Beauty and the Clockwork Beast

 A steampunk  proper romance of Beauty and the Beast. Instead of 3.5 I'd probably give it a 4. It was descent enough but not a favorite. 

Lucy is a botanist of the Botanical Aide Society and is on a little trip to visit her sick cousin, Kate, at the shrouded Blackwell Manor. Kate is married to the Earl's brother and the Earl is mysterious, scary, scarred, and not a people person though he's in high society. There has also been talk of vampire attacks, ghosts, and troublesome automatons sabotaging their wards. Why is Kate sick and is this Earl as scary as rumor has it? 

This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling, so we know how it's going to end otherwise the readers would be disappointed. While it is a retelling, it is different enough to enjoy the story and be engaged in the differences and want to know what is going to happen next. The supernatural elements, especially the ghosts that made their presence known, were fun and brought the needed flare for this ever present and popular story. It also gave it that edge at the ending to give the climax a "realistic" feel. 

I do wish that re surrounding cast had more differences so then I could actually tell them apart. This could be do to the fact that I was listening to it while doing other things and some of the people and names got mushed together, but there were a few men in particular that I couldn't keep straight so I kind of gave up. 

It is a proper romance, so it is clean and Propriety was important and not sullying one's reputation is high on the importance scale. However, there were many times when Propriety was not held up (my lit. historian is showing) and sandal should have ensued. So much 'non-walking' time alone and in bedrooms and things. Brings tension, I guess, because they are keeping it clean, but it was kind of odd especially because they did bring up propriety and reputation often. But no one else beside Lucy and Miles brings it up. I do kind of wish there was more conversation between others and the two love interests more than the "Gaston" character. 

It was pretty well written too. I'd probably read through it again eventually and will be listening to the next book. 

Heartless

 

The tale of the Queen of Hearts. 

Catherine is the daughter of nobility, but she'd prefer to make cakes. She doesn't care for the parties and courtly appointments, she prefers to get her hands, dress, and the backs of her ears covered in flour. But that is not what her mother wants, not what the King wants. Suddenly she is nearly engaged to the King of Hearts who loves her creations and finds her just as delicious. As she tries to escape the proposal, the Jabberwaky attacks and she is saved during a corset affiliated fainting spell by the new court Joker. Now with her eyes locked on lemon colored Joker eyes, she even less interest in the King and being his Queen of Hearts, because hers heart is already taken. 

It was a charming story, read well by Rebecca Soler who did all the voices superbly! One with many loved characters from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventure in Wonderland. The Hatter before he's mad, the March Hare, the White Rabbit, flamingos and hedgehogs for crochet, and all the other outrageous characters that is part of the land of Hearts. The world is very comically odd as the way Wonderland is supposed to be. It is fabulously portrayed and written, just as Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles did with Cinder(ella) and the rest. 

It is also a love story between the Joker and Catherine. He has a mission and she has dreams. They both have tricks and are bound to lose their hearts, but to each other? They are fun characters with interesting adventures. 

(Spoiler!!) Sadly, though, we know the story of the Queen of Hearts from Alice's Adventure in Wonderland. The Queen is not a happy person. She is heartless and, oh, so willing to take off a person's head. This story is not a happy one. It is a fragility with a comic as it's star. You hope and you read on because "Maybe it's different" "Maybe there is a change" "Maybe she's not that Queen" "Maybe..." But her's is not a happy tale. And this, I think will be the only time I read it. 

I can't give it five stars because it didn't end how I wanted it too!! Written well, yes! Mastered beautifully, yes! But I wanted it different. And what happens to Jest was so quick it almost didn't seem real. Well done, but I didn't want to be sad with this book. 

Stepsister

Stepsister is a story of what happens after Cinderella and her prince glide away to their castle and "live happily ever after."

Isabelle cut off her toes to try and fit into that slipper, her sister Octavia cut off her heel. Now they are known as the ugly stepsisters and are somehow supposed to still function in their village society. Not only do they have those repercussions, but there is now a war going on that is infiltrating their part of France and Fate and Chance are fighting for her life, and on top of it all, Isabelle wants to change. She wants to be better and the whole world is literally crashing down on her. Can Ella's fairy godmother help even an ugly stepsister like her?

This is a big time "girl power" book. For people who like Tamora Pierce, you will like this. This book contains many themes and morals to the story all trying to empower women and empower self in general. Finding yourself and being okay with yourself, especially when it may go against what tradition or society dictates. I'm sure many young women and young adults enjoy this book and can feel motivated to do more by reading it.

I very much enjoyed the characters and how different they developed. Though, now that I think of it, it seems like the only people who really changed except for Isabelle... So that was lacking a little. But over all they were fun characters to read about. Chance is probably one of my favorites. Jennifer Donnelly could have a lot of fun with the Grimm Fairy Tales with Chance and the Fates. And because of how well this one was written, I'd read them too.

I thought it was well done. Read well. I don't have really any problems with it, except that some might think that it was too preachy to the "girl power" side. But because it had basic self-empowerment, I can let it slide and happily enjoy the book.

Entwined

I picked this book up years ago and after reading through the first couple of pages gave it back to my local library (go support your libraries, ladies and gents. It's worth it!). I knew I wanted to read it again or at least give it a try, but when my library was "weeding" the books they were going to get rid of this one. So for $0.50 I snagged it, hoping I'd get to it eventually. Well, I got to it eventually, lol.

This is a fairytale retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. Azalea is the eldest of eleven princesses whom she loves and takes care of while their mother is deathly ill. Their mother is pregnant and sick and on the night the youngest is born she dies. The girls and the King grieve in different ways, but all are subjected to mourning for a year. Merry Christmas, everyone. The thing that the girls love most is dancing and because of mourning they are denied this. They get scolded and reprimanded for sneakily doing it in defiance of their father, knowing "Mother would have let us do it." The castle they live in is a magic one and they find an enchanted room in their fireplace where a man with magic has been imprisoned by the same magic he uses. He invites them all down every night to dance and enjoy themselves. They greedily take the opportunity. Between arguments with their father, grieving over their mother, being forced to be alone in mourning, and the occasional "political business" where gentlemen would strut around trying to entice the princess into political marriages, they dance.

I really enjoyed the ending of this book. The beginning was a bit cheesy, which is why I didn't get very far the first time, and the middle was a little elongated more than it really needed to be, but the ending was very well done. Highly intriguing and engaging where I finished the last 200 pages in a day--where as I somewhat struggled picking it up in the middle. It was worth it in the end. I'll definitely be keeping this book on my shelf and will probably read through it again later.

The driving force of this book was more to do with Father/Daughter relationships more than "I love this boy" which is different than most YA books out there. Yes, there is romance, but moral of the story is family. They learn to grieve together and it's not something that happens over night. That build up of Parent/Child relations is what took the middle of the book so long. It was needed and important for the end, so I'm glad it was there, but it might drag a bit for some. Family is first. Loving family first where boys and potatinal marriages are second. Different and good.

There is a struggle some authors have in keeping different character (especially lots of different characters) separate and distinct. Heather Dixon does a good job with this. All the girls are flower names, but they are all in alphabetical order so then we as the reader can at least guess as to where they land in age. Azalea is 17 or so all the way down to baby Lilly. We can keep them in order because of their names. There are also a lot of gentlemen who come and go throughout the story and, through their names as well, we are able to keep them separated as well as given a bit of their personalities. Lord Teddie is rambunctious, Lord Bradford is practical and a good political while still being kind, Lord Fairweather is constant and stiff. Names and personalities here were well straightened out for the most part, which is hard to do with so many people.

The setting was fun, and the magic in the world was simple, yet different. The large portion of magic at the end, the climax and resolution of it all, was set up well enough but there was one part I had a problem with due do lack of explanation--which gave its excuse of it possibly being "Old Magic" therefore mysterious. Slight cop out, but I guess it works.

The only thing that I can complain about is the slight cheesiness of the dancing toward the beginning. It got better as it went on and it might have to do with the fact that I'm not a dancer, really, and don't get the fascination so much. Good for them if they do, but it was kind of cheesy to me. The reader can get over it and it's not so bad, just push on and it gets to be better.

In the end, it's a really good book. Heather Dixon did a really good job at portraying this story which often gets over looked for other "princess classics." Read it and enjoy.

The Wrath & the Dawn

The Wrath & the Dawn is first in a series with the same name by Renee Ahdieh.

It is a retelling of the classic Arabian Nights story where the Caliph marries a new girl every day and every dawn has her killed. As to why is normally unknown. Shahrzad (Not spelled the traditional way), instead of running away, volunteers to become the Caliph's bride even in fear of the dawn in hopes that she can kill him for killing her cousin just a few mornings previously. She hates him with all her heart and wants to seem this boy-king dead. In order to do that she has to stay alive past the dawn, which she does by leaving the Caliph "hanging" with cliff hangers to the many stories she tells that last all night. He won't kill her, she thinks, if he's so intrigued by her stories and wants to know the end.

I listened to this as an audio book.  The reader, Ariana Delwari, did a spectacular job. She has a very nice voice and one that I wouldn't mind listening to again in future audio books.

I will say this, though, that my review may be a bit hindered by the fact that it took me a few months to complete the series. Not that it wasn't a good book, but time is an issue as well as the one big critique that I have to give... Shazi is so very annoying at the beginning. She irritated me badly with her mood, tone, and all out "Imma be ticked off and I have no redeeming qualities because REVENGE!!" It got very boring really fast and she has the same idea and stigma for a good third of the book (or so). I was more than happy to have her kiss the Caliph and actually start liking him.

The love triangle thing going on between her, the Caliph and her past love was kind of obnoxious. It took away from the traditional stories suspense of surviving to the dawn and the artful way of keeping the crazy king intrigued, and slid the in a rebellion, magic, and "I must save this girl who doesn't actually like me anymore because she likes the guy who killed her cousin." I didn't care for the past love interest. He was hot headed and seemed to only have a one track mind without thinking of repercussions. He didn't even think of Shazi's feelings on the subject, and every time she yelled at him to stop he wouldn't listen--killing some of her friends that she actually made in the palace. No points to you past love interest.

And one other thing, maybe because it was an audio book and not me reading it off the pages, but I had a hard time keeping some of the name in check. Shazi = main character, Khalid = Caliph, Jalal = kings cousin and captain of the guards?, T guy = past love interest, Despina = Shazi's maid servant and friend in palace, but pretty much everyone else's name got muffled in my brain and I had to rely heavily on context clues, which I didn't get all that often. With story names--which stories didn't last very long as plot points--as well as "irl" names, I got very confused.

The book did seem to flow well and the plot was constantly moving which was nice. Part of me though feels like it had major dollops of "Beauty and the Beast" put into it too. She goes from lots of hate and disdain to very much in love with him and tries to tell off the love from her past/Gaston-ish who would get slaughtered by the Caliph/Beast. While it flowed, I think there were many cliches for the YA market. There wasn't much that was "different" to really make it exciting and make me want to read it again. I might look at a Sparknotes for the second book, but I don't think I'll take the time to read or listen to the next one.

It was good for what it was, a retelling of an old classic put into YA form. It was written well with enough setting to keep us from the dark, though not much more than that. I liked Jalal, he was probably my favorite character and would have liked more of him, but he is obviously not the main character. Some of the others I didn't care for as much.

If you're wanting a simple, "traditional" YA read, feel free to pick it up.

Lock and Mori

Lock and Mori is a modern-day retelling of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyal. However there are many twists, the biggest one being that it is told first person through the eyes of James Moriarty. Oh, and James Moriarty is a girl. WHAT!? Yeah, weird right.

In modern London, Mori runs into Sherlock Holmes in all his analogical personality. Mori, much like Prof Moriarty in the original stories is a mastermind as well. She has all of her assignments done months in advance and corrects her teachers. She runs into Sherlock (Lock as a nickname later) and finds him very much annoying. After she goes home and stops her abusive father from hitting her brothers again, she runs out to the park to get some air. Here she meets Lock and their game begins. A murder has happened and they can easily see how the police are messing it up. The game is afoot.

But soon this murder, and others they find are connected,  hit to close to home. Mori must figure it out.

Then, as any good young adult novel would, love is in the air. This was really odd for me. Moriarty and Holmes kissing and whatnot? WHAT?! yeah, weird right? But the way Heather W. Petty has created the characters works well and is believable enough for a YA book.

I spotted whodunnit fairly straight off, but it's not so much finding out whodunnit but how she deals with it. The bigger mystery for me was her mother. There were so many illusions to who she was but not enough to have a conviction. That is what kept me reading for the last half of this small, 200 page book. The surprise was an interesting one. There are also a few ways that you can take some of the happenings in the story, how a certain piece of evidence presents itself in the story for example, in which Mori asks herself--therefore us, the reader--questions that she doesn't give us clear answers too. So we, as good readers, can make our own conclusions.

There were a few things I need to warn younger readers/parents of young readers. There is a scene with F bombs dropped and other scenes (not graphic in the least bit) where it is implied they slept together, more than just falling asleep which happens too.

The only other complaints I have are the lack of Watson (though he makes a few brief appearances) and Sherlock only appears to be in there to kiss and be annoying. There is also an Alice that comes into the picture, but she doesn't stay long. There is build up for her, but I feel the climax for this character was lacking.

Oh, I also don't really care for the front cover. Not to be rude to the guy who is supposed to be Sherlock, but he doesn't look like a young Sherlock too me. Too much Benedict Cumberbatch, I guess. :D

But there is another book out called Mind Games, and I am interested in reading it to find out what happens next. Don't read the back/jacket cover of Mind Games before you read Lock and Mori, because it has spoilers for this book.