Once Upon a Bookshelf

Lewis Carroll got the story all wrong. He even spelled Alyss’s name wrong. (Alice? Pfft.) This is the real story about Alyss of Wonderland.

On Princess Alyss’s seventh birthday, her mother and father get murdered by her Aunt Redd who believes that she is the rightful ruler of the Queendom of Wonderland. Alyss’s mother, before her confrontation with Redd, sends Alyss off to our world through a mirror to protect her from Redd. Redd is a tyrant of a Queen - there is a small band of Alyssians who have formed a resistance, but they don’t have any real belief that they can oppose Redd. Meanwhile, in our world, Alyss has been adopted by a family and is determined to forget Wonderland after Lewis Carroll took her story and twisted it into the story we know today.

When the Alyssians finally get Alyss back to Wonderland, they all wonder whether Alyss has what it takes to defeat the queen and take her rightful place on the throne of Wonderland.

I can totally understand what all the fuss about this book is about. It was such a joy to read. It definitely gave a different spin to things, which for the most part I loved, but at other times I found to be a lot less fantastical than the original Alice in Wonderland. I have to admit that this was sometimes disappointing. I do love the new take on all of the characters though - it made some of them seem more dangerous, and was more depth all around. There were also new characters in both Wonderland and our world that were all fabulously well developed.

There was Alyss, though. I have to admit that there were parts about her that I didn’t like very much. She reminded me far too much of Susan from Narnia - Susan ends up believing that Narnia is all make-believe by the end of the series, and Alyss makes herself forget about Wonderland. Then all of a sudden Alyss goes back and it seems like she doesn’t do too much work to become powerful again. I would have liked that part explored a little more - her learning how to use and control her imagination again.

Other than that, the story was wonderful, as was Beddor’s writing style, and I’m very much looking forward to reading Seeing Redd - thanks Lisa for sending me both! :)

I should be posting about Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass Wars which I finished two days ago. Except for the fact that I picked this book up as soon as I had finished reading The Looking Glass Wars, and there hasn’t been a free moment since then when I haven’t been reading Audrey, Wait! Yes, it was that good.

I’m going to start by saying that anyone who knows there is nothing better than the thrill you get when a band you love first walks on stage, whether it be in a small, dirty, sketchy bar or a large concert venue, will get this book. You will highly enjoy this book. You may even love it as I have loved it.

Audrey, Wait! is the story of Audrey, a teen girl who finds herself thrown into unwanted stardom when the breakup song her ex-boyfriend wrote for her launched his music career. It’s hard to be a normal 16 year old high school girl when the whole world knows who you are, Audrey is quickly learning. Paparazzi are following her around, publications are constantly calling for interviews, fans start showing up on her doorstep, her school and her part-time job. But things aren’t all bad for Audrey - at least according to her best friend Victora, who is all over the idea of Audrey getting all sorts of free stuff now that she’s a celebrity. But seriously, how can you go out on a date with the cute guy you work with if you can’t go anywhere without all sorts of people showing up just to see you?

The first thing that struck me about this book was that the author obviously had great taste in music. And when I say great, I mean, MAN. Just take a look at the soundtrack - Death Cab? Panic at the Disco? Not to mention that The Clash and The Ramones are both mentioned in the book. The only group the author missed is The Juliana Theory, and then it could’ve practically been called “The Book That Mentions All of Courtney’s Favourite Bands.”

Once I got over that fact, I started loving the book for the characters in it - most particularly Audrey. Audrey is awesome. Although she became a hermit for a time to avoid all the craziness that seemed to be surrounding her all of a sudden, she ended up overcoming her fear of it, and showing the world that she really is nothing more than a typical high school girl.

The book was more enjoyable than other books of the sort where the main character all of a sudden becomes the center of the world’s attention, and certainly came across as much more realistic. The only thing that got on my nerves with this book was the cover - at first I loved it. It still looks great as a small thumbnail. But the typography in parts really bother me now - the spacing between the letters is so noticeable in some places that it is now all I can see when looking at the cover. Alas!

ANYWAY, highly recommend this book. Highly.

Let me start with saying that anyone who is a fan of Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quartet ought to read this book.

Sarah’s world is turned upside down when her parents die in a plane crash on their way back home from visiting her genius brother, Sam. Sam has been working at CIPHER, a company that no one knows anything about no matter how much they try to discover, and his parents had been trying to convince him to look into why this company is so secretive. After their parents death and funeral, Sam goes back to work at CIPHER, creating a machine that will allow people to travel to other planets, and even though Sarah wants nothing more than to live with Sam now that they’re on their own, she is sent to live with her father’s step brother, whom she barely knows. That’s only the beginning of when things start to get interesting - someone leaves her notes in the library, a strange man follows her, and she has caught the eye of a cute boy who seems to be intent on protecting her.

When she receives a package from her brother containing a stone, however, things really start to get strange. Soon Sarah and Angel (the cute boy) are brought to a new planet by the stone, and Sarah has to try to find her brother in hopes that they can all get back to earth safely.

I knew from the first paragraph that not only would I love this book, but that I had found a kindred spirit in Sarah:

Outside the March sky was gray and overcast, threatening snow, but in Sarah Lucas’s room a fire blazed in the blue-tiled fireplace, and the lamp beside her canopy bed cast a cheerful light. Balancing Wuthering Heights on her knees, she poured a second cup of tea from the small brown teapot on the bedside table, took a bite of toast, and licked the honey from her fingers. There was homework to be done, but it could wait.

This was quite the engaging book. The characters were all fabulously developed, the plot was exciting, and it took me to places my imagination reveled in. I love good stories where the characters travel to new worlds, when the author can pull off creating a believable world that is so different than ours.

The is perhaps one of the reasons that The Dream of the Stone reminded me quite a bit of L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. These two books have so many of the same elements - the journey to another world to rescue a family member, the darkness threatening to take over the universe, the young girl developing the strength to fight off the darkness, the subtle Christian theme throughout… and yet, and the same time they are so different. In this one the main differences being that a stone brings Sarah to this new world instead of three immortal beings, and the darkness is coming FROM our world, not coming TO our world. And then there is the fact that this book isn’t as cheesy as Wrinkle. Don’t get me wrong, I love A Wrinkle in Time - it has always been one of my favourite books. But it can get cheesy. Need I mention Calvin stating that Meg has “dream-boat eyes”?

I also found that The Dream of the Stone felt more modern than Wrinkle. I think it was the way the characters acted, as there wasn’t much mention of technology that could have defined this book to coming from a certain era. I mean, yes, Sarah’s brother Sam is creating a machine that uses worm holes to send people across the universe, and normally human technology like that is considered to be from the future, but as the technology he’s using to create this machine isn’t fully described it could very well take place at almost any point in time. If I hadn’t known that this book was originally written over a decade ago, I would have completely believed it had only been written a few years ago because it doesn’t talk a lot about technology, and technology changes so quickly that it can date a book so fast too. Oh wow, I’m starting to ramble now.

What it comes down to is that this is a positively brilliant book, and Sabrina was positively right in telling me that I needed to read The Dream of the Stone. This will be sitting alongside Wrinkle on my bookshelf and will be pulled out time and again to be reread.

Thirteen year old Rory was happily believing that the world was a completely normal place until the magician Hex played a trick on him that opened his eyes to Mannahatta. Now, he sees strange things everywhere he looks - cockroaches riding on rats, people made of paper mache, as well as people and animals that no one else can see. Rory soon learns that he is a Light - a person who can see the truth, and can make others see the truth of what is really there. Hex is excited about the fact that Rory is a Light - most Lights don’t live more than a few years, so Rory is the oldest one to be found in a Very Long Time. But is Hex just trying to manipulate Rory and take advantage of what he is in order to get what he wants?

Mannahatta, the world that Rory can now see, is a world parallel to the real Manhattan. It’s comprised of gods and other spirits - the gods being people in our own world who, after their death, return to Mannahatta because of something they were remembered for in our world. The gods in Mannahatta don’t die, they just fade away when people in our world stop remembering them. Except recently, someone has been murdering these gods.

Will Rory’s ability to see the truth help figure out who is murdering these gods? And does he really want to help Hex in his plot?

Starting this, I was not completely sure whether I would enjoy it or not… but it turns out that I completely loved it. I think this may be one of my favourite young adults/childrens books that I have read in a while. It was imaginative, and it was quite different. Had all of the things I consider necessary in a really good book: magic, girls kicking butt, and boys prancing about in early 19th century clothing. (But make no mistake, this isn’t a book about girls kicking butt, it’s about boys kicking butt, but there were a couple of awesome female characters.)

The characters were all great. Rory was a little concerning at first - he seemed to sound more like a adult than a young teen, but considering his father left his family when he was super young, and he had to take care of his younger sister since their mother works ALL THE TIME… he had to grow up quickly, so the fact that he sounded quite a bit older than he’s supposed to be seemed a bit more understandable.

The supporting characters were fabulous - especially some of the people who inhabit Mannahatta. I most particularly loved the Rattle Watch. They are definitely people I would like to have on my side in trouble. As for other characters in Mannahatta, well, I was a little upset about the fact that my favourite character ended up being the assassin. He was so much fun, and he reminded me of Draco from Cassie Claire’s Draco Trilogy.

Definitely looking forward to more books about Mannahatta. There’s so many questions I have unanswered about this - especially since Rory saw his father in Mannahatta. I’m dying to know what happened to him.

Abby has a plan. A plan to find her One True Love, and to avoid getting impregnated while in high school, causing her to drop out and never graduate like her two older sisters. And with this plan, she has come up with five rules - rules she developed through her many hours watching soap operas and her sisters’ mistakes - in order to find her One True Love:

Rule #1 - Find Someone New.
Rule #2 - No Baggage from Past Relationships.
Rule #3 - Looks Aren’t Everything.
Rule #4 - Don’t Need Him.
Rule #5 - Get Out of Town.

Only problem is that her best friend’s older brother, Jackson, has just come back to town, and while Abby has the hots for him, he definitely DOES NOT fit in with the rules.

I’m somewhat torn about this book. On one hand, I found it perversely entertaining. On the other hand, the author didn’t make me empathize with or care for any of the characters. The main character, and her family, are exactly what the title implies - white trash. I don’t understand what motivated these characters, and the author didn’t make that any easier. Especially when we get into the details about how Abby’s step-father also dated her oldest sister, and is her other sister’s daughter’s father, and is still sleeping with her oldest sister while still being married to her mom. Um, yeah. It was like watching an episode of Jerry Springer. And unless you’re a fan of Jerry Springer, I would suggest you skip this one.