A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe

“Do you think I do not know why you wish to send me away? But I will not let you, not when we are near to making the White Elixir! I will not be erased from our achievement!”

Thea has worked her entire life in her mother’s alchemist laboratory. Now, she’s in love with a former apprentice and ready to begin a laboratory of her own, but her mother is acting strangely. Could it be because her mother is near to the breakthrough of a lifetime or is she having a breakdown? Thea is going to find out.

This young adult, coming-of-age story weaves alchemy and romance in a slow paced foot race to a predictable ending.

The thing that I find so compelling about alchemy, which I felt the author didn’t use to its maximum effect, is the spiritual side of the practice. Perhaps, historically speaking, most concerned themselves with alchemy for its elusive promises of immortality and unending wealth. But it is the spiritual treasures of the practice that most interest me and that I feel have the most untapped storytelling potential.

Though there were a few spiritual elements in A Golden Fury, I wanted there to be much more.

“The Philosopher’s Stone gave everything humankind wanted but did not believe we could have in this life. With such a reward, it was not hard to see how so many great minds had wrecked themselves in its pursuit.”

To be fair, I think the intended audience for this book is younger than I am. However, I believe even young adults can appreciate a story with a little more complexity than A Golden Fury dishes up, especially in the development of the main character, Thea, and the various antagonists.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free digital copy of this book.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Eragon follows the exploits of a boy, a dragon, and their fight against an evil king, and his henchmen, who would plunge the world into darkness.

Prophecies of revenge, spoken in a wretched language only he knew, rolled from his tongue. He clenched his thin hands and glared at the sky. The cold stars stared back, unwinking, otherworldly watchers.” pg 14, ebook

Though it is written for children, Eragon is a charming tale that I thoroughly enjoyed as an adult reader. The pace was snappy, the characters were written quite well, and the story itself was a fun, adventure and fantasy.

“Eragon found the stone both beautiful and frightening. Where did it come from? Does it have a purpose? Then a more disturbing thought came to him: Was it sent here by accident, or am I meant to have it?” pg 16, ebook

I did a little research about the author, Christopher Paolini, and was surprised to discover that this was one of the first books he published and he was in his teens when he wrote it. How impressive is that?

“Dragons will constantly amaze you. Thing… happen around them, mysterious things that are impossible anywhere else.”

There were a couple things I didn’t enjoy about Eragon, but they didn’t ruin my appreciation for the overall story. For example, I wanted Saphira the dragon to have a different personality. She has some character traits that I felt were incongruous with how an immensely powerful, magical being would act.

When I think carefully about it, what a silly quibble to have with a story based in fantasy. But readers will have their preferences, and I like to picture dragons as either wise and benevolent, Buddha-like beings or demonic treasure hoarders along the lines of Smaug.

Paolini’s version of them is different from both of these extremes. He makes dragons fallible, like humans. Which, at the end of the day, makes this a better story for children. A lesson like, even the most powerful among us can make mistakes or experience unpleasant emotions like jealousy, is a good lesson to learn.

“These books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life.” pg 153, ebook

Highly recommended for young adult fantasy readers or the young-at-heart.

Hush (Hush, #1) by Dylan Farrow

In the world of Hush, ink, the suspected origin of a deadly plague, has been declared the enemy of humankind and outlawed. The keepers of the law, High House and its magical soldiers called bards, roam the world, rooting out those who break the law and rewarding those who bend to their will.

“Our history shows that vigilance and caution are tantamount to survival. Burn the ink from the page. Turn away from forbidden words, toxic tales, and deadly symbols. Cleanse the country of this malignant blight. Join us.”

Shae lost her brother to the mysterious plague early in her life and her family has been outcast from her small village since. When tragedy once again darkens her family’s doorstep, what will Shae do not only to seek justice for her brother but, potentially, the whole world?

The premise of Hush had some interesting ideas, but this debut, young adult novel suffers from wooden characters and predictable plot twists.

“The Bards arrive today.” The Bards. Suddenly I feel as though the house has been encased in ice. The town elders say there’s power in words- that certain phrases can change the world around you.”

Weakness in the character development aside, Shae is a strong protagonist who struggles to create her own reality which differs quite markedly from the reality that her small town has imagined for her. Teens might connect with her more strongly than I did, which is to say, not at all.

I’m not sure what it was. Maybe I’m suffering from YA dystopian reading burnout?

Instead of appreciating Shae for her flaws which include falling in love too quickly, trusting everybody and pushing all her friends away the moment she could really use their help, I found myself annoyed with her.

“I spent countless nights lying awake, staring at the austere wooden beams of the ceiling, trying to figure out if I was mad or cursed- or both.”

Be smarter, I thought. The odds are stacked against you, and you need to pay attention, not fall for the first stranger you meet who has a dreamy pair of eyes.

But as I said, I’m definitely not the intended audience for the book.

Here’s the author, Dylan Farrow, talking about Hush:

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy. And thank you for reading!

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is a modern take on more traditional fairy tales wherein a child finds a way to another world and comes back changed.

I first read the title of this book in Catherynne Valente‘s much more adult novel, Palimpsest. I think it was mentioned as sitting on someone’s book shelf. I remember thinking how I wish I could read that book too. Imagine my surprise to discover it was actually a book in the real world. Of course, I had to pick it up.

“You seem an ill-tempered and irascible enough child,” said the Green Wind. “How would you like to come away with me and ride upon the Leopard of Little Breezes and be delivered to the great sea, which borders Fairyland?” pg 2

How could any heroine refuse an invitation like that?

The main character of this tale, a girl with the curious name of September, has read enough books to know a once-in-a-lifetime chance when she sees it. Though she doubts, at first, that she is the appropriate girl for the adventure.

“In stories, when someone appears in a poof of green clouds and asks a girl to go away on an adventure, it’s because she’s special, because she’s smart and strong and can solve riddles and fight with swords and give really good speeches, and… I don’t know that I’m any of those things.” pg 14

Part of Valente’s fairytale, like most good fairytales, is how September realizes how special she actually is — one of the conclusions heroes tend to arrive at during their various journeys.

September’s journey is a danger-filled jaunt through a land under the thumb of a smartly-hatted villain named the Marquess. September meets curious characters along the way including a trio of witches, a wyvern who claims his father is a library, and a boy from under the ocean with dark eyes and a secret.

The story contains plenty of winks and nods to anyone who loves reading: “Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.” pg 36

And: “She sounds like someone who spends a lot of time in libraries, which are the best sorts of people.” pg 55

They are the best sorts, aren’t they.

Recommended for young adults, the young-at-heart, or anyone who enjoys quirky portal fantasy reads. I thought this book was charming.

Geek Fantasy Novel by E. Archer

This book is a meandering, young adult novel that takes the reader into weird fantasy worlds through the power of wishes and on an epic quest by an unexpected hero who strives to make everything right, when things continually go wrong.

Along the way, you experience fairies, snow queens, the undead, and plenty of teen angst.

“(Ralph’s parents) were, in fact, endlessly tolerant — except when it came to their one ironclad rule: Ralph must never, ever, make a wish. Not under any circumstances whatsoever.” pg IV

I thought I would enjoy this story more than I did. The trouble is I don’t feel like the author successfully managed to tie the different pieces of the story together. It was disjointed and strange, but not in a good way.

That might appeal to some readers, but not me.

“I think she really wants to be the characters she reads about.” “Well, I guess that’s the point of it all,” Ralph said, out of dork solidarity. pg XXIV

Some of the details of the fantasy worlds were amusing and most certainly will appeal to young adult and reluctant readers.

“These tree-homes are lovely to look at, but so intricate that fairies spend almost all of their waking hours building and maintaining and getting lost in them. Which is a shame, really, since that leaves them so much less time for gamboling about meadows, visiting wishing wells, leaving money in return for teeth, and such.” pg CVII

In the way it wandered through completely different fantasy worlds, it reminded me of The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear… until the unexpected ending.

“In a wish, when one is pursuing one’s greatest desires, one isn’t killed by microbes. One is killed by monsters. That’s what makes it so great.” pg CXXII

Recommended, with reservations, for young adult readers who are more interested in the journey than character building.

Thanks for reading!

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Alice and her mother live their lives on the road. Everywhere they go, they’re haunted by misfortune. Alice calls it bad luck. It could be something worse.

“We moved at least twice a year and sometimes more, but the bad luck always found us.” pg 12, ebook

Her grandmother, Althea Proserpine, was the creator of a whispered-about collection of fairy tale stories. For almost her entire life, Alice has wanted to read the collection but her mother forbids it and copies are impossible to find. Althea lives the life of a hermit on a secluded property called the Hazel Wood.

“My grandmother’s estate, which I’d only seen in photos, felt like a place I remembered from some alternate, imaginary childhood. One where I rode horses and went to summer camp.” pg 10, ebook

One day, Alice’s mother disappears and, in order to find her, Alice is going to have to go into the Hazel Wood, a place that holds secrets darker than she’s ever imagined.

“My situation hit me hard. Homeless. Without my mom. Being stalked, by something I couldn’t see the breadth of or understand.”pg 79

Melissa Albert has created a fairy tale for young adults that I think would have been more fun if she’d gone the non-YA route.

My favorite parts were the fantasy stories themselves within the story. I found them to be very reminiscent of Catherynne Valente, whom Albert lists as one of her favorite authors in the back of this book.

They’re hard-edged, glittering things. These are creepy fairy tales, not made for children.

“On a cold day in a distant kingdom, a daughter was born to a queen and king. Her eyes were shiny and black all over, and the midwife laid her in the queen’s arms and fled.” pg 69

I can understand why some readers didn’t like this book with its twisted stories. They’re unnerving, popping in and out of the narrative. And, as I said before, I felt like this book twisted itself into knots trying to be a young adult read when, in reality, I think it could have just been dark fantasy.

There’s a love interest who, I thought, sort of gets in the way except as a young adult plot device.

The main character, Alice, is a cold young woman with little concern for anyone in her life except her mother. I can also see why readers didn’t warm up to her, but it didn’t bother me all that much. I figured, with someone moving around as much as she did, how would Alice figure out how to have normal relationships? It fit.

In conclusion, I liked The Hazel Wood but didn’t love it. Personally, I think it’s worth the read for the interesting short fantasy stories alone. But if you’re not into that kind of thing, this book probably won’t appeal.

Thanks for reading!

In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children, #4) by Seanan McGuire

In this enjoyable entry in the Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire, we learn the other-worldly wanderings of the person who calls herself Lundy and why she is the way she is.

Like the other children from this series, the world, in this case the Goblin Market, chose the child for specific reasons.

“Katherine’s remarkability took the form of a quiet self-assuredness, a conviction that as long as she followed the rules, she could find her way through any maze, pass cleanly through any storm.” pg 18

The most enjoyable aspect of this story is Lundy’s unrepentant bibliophilia. I think anyone who loves to read can empathize with much of her character.

“Mysteries in books were the best kind. The real world was absolutely full of boring mysteries, questions that never got answered and lost things that never got found. That wasn’t allowed, in books. In books, mysteries were always interesting and exciting, packed with daring and danger, and in the end, the good guys found the clues and the bad guys got their comeuppance.”pgs 27-28

But it is Lundy’s penchant for always trying to find a loophole in reality, which serves her well in reading and the Goblin Market, that eventually creates a problem.

“If she thought of this as a fairy tale that she had somehow stumbled into, she could handle it. She knew the rules of fairy tales. Most importantly of all, she knew that fairy tales ended with “happily ever after” and everything being just fine.” pg 48

Like McGuire’s other entries in this series, nothing is simple in this tale and there are decisions far more complex than a child can easily make. That’s part of the brilliance of it. These worlds that the children stumble into are dangerous and sometimes innocent people get hurt.

“What’s the Goblin Market?” “It is a place where dreamers go when they don’t fit in with the dreams their homes think worth dreaming.” pgs 56-57

Highly recommended for readers who like their fairy tales told with just enough reality to make it feel real. The Wayward Children series is a treat.

My other reviews in the series:

Every Heart a Doorway

Down Among the Sticks and Bones

Beneath the Sugar Sky

Thanks for reading!

The Waking Land by Callie Bates

A fantasy novel about a young woman who was raised away from her home who is destined to become something greater than anyone ever imagined she could be.

There were shades of Irish mythology in this story with magic surrounding standing stones and a midnight ritual about “marrying the land”.

Overall, I just felt like I had read this book before in some form or another. It stuck to so many forms — heroine who doesn’t know her own strength, falls in love with a man who may help her or betray her, trusts everyone she shouldn’t and doesn’t trust everyone she should.

There were so few unexpected moments. Even the big stuff is heavily foreshadowed. Take this passage:

“I can do nothing. I am a botanist, not a sorcerer. Botanists have a place in this world — a respectable place. As the emperor of Paladis likes to remind us, sorcerers are worse than nothing — their impious actions are a mockery of the gods, and their historical conviction that they could rule kingdoms presented a threat to civilization itself, a danger that had to be exterminated.” pg 22

Ok, now guess what is going to happen in this book… you’re probably right. And that blurb is from the first chapter.

I’m on to the next book… and thanks for reading!

SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

At the SuperMutant Magic Academy, strange things happen and everyone looks different, but teenage angst and questions about reality remain the same. There is unrequited love, hormones run amok and popularity problems. There is a young man who can’t seem to die, no matter how he tries to end his life. There’s an artist who puts herself into shocking situations to underline the pointlessness of reality.

There’s a young woman with the head of a lizard who just wants to find a boyfriend and a beautiful girl with ears like a fox who occasionally has to change into a fox and hunt prey. There’s drugs and alcohol and a host of other issues, while the poor teachers are simply trying to educate the group.

I didn’t connect well with this graphic novel and question its appropriateness for the younger end of the young adult scale. Older or more mature teens should be ok. There’s moments that make light of self harm without, what I think, is the appropriate context. There’s some sexual content that may be incredibly confusing and inappropriate for 11 and 12 year olds.

When I borrowed this from the library, I was under the impression that I could share this book with my child. After reading it, I realized I was wrong. That may have affected my opinions of SuperMutant Magic Academy. If I had just read it for enjoyment’s sake, maybe I would have thought more of its content.

Or maybe not. Jillian Tamaki gives herself, usually, just six panels to create a narrative and it isn’t enough. The jarring moments of reality left me with more questions than answers. I wanted more of a story and never really got that.

It made me think maybe I was missing out on something. If this is based off of a web comic, maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it in its original medium.

Thanks for reading!

The Help Desk Book Blog

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

Tag: Young Adult

A Golden Fury by Samantha Cohoe

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Hush (Hush, #1) by Dylan Farrow

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

Geek Fantasy Novel by E. Archer

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

In an Absent Dream (Wayward Children, #4) by Seanan McGuire

The Waking Land by Callie Bates

SuperMutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki

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