Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Liar by Justine Larbalestier

Micah will freely admit that she’s a compulsive liar, but that may be the one honest thing she’ll ever tell you. Over the years she’s duped her classmates, her teachers, and even her parents, and she’s always managed to stay one step ahead of her lies. That is, until her boyfriend dies under brutal circumstances and her dishonesty begins to catch up with her. But is it possible to tell the truth when lying comes as naturally as breathing? Taking readers deep into the psyche of a young woman who will say just about anything to convince them—and herself—that she’s finally come clean, Liar is a bone-chilling thriller that will have readers see-sawing between truths and lies right up to the end. Honestly.

I didn't like this book half as much as I wanted to. It wasn't poorly written or really that confusing, I just walked away feeling very 'meh' about the whole story. I wanted to like Micah, or feel bad for her and I could never quite do it. I couldn't quite make the connection and with the plot frequently changing on the whim's of an unreliable narrator the ending didn't leave me feeling like this was a novel I'd want to read again any time soon.

I had this issue with How to Ditch Your Fairy as well.

EDIT 3/22/2011: Am rereading it now. It's much easier to digest and get into on the second read-through.

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee

In the sweeping tradition of The English Patient, Janice Y.K. Lee's debut novel is a tale of love and betrayal set in war-torn Hong Kong. In 1942, Englishman Will Truesdale falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese as World War II overwhelms their part of the world. Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong to work as a piano teacher and also begins a fateful affair. As the threads of this spellbinding novel intertwine, impossible choices emerge-between love and safety, courage and survival, the present, and above all, the past.

I picked this up at one of the newspaper stands in the Philadelphia airport to read on my flight home and I could have made a better selection, but I could have made a worse one. Definitely not something I'm going to run around singing the praises of, but it wasn't completely awful either. Overall, I liked the way the book jumped back and forth in time and the way all the characters connected, but that was about it.

Blackout by Connie Willis

Blackout by Connie Willis

Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place. Scores of time-traveling historians are being sent into the past, to destinations including the American Civil War and the attack on the World Trade Center. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser, Mr. Dunworthy, into letting her go to VE Day. Polly Churchill’s next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London’s Blitz. And seventeen-year-old Colin Templer, who has a major crush on Polly, is determined to go to the Crusades so that he can “catch up” to her in age.

But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments for no apparent reason and switching around everyone’s schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, unexploded bombs, dive-bombing Stukas, rationing, shrapnel, V-1s, and two of the most incorrigible children in all of history—to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past.

From the people sheltering in the tube stations of London to the retired sailors who set off across the Channel to rescue the stranded British Army from Dunkirk, from shopgirls to ambulance drivers, from spies to hospital nurses to Shakespearean actors, Blackout reveals a side of World War II seldom seen before: a dangerous, desperate world in which there are no civilians and in which everybody—from the Queen down to the lowliest barmaid—is determined to do their bit to help a beleaguered nation survive.

The novel ends on a major cliff-hanger, the sort that makes every self-respecting reader go ksjadlkasjdlkasjda CLIFF HANGER WHYYYYYYYYY!!!! And I had that same visceral reaction to this book. It was a GORGEOUS novel. I was sucked right into it. You can't not love the characters and the amount of love and detail that went into getting this novel as historically accurate as a novel about time travel can be was possibly the best part.

But that cliff-hanger! It should be noted that this novel does have a sequel that is supposed to be out this fall and when it does come out I will be reading it. But until then, this novel made me indescribably grumpy at the very end and that's not the sort of reaction you want to be left with.

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore

Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore

Nimira is a foreign music-hall girl forced to dance for mere pennies. When wealthy sorcerer Hollin Parry hires her to sing with a piano-playing automaton, Nimira believes it is the start of a new and better life. In Parry's world, however, buried secrets are beginning to stir. Unsettling below-stairs rumors swirl about ghosts, a madwoman roaming the halls, and Parry's involvement with a league of sorcerers who torture fairies for sport. Then Nimira discovers the spirit of a fairy gentleman named Erris is trapped inside the clockwork automaton, waiting for someone to break his curse. The two fall into a love that seems hopeless, and breaking the curse becomes a race against time, as not just their love, but the fate of the entire magical world may be in peril.

ADORED THIS. I ADORED ALL OF THIS. The plot, the characters, Nimira, oh my goodness, Nimira, you are my favorite fictional heroine this year, the setting felt like turn of the century London set ever so slightly outside of reality and the gritty darkness that haunted this novel fit the plot and tragic situations that emerged therein so well.

If I had one complaint, it's that it wasn't a longer novel. Dolamore only gave us a small taste of this world and it leaves me begging for more.

The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan

The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan

Mae Crawford’s always thought of herself as in control, but in the last few weeks her life has changed. Her younger brother, Jamie, suddenly has magical powers, and she’s even more unsettled when she realizes that Gerald, the new leader of the Obsidian Circle, is trying to persuade Jamie to join the magicians. Even worse… Jamie hasn’t told Mae a thing about any of it. Mae turns to brothers Nick and Alan to help her rescue Jamie, but they are in danger from Gerald themselves because he wants to steal Nick's powers. Will Mae be able to find a way to save everyone she cares about from the power-hungry magician's carefully laid trap?

This book shot The Demon's Lexicon out of the water. I enjoyed the first book in Brennan's trilogy, but I adored The Demon's Covenant. All the world building that happened in the first novel was expanded upon and enhanced by an additional set of character's to learn to love. Mae's POV was pitch perfect for this novel and, for me, much easier to read and more engaging than Nick's POV was in the first.

If I had a choice, I would read this entire trilogy in Mae's POV as it is becoming more and more clear that Mae is the focus of the overall plot. Mae is the one who forces the changes and is the catalyst and it is Mae who all the central characters rally around, whenever a major event is about to happen in the book.

And as Mae becomes more likable, Nick and Alan become less so and Jamie becomes more of a fourth wheel than he was before. I'm hoping this is all rectified with the last book, The Demon's Surrender, because I so badly want to love all the character's not just one or two per book.

Alcestis by Katharine Beutner

Alcestis by Katharine Beutner

In Greek myth, Alcestis is known as the ideal good wife; she loved her husband so much that she died to save his life and was sent to the underworld in his place. In this poetic and vividly-imagined debut, Katharine Beutner gives voice to the woman behind the ideal, bringing to life the world of Mycenaean Greece, a world peopled by capricious gods, where royal women are confined to the palace grounds and passed as possessions from father to husband.

Alcestis tells of a childhood spent with her sisters in the bedchamber where her mother died giving birth to her and of her marriage at the age of fifteen to Admetus, the young king of Pherae, a man she barely knows, who is kind but whose heart belongs to a god. She also tells the part of the story that's never been told: What happened to Alcestis in the three days she spent in the underworld before being rescued by Heracles? In the realm of the dead, Alcestis falls in love with the goddess Persephone and discovers the true horror and beauty of death.

Alcestis is first and foremost a story about a woman stuck in a time that is much too narrow for her. She's far too big and intelligent for the life she was born to, and that makes her an interesting character immediately. She knows what she wants and she goes about practical ways to get it, facing heartache and even death to get what she needs.

The end of this novel left me spellbound. It went far beyond the original myth and made it that much better. Beutner writes the world of Ancient Greece as if she lived there, everything is vivid and real. What helped was knowing how many details were historically accurate in and amongst the mythology. All the tiny facts of daily life were so intricately wound through the prose and gave the reader a true sense of time.

I would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, Greek mythology, or stories about women taking charge of their own lives against all odds.

Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey

Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey

I opened my mouth, just as he added, "And your eyes are opening." Seventeen-year-old Ellie Spencer is just like any other teenager at her boarding school. She hangs out with her best friend Kevin, she obsesses over Mark, a cute and mysterious bad boy, and her biggest worry is her paper deadline. But then everything changes. The news headlines are all abuzz about a local string of serial killings that all share the same morbid trademark: the victims were discovered with their eyes missing. Then a beautiful yet eerie woman enters Ellie's circle of friends and develops an unhealthy fascination with Kevin, and a crazed old man grabs Ellie in a public square and shoves a tattered Bible into her hands, exclaiming, "You need it. It will save your soul." Soon, Ellie finds herself plunged into a haunting world of vengeful fairies, Maori mythology, romance, betrayal, and an epic battle for immortality.

I need to read this a second time in order to give it a proper review, but it was enjoyable enough that I finished it all in one day of travel.