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.

Joanna and her friends are all at that stage in their very late twenties where they are starting to make their way in the real world after college, when Lucas’s uncle commits suicide and he inherits Stoneborough Manor. Lucas intends for this large property in Oxford to be the place for their group of friends to get together every weekend, but things don’t always go as planned.

Soon the malevolent atmosphere surrounding the house starts to have an effect on everyone there - especially Joanna and Lucas. Lucas has also become obsessed with films that he found in the house of his parents, uncle, and their friends at the same age where Lucas, Joanna and their group of friends are now. When Lucas starts living at the house full-time, things really start taking their toll on him - he has become, to say the least, unstable. Things continue to get worse for him when he uncovers the secret between his father’s and his uncle’s deaths.

While I enjoyed this book, I had the feeling throughout the whole thing that it wasn’t quite as good as it could have been. It was just creepy enough, didn’t push the boundaries of creepiness. There was almost thick atmosphere that you could taste, but it was only almost there. Then, at times the narration felt extremely awkward. Whitehouse seemed to merge the present with memories of what happened in the past without a noticeable break, which lead to confusion until I realized what was going on. I got used to it as the book progressed, but it never flowed really well for me in those instances.

There were, however, certain redeeming qualities about the book. The characters were well developed, and the growth they went through during the year that the book takes place was sometimes frightening, and sometimes invigorating. The house itself had a characterization that overtook the whole book as well. Rather intense at times (though not as eerie as I had hoped it to be).

I did enjoy this book, even though it wasn’t everything I hoped for. It was a good fluffy read, perfect for the rainy weather we’ve been having recently.

This is my thirteenth, and last, book for the Canadian Book Challenge; I heard about it earlier during this challenge as another participant read it. As soon as I saw that there was a butter tart featured on the cover of the book, I knew I was meant to read it. (Slight tangent: Butter tarts are one of my all-time favourite dessert-ish foods, and I feel only the greatest pity for anyone who is not living in Canada and cannot get one whenever one darn well pleases. Best Things Ever.)

Only in Canada, You Say is a collection of words that are truly Canadian - whether they are words only Canadians use, or whether they have developed a different meaning than what is typically associated with the word. It’s pretty much a glorified dictionary, with words separated into different themes - politics, food, sports, etc. I was surprised, not only by the number of words that I didn’t know (as they came from different parts of the country), but also by the number of words that I did know - I would never have thought if I used them elsewhere in the world (or possibly even elsewhere in the country) that no one else would understand what I was talking about. For example, a stag and doe is apparently an event that typically only happens around here (or at least by that name) - an event to help a couple raise money for their wedding by having guests buy drinks, pay to play games, etc.

It was very informative, and could be used as a great conversation starter. I was reading it while visiting my parents this past weekend, and don’t even know how many times I had to pause and relate to my parents the newest word I had discovered was a Canadian word or had a truly Canadian meaning that we never would have supposed. A little dry at times (as I said it was pretty much a glorified dictionary), and the introductions to each section sounded like they were meant to be funny but weren’t… but other than that, it was quite fun, and I’ve already passed it on to my grandparents, who not only have fabulous taste in books as it is (my grandfather was talking about Will Ferguson this weekend!) but who will also enjoy this book as much as I did.

Based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty is the story of three girls working at a drive-through coffee shop for the summer. Geena, our main Betty of the story, is determined to have a fabulous summer. But things don’t go according to plan - her best friend, Amber, and her cousin, Hero, hate each other at first meeting. When they do start getting along, it seems that it’s only to trick Geena into believing the boy she has always had a rivalry with actually likes her. Then, someone posts nude photos of Hero on MySpace - except, Hero didn’t actually pose for any nude photos. This of course causes the boy that Hero loves to ditch her because she is, as he says, a “hoochie.” Now, it’s up to the Geena to get to the bottom of this, and try to put everything to rights before the summer is over.

Teen girls would love this. It’s a good summer book - thoughtless, entertaining and fun. As for me… it was cute, but I didn’t find it phenomenal. It was amusing, but it wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny. It had good parts - Geena’s numerous names for her dad’s girlfriend, for one. It was a very fast read, and kept me entertained, but it doesn’t strike me as one of those books that is particularly memorable.

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.

Michael Adams formed the Environics group of marketing research and communications consulting companies. When he first wrote and published this book over a decade ago, he had been working as a pollster in Canada for twenty-five years. He wrote this book in order to

… portray the diversity of the Canadian character in a way that has not been done before. It is a pschographic geography of Canada. Sex in the Snow is based on in-depth surveys of Canadians’ social values, scientific investigations of the underlying motivations that propel our culture.

While this was rereleased in 2006, Adams assures us in the preface that what was discussed when this was first published is only more evident today. I found it not only to be very educational and thought-provoking, but to also be written in a way that is really easy to understand. It’s not dry and isn’t something that takes a long time to get through, but was completely interesting and even rather humorous at times too.

A good majority of the book talks about how different generational groups think, and what drives them. He even goes so far as to break down each generational group into even more segments to show how different people in these generational groups can really be from each other. The other part of the book talks about how males and females relate and differ from each other, how we feel about technology, and how Canadians differ from Americans.

The last chapter (about Canadians and Americans) was the most interesting for me. I hadn’t realized how vastly different Canadian and American values were. I don’t know how much these differences in values are still present, as the preface doesn’t touch on that, but I would be interested to see how it is today. Some points that Adams said about how Canadians compared to Americans ten years ago are:

• Canadians are “even more critical of institutional authority and of our élites than Americans are of theirs”
• Canadians are now less religious than Americans, though we used to be more so
• Canadians consider our culture to be a “mosaic” whereas Americans consider theirs to be a “melting pot”
• Canadians “treasure equality” while Americans “treasure freedom”

I would highly recommend this book to people who are interested in learning more about how Canadians think and act, whether you are interested in it from a marketing perspective or a personal perspective. Definitely an interesting book.

This was my twelfth book for the Canadian Book Challenge.

Hildy Biddle is a high school reporter trying to prove that she is ready to bring the truth to the world. And her community is definitely a place where the truth needs to be brought forth - the local newspaper has been covering very little other than the haunted house in town, there are mysterious signs appearing on the fence of the haunted house constantly, and there was a staged robbery at the same house recently. Not to mention that there’s something fishy going on with the psychic who has recently moved to town, and the real estate agents from out of town trying to buy a good number of the town residents’ properties. But will Hildy and the rest of the high school newspaper be able to get to the bottom of this story before it’s too late?

This book left a lot to be desired. There characters were extremely one dimensional. Especially the main character, but it was hard to empathize with any of them. I didn’t like any of the characters; I didn’t dislike any of them. I was just completely indifferent.

The plot? Predictable at best. At worst, it felt like it had all been done before. It wasn’t exciting until the last quarter of the book, and even then it was only exciting because things were finally happening. I still knew how the book was going to end, I was still indifferent towards the characters, but gosh darn it something was finally happening!

Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart!

I first read this book around the time I was first introduced to the Stratford Festival. Since then my love for the Festival has grown greatly, but I haven’t visited this book in years. In fact, I had gotten rid of my own copy and didn’t get a new one until I mooched it off someone a couple of months ago.

Kinny, a high school student from Montreal, has managed to score a summer job at the Stratford Festival, working as the assistant to a director of one of the Festival’s plays. The director, Jeneva, is taking on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a play known to have bad luck go hand-in-hand with it. But it’s not just bad luck that is causing the deaths of actors involved in this play this time around - two of the witches from the play are not only real, but have appeared in Stratford and are very interested in a mirror that Kinny has found to be used as a prop in the play. This is no ordinary mirror - when Kinny looks into it, she has her wishes granted. When Luke, one of the actors in the play, looks into it he sees one of Macbeth’s (the real Macbeth, that is) memories. And Jeneva sees something, but no one is quite sure what.

It was definitely interesting to read this now that I have such a great love for Shakespeare’s Macbeth - I didn’t know too much Shakespeare when I first read it, so I had a better appreciation for parts of it this time around. I enjoyed Katz’s interpretation of the three witches in the play (some of my favourite characters in all of Shakespeare’s plays), but at the same time it was so different than how I picture them in the play. And I enjoyed being able to picture some of the story that takes place in Stratford (a positively lovely place!) when I read about them.

I wish this book focused a little bit less on the English Canadian vs French Canadian dynamics, and focused a bit more on the play, or the story of the mirror and the three witches… Overall, it seemed rather unnecessary to the rest of the story.

The last chapters of the book left a little to be desired. Some characters seemed inconsistent when it came to the part of the book; at the end, one of the witches looses her powers as a witch and suddenly comes across as a harmless and friendly old woman. Kinny suddenly seems to be on good terms with the witch, who she had been avoiding and disliked for the rest of the book.

I can see why I enjoyed this so much when I was younger… as it is now, if the ending had been slightly different, I would have enjoyed it much more, but found it a somewhat disappointing re-read. This was my eleventh book for the Canadian Book Challenge.