Enchanted Ivy by Sarah Beth Durst

Enchanted Ivy by Sarah Beth Durst
“What Lily Carter wants most in the world is to attend Princeton University just like her grandfather. When she finally visits the campus, Grandpa surprises her: She has been selected to take the top-secret Legacy Test. Passing means automatic acceptance to Princeton. Sweet!

Lily's test is to find the Ivy Key. But what is she looking for? Where does she start? As she searches, Lily is joined by Tye, a cute college boy with orange and black hair who says he's her guard. That's weird. But things get seriously strange when a gargoyle talks to her. He tells her that there are two Princetons—the ordinary one and a magical one—and the Key opens the gate between them. But there are more secrets that surround Lily. Worse secrets.

When Lily enters the magical Princeton, she uncovers old betrayals and new dangers, and a chance at her dream becomes a fight for her life. Soon Lily is caught in a power struggle between two worlds, with her family at its center. In a place where Knights slay monsters, boys are were-tigers, and dragons might be out for blood, Lily will need all of her ingenuity and courage—and a little magic—to unite the worlds and unlock the secrets of her past and her future.” (summary from jacket flap)

At first I felt a bit hesitant about whether I was going to like Enchanted Ivy or not. Sometimes fantasy set in the real world doesn’t appeal to me very well, especially if the place is well known. Yet, to my delight Enchanted Ivy sucked me right in. The story is set at Durst’s own alma mater, Princeton. Her love of the school and familiarity with the architecture really shines through in a way that brings the story alive. The setting really does feel magical and mysterious. Her main character is determined, smart, and totally clueless to the fact that she is about to discover an alternate world that will change her life forever.

About half-way through the book I was so hooked into the plot that I could not put it down, as Lily discovers the alternate magical world she also discovers secrets about herself and her family that she never knew before. In particular she discovers the source behind her mother’s mental illness, and learns about her father’s death, and even new talents that she herself possesses. This wonderful discovery story is full of magic, adventure, and little romance. I think I may have become a fan of Durst with this one. I’m going to keep an eye out for her next book.

Visit Sarah Beth Durst Author’s website

Her author blog also has a pretty cool picture tour of Princeton architecture that inspired characters and scenes in the book.

My Double Life by Janette Rallison

"Her whole life, Alexia Garcia has been told that she looks just like pop star Kari Kingsley, and one day when Alexia's photo filters through the Internet, she's offered a job to be Kari's double. This would seem like the opportunity of a lifetime, but Alexia's mother has always warned her against celebrities.

Rebelliously, Alexia flies off to L.A. and gets immersed in a celebrity life. Not only does she have to get used to getting anything she wants, she romances the hottest lead singer on the charts, and finds out that her own father is a singing legend. Through it all, Alexia must stay true to herself, which is hard to do when you are pretending to be somebody else!" (summary from good reads)

I think the first line of this book is sort of hilarious considering the fact that I got to talk to Janette Rallison at the LDSstorymakers conference while she was revising this book. She wasn't really all that excited about writing this book because while she came up with the initial idea when she sat down to write it (because her editor requested it) she found it kind of limiting. I still think the book turned out great, which is a sign that she is an experienced and skilled writer.

It seems very similar to Just One Wish on a surface level. A normal everyday girl goes to Hollywood and falls in love with a handsome star, but Alexia has very different struggles than the main character Annika in Just One Wish. She has grown up dirt poor, watching her Latina mother work as a housekeeper at a very nice local hotel. She knows that her father abandoned them when she was just a baby but not much else. They live a good life, though a very simple one. So, when Alexia is offered the chance to go to Hollywood and be Kari's double she thinks seriously about the offer, but her decision isn't final until she finds out that she may be able to meet her father, who abandoned her family when she was young.

This story ended up being a entertaining, light-hearted romance that even made me teary-eyed on one occasion. I read this book rather quickly considering the time I had to read it in. I always seemed to get sucked into Rallison's novels and can't put them down. This book was no exception.



Janette Rallison's Website

Janette Rallison's Blog

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

"The behemoth is the fiercest creature in the British navy. It can swallow enemy battleships with one bite. The Darwinists will need it, now that they are at war with the Clanker powers.
Deryn is a girl posing as a boy in the British Air Service, and Alek is the heir to an empire posing as a commoner. Finally together aboard the airship Leviathan, they hope to bring the war to a halt. But when disaster strikes the Leviathan's peacekeeping mission, they find themselves alone and hunted in enemy territory.

Alek and Deryn will need great skill, new allies, and brave hearts to face what's ahead."
(summary from goodreads)

Scott Westerfeld’s second installment of his steampunk WWI series was as enjoyable to read as the first book. This time much of the book takes place in the city of Istanbul. Dylan and Alek and the crew of the Leviathan are put smack dab right in the middle of a huge political and military tangle for power over the city. We finally get to discover what strange creatures Dr. Barlow is carrying across the entire continent of Europe as a peace offering to the sultan of Istanbul.

Alek, meanwhile, gets himself in a tight spot when Britain finally declares war on Austria-Hungry and Germany. The hospitality of the Leviathan crew can no longer protect him, and so he flees into the streets of Istanbul and finds what allies he can to elude capture and to make plans for the future. As he wanders around the city we get introduced to a whole new crew of walker machines and their intriguing owners.

This book is full of plot, awesome characters, and one of the most interesting and unique settings I’ve come across in a long time. While I did miss reading about the ship Leviathan and found the huge new beastie a little disappointing because it had so little screen time this was still an awesome read. This is a series I would recommend to everyone. I can’t wait for the next book to come out!


Scott Westerfeld's blog

The Limit by Kristen Landon

The Limit by Kirsten Landon
"An eighth grade girl was taken today . . .

With this first sentence, readers are immediately thrust into a fast-paced thriller that doesn’t let up for a moment. In a world not too far removed from our own, kids are being taken away to special workhouses if their families exceed the debt limit imposed by the government. Thirteen-year-old Matt briefly wonders if he might be next, but quickly dismisses the thought. After all, his parents are financially responsible, unlike the parents of those other kids. As long as his parents remain within their limit, the government will be satisfied and leave them alone. But all it takes is one fatal visit to the store to push Matt’s family over their limit–and to change his reality forever."
(summary from Author's website)

I was immediately intrigued by the concept of this novel. The idea of people coming and snatching children away to pay off their family’s debt when they went over the limit was a very compelling hook. The author does a very good job a conveying the conventions of society in her world and introducing the main character, Matt.

Matt is super smart, unusually smart and the author does a really good job at portraying how smart he is without making him seem unrealistic or unsympathetic. When Matt gets taken away from his family after they go over the limit during a trip to the grocery store I as a reader felt as desperate as he did for him to get back to his family.

At the workhouse it seems that some of the action in the book slows down a bit after Matt gets sorted onto his floor. The workhouses are actually designed to be quite humane and comfortable for the kids. They do work assignments, get paid, meet new friends, and some of them even forget a bit about getting back to their family. Sure, Matt misses his family at first, but then he sort of gets used to living the luxurious life on the “top floor.” It was kind of hard for me to keep reading the novel after the initial conflict of him being taken from his family weakens, but the author has a few twists and turns in the plot, and soon Matt is working with his friends to save children on the lower floors from the director’s illegal experiments.

While I thought The Limit was well-written novel with an interesting concept at the end I felt like the novel was lacking for me. I was expecting the book to have a few more action scenes, and a little less down time. All the loose ends of the plot were nicely tied off, but the ending wasn’t as big as I expected it. It becomes obvious that the corruption of the director was localized to Matt’s workhouse. That at the end the society in the book would continue to function as it always had before, and there would be no huge overall change. I suppose that took me off guard because I expected the plot to go in the character v.s government plot line that is so typical of this type of book these days.

Alas, my expectations for the book led for me to feel let down at the end of the novel, but it really is a decent little novel. I would recommend it to those who like the dystopian sci-fi genre as a quick, stand-alone read.

Kristen Landon's Website

Books read in 2010

List of Books read in 2010


137 Don’t You Marry the Mormon Boys (won in contest)
138 Heroes of Glorietta Pass (won in contest)
139 Brellan’s Tale by Kindal Debenham (manuscript)
140 Two Girl’s of Gettysburg by Lisa Klein (library)
141 The Giver by Lois Lowry (library)
142 Wolfhound by Kindal Debenham (manuscript)
143 Maurice and his educated rodents by Terry Pratchett (library)
144 Band of Sisters by Annette Lyon (electronic review copy)
145 Charles and Emma by Deborah Heiligman (library)
146 Leviathan re-read
147 Leigh Ann’s Civil War by Ann Rinaldi (library)
148 Being Sixteen by Ally Condie (purchased)
149 Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik (Purchased)
150 Woods Runner by Gary Paulsen (library)
151 Victory of eagles by Naomi Novik (Purchased)
152 My ridiculous Romantic Obsessions by Becca Whilhite (Purchased)
153 Pegasus by Robin McKinley (borrowed from librarian)
154 Mistwood by Leah Cypress (borrowed from Librarian)
155 The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan (purchased)
156 The Last Waltz by G.G. Vandagriff (purchased)
157 Alma the Younger by H. B. Moore (review copy)
158 Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George (purchased)
159 Incarceron by Catherine Fisher (purchased)
160 Princess for Hire by Lindsey Leavitt (library)
161 Just One Wish by Jannette Rallison (library)
162 Calamity Jack by Shannon and Dean Hale (library)
163 Spells by Aprilynne Pike (library)
164 Ice by Sarah Beth Durst (library)
165 Mayflower by Beverly Peirce Strobel (Review copy)
166 this world we live in by Susan Beth Pfeffer (library)
167 I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter (library)
168 Pocket of Guilt by Dora Lee Thompson (ARC)
169 Boneshaker by Cherie Priest (library)
170 Airman by Eoin Colfer (library)
171 The Princess and the Snowbird by Mette Ivie Harrison (library)
172 The Heist Society by Ally Carter (library)
173 The Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne Duprau (library)
174 The 13th Reality: The Blade of Shattered Hope by James Dashner (library)
175 Secondhand Charm by Julie Berry (ARC Bloomsbury)
176 Raven Speak by Diane Lee Wilson (library)
177 The Limit by Kristen Landon (Purchased)
178 Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld (Purchased)
179 Enchanted Ivy by Sarah Beth Durst (library)
180 My Double Life by Janette Rallison (library)
181 Matched by Ally Condie (Purchased)
182 Bounded by Aneeka (manuscript)

I read 45 Books this year. Down from my usual number. I've been slacking off recently, as I still need to write a review for Behemoth.

3 book manuscripts written by people close to me
22 from library
2 contest wins
11 purchased with my money
2 borrowed from people
5 ARCs

My favorites:

1. Charles and Emma
2. Being Sixteen
3. Pegasus
4. Mistwood
5. Behemoth

Christmas Greetings!

Hello, all you book lovers out there!

I hope the holidays are treating you well. This year my husband and I are going solo and staying home for various reasons. We shall miss our family, but it has been nice to have so much time together. We have opposite work schedules and don't spend as much time with each other as we would like to.

So, it is nice to be a teacher and have a long winter break in which to recoup and relax. Of course I don't do relaxing very well. I'm always up to one project or another. Unfortunately, (or fortunately) this blog hasn't really been the focus of my attention this season. I'm still posting fairly regularly, but I know a few weeks have slipped by with out a word from me.

I am now six months pregnant. How the time has flown! So, most of my attention is focused on the tyke now. I think I have entered a full on nesting mode. All I want to do is sew, and sew, and sew. I sewed Christmas themed totes instead of using wrapping paper for presents this year. For the book appreciators in my family we slipped books into these totes and shipped them off. For the non-book appreciators we slipped in yummy snacks. Then I made hand-made cards with the Cricut to go along with them.

We haven't really bought the baby anything yet. We are horrible, I know. Shopping currently sounds so exhausting and I worry about running out of food and getting sick, then having to drive through massive amounts of traffic to get home in that condition. So, I've made the mistake of visiting crafty blogs and now a lot of my time is spent in dreaming up what to make next.

Yesterday, I went to the fabric store to buy loads of fabric and some patterns. I am in the planning stages of making the baby a homecoming outfit, a nursing pillow, fabric play blocks, decorated clothed pins, and a quilt. Then I also want to sew pillow cases for a gift for a family in our ward. I finished sewing a "super secret project" for the husby yesterday. So, a lot of my time recently has not been devoted to reading.

I still have a few reviews to post and I need to write reviews for several books I read last month. So, that is how things are going round here. I'll keep you updated on my crafting and reading adventures as best I can, but posting might get spotty from here on out.

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You by Ally Carter

I’d Tell You I’d Love You But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

The Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a fairly typical all-girls school—that is, if every school teaches advanced martial arts in PE, chemistry always consists of the latest in chemical warfare, and everyone breaks CIA codes for extra credit in computer class. So in truth, while the Gallagher Academy might say it's a school for geniuses what they really mean is spies. But what happens when a Gallagher Girl falls for a boy who doesn't have a code name?

Cammie Morgan may be fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in seven different ways (three of which involve a piece of uncooked spaghetti), but the Gallagher Academy hasn't prepared her for what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, and track him through a mall without him ever being the wiser, but can she have a regular relationship with a regular boy who can never know the truth about her? Cammie may be an elite spy in training, but in her sophomore year, she's doing something riskier than ever—she's falling in love."

(summary from author’s website)

I guess this series has been out for several years, and I just barely read the first book in the series this summer. I really enjoyed the prep school to become a spy idea because it allowed for so many unique scenarios that gives the book its charm. It is very fun to watch Cammie try to navigate her way through having a boyfriend when she knows very little about the real world, and she thinks of everything from a spy’s perspective. My favorite scene is when she and her girlfriends are looking through her love interest’s trash to find out more clues about him. So funny!

This is a really fun and light read. Though, I think Cammie got off the hook too easily at the end when her mom found out about her sneaking out all school year long. That part kind of bugged me. Still this is a fun, clean read and I plan on reading the sequel sometime.

Ally Carter's Website

The Princess and the Snowbird by Mette Ivie Harrison

The Princess and the Snowbird by Mette Ivie Harrison
"She is the headstrong daughter of the hound and the bear, heir to all her royal parents' magic and able to transform at will into any animal she wishes.

He is an outcast, a boy without magic, determined to make his way in the forest beholden to no one.

Though Liva and Jens are as different as night and day, from the time their paths first cross they are irresistibly drawn to one another. Each wrestles with demons: Liva with the responsibility that comes with the vast magic she's inherited, Jens with the haunting memories he's left behind. Separately, they keep a lookout for each other and for the immense snowbird whose appearances signify a dark event on the horizon.

When a terrible threat surfaces, Liva and Jens set out in an attempt to protect all they hold dear. Much is at stake—for while their failure could spell an end to all magic, their success could bring them together at last." (summary from publisher's website)

I have to admit that The Princess and the Snowbird was my least favorite of Harrison’s princess trilogy. As always I loved the author’s distinct, crisp prose, and how the story feels so much like a fairy tale. I also really like how her magic system is so connected to nature and animals. I still think this is a great little set of books that I would recommend to all those, who love fairy tales. I think my problem with the book was that it felt too much like the other two. One of the fun things about this trilogy is that the love stories are all unique, and have unexpected twists. But I felt like Liva and Jens’s love story wasn’t as exciting or original as the other two love stories.

Then there was the fact that I felt like the ending was a deus ex machina, and some of my questions weren’t answered. There is a stone in the book that leeches magic away from people, and it became clear that it would have to be destroyed in order for magic to survive. The book never shows us where this rock came from, how much of it there was, and how it could be destroyed. There are a couple of vague hints as to what happened, but they never really answered the above three questions.

I just sort of have to assume what I think happened really occurred, but I’m not really sure that I’m right about my assumptions. So, the lack of clarity on this plot point kind of annoyed me. The villain is really powerful and evil in this book, and I think part of the reason I didn’t like the story was because he was defeated too easily, and I wasn’t really convinced that the main characters could take him out. As a result of the villains wickedness this book is a bit more dark and sad than the first two also. I have to admit the negative view of human nature in this book sort of made me squirm a few times. I didn’t really like it.

The Princess and the Snowbird was still a pretty good read like the first two in the series with a magical fairy tale feel, and a gentle romance story, but the ending left me feeling a little bit let down. Perhaps, I built up my expectations too high, but plot line of The Princess and the Snowbird seemed weak in comparison to the other two books.

Mette Ivie Harrison's website

Ice by Sarah Beth Durst

Ice by Sarah Beth Durst

“When Cassie was a little girl, her grandmother told her a fairy tale about her mother, who made a deal with the Polar Bear King and was swept away to the ends of the earth. Now that Cassie is older, she knows the story was a nice way of saying her mother had died. Cassie lives with her father at an Arctic research station, is determined to become a scientist, and has no time for make-believe.

Then, on her eighteenth birthday, Cassie comes face-to-face with a polar bear who speaks to her. He tells her that her mother is alive, imprisoned at the ends of the earth. And he can bring her back -- if Cassie will agree to be his bride.
That is the beginning of Cassie's own real-life fairy tale, one that sends her on an unbelievable journey across the brutal Arctic, through the Canadian boreal forest, and on the back of the North Wind to the land east of the sun and west of the moon. Before it is over, the world she knows will be swept away, and everything she holds dear will be taken from her -- until she discovers the true meaning of love and family in the magical realm of Ice.”

The novel Ice is another fairytale retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. I’ve already read two other retellings of this tale, and wrote a post comparing the two different novels. What I really liked about Ice was that it the point of view character Cassie felt like an ordinary teenage girl. She felt distinctly modern, and not placed in some random unidentified historical period. Yet, despite the modern feeling of the characters and the setting the author still managed to make the story have that magical fairytale quality. I also really liked that Cassie was a very strong female character, and her incredible stubbornness gets her into a lot of trouble, but also gets her through some really hard situations. I also loved how the author created her own magical world around the fairy tale. Cassie’s polar bear is a magical creature called a munaqsri, who watches over the souls of all polar bears as they enter into and leave life. The author weaves the details about these creatures into the plot and they become an important part of the story.

I have to say that I this story had me hooked, flipping pages as fast as I could to get to the end, and the ending was one of the most satisfactory I’ve read in a long time. It was just so good plot writing wise; I thought the author did well tying all of the story threads together. Though, I can understand if the ending was unbelievable to some readers. Perhaps, storming an evil troll castle while in labor is a bit hard to swallow.

One last thing, the plot had very strong adventure elements, but also has moderate romantic elements that may make really conservative readers wary. The author only describes kissing, but Bear and Cassie are married, so some of the plot centers around them building enough love and trust to have a mature romantic relationship, and all that entails. Personally, I thought the author did this tastefully, and I really enjoyed how Cassie and Bear create a loving, balanced, and partner based relationship.








Visit the Author's website for more about Sarah Beth Durst and her books.

The Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne Duprau

Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne DuPrau

“It's been several months since Lina and Doon escaped the dying city of Ember and, along with the rest of their people, joined the town of Sparks. Life above ground is hard. The winter storms have been fierce. Supplies are running low. Accidents and disease have taken a toll.

It's during this dark time that Doon finds an unusual book. Torn up and missing most of its pages, it alludes to a mysterious device, a piece of technology from before the Disaster. Doon is sure that the Builders of Ember meant for the citizens to find this device when they left the city. Together, he and Lina must go back to their old home and retrieve what was lost.”

So, I really loved The Diamond of Darkhold, not as much as I loved The City of Ember, or the People of Sparks, but it was really nice to revisit Doon and Lina, and go on another adventure with them. For me it was more similar to The City of Ember than the second book The People of Sparks. Once again Doon and Lina have to go on an adventure to discover another secret that the founders of Ember hid near the city.

That’s right you get to go back to the City of Ember, and I love how the story has that magical mixture of adventure and mystery. Of course a few things go wrong, but Doon and Lina use their resourcefulness and cleverness to survive their challenges, and that is why I love these two characters! They are so brave and smart. Oh, yeah, I remember the one thing that bugged me. The ending is so weird and random, like really random. It totally came out of nowhere. The ending doesn’t ruin the book for me because it seemed to be tacked on so randomly and strangely that I didn’t really consider it part story in the book. I think the author was just trying to put a hopeful end on the series or something. I don’t know. It was weird, though.

So, if you really enjoyed reading the City of Ember, and wish you could revisit The Diamond of Darkhold is an awesome read.

Visit Author Jeanne DuPrau's Website