Teaser Tuesdays -- Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading. To participate, all you have to do is the following:

• Grab your current/upcoming read
• Open to a random page
• Share 2-3 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers!

A planet no human being has ever been on before.

  

The boy stands up.  He's so tall, it doesn't feel fair to call him a boy, but at the same time, he's got a bit of a baby face, as if he's never seen or done anything to make him grow up, to make the angels of his face sharpen with the harshness of age.

page 88, Across the Universe by Beth Revis 

This one has been making the rounds among YA readers.  Amy is a teenager who, along with her parents, was cryogenically frozen and place upon Godspeed, a spaceship on its three hundred year journey to a new planet.  When she wakes up early, she is quickly thrown into several mysteries -- including the question of who unplugged her, nearly causing her death. 

I was not nearly as captivated with Across the Universe as I expected to be.  In fact, it's one of the few times, when reading a YA book, that I think maybe I understand the reservations of YA-skeptical adults -- I was aware, with Revis' book, that I am older than her target audience -- I felt a disconnect that I seldom experience with YA fiction, but perhaps it happens more often with other adults than it does with me.  Nonetheless, I will want to pick up the sequel when it comes out . . . And it brought some of the same large issues to the surface that Battlestar Galactica does for me.  3.5/5 stars

The Bronze and the Brimstone by Lory S. Kaufman

In The Bronze and the Brimstone, the second in the Verona Trilogy by Lory S. Kaufman, we return to 14th century Italy where Hansum, Shamira, and Lincoln are continuing to figure out how to survive in a world that is very different from their homes and lives in the 24th century. 

It is always interesting to see how an author will handle (or ignore) the need to orient new readers to what is happening in a given series.  I won't give away how Kaufman chooses to do this in The Bronze and the Brimstone, but I thought it worked well. 


I continue to be intrigued with Kaufman's idea of what a post-apocalyptic utopia would look like and how society would choose to educate their children about what came before.  All children go to History Camp, where they experience life as their ancestors did (think colonial Williamsburg but less touristy and more mildly boot camp-ish).  In The Lens & the Looker (Book 1 in the Verona Trilogy), History Camp doesn't seem to be having its intended effect on Hansum, Shamira, and Lincoln but when they are kipnapped and taken to the real 14th century Verona, it's a different story.   

And now, in The Bronze and the Brimstone, the adventures continue.  Hansum continues his work with the ruler of Verona, introducing gunpowder and cannons before their time with all of the danger that comes along with them.  Meanwhile, the Black Plague has begun its deadly tour of Europe and Pan, the a.i. who was with them from the beginning, is suddenly no longer around to help. 

I've found it difficult to place these books in a certain age category.  The reading level is very accessible yet there are certain things that seem meant for an older audience.  My guess is that Kaufman is writing for a high school age audience.

3.5/5 stars

Book Beginnings & Friday 56 -- My Reading Life by Pat Conroy

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence, or two, of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

Between the ages of six and nine, I was a native son of the marine bases of Cherry Point and Camp Lejeune in the eastern coastal regions of North Carolina. 

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Check out the rules and join in the fun.

Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
Turn to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. Post a link along with your post back to this blog.

One Sunday after the community sing, a young Martin Luther King Jr. got up to preach a homily, and I heard the most electrifying speaker I had ever listened to.  His voice was an instrument of an immense and subtle power.  He spoke without notes, his voice botha spillage of honey and a quiet call to arms.

I'm vaguely aware of Conroy's books (The Great Santini, The Prince of Tides), but have never actually picked one up.  In My Reading Life, Conroy tells his life story through his reading experiences as well as his relationships with other readers and writers.  I think my un-enjoyment of this book came from the cavern of differences between Pat Conroy and I - sex, age, childhood, opinion about political correctness, etc.  It was okay, but I'm probably not his target audience.

Don't Know Where, Don't Know When by Annette Laing == Time Travel

I was so pleased to receive, from the author, an autographed copy of Don't Know Where, Don't Know When (The first book in the Snipesville Chronicles!) by Annette Laing.  From the back cover:

What a nightmare.  Hannah Dias, California Girl with Attitude, and Alex, her laid-back brother, have moved from exciting San Francisco to boring Snipesville, Georgia.life doesn't improve when they meet Brandon, a dorky kid who is plotting his escape from the Deep South, and the weird Professor, who has a strange accent.  

Suddenly, the kids are catapulted thousands of miles and almost seventy years to England during World War Two.  They fall into a world of stinging nettles, dragon ladies, bomb blasts, ugly underwear, stinky sandwiches, painful punishments, and non-absorbing toilet paper.  They learn so much more than they could ever learn in a history class.  Not that they want to learn it.

But they can't go home unless they find George Braithwaite, and whatever it is that he has to do with Snipesville.

This is one of those books that it would be a pleasure to re-read, to catch all the little connections you didn't catch the first time around.  I'm a big fan of time travel (and parallel worlds -- I love the movie Sliding Doors) and this book was definitely a hit for me in this area. 

I appreciated the discussion that Brandon and the professor have about what is different because it's 1915 and what's different because it's London (versus the United States).  The distinction makes total sense to me and I could see myself wondering the same thing.  In fact, I have wondered something similar -- I grew up in small-town Indiana.  Before moving to Denver four years ago, most big cities I'd spent time in were located in another country (China, Guatemala, Costa Rica) and I often wondered what was "big city" and what was "different country". (If we were talking in person this is where I'd probably lapse into the mildly amusing story about the butcher shop in NYC, but we'll just all try to stay on task, shall we?)

In her acknowledgments Laing thanks her friends for encouraging her "'not to worry about the P.C. People.'  You're right:  the past is not politically correct".  There were a few parts of the book that did indeed rub me the wrong way and perhaps it was those very things that Laing is referring to as politically incorrect.  At one point, after breaking a neighbor's window, Hannah is beaten with a leather belt. The professor's explanation?   "Mrs. D. doesn't think like the adults in your world, or at least like the adults in your world tell you that they think.  In her world, unlike ours, almost everyone says it's fine to spank children now and then, but it is not considered a good idea to burden kids with grown-up worries.  So Mrs. D. reckons that kids are kids, and her two only needed a simple lesson today . . . She hopes they will learn their lesson so she never has to repeat it." This makes sense to me as an explanation, but not as a justification, if that makes sense.  It was also a little disconcerting to me when Hannah thinks to herself, after being approached by an older woman, ". . . the lady would probably look quite a bit younger if she wore makeup, dyed her hair, and got her wrinkles ironed out with Botox" (p.137) and goes on to mention facelifts and dental work.  I think this was another attempt to point out the differences between the two time periods but this is the kind of thing that makes me cringe -- just the whole idea of someone "needing" Botox.  But these are just small quibbles.

Some fun or humorous parts -- Hannah and Alex find a Monopoly board and discover that it's all London landmarks -- So Park Lane instead of Park Place, etc.  I liked it when they played "pass the parcel" at a birthday party, as we did that a few months ago at the birthday party of a dear (English) friend. Laing is good at this type of detail.  On page 105, after the professor has been speaking with Hannah outside a classroom -- "The other girls think I've been scolding you, so try to look upset and angry.  Oh, I see you already do.  That's helpful."  And the Scooby Doo reference on page 178, "'All thanks to us meddling kids!' Hannah said cheerfully, to blank looks from everyone except Alex, who put his hands over his eyes" is a classic.

The book closes with the professor back in London, examining an artifact in the Victoria and Albert Museum and leaving the reader to wonder what part the artifact will play in the next book -A Different Day, A Different Destiny!  I will definitely want to learn about the next adventure and I am curious about whether the characters will stay the same.  

I hope to have a young friend also read this and write a guest post with her reactions.  I'll be interested to hear what someone closer to the target audience thinks.

Oh, and check out Imaginative Journeys! 

 

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Cover via Amazon

The Red Pyramid begins a new series by Rick Riordan -- the author of the now complete Percy Jackson series. The story's first-person POV alternates between Sadie and Carter Zane, siblings who have been living apart since their mother's death six years ago -- Sadie with her maternal grandparents in London and Carter traveling the world with his archaeologist father.  Each sibling is somewhat envious of the other's life.

On Christmas Eve, Carter and his father, Julius, arrive in London for one of their twice-a-year visits with Sadie. When a trip to the British Museum goes terribly, horribly wrong (think exploding Rosetta Stone and disappearing father) Sadie and Carter are thrust into an adventure that spans three continents and teaches them much about their heritage while they struggle to save their father, figure out who they can trust, and come to terms with their own powers.

What kept me coming back to the Percy Jackson series, in spite of the fact that its target audience is 4th grade boys (I'm a 34 year old woman) was the humor.  Somehow the brand of humor Riordan uses in the series is just my style.  I didn't feel the same connection with the humor in The Red Pyramid and I'm not sure why.

Throughout the book I found myself flipping back because there was something I didn't remember or missed the first time.  I'm not sure if this was due to my lack of knowledge about Egyptian gods and history, the distractions in my life, or actual flaws in the narrative.   At one point Carter and Sadie are told that no one can cross a certain bridge without meeting a challenge and that the challenge is different for each person.  And yet, in the following pages, only Carter is challenged and the rest of their party just sort of follows in his wake.  I'm not sure if I just missed something here or if it is a true inconsistency. 

While unrelated to the main plotline, I appreciated the way that Riordan incorporates Carter's experiences as a dark-skinned youth into the book in a very natural way -- experiences such as being carefully watched by shopkeepers and police officers and being told that he needs to always be just that much more neatly dressed in order to prove himself.  Opening up this subject for discussion is always a positive thing, in my opinion.

My favorite turn of phrase?  When Carter is describing the rarity of an equal partnership between a god and a human he says it's "like the one time when the coin doesn't land heads or tails, but stands on its edge, perfectly balance" (p.457 in the hardcover).

Riordan does a good job of putting in little details to remind us that Sadie and Carter have spent the last six years in very different places -- British terminology, Carter's lack of friends his own age, etc.  I also appreciated a few twists at the end -- a showing of mercy, a stunt double, the return of . . . well, I should probably leave that for you to find out.  :)

Here's another review -- I waited to read it til I was finished with mine.