I'm Really Bad At Posting During a Series, Apparently

I managed to stretch my reading of "The Nightmare Garden" to 17 days - I wanted to have book 3 in hand before I finished this one so that I wouldn't have to wait between books! I inadvertently saw a spoiler about this novel, and I knew I didn't want to reach that point in the story without being able to continue right away. I jumped right into "The Mirrored Shard" so I've been spending more time reading than writing!

I really loved this novel, it's a great adventure. Each story in the series features Aoife trying to rescue a loved one, traveling between realms and discovering things about herself and her heritage.  There's wonderful foreshadowing throughout the stories, although the execution doesn't always fulfill my expectations.  For instance, I was a little disappointed with the climax - I felt that the trial wasn't nearly as trying as it could have been.  That may have been an 'adult reading YA' issue, though.  It's hard for me to keep perspective as regards that. I think my problem is that the story is so huge I find myself wishing it were an adult novel, I feel like it would have 'much more muchness'.

I liked Aoife much more in this novel than the first, not that I didn't like her in the first, it's just that by the end of this novel I see her more as a person than just a... well. a brat!  She's very much a know-it-all teenager (as she should be!) but she's obviously grown up a bit, although she is still rushing about half-cocked.

I should have another post up in the next few days, as I'm going to force myself to write and post before I pick up my next read!

Happy reading!

In Which I Am Late (again), And I Ramble (a bit)

For the second time in as many months, I feel the need to issue a Trigger Warning.  Better safe than sorry, right?

I finished reading "The Iron Thorn" by Caitlin Kittredge late last Friday night. It is a great young-adult novel. I loved it so much I jumped right into the second book,which is why this post is so very very late.  My apologies. The bright side is I'm already half-way through "The Nightmare Garden", so that post should be up relatively soon!

This is the first steam punk novel I've ever read (gasp! I hope you aren't too shocked). I adore steam punk music and fashion, but I was struggling to get into the story for about 100 pages and I began to worry that maybe I actually don't like steam punk.  Then, very suddenly, I got hooked by the story and Aoife's world. It reminded me of something Steven Galloway said: the first 1/3 of a novel teaches you the rules of reading that novel. So true! It's a brand new world, which entails a lot of back ground world building. It's not the most intense, sexy part of a story, but it is vital to making the story work. And this story? Works like a well-oiled machine. It's gorgeous.

Another confession: I've never read any Lovecraft, and Kittredge uses a lot of Lovecraftian locations and monsters, so I found my self spending a bit of time on the Google-box to flesh out the back ground.  I'm not really a horror fan in any format, as I am prone to nightmares, but I suspect this series is a  great sort of 'soft-core' introduction to Lovecraft. Horror-lite, if you will.  It's perfect for me, and I'm intrigued enough that I may even try an actual Lovecraft novel later in the year. So, please don't take away my 'geek cred' just yet!

This is where my trigger warning comes into effect. I'm maybe a bit old-fashioned, and definitely very uptight, so there are elements of this story that I feel are not so young adult appropriate.  At the very least, the idea of my niece or nephew reading it and not fully understanding it makes me a bit squeamish. Aoife is a complex character, and in addition to the many problems all heroine's face (absent parents, pressure to fit in, first love, rescue attempts, bringing down Orwellian dictatorships and breaking worlds), she is also dealing with mental illness.  Part of how she copes with her internal pain is by self-harming. It is not a subject I am unfamiliar with, but it was a bit unexpected.  Although it really shouldn't be.  Kittredge's characters do trend toward the dark and damaged, and there is really no reason why her YA characters would be any different.  I haven't been reading much YA recently, but I have noticed that darker themes are becoming more common place, so I'm willing to believe that it's just my naivete that allows me to believe teens aren't already reading these things.  All the same, I think I'll wait another four years before suggesting this one to my own niece.

For now, though, I'm going to get back to reading "The Nightmare Garden" - Aoife is in trouble again...

Happy reading!