The Book Review Club - Mark of the Dragonfly

The Mark of the Dragonfly
Jaleigh Johnson
middle grade / fantasy

This was my best summer read. It's a great beach book, and since I can't quite let go of sand and sun, I'm reviewing it.

Basic Premise: Girl saves world

A little more detail, you say?

Happily!

Piper is a scrapper from the Meteor Fields of the Merrow Kingdom in the northern reaches of Solace, a world in which things fall through a hole in the sky from one world to another. There are hints that the world losing objects is ours and Solace is a parallel universe, but that isn't spelled out in book 1.

One of those objects turns out to be a girl, Anna, who is part human and part mechanical. She is sold to a ruthless politician/engineer (a new combination), Doloman, from the Dragonfly Kingdom. Merrow and Dragonfly are at war. Anna could be the key in turning that war, giving one side a weapons edge. Only problem - she seems irreparably broken. She won't wake up. Doloman journeys back to the north to find the scrapper who sold him Anna, hoping to learn more, but his caravan gets caught in a meteor storm. Enter Piper, who has a special (magical) gift with anything mechanical. She is a synergist. She discovers Anna in the caravan wreckage and takes her home to nurse her. In her presence, Anna reawakens, and they begin a journey of discovery that turns into one of flight as Anna's true identity as a machine becomes apparent, and her value.

It would be hard to sum up the story in fewer words. There is so much to discover. And I haven't even gotten to the chamelin on the train, Gee, who is a boy and also a winged creature. Or the train! For those who are Lord of the Rings fans, this will give you the same cozy, curl up and disappear in a fantastical adventure feel. Granted, there is a lot of world-building, and yes, information dumps. Watch out for those. The beginning is pock-marked with them. And, homage to Hunger Games. Piper is from Scrap Town Number 16 in the Territories and they're dirt poor.

Yet, the characters are interesting enough, the pacing fast enough, the mashing of steampunk and fantasy novel enough (and the sun and sand perfect enough) to forgive Johnson the dumps. In the end, I just had fun on this adventure, and I haven't said that in a good long time.

So, if you've feeling up for a jaunt into a fantastical world in which anything is possible, pick up The Mark of the Dragonfly. And for more great Fall Fun, take a gander through more Book Review Club reviews on Barrie Summy's site.  

The Book Review Club - The Passenger

The Passenger
Alexandra Bracken
YA

I love the books I struggle with. It's all about the challenge. Alexandra Bracken challenged me with The Passenger. And she's still challenging me. So let's hit the ring!

Basic premise: On the night of violinst extraordinaire and lifelong New Yorker, 17 year-old Etta Linden's premiere recital, her teacher is murdered, a hole opens up in time, and Etta is thrust into a centuries-old battle for control of basically all of humanity. Her only friend, Nicholas, is fellow time traveler, and secretly sent to keep Etta in line in her quest for the one object that can tilt the scales of power in favor of the least favorable hegemon, who now holds Etta's mother captive.

Get ready for a ride. Bracken takes readers from 1776 New York to WII London, the jungles of Cambodia, late 1800s Paris, and the deserts surrounding Damascus. There is nary a dull moment. Add to that a fierce romance between Nicholas and Etta, and you've got yourself perhaps the first summer read of the Spring.

What challenged me most about this piece was the balance of romance and action. Etta is no damsel in distress, but Nicholas, a former slave, comes from 1700s America and does have a bit of the hero to him, which is at once a fabulous twist on the hero and yet a hero nonetheless. Etta, however, coming from the present day, sees them as partners. Thus, there is a tension in expectations throughout the story - Nicholas trying to live up to an ideal no human can, and Etta not expecting it and working to redirect, to get him to see relationships in a different light. Again, kudos to Bracken. It's a struggle this generation of women, if not my own, faces with the cultural expectations through which the opposite gender has been raised to see itself.

So, despite all of that, because of the strong male character, this piece does devolve into a somewhat more, seemingly predictable romance novel. Granted, it does not end that way exactly. However, you've got to stick with it to find that out, and that may be hard if you're looking for something that doesn't tiptoe into classic romance lit, complete with swooning and getting swept away. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's just a predictable one.

Which makes me question where YA is headed these days. This is just one book of many coming out, but it seems to be that we're falling back into old patterns. There are the realistic YA novels, such as the Fault in Our Stars. They're nothing new to literature (see, Catcher in the Rye). And there are the Twilight sagas, such as The Passenger. The one book I have a hard time categorizing, honestly, is The Hunger Games or Divergent. Dystopian? Sci-Fi? But yet YA?

Categorization is a fun hobby, like collecting stamps, but it doesn't change literature. Nonetheless, stepping back and looking at literature as a categorizer can give a writer an idea of where the tide may be headed. Perhaps Suzanne Collins great contribution has been - aside from a riveting read -  genre mashing, pushing dystopian and YA together. It begs the question, what other unique mashes can we come up with? Writers of the world unite. Let's break some new boundaries!

For more great reads, and less revolutionary calls to arms ;-), skip on over to Barrie Summy's site. She's serving them up fresh and tasty!

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