The Ghosts of Ashbury High: Review

So I've been anticipating The Ghosts of Ashbury High for a while now (I am a big Jaclyn Moriarty fan) and while it didn't perhaps live up to all my expectations, I did enjoy delving into the Ashbury-Brookfield world once more with the characters I have grown to love. I'll note here that this is the fourth in a series and really wouldn't work that well as a standalone - better to have read at least The Year of Secret Assignments (and possibly The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie) beforehand.

Moriarty's latest is perhaps the most difficult of all of her books to summarize: in essence, it is a collection of exam essays, blog entries, transcripts, and letters detailing the events of a most interesting year at Ashbury high school. Two new students - Amelia and Riley - have arrived and Ashbury is in an uproar trying to figure out their secrets and befriend the strangers. They don't say much, but when they want, people listen; they don't always show up to class, but when they do, people sit up and take notice. Amelia and Riley have a mysterious aura of charisma the entire school wishes to soak up (with, perhaps, the exception of Lydia). But ironically, they've settled on Lydia as the Ashbury student most useful for their purposes - too bad she's blind to their plans. Add to this telltale signs of a ghost in the Art Room (well, if Emily swears by it, it must be true), Toby's obsession with the memoirs of Irish convict Tom Kincaid, and Amelia's own hints at a most unsettling past and present... and you have the perfect modern Gothic tale.

Moriarty's writing is so vivid, and the individual characters' voices leap off the page. I love how unique each student's voice is, and that she manages to keep them consistent and true to life (although the content, it must be admitted, is often quite fanciful). The one character's personality I couldn't quite believe was Constance Milligan, one of the adults on a trust fund committee; her comments were always so far-fetched (and later in the book we see some letters she writes that almost assure us of her mental instability). At least the other committee members eventually recognize that she is a few cards shy of a full deck, so it isn't all in the reader's head! I also wish we could have gotten more of Amelia's perspective. While her poems are thought-provoking and give the reader a small window into her mind, we never really get the whole picture of her; she is seen only through the eyes of others. As I think this is probably deliberate on Moriarty's part - others' perceptions of both Amelia and Riley go through large transformations throughout the novel, ultimately revealing more about the observers than the observed - I don't really have a problem with it. It did make me less sympathetic to Amelia, though, even after her history has been revealed (and I never ended up liking Riley AT ALL).

This book is the most fanciful of the series, straying into the realm of the fantastical at certain points. (Well, hmmm, perhaps Feeling Sorry for Celia did that quite a lot too, with all those letters Elizabeth "receives" from made-up organizations). Yet for Elizabeth's story, the fantasy element didn't really need to be explained; you could either choose to believe she was indeed receiving these letters, or there's always the option that her imagination was going rather wild. In this one, the connection between Tom and Maggie's story from so many years ago, and Amelia's experience in the Heritage Park, was a bit too much to swallow (not giving details here to avoid spoilers). I think this was partly because the whole book had been written as a mystery, with unreliable narrators and a very blurry line between reality and fiction, and I had been hoping that the mysterious, impossible events discussed would turn out to have perfectly rational explanations, seeing as it was set in a modern day high school with most of the entries coming from exams/projects/actual correspondence. Either that or I had hoped that what actually happened in the Heritage Park would be left to the reader to decide.

Of course, I am quibbling a bit here - by and large I loved the mystery of it. I was totally unable to guess most of the secrets (with the exception of the one of the unknown commenters on Emily's blog, which wasn't very difficult!) The unreliable narrator approach I sometimes like and sometimes dislike; on the one hand, I hate discovering partway through that the narrator has been holding out information or deliberately misleading the reader, but on the other hand, the technique makes the reader question the validity of the story, which heightens the suspense and makes the plot more intriguing. In this case, I think it worked well.

I definitely enjoyed seeing some more of the characters introduced in Moriarty's previous novels and getting to know them better. Despite the fact that I wasn't particularly keen on the Irish convict Tom's story, it was neat to see more of Toby, and he didn't seem nearly as annoying as he had in The Murder of Bindy Mackenzie. His own voice was quite humorous (I really liked his discussion of black holes and his penchant for relating everything back to them) and seeing him take an eager interest in something academic (the historical letters of Tom Kincaid) was great.

However, I was disappointed some of my favorite characters didn't make an appearance (Liz and Charlie are barely mentioned, Christina not at all, and neither is Sergio) as I was hoping to find out some more about how their last year turned out. Even Cassie, who was in this book along with Emily and Lydia, didn't have much of a role to play! Another quality that I missed was the dialogue and interactions between characters; in previous novels we were given more of that through the letters, but this book was mainly made up of lengthy essays from each main character's perspective. Because there wasn't so much back-and-forth between characters, I found myself wanting to skip ahead once I'd read a few pages of one character's version of events, to see how the other characters were involved. This happened particularly during the entries written from Tom Kincaid's perspective, partly because I didn't see what it had to do with the rest of the storyline, and also because it kind of jerked me out of the flow of the plot and I was more interested in the Ashbury happenings.

Ultimately, though, the fact that I was missing some of the previous book's protagonists only emphasizes Moriarty's skill at characterization! I would love another Ashbury-Brookfield book but as far as I know there are no plans for that at present, which is unfortunate indeed.

My overall rating: 4 out of 5 shooting stars.

Monday's Question of the Day

This meme is hosted by Eleni of La Femme Readers. The question:

"When you're reading do you need a quiet environment to focus or can you read through a natural disaster?"

Personally, I do need my surroundings to be quiet to truly enjoy reading (and just to concentrate, really). Loud noises will make me lose my spot! Also irritating is the music piped through the speakers at Chapters - perhaps they are subtly influencing people to buy the books instead of sitting there for hours reading like I do?

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: the Mysterious Howling (Book 1)

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling is actually a kids' book, not YA, but it sounded like a lot of fun and I read some good reviews of it beforehand, so I thought, what the heck, I'll try it.

I'm glad I did, because this is such a quirky read and I love the snarky, tongue-in-cheek quality of the narration (and also the protagonist on occasion). Fifteen-year-old Penelope Lumley, newly graduated from the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, is hired as governess to three children belonging to Lord Fredrick and Lady Constance of Ashton Place. Little does Penelope know that these children are orphans Fredrick found on a hunting expedition in the woods...and they have literally been raised by wolves. A comical slew of mishaps ensues as Penelope endeavours to drum into the childrens' heads everything from the poetry of Longfellow to the schottische dance. But it seems that Alexander, Beowulf and Cassiopeia aren't the most serious terrors lurking at Ashton Place - something is hiding in the attic, and the coachman Old Timothy seems to be most adept at sneaking around...

Maryrose Wood's writing style is simply wonderful. I love how the narrator manages to poke fun while using such a prim-and-proper tone, and the vaguely Victorian setting is charming. Almost every chapter begins with some kind of pithy comment on life that sets up the rest of the chapter. For instance, from Chapter 9:

If you have ever opened a can of worms, boxed yourself into a corner, ended up in hot water, or found yourself in a pretty pickle, you already know that life is rarely (if ever) just a bowl of cherries.


Or, from Chapter 5:


As you probably know from personal experience, there are children who love to take baths, and there are children who absolutely do not.

Unfortunately, this is only Book 1 in a series, and the reader is left dangling at the end of the last chapter ("to be continued...") with none of the problems resolved (except, perhaps, that the children are a little more educated and well-behaved than when Penelope first arrived!) It is more the mere beginnings of a story arc than a fully executed plot, and the feeling when the reader turns the last page is that the book is only half-finished.

Still, it is a quick read and the tone is so priceless that I would recommend it for that alone! The references to other pieces of literature (Jane Eyre, A Christmas Carol, and Hamlet, to name a few) might go over the heads of younger readers but will amuse the older ones (and any adult readers!) Of course, since the target audience is children there were a few scenes I am sure I would have enjoyed more as a young reader, but on the whole it held my attention very well. Indeed, it almost seems as though the book has been written on two levels - one for children who will laugh at the antics of the wolf-raised siblings, and another for the adults who will laugh at the dry wit of the narrator and the poor plight of Penelope. I only wish there were more of it!

I am eager to find out about what is living in the attic, not to mention who is targeting the three children... More please!

4.5 out of 5 shooting stars.

Once a Witch: Review

I was a bit dubious about this book originally, just because witches have been done to death in literature and I wasn't sure how much fresh new insight could be brought to the topic. However, I noticed that it got some good reviews so I decided to give it a try.

Carolyn MacCullough's Once a Witch centers around Tamsin, a girl born into a family full of witches, prophesied to be a beacon among them - who is now seventeen years old and has yet to show a glimmer of Talent. Frustrated at constantly being the "family misfit," Tamsin jumps at the chance to prove herself when a stranger strolls into her family's bookshop - and undercover magical agency - needing help in finding a particular clock in the picture he carries. The stranger mistakes her for her powerful older sister, Rowena, and Tamsin does nothing to dissuade him of this notion, instead promising to take on the task. But it proves more difficult than she'd thought, and she turns to her childhood friend Gabriel, whose magical Talent is finding anything he searches for. Gabriel soon realizes the clock doesn't exist in their world - or rather, in their time. When they both Travel back to 1899 in order to find it, they unleash a series of events they never expected, putting Tamsin's sister Rowena into the clutches of a man who feasts on power over others. It is then that Tamsin discovers she is not as Talentless as she may have believed...and it's just in time, because she will need to figure out how to use her newfound powers to save the ones she cares about before it's too late.

Carolyn MacCullough does breathe new life into the interpretation of witches and magic, although she  keeps to some traditions (such as incantation circles and invoking the elements.) I enjoyed the idea that the witches each have their own unique power, be it reading minds, teleportation, persuasion, etc.


HERE THERE BE SPOILERS:

Of course, the exception to this is Tamsin, really, in that her power basically can negate anyone else's powers (and moreover, she can learn anyone's Talent provided they use it on her often enough). I wasn't expecting this to be her Talent, so that was a bit of a surprise, although I thought that the concept of others' Talents 'rubbing off' on her, so to speak, was a little too convenient. She could become awfully powerful that way rather quickly (indeed, by the end of the book she is throwing fireballs everywhere and freezing people on the spot). I was also a little disappointed that the book succumbed to the archetype of the unlikely hero/heroine suddenly discovering they possess great powers no one else does and that they are the one destined to save everybody and destroy evil. However, I suppose the novel wouldn't have been quite so interesting if Tamsin really had been so very Talentless as she originally thought.

I also thought that all the loose ends weren't tied up so well. For one thing, what exactly does Tamsin do when she touches the clock in the train station? How does her grandmother's power affect her? This isn't explained well enough for my liking. Not to mention how Tamsin suddenly becomes the Keeper at the end (and why Alistair gives up and goes back in time - I'm assuming that's where the door leads - without Rowena. What does he hope to accomplish?) I did think it was cool that Tamsin's "clocket" as she calls it becomes the object to hold all the power (that clocket was mentioned way earlier in the book and I didn't suspect a thing!)

Hence I am really hoping for a sequel. I mean, the bad guy seemed to be vanquished kind of easily at the end. I wouldn't expect Alistair to give in without way more of a fight. Plus, Tamsin's going to have some major life changes now that she has Keeper responsibilities. And whatever becomes of Agatha? We never find out.

These quibbles aside, I definitely enjoyed the mystery that surrounded Alistair, the clock, and the history between the two families. For the first half of the novel I was really lost as to what was going on, but not so confused that I gave up reading - just enough to make me keep puzzling about it. In retrospect, things make more sense (or about as much sense as a story involving time travel can make), and MacCullough obviously didn't want to give everything away right from the start.

I liked Tamsin's voice as well - she has a dry, self-deprecating sense of humour I could relate to and appreciate. Sure, she complains about being the only one in the family without Talent, but given her situation, I don't really blame her. However, sometimes she came off as sounding too mature for her age (she herself admits to being "self-aware" which most teens aren't), and yet she sometimes does some very immature things. For instance - I could not figure out why she would leap into the past to find a clock for a stranger when she doesn't even understand his motives. Surely she would know that time travel usually has grave repercussions? (For that matter, why does Gabriel go along with it so easily? Sheer curiosity? Or just to please Tamsin?) I understand, obviously, that this event was critical to furthering the plot, but surely she could have had a slightly better reason for it. Simply wanting to "prove herself" to her family and sister (and what would she be proving except that Gabriel has the ability to find things in the past?) really isn't good enough to risk messing up the fabric of time for a man you haven't even done a background check on yet.

The romance that develops between her and Gabriel was sweet and not too rushed, although of course you could see it coming a mile away (if anything, my complaint would be that there could have been a bit more of it!) Still, I did enjoy Gabriel's character and the lightness he brought to the conversations between the two of them. The only thing I didn't really like was that Gabriel sometimes prioritized Tamsin's wishes over the smarter choice of action (for example, when he blindly Travels back in time with her).

Finally, I thought Alistair was a great villain up until the climax, where he seemed to lose some of his edge. The way he fed on Rowena, draining her while building up his own energy was intriguing (although I'd like to know a bit more about how it works, and how he was able to influence Rowena so strongly. Also, what exactly does he use Agatha for?) I must admit, I really disliked Rowena too; the snooty, condescending, admired-by-all older sister was characterized to perfection, and I admired Tamsin for fighting as hard for Rowena's life as she did (considering how much Tamsin also appeared to dislike her). However, Alistair was written in such a nasty fashion that MacCullough succeeded in making me feel a little sorry for Rowena (though once Rowena returned to normal she went right back to being very irritating, of course).

END OF SPOILERS.

Overall, a fun read, particularly if you don't want to think too hard about the intricacies of a plot involving a feud between two magical sides across time. My rating: 3.5 out of 5 shooting stars.

Banshees, Changelings, and Time-Travelers

So it's been a little while since my last review, and in order to make up for it this post will have three! I may not have been blogging so faithfully but I have indeed kept up with my reading.

1.) Heir to Sevenwaters - Juliet Marillier (Adult)

I hadn't realized there was a fourth book in this series; I had read the first two years and years ago, and had heard the third wasn't very good so I hadn't bothered to continue (I did mostly enjoy the first one, and found the second one interesting, albeit a bit weird and complicated.) Still, I decided to try out her most recent one as the premise sounded intriguing, and I am most certainly glad I did! This may be my favorite of the three I have read, in fact.

The family tree of Sevenwaters is extremely complex, so to keep matters simple, all you really need to know is that the protagonist Clodagh is the daughter of Lord Sean of Sevenwaters. Her mother gives birth to the long-desired male heir to the estate towards the beginning of the novel, but things go terribly wrong when the boy is switched for an Otherworld changeling while in Clodagh's care. Clodagh is blamed, and the situation worsens when she realizes that she is the only one who sees the changeling for what he really is - to the rest of her family he appears as only sticks and stones. Deemed a liar, Clodagh flees with the changeling to search for an entrance to the Otherworld in a bid to get her brother back. She almost immediately bumps into Cathal, a man talented at fighting and seeing the future, who proves to be an immense help along the way. Together they batter their way through countless obstacles, and Clodagh's affection for both the changeling she has named Becan, and the steadfastedly loyal yet infuriatingly mysterious Cathal, deepens. But when she finally comes face-to-face with the faerie lord who has stolen her brother, a secret she never expected threatens to destroy any future she could possibly have with the man she's given her heart to.

Juliet Marillier's quality of writing is excellent as always, and although some references to events in previous novels were lost on me, the story can easily be enjoyed by someone unfamiliar with the rest of the series. I particularly liked seeing the love Clodagh develops for Becan, the changeling who is a) a constant reminder that her brother has been kidnapped, and b) a being that resembles a tree more than a human. Cathal was also an appealing character, although occasionally his refusal to open up and explain things to Clodagh became irritating (especially when it was clear that if he'd shared a bit more information, they might avoid some of the messes they get into entirely). Still, his taciturn nature was compensated by his devotion to protecting Clodagh no matter what the cost. Honorable mention goes to the faerie Lord of the Oak, who was one of those villains we love to hate.

Once Clodagh's journey began, the plot was perfectly paced, with the right amount of exciting near-death moments and character-building scenes to give the reader a sense of the danger Clodagh and Cathal were facing while allowing for a romance to develop. Perhaps the beginning chapters were a bit slow-moving, but it was needed given that this is the fourth in a series, and the history between Clodagh and Cathal needed to be set. Overall, a fantastic journey right to the very end!

My rating: 4.5 out of 5 shooting stars.

2.) My Soul to Take - Rachel Vincent

I honestly wasn't expecting all that much from this book - it looked mildly interesting but I thought it would be a typical teen paranormal romance. However, I was happy to be wrong! Sure, the plot isn't terribly intricate, but I really liked the premise: Kaylee Cavanaugh is a bean sidhe, or banshee, who can't help but scream whenever someone is about to die. Although she is naive to her true nature, the death of three young girls in her town in three days strikes her as alarming, and she sets out to unravel what she believes is murder.

This was an easy book to breeze through, but it held my attention (I never found myself really skimming) and I thought that Vincent implemented the idea of banshees in a modern-day setting very artfully. Unlike the myriad of vampire, angel, and ghost books floating around the YA universe, the topic of banshees is a new one. Also, Nash was a wonderful romantic interest, and although he was considered the "hottest guy in school" it wasn't a stretch of the imagination that he would fall for Kaylee, since they are both banshees (you learn this fairly early on so it's not really a spoiler!)

My Soul to Take is followed by two more sequels (and there may be more planned, I don't know), and I am looking forward to reading them. For one thing, I want to know more about Tod and his past, and also his relationship with Nash. And...I can't tell at this point, but do I sense a love triangle in the making???

Excellent start to a fresh paranormal YA series. 4 out of 5 shooting stars.

3.) The Hourglass Door - Lisa Mangum (this review may be somewhat SPOILER-ish)

I can't quite decide how I feel about this one. It was a little bit different than most of the YA I read, and while I liked the uniqueness of how Mangum tackles the concept of time travel, some of it felt a bit flat to me. The story in a nutshell:

Abby's life is going along just fine when a mysterious new guy named Dante shakes everything up. Time seems to freeze when she's with him, and then she starts getting glimpses of the future... Despite everything that's warning her that Dante is more than just an Italian student on exchange, Abby can't resist the almost magnetic pull he's exerting on her. But Dante's secret is so dangerous it could threaten her life as well.

The good things:

I really couldn't quite figure out exactly what Dante's mystery was for the longest time. I knew it had something to do with time, but the prologue had been dramatically obscure and though I'm sure I guessed 'time travel' at some point, I really didn't understand all the ins and outs of how it worked and why it caused certain things to happen. However, this was actually really great because it kept me guessing and wanting to read more.

The metaphor of the river and the bank was philosophical, and yet it was actually steeped in concrete reality (with an actual 'river' of glass and a bank). I enjoyed this interpretation of how someone might feel 'in' and 'out' of the flow of time, and why Dante was bound to keep flitting between the two.

The villains were well written - I liked that they weren't so much pure evil as just totally selfish (and I empathized with them a bit too, because they really did want to go home and felt trapped in Abby's time). I also thought the way they channeled their emotions into their music so that their audience was also affected was quite ingenious... This really emphasizes how much music can move us in real life, and the emotional kind of reactions we can have to it.

The bad things:

I didn't really buy the romance between Dante and Abby that much. Or maybe it was just that Dante's character didn't come off as feeling that realistic. It may have just been that Mangum wanted to illustrate how young men from 16th-century Italy behaved, and remain true to the language and social conventions from back then, but he seemed a little too perfect. Also, while I could understand Abby's interest in Dante ("mysterious good-looking guy with a secret"), Dante's feelings for her seem to come a bit out of the blue. Perhaps this will be explained in the sequel but in this book at least there was no explanation for why he chose her (and yet he significantly calls her his "Beatrice" so it's pretty obvious he thinks they're destined for each other).

I wanted the metaphor of the river/bank to be more thoroughly explained. Time travel can get very sticky, it's true, but the idea of the "balance" was just a little too vague. I think it's a great idea, but I couldn't picture it very clearly in my mind as I read. (And since a major problem revolves around upsetting the "balance" it would be nice to have a better sense of exactly what that entails.)

Also, we never got to find out why Abby started seeing the future. However, this may well be elucidated in the sequel so I will wait and see.

Overall, I enjoyed the execution of the mystery surrounding time travel, but the character portrayal and development was somewhat lacking. I'll read the sequel at some point, but I'm not on pins-and-needles waiting for its release.

My rating: 3.5 out of 5 shooting stars.