumpkin, and evil stepsisters, and a very charming prince, who likes Ella just the way she is, and doesn't at all want her all "finished" at school. Ella is spirited, and clever and brave, and a wonderful role model to young girls. Much better than any Disney princess I can think of.

#CBR5 Book 66. "Fly by Night" by Frances Hardinge

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Plot summary by Goodreads, because it's much more pithy than anything I myself could write:

After her father dies, Mosca Mye flees the hamlet where she grew up. With her goose companion and a smooth-tongued swindler, Eponymous Clent, she heads for the city of Mandelion - and a better life. There she finds herself living by her wits among highwaymen, spies and smugglers, insane rulers and floating coffeehouses. With peril at every turn, Mosca uncovers a dark plot to terrorize the people of Mandelion, and soon merry mayhem leads to murder...

Mosca is a clever child, living in a town where most people can't read, in a world where if something is found printed without the authorising seal of the Stationers' Guild, it's seen as illegal, and must be burned. The world she lives in resembles ours, in the 18th Century, to some extent. Various Guilds of Tradesmen vie for power in the various cities of the Realm, while Parliament debate who should inherit the throne. About ten years past, there was a terrible Civil War, when the religious radical group the Birdcatchers were all hunted down and destroyed. In Mandelion, the ruling Duke is clearly going slowly insane, his beautiful and enigmatic sister is trying to keep the Locksmith's Guild (who have the keys to any door and lock) from completely taking over, and there is someone with an illegal printing press, encouraging sedition and stirring up dangerous thoughts. Mosca is thrust straight into the middle of all of this, with her somewhat dubious companion, self-proclaimed wordsmith and con man, Eponymous Clent. Accompanied by a foul tempered gander and wanting desperately to better her situation in the world, Mosca agrees to help the alluring Lady Tamarind (the Duke's sister) try to figure out what is going on.

Mosca was taught to read by her father, who fled Mandelion years ago. She's fiercely intelligent, and hates her staid village life. In a town where no one else reads, she soaks up new words and learning like a sponge. She's so seduced by the silver-tongued Clent and "his way with words" that she rescues him from the stocks (and accidentally burns down her uncle's mill), and they go on the run together. She's learned early not to entirely trust anyone, which is a good quality to have in Mandelion, where the political situation is so fraught that the smallest spark could ignite another civil uprising.

This is a lovely and exciting book, wonderfully written - not surprising considering how much Mosca loves words so much. Frances Hardinge doesn't talk down to the middle grade/young adult audience she writes for, and I was amazed when I discovered that this was, in fact, her debut novel. I first read about this book on the The Book Smugglers' blog, where they're also highly enthusiastic about her other books. While this is my first Hardinge novel, it certainly won't be my last.

#CBR5 Book 65. "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" by Neil Gaiman

Page count: 181 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Our unnamed narrator returns to the old farm near his childhood home after a funeral in Sussex. He remembers his childhood friend Lettie Hempstock, who lived in the old farmhouse, at the end of the lane near his house, and while looking out over the pond in the back (which Lettie claimed was an ocean), he slowly remembers the strange and horrifying events of his childhood, after one of his parents' lodgers stole their car and killed himself, not far from the house. There are dark and inexplicable consequences, and the three generations of Hempstock women help our narrator try to set things to rights.

This is Neil Gaiman's first book for adults since Anansi Boys in 2005. As that book is probably my least favourite of all his works, with the notable exception of Marvel 1602 and Eternals (which were so boring I don't even have the words), I was hoping that the excellent writing in his books for children and young adults would carry through to this story as well. I had very high expectations, because for all that I think his shorter fiction (comic book issues, short stories) is what he does best, it was just so unexpected and exciting to discover, early this year, that he had a new book out. Of course, this dark fable is a sliver of a book compared to, for instance American Gods. It's much more like Coraline, both in size and tone.

If you like Neil Gaiman, and you've read things by him before, you will recognise a lot of different things in this book. There's a child protagonist, there's really creeping and effective horror, there's a wealth of mythology and magical realism and the locations are so faithfully rendered that you feel as if you're in the story. I also think, as confirmed by the author himself, and his wife, Amanda Palmer, that it's his most personal book yet. It's thoughtful, and magical and creepy as hell, and I absolutely loved every last page of it, so much so that I also used one of my Audible credits to get the audio book as well. That way I was able to have Neil Gaiman read me parts of the story, with his wonderfully soothing voice, which came in very handy when I had to clean my office at work, and really only wanted to read. If you're not a fan of Gaiman, this book is likely to convert you. If you are a fan, you need to read this book. It's wonderful, in every sense of the word.

#CBR5 Book 64. "True" by Erin McCarthy

Page count: 222 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars

Rory Macintosh is a shy med student, who shares a dorm room with two ditzy party girls. When they discover that Rory is still a virgin, they seem to think this is such a burden for her that they misguidedly go behind her back and pay someone to help her lose it. Said guy is Tyler Mann, a tattooed, struggling bad boy in the EMT program, who just wants to get a job as quickly as possible, so he can save his younger brothers from their drug addict mother. He's under no illusions that he's good enough for Rory, but he agrees to her roommates' dumb plan (never intending to take their money), so he can get closer to her, and get to know her better.

Rory is worried about spending time with Tyler at first, as her roommate Jessica used to hook up with him. When she overhears her roommates talking about their "brilliant scheme", she's upset, but also puzzled, as while she's been spending quite a bit of time with Tyler, he's not really been obviously trying to get her into bed. Tyler keeps warning her away from him, especially after she finds out about his super dysfunctional home life. Rory's dad is none too happy about her dating what he sees as a clear delinquent. Then Tyler's mother does something that can destroy all Tyler's chances of a decent future, and Rory has to decide what she really wants.

New adult is a newly emerging genre label, and from the books I've read classified thus so far, it means you write a contemporary romance where you take a college age good girl, and set her up with a wounded college age bad boy. Everything suggests that they shouldn't be together, but somehow they make it work anyway. Unlike in YA, there is usually a sex scene or two, but it's nothing particularly raunchy - this is NEW adult, after all, not actual adult. This is one of the duller examples of the genre, and if I hadn't been stuck in the woods with the kids I teach during a sleepover, needing something to read while I stayed awake at night, I'm not entirely sure I'd have bothered with it. The initial plot contrivance to get the characters together just seemed very forced, and the author so went out of her way to throw obstacles in the couple's path, that I'm honestly not sure they can have a realistic long term HEA. This is, however, the first book in a series, so I'm assuming Rory and Tyler will show up as secondary characters in later books, and the readers (if they can be bothered to continue with the series) will see if they actually make it in the end.

#CBR5 Book 63. "The Light Between Oceans" by M.L. Steadman

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Tom Sherbourne was a soldier in Europe during World War I. Deeply affected by his experiences, and the guilt he feels for the lives he took, he signs up for a job as a lighthouse keeper, taking postings at the most remote and lonely lighthouses around Australia. When a posting becomes available on Janus Rock, a place so remote and lonely, other lighthouse keepers have been driven mad, Tom agrees to go, first as a temporary replacement, and later as the official lighthouse keeper. The only human contact is the supply boat that comes every three months.

Tom falls in love with a young woman, Isabel, and despite his initial reservations, marries her and brings her to Janus Rock. To begin with, they are blissfully happy, alone with each other in a place nearly a day's journey from the coast. After several years, things are more strained. Isabel has miscarried twice, and two weeks after her third pregnancy ended in stillbirth, she first believes herself to be hallucinating, when she hears a baby's cries on the island. A small boat, with a dead man and a living baby, has washed up on shore. Tom, always meticulous in his record keeping, wants to report the  findings to the authorities right away. Isabel begs him to wait, just a day, so she can spend some time with the baby. Against all his better judgement, Tom agrees, and he's then persuaded by his desperate grieving wife that they should just bury the dead man, and claim the baby as their own, naming her Lucy. No one knows that Isabel miscarried, they can just pass off the foundling child as their own.

Being on lighthouse duty means the couple only get holiday on shore every three years. Little Lucy is already two years old by the time the Sherbournes return to the mainland, and discover the truth about where their baby really came from. There is a grieving young woman in town, wondering about the fate of her husband and nearly newborn child, lost at sea so long ago. Her wealthy father has promised a fortune in reward for anyone who can give information. Can the Sherbournes continue their deception in the face of someone else's obvious grief?

I am not the first person to read and love this book. I'm not even the first Cannonballer. It's currently got over ten thousand 5 star reviews on Goodreads and over fifteen thousand 4 star reviews. It also won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Historical Fiction last year. So it seemed like a pretty obvious choice to pick as my first "Read a book everyone else has read" for my Book Bingo card. The fact that I can also use it for my Monthly Keyword challenge, my A to Z challenge AND my historical fiction challenge, was just a bonus. Frankly, with the amount of reading challenges I'm doing at the moment, it's rare that the books don't at least qualify for at least three different ones.

Enough about my crazy need to make my reading more competitive - what was so awesome about this book? Was it the heart-breaking subject matter? Was it the lyrical writing that was so beautiful you just want to stop and read it out loud? Was it the interesting and slightly unusual setting and time period? Was it the skillful way the story was unfolded, making it nearly impossible to put the book down because you just had to read one more page, one more chapter? Was it the wonderfully rendered and extremely complex protagonists, who you just wanted to hug and comfort, at the same time as you often wanted to shake them until their teeth rattled? Was it the great cast of supporting characters, who again didn't feel like characters in a book, but real live people who you just had the fortune to be experiencing on the page? Unsurprisingly, it was all of these things. The fact that this is Stedman's first novel fills me with awe and admiration and bitter jealous rage all at once. I can't wait to see what she writes next. Do yourself a favour and read this book. You are unlikely to regret it.

#CBR5 Book 62. "Gameboard of the Gods" by Richelle Mead

Page count: 464 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Book summary from Goodreads, cause I'm lazy, and because it covers all the pertinent points:

In a futuristic world nearly destroyed by religious extremists, Justin March lives in exile after failing in his job as an investigator of religious groups and supernatural claims. But Justin is given a second chance when Mae Koskinen comes to bring him back to the Republic of United North America (RUNA). Raised in an aristocratic caste, Mae is now a member of the military's most elite and terrifying tier, a soldier with enhanced reflexes and skills. 

When Justin and Mae are assigned to work together to solve a string of ritualistic murders, they soon realize that their discoveries have exposed them to terrible danger. As their investigation races forward, unknown enemies and powers greater than they can imagine are gathering in the shadows, ready to reclaim the world in which humans are merely game pieces on their board.

Gameboard of the Gods, the first instalment of Richelle Mead's Age of X series, will have all the elements that have made her YA Vampire Academy and Bloodlines such mega successes: sexy, irresistible characters; romantic and mythological intrigue; and relentless action and suspense.

I included the last "promo" bit as well, because this is the bit where I'm not entirely in agreement with whoever at Penguin writes the cover blurbs. In the last quarter of the book, there is absolutely quite a lot of action and suspense. To start with, however, the book is actually quite slow, as we are introduced to Justin, who is in exile in (decadent and clearly not as awesome as RUNA) Panama. Considering he comes from a society where organised religion and the supernatural is seen as something bad and dangerous, and he seems to keep the company of two wise cracking ravens (named Horatio and Magnus - or are they?) that only he can see, it's not surprising that his employers forced him into exile. Trying to ignore them, and the deal they're trying to make him seal, means Justin numbs his senses to an epic degree, with alcohol or drugs or casual hookups. Justin can't believe his luck, when after four years, he's promised his job back, a generous pay rise, and pretty much anything he asks for as long as he returns immediately. If he can't solve the ritualistic murders before the next full moon, though, his chances of staying in RUNA may be blown forever.

Mae Koskinen is a praetorian guard, the most elite of the soldiers swearing their allegiance to RUNA. With no organised religion, loyalty to the Republic is the closest most people come to beliefs. At the funeral of her ex-lover, Mae loses her temper, and gets into a vicious fight. As a reprimand, she's no longer allowed to wear the signature black uniform of the praetorians, and she's asked to assist in bringing Justin back to RUNA, then to act as his bodyguard while he investigates the murders. The job is complicated by the fact that Justin and Mae have a one night stand shortly after they first meet, when neither of them know who the other really is. Despite being irresistibly drawn towards Mae, Justin can't risk acting on his attraction a second time without binding himself into the service of the mysterious power who sent him the ravens (three guesses as to who this is - I called it on page 2 or 3, when the names of the ravens were revealed). Justin plays up his carousing and  womanizing ways to great effect, to keep Mae disgusted with him and at a safe distance.

There's a third POV in the book as well. Tessa is a sixteen-year-old Panamanian girl, and the daughter of the man who took Justin in when he was exiled. Justin promised to try to get their entire family entry into RUNA, but can only secure a student visa for Tessa. Through her chapters, the reader gets a lot of exposition and world building. RUNA is a much more technologically advanced and ideologically different from the "provinces" Tessa is from. She's constantly amazed at how prejudicial and narrow minded most people she meets are, despite them coming from an allegedly much more civilized nation. She's also sharp as a tack, and helps Justin and Mae with several aspects of their investigation.

While the blurb also promises "sexy, irresistible characters", one of the things I liked was that neither Justin nor Mae are all that likable at first. Justin is a born manipulator and extremely convinced of his own brilliance. Pretty much the first thing we encounter in the book is Mae beating a fellow soldier to a pulp. She's distant, somewhat elitist and clearly extremely dangerous. Yet as the book progresses, you get to know the characters better, and it's made perfectly clear that a book or two (hopefully, I hate when unresolved sexual tension is dragged out for too long) they will clearly become an item.

I don't know if it's me, or whether the references to various mythologies and gods was supposed to be quite as obvious as I found them. To be fair, I'm more than averagely interested in mythology, and I've also read a lot of urban fantasy, where quite a lot of various deities and belief systems feature. I liked that in a society where humans have tried to banish anything to do with religion, there's now such a power vacuum that the various gods are trying to gain supporters directly and seize as much control as possible. As I said, I can't think that the ravens weren't supposed to be a pretty huge clue as to who's trying to get Justin to become one of his acolytes, and I figured out the goddess who was trying to gain control of Mae with the second clue (to be fair, given the clue, it was bound to be that goddess - it always seems to end up being her).

While the book started slow, and I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, by about a third of the way in, I was hooked, and now I have another Richelle Mead series to wait impatiently for new books in. I just hope that, unlike the Dark Swan series, this one doesn't end disappointingly.

Disclaimer - this book was an ARC granted to me from Penguin Group Dutton through NetGalley. I've not let that influence my review in any way, and have given my opinions as honestly and ramblingly as I always do, whether I've bought the book myself, or been gifted it.

#CBR5 Book 61. "Fangirl" by Rainbow Rowell

Page count: 416 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Cather and Wren are twins (their mother hadn't planned on twins but always wanted to name a girl Catherine - so just split the name). Their whole life has been spent together, sharing a room, sharing interests, especially their love of Simon Snow (think basically Harry Potter, if Draco was his room mate, and also a vampire). Cath and Wren write fan fic read by tens of thousands of fans, while everyone awaits the release of the eight and final Simon Snow book. Cath doesn't really think much will change when they go off to college, but then  Wren declares that she wants to live in a different dorm from Cath, and spends most of her time having the crazy party girl freshman experience, leaving Cath anxious and adrift in a new and confusing place.

Cath isn't even sure she wants to be at college. She's worried about their father, who manages fine most of the time, when his girls remind him to eat, and do the dishes, and the laundry. His mental health really isn't as stable as it ought to be, and Cath doesn't think he should be by himself. For the first couple of weeks, she barely even leaves her dorm room, just holes up and eats energy bars, goes to lectures and continues her fan fiction grand opus. The only people she sees are Reagan (who seems very popular, but kind of aggressive and angry all the time), and Reagan's boyfriend Levi, who works at Starbucks and studies farming and is happy and cheerful all the time, winning even the bitterest of souls over with his charming attitude. Reagan decides to "adopt" Cath, and forces her to come to meals (where they quietly mock and make up stories about everyone else there).

There are other reasons Cath has trouble adjusting to college: her writing professor, who Cath admires greatly, is completely dismissive of and refuses to support fan fiction. She won't let Cath hand in anything even vaguely inspired by Simon Snow, and keeps pushing Cath to write things well outside her comfort zone. Wren keeps pulling away from Cath, and seems to spend most of her time getting dangerously drunk with her roommate. She also wants to reconnect with the girls' mother, who abandoned them the week after 9/11 to "find herself". Still scarred by the betrayal and remembering how much it affected their father, Cath wants nothing to do with her, or even to hear her mentioned. Finally, there's her father's health. Cath is right to be worried about her dad, who while he tries to sound chipper, really doesn't deal as well without his daughters as he'd like to think.

It's no secret that I love Rainbow Rowell. Attachments was one of my top 3 books of 2011, and if I hadn't been made so intensely uncomfortable by Eleanor's home life in Eleanor and Park, I probably would have given that five stars too. I literally screamed with joy when I saw that I'd been granted an ARC by St. Martin's Press through NetGalley. To say that my expectations were high was not an understatement. After completing it, I can say that Attachments is probably still my favourite, but this is a worthy second place.

I've been a fangirl of many things over the years, but I've never really understood the appeal of fan fiction, be it the reading or writing thereof. Obviously I'm aware that it exists, and that thousands of people around the world spend their time, like Cath in this book, on forums, and message boards and fan fiction sites. I'd rather just re-read the books I loved, or watch the TV shows, rather than reading someone else's interpretation of the characters and stories that I loved. Yet Rowell writes Cath so well, that while I was urging her to break out of her comfort zone and live and meet boys and use her considerable writing talent to create her own character and worlds, rather than stay safe in the world of the fantasy characters she loved, I could also understand why it was important and necessary for her.

I can also add the Simon Snow books to the list of fictional books that I desperately want to get my hands on. The first instance of being almost more caught up in the fiction within the fiction was probably when I read Misery by Stephen King as a teenager. I would have been completely hooked on those books. I was upset that they didn't exist. I love the fact that I can read Richard Castle's actual Nikki Heat books. The various excerpts from Simon Snow books in Fangirl (usually at the end of each chapter) made me desperate to read more. I suspect I would enjoy them more than certainly the later Harry Potter books.

This is becoming a really long review, and while I've written a bit about Cath, I've not really covered much about the other wonderful characters in this book. Wren, who so understandably wants to try to define herself away from her identical twin sister. Their father, with his manic ideas and so much affection for his daughters. Reagan, Cath's roommate, and of course, Levi, who I fell madly in love with, and have added to the list of my many fictional boyfriends and future husbands. If you've even vaguely enjoyed a Rainbow Rowell book in the past, do yourself a favour and read this one. If you haven't, this is a great book to start with, although I suspect you might need to have some affinity to fandom of some kind to really sympathise fully with Cath. While I was given this ARC, I will totally pay full price for the book when it's actually released in September, and begin my impatient wait for Rowell's next book.