Magic Steps

Magic Steps by Tamora Pierce is the first book in The Circle Opens series, which is also the sequel series to The Circle of Magic. 
 

The four children, now middling teenagers, have now gone their separate ways with their teachers. Tris and Niko, Daja and Frostpine, Briar and Rosethorn have all left Winding Circle temple to go see the world and learn more about their magics leaving Sandry and Lark at home. Sandry goes to look after her uncle who had a heart attack and doesn't know the meaning of rest. After a bit of recovery and a small horse ride, they spy a boy performing magic by dancing. Pasco has a family of Herriers, the city guards, and his family thinks his dancing is a useless waste of time because none of them knew it was magic. Now that Sandry has found this boy who needs to be taught and none of the teachers at Winding Circle know Dance Magic, she has now become Pasco's teacher. To compound her troubles, there has been murder in the city by invisible hands that are using an almost unheard of type of magic-- Unmagic. Magic the devours magic like a whirlpool sinking boats. 

This was well written and had a very good plot to it. It was well plotted out and was easy to follow along without getting to tangled with new evidences and procedures that were given to us. 

Pasco irked me at the beginning for being a lazy teenage boy with all the excuses and trying intentionally to make things hard for Sandry--though this has my own heavy biases and is probably actually okay. Sandry's arch in becoming a teacher though unwanted at the beginning was well done and made for an interesting background alongside the murders in the city. The mystery of the murders and Unmagic was engaging as well and kept me wanting to come back for more. 

The audiobook was also read by Tammy and a whole cast of voice actors who did a pretty good job for the most part. There was one actor, though, who was very obnoxious because he sounded robotic--thankfully he only had a few lines though. 

I enjoyed this book. It reminded me very much of Daja's Book in that the plot and characters were gold. It was, again, very well done. 

I can't wait to get onto the next one. 

Be Prepared

Be Prepared was a cute little story about the trials of a ten year old misfit.

Vera doesn't really fit in with all the rest of the girls in her neighborhood. They are more wealthy, they have both parents, and they don't come from Russia. She moved to the USA when she was five, but the rest of the kids don't get it. They invite her to things, but she still feels like the outcast. During the summer they all go off to their own camps and she stays at home, until she finds out that there is a Russian kids scout camp. After some begging, her mom lets her and her brother go the following summer. Only summer camp isn't what she expected it to be. She finds that it's more of the same. She's the youngest in her troupe, they are all already friends and have known each other for years, and she's very much alone. Invisible. This is where she was supposed to find friends, so where are they?

It was a well drawn true-mostly story of Vera Brosgol's time at camp. She even has some of her letters and pictures from her time at camp. Vera is also the author of Anya's Ghost, which I didn't realize until I read the author bio.

I think this is a very potent and prominent story for many people. Trouble with friends is always something hard and pretty much everyone goes through it at some point. So it touches many people right in the hearts.

I think many people would enjoy this simple, well depicted story. It might even be one that I'd put on my bookshelf. Eventually.

City of a Thousand Dolls

City of a Thousand Dolls got kind of boring for me. I couldn't stand reading it for too long even after 100 pages.

Nisha is a girl who is part of no caste, from unknown ancestry, and was left at the doors of the City of a Thousand Dolls--a place where women go to prepare for their husbands or future careers (I think careers, I know they want to get married off though). She is the eyes and ears of the Matron of the City so she sees and hears everything that happens. But then, on the week leading to the Redeeming (where the girls get selected by their prospective spouses), girls start dying. First an accident then poisoning.

Even though people are dying, I didn't care. I'm sure there are girls who would really enjoy this, but I didn't. There seemed to be little for me to want to grasp and care about.

There is a romance that has kindled, but I don't think it'll pan out like Nisha wants it too--boy thinking of family name more than her (though I could be wrong). It didn't seem to be going anywhere, or if it does it shouldn't have. The romance is very paper thin with lots of makeout sessions hidden from sight. Something you would expect a newly junior high school student to be fantasizing over. Almost 1D, not even 2D.

There were talking cats too, which I know can be a turn off for some people. Like she has no friends, except maybe one, and the cats that follow her around. And the only reason they talk is because she needs to have dialog with someone. But she isn't trusted by anyone or she doesn't trust anyone enough to have meaningful conversations except the cats who can't talk to anyone else. Why can she do this? ... Reasons. That's why.

I will give Ms. Foster points on an interesting setting. The City and surrounding culture was interesting. All the different factions that exist in the City where girls worked to become an expert in specific things. That was cool, but not exactly interesting enough to keep me engaged. I started it well over a week ago, and barely got 75 pages in, still didn't care, and started skimming.

I'd probably disregard this book and find something else.