Rebel Spring by Morgan Rhodes

GAH...400 pages and we are no closer to finding the damn Kindred than we were in the 1st book!  Talk about a filler novel!  I'm not saying that I will not read the next installment, cause I totally will.  But come on, there better be some Kindred finding, magic wielding and clear romantic partner picking (cause I am old and need concrete answers as to whom I am supposed to ship, stop thinking everyone is hot and every kiss is magical!).   Overall, my biggest disappointment with this book was that while lots of things happened (I mean Morgan Rhodes is NOT afraid of killing characters off).  Nothing actually HAPPENED.  We are no closer in this book to discovering anything or getting anywhere (like actually, that road isn't anywhere close to finished).

Final Recommendations: if you like high fantasy, explosive magic, vaguely bad guys, truly bad guys, a whole lot of blood & if you were invested enough in the first book to continue on regardless of whether anything happens til the 3rd or 4th installment.

Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne

Eh.  That's kinda how I felt about this one.  It had all the trappings of a good high fantasy: mysterious assassins guilds, magical cat creatures, a girl with above average abilities that make her pretty kick-ass.  But it also fell prey to many of things I do not care for in a high fantasy novel: too many characters (none of which are really developed to a point where I actually care about them), a world which is both too big and too small at the same time (basically, there is a bigger, brighter world alluded to out there, however, we are not privy to much of this info in this book installment.  Keeping fingers crossed for the future, that is if I decide to read on), love triangles (blech.  On a positive note, it's not much of a love triangle. On a sad note, I didn't care enough to like either of the love interests to begin with).

Final Recommendations:  if you like magical creatures, girls who kick butt, jerky class systems (which by the way, there was totally a palace but no mention of any royalty?), sneaky assassin stuff.

100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith

Frankly, Andrew Smith can do no wrong in my book.  From Winger to Grasshopper Jungle, The Marbury Lense and Stick, he writes characters that are both quirky and believable.  He weaves a wonderful story full of heart, history and of course teenage angst.  But it's not your normal teenage angst, well maybe it is, "normal."  It is not cliche, too over the top, too whiny, too unrealistic.  It's perfect, and sad, true and funny.  I loved the main character Finn, and I loved the analogy that he was was quite literally and possibly figuratively stuck inside a book (don't we all feel that way sometimes).  The only qualm I had with this book was that I felt that it ended too soon.

Final Recommendations: if you like contemporary YA, quirky characters, angsty teenage boys, awkward situations, real-life magic

Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes

I am late to this party, I know.  But Falling Kingdoms is a great, classic, high fantasy adventure.  It has all the things I enjoy in a high fantasy: tons of characters, a little romance, evil kings, questionable morals, actual deaths, fight scenes, and MAGIC people!!!  There was real magic in this novel (hopefully more in the future installments of this series).    I really enjoyed this book, although at 400+ pages, it was a lot of reading for basically the set-up portion to the rest of the series.  I would definitely recommend this one and think it would be well received by both my male and female students alike.

Final Recommendations:  if you like princesses/princes, magic, adventure, clear-cut bad guys, questionably good guys

The Falconer by Elizabeth May

You had me at Steampunk faeries! Let me preface this review with the fact that I love Shadowhunters. If you can't get with me on this then you may not enjoy this wonderful little fantasy as much as I did. I really enjoyed both the characters and setting of this period novel. The main character, Aleana was both flawed and strong. The action was not overwhelming but fast paced and fun. The mythological beings were fantastical and unique. And the boys were both comical and super-swoony! All in all a very fun read that I would definitely recommend to readers of the genre.

Final Recommendations: if you like shadowhunters (especially the Clockwork Angel type), butt-kicking heroins, hot faeries, humorous pixies, steampunk

The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson

This one gets 2 stars for the 1st 300 SLOW pages and 5 stars for the last 200, high-speed, awesome pages.  That evens itself out to a three right?  I would still totally recommend this book and will still most likely read the sequel.  I loved the description of the vagabond camp, the chase across the continent, the development of strength and realization of power from the lead character in the 2nd half of the book.  I did not like the slow, plodding build-up that preceded it however.  The escape at the beginning was just far too convenient, the giggling between the two girls was superfluous, the change from princess to peasant too easy, the love triangle too (hurl).  Laos, while I understand the vague mysteriousness behind the Kaden/Rafe/Lia/Assassin/Prince/Princess love triangle, it was just too much, clever no doubt, but too much.

Also, I'm calling it now.  This book is set in a post-apocolyptic North America (not a completely made-up fantasy world).  If this is the big reveal in book 2 or 3, someone owes me some skittles!

Final Recommendations: if you like high fantasy, love-triangles, baby-mama drama, the development of strong characters over the length of a book, interesting (if not confusing) world set-up

The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu

I would probably bump this book up to 3.5 stars.  It earns bonus points for making me cry and for forcing me to stay up way past my bedtime on a school night (definite anomaly for a teacher at this time of year).  I really did like this slow unraveling of this story and while some parts were very predictable, I was actually surprised that there were some really original points that I did NOT see coming.  I bumped the overall review down to a 3 mostly because I did not connect to all of the multiple narrators in this story.  While I LOVED the chapters narrated by Kelsie and Kurt (oh the raw pain of the Kelsie chapters), I did not feel like the Elaine chapters were super-realistic nor did I feel the need for the Josh chapters at all.  I would, however, definitely still recommend this book to my students.

Final Recommendations: if you like realistic fiction, bad things happening to good people, high school drama, some mature content, small towns, more high school drama