ARC Review: Absent

Absent by Katie Williams
4/5 stars
Chronicle Books, 2013
182 pages
YA Contemporary Ghost Mystery
Scheduled to release May 21 (originally April 1, which is why this post is ready)

Source: Received an e-ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I never think of myself as a fan of paranormal stories but I do have a huge soft spot for ghost stories. When I saw that this book had a ghost with the bonus of being set entirely at a school, I knew I wanted to read it.

Paige, Brooke, and Evan are ghosts tied to their high school due to it being the scene of their deaths. Paige somehow fell from the school's roof while Brooke overdosed in the bathroom (Evan's story is best left til you read it in the book itself). When a popular girl states that Paige jumped, she is outraged but seemed calmed by discovering that she can possess the body of anyone when they think about her, something she uses both for good and evil throughout the story as she tries to set the record straight and repair her reputation. The lives and deaths of Brooke and Evan are also entwined on this journey.

Paige was kind of a loner in life, with only one real friend and living as a secret hook-up for a popular boy. After her death, she sees the cliques of school more clearly and learns what an impact she can have. There are many secrets in this book: the quiet pain of people, their crushes, and all the issues people deal with while in high school and throughout life.

My overall impression of this book was that it was pretty quiet and intense; you could read it in one sitting as it's pretty short. Although there are melancholy moments (because an awful lot of people are in pain), I felt like the book ended on a hopeful note. I especially liked the way Evan's story was handled-I predicted his plot but it still pleased me. I don't feel like there was any real standout moment or element but the whole was pretty cohesive and pleasing especially if you like stories set in high schools, with some mystery, and/or with ghosts.

Cover: Very appropriate-the butterfly lines up with an important event in the book.

Other Opinions:
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ARC Review: Nobody's Secret

Nobody's Secret by Michaela MacColl
4/5 stars
Chronicle Books, 2013
241 pages
YA Historical Mystery
Scheduled to release April 16

Source: Received an e-ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I've read both of MacColl's previous books and have really appreciated her focus on young historically significant women. Previously it was the young Queen Victoria and aviatrix Beryl Markham. This time we are visiting Emily Dickinson, a very well-known poet but not someone whose personal life I know much about. The book relies heavily on MacColl's imagination as it has Emily investigate what she suspects is a murder, something that has no direct basis in fact.

Still the book does a great job capturing what a young Emily might have been like. She is spunky and inquisitive, not a fainting flower, filled with a deep intellectual curiosity. I always say that I don't like poetry but that's not really true as I have liked what little I've sampled of Dickinson's writing and am pleased to report that excerpts from her poems open each chapter. Themes from her writing also permeate the story such as a preoccupation with bees and anonymity while living in a very small town. Something else to think about is the effect of domestic labor on a woman's ability to write (very shades of A Room of One's Own, very subtle in this book). Emily's sister Vinnie (short for Lavinia) is one of the most important secondary characters and I was pleased with the role of family.

As I said, this is a mystery with Emily attempting to uncover the identity of a dead man and insisting it was murder, piecing together all the clues. I had a sliver of an idea of what was going on but the villainy of the murderer was beyond my capability to imagine. I'm pleased that Emily was able to unravel the threads and gain some measure of peace regarding the man's final moments and I almost wish this particular story owed more to history than fiction.

Saying that, while I liked this book, I didn't love it. I wanted something more, that ineffable feeling an amazing book gives you and that was lacking here. Lovers of historical fiction and poetry should enjoy this as will fans of MacColl's previous works.

Other Opinions:
Have not seen any; if you (or a friend) reviewed this, leave a link below and I'll add it!

The Templeton Twins Have an Idea

The Templeton Twins Have an Idea by Ellis Weiner
Illustrated by Jeremy Holmes
3/5 stars
Chronicle Books, 2012
227 pages
MG Adventure Mystery

Source: Received in ARC through Amazon Vine in exchange for an honest review.

My review of this book should be split into two parts: the story and the way the story is told.

The first part I am very excited about. The Templeton Twins, twelve-year old John and Abigail (making me think of the Adamses) are fun kids. John is a drummer and Abigail solves cryptic crosswords so they're smart and creative thinkers. They get tangled up in the schemes of another set of twins with a grudge against their father and outwit the villains in a most clever way. I really enjoyed everything about their story.

The second part though includes the narrator, who I found extremely grating. The narrator is definitely going to be off-putting to some people, of which I was one. The narrator talks directly to the reader-which I often like but in this case it is to act superior. I guess I was not in the best mood so I was a little bit more ruffled by this than I otherwise would have been. The narrator kind of reminded me of Lemony Snicket in "A Series of Unfortunate Events" but it has either been a very long time since I read that series or Snicket was much less in your face than this narrator.  Basically my irritation with the narrator stifled my enjoyment of this book.

One other element to note is that this book does have illustration. However since I received an ARC, I have not seen the final drawings. I did really enjoy the sketches though and feel like they were a great addition to the story. That was actually a major draw for me when requesting this book-I am really growing to love when books have additional content like that.

Overall: I feel like the narrator is make-or-break it for the book. Try and read a chapter or two to see if it works better for you!

The Orphan of Awkward Falls

The Orphan of Awkward Falls by Keith Graves
Chronicle Books, 2011
338 pages
Middle-Grade; Fantastical
4/5 stars

Source: Received an ARC through Amazon Vine in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book, other than hopefully a charming MG story. I was also pleased to discover that there were illustrations included as I read through this weird tale.

Josephine has just moved to Awkward Falls, location of an insane asylum housing cannibal Fetid Stenchley, who manages to escape through a very poorly planned event. That is unknown to her when she stumbles upon the titular orphan, Thaddeus, a mad scientist who lives with his grandfather's robot servant (awesome!) and a talking reanimated cat, among other oddities. These people and more collide in a crazy adventure.

I have to say that I was somewhat reminded of the Series of Unfortunate Events while reading this. I'm not sure if it's because of the presence of an orphan, the presence of a sauerkraut factory in the town, or if it's the odd happenings or something else. But, whatever it was, I liked it.

Josephine and Thaddeus are sweet kids with understandable motivations and desires. The aforementioned robot servant is wonderful: loyal and brave. And Josephine's parents even get to play an important role in the book-yay for parents who care about their children, who believe and trust even when the truth sounds crazy!

Boo on mad scientists as Thaddeus' grandfather is revealed to be. Boo on cannibals, even though Fetid is revealed to be a bit more complicated than that. He does have his own loyalty system but he spares no hurt for innocent people and too singlemindedly pursues his own desires instead of considering others.

Don't worry though! In the end, our heroes will end well while the cannibals receive a just punishment. A quirky story with good characters and some imaginative escapades.

Promise the Night

Promise the Night by Michaela MacColl
Chronicle Books, 2011
262 pages
YA; Historical
4/5 stars

Source: Received an ARC for review from Amazon Vine.

I really enjoyed MacColl's first novel about young future queen Victoria so I was interested in her second outing, another historical fiction novel about a British heroine in vastly different circumstances. This time the heroine is famed aviatrix Beryl Markham, who grew up in British East Africa. I had never heard of her and entered the book with no idea what to expect.

I really liked the writing and the adventures. Beryl is not a shy, retiring young lady; she is bold and daring, not content to sit inside but wanting to be a warrior and trainer of horses. She gets in to so many scrapes but is dedicated to doing the right thing and confessing her wrongs to her father. She has a strong sense of justice even if as a child, she still has much to learn. However I didn't really identify with her, being a more introverted and indoorsy girl, and disapproved of her hijinks; honestly I thought she was a little bratty in some instances such as her obstinacy against learning basic mathematics. I wonder if a younger reader might be more enchanted.

The book is roughly divided into three sections: Beryl's life on her father's ranch and Beryl's life at school interspersed with journal entries chronicling her record-setting journey to be the first woman to fly London to New York over the Atlantic (the winds make it tougher than New York to London). I loved the journal entries and Beryl's time at school. However MacColl doesn't shy away from some of the nastier elements of colonialism nor does she downplay the dangers of Africa (leopards to say the least), both of which made me squirm.

Overall: I did prefer MacColl's first novel but I definitely want to applaud this exciting and well-written historical YA novel.

Cover: The cover I received featured a blonde girl in aviator hat and glasses, which doesn't really capture the book as flying is not the biggest element. However this cover is pretty bland.

Prisoners in the Palace

Prisoners in the Palace by Michaela MacColl
Chronicle Books, 2010
352 pages
YA; Historical Fiction
4.5/5 stars

Source: Library

Summary: Liza was orphaned before she was able to enter Society, leaving her flat broke.  However she is fortunate enough to gain a position as lady's maid to Princess Victoria, catapulting her in to a world of intrigue and suspicion at Kensington Palace.  Caught between worlds, Liza must forge her own path and future.

I alternated a lot over whether I liked the portrayals of Liza and Victoria in this novel.  On the one hand, Liza was not that grand of a lady no matter what she wants to think; on the other hand, she's an orphan struggling to make her way in the world.  On the one hand, Victoria grows up to be a great queen and hints of compassion appear here; on the other, she's so mercurial and almost always self-absorbed.

I'm somewhat familiar with Victoria's childhood, especially with the villain Sir John Conroy who would stop at nothing to increase his influence over her as he had over her mother.  Whether he can be in charge of her correspondence, her purse, her throne, whatever, he wants it.  He knows no shame and was a fantastic character!  His plotting drives the main plot, culminating in a suspenseful ending before Victoria's ascension. Albert, future husband to Victoria, also makes a brief appearance; he is a prig and distinctly unworthy of her as presented at this point.  I personally am not a big fan of Albert ever but she loved him.

But there are also entirely fictional if representative characters.  Annie, Liza's predecessor as lady's maid, loses her position due to a pregnancy and suffers a huge downward spiral as I'm sure many women did, confronted with the social mores of the period and the lechery of upper-class men.  Will is a newspaperman and friend of Liza's whose broadsheets help inform public opinion.  Inside Boy, one of my favorite characters, is an urchin who teaches the colorful street patter and also aids Liza when in dire straits.  They added considerable color and fun to the novel, balanced against the more serious degradations suffered by Victoria from her mother and Sir John.

Overall: I really enjoyed this book except for some annoyances with Liza.

Cover: This is a gorgeously designed book-even if historical fiction isn't your thing, I recommend examining it at a store.  The back is designed like a newspaper with a combination of stories about the actual novel and blurbs from authors and the inside is also beautiful.