Tag Archives: series

Y the Last Man

Posted on December 9, 2012 | 1 comment

ythelastman

Vaughn, B.K. (2002). Y the last man. New York: DC Comics. Print.

Note: Y the Last Man is part of a series. The entire series is included in the collection.

Reader’s Annotation

When Yorick Brown woke up this morning he was one of millions of men on the planet. By noon he’s the only one. Follow along with Yorick, Amperstand and Agent 355 and they seek out the one woman who may be able to solve this mystery while everyone works to protect (or procreate with) the one man left on the planet.

Plot Summary

What would happen if tomorrow morning you woke up and you were the only male left on the earth? Say that tomorrow a mysterious disease has wiped out all y-chromosone carriers on the planet, and you were the only one left, what would you do? You might find that like Yorick Brown, and his pet monkey Ampersand that you’d be disguising yourself as a woman, defending yourself from your own gun toting sister and on a mad quest to find your girlfriend and figure out what the hell happened to the other half of the world’s population. Good luck with that.

Evaluation

Y the Last Man is a great comic. The main character, Yorick, is a total dork who fumbles his way into all kinds of troublesome situations. The story is good too, you’re sitting on the edge of your seat waiting to find out if Yorick is going to find Beth; if 355 is going to have to save is ass again; and most importantly of what the hell wiped out all the y-chromosome carrying mammals on the planet.

Author Information

Brain K. Vaughn is critically acclaimed author of graphic novels. He did his undergraduate work at New York University and received his big break participating in Marvel’s Stanhattan Project, a workshop for comic book writers.

Vaugh’s first graphic novel, Pride of Baghdad, was released in 2006 and follows the story of four lions that escaped from the Baghdad Zoo after the so called “shock and awe” bombing during the war. He has also authored the graphic novels Runaways, and Ex Machina. Vaughn currrently lives in LA with his wife while working the film adaptations of some of his novels.

Genre

post apocalyptic, biological adventure, graphic novel

Curriculum Ties

n/a

Booktalk Ideas

In the first book when Yorick proposes to Beth over the phone, do you think she says yes? Why or why not?

Why does Hero join the Amazons?

Reading Level/Interest Age 

Challenge Issues

Reason for inclusion

References

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The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)

Posted on November 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Grossman, L. (2009). The Magicians. New York: Viking. Print.

This book is part of a series, both titles are included in the collection.

Reader’s Annotation

Quentin Clearwater has been smarter than everyone, and desperately bored by life, for as long as he can remember. Life starts to look up for Quentin when he discovers that magic is real and is admitted into a super exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, but even magic gets boring eventually. Will Quentin be able to find the adventure he’s looking for? At what price?

Plot Summary

Quentin Clearwater is a genius, but he’s not very happy. To distract himself from his own plight he obsesses over a series of Narnia-esque children’s books that take place in the magical land of Fillory. Things change for Quentin when he ends up accepted into a school of magic, like Hogwarts for college kids. As Quentin discovers the extent of his magical powers he expects to find fulfillment in his own ability, but somehow always ends up looking for more. After graduation Quentin and his friends embark on a path of hedonistic pleasures, striving to fight off the ennui of regular human existence. Quentin remains disconsolate until he and his friends discover that not only is Fillory real, but that they’ve found a way in. Will access to this magical wonderland be everything that Quentin had hoped for? Will his impossible quest give his life the meaning he’s always sought after? Follow Quentin and his friends as the venture into magical lands and discover the depth of their own being.

Critical Evaluation

This book, and its followup The Magician King also included in the collection, is excellent. Even though the main character, Quentin, is totally whiney and insecure, you can tell by Grossman’s writing that he’s like that on purpose. Indeed, even Quentin’s girlfriend Alice remarks on the idiocy of Quentin’s self-obsession. I can get behind a character who is written to be purposefully selfish, it’s the ones that come off that way unintentionally that rub me the wrong way. This book explores the question that every scifi and fantasy nerd ever have been wondering about since they picked up their first copy of the Hobbit: what if? What if those impossible lands we’ve been reading about since we were kids are real? We learn quickly that our imaginings come with a price, but Grossman’s characters are so good and the book so well written you’ll want to read it again and again.

Author Information

Lev Grossman lives in Brooklyn, New York and studied comparative literature at Harvard and Yale. He also the author of the bestseller The Codex and is a writer and book critic for Time magazine.

Genre

Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy, Magic

Curriculum Ties

Literary response and analysis grades 11 and 12:

3.3 Analyze interactions between main and subordinate characters in a literary text (e.g., internal and external conflicts, motivations, relationships, influences) and explain the way those interactions affect the plot.

3.4 Determine characters’ traits by what the characters say about themselves in narration, dialogue, dramatic monologue, and soliloquy.

3.8 Interpret and evaluate the impact of ambiguities, subtleties, contradictions, ironies, and incongruities in a text.

3.9 Explain how voice, persona, and the choice of a narrator affect characterization and the tone, plot, and credibility of a text.

Booktalk Ideas

How does the Fillory than Quentin and his friends find compare to the Fillory that they had hoped for?

How does Fillory compare to Narnia?

Why does Quentin sleep with Janet?

Is Quentin a reliable narrator? What personal flaws does Quentin have that make him reliable or unreliable?

Reading Level/Interest Age 

17+

Challenge Issues

This book is intended for older readers. The library does not keep a circulation history for each user, but trusts that parents and their children have established guidelines for what is appropriate reading within their own households. The library supports the ALA Library Bill of Rights and defends each patron’s right to read. This book is not intended for educational purposes, though it does support several curriculum points of the CA Dept of Education for literary analysis. Patron’s are welcome to challenge materials and requests for reconsideration are reviewed by the board. Final decisions will be made by the director.

Reason for inclusion

One of the best books on magic and young people published, a real winner.

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Shadow and Bone (The Grisha, #1)

Posted on November 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Bardugo, L. (2012). Shadow and Bone. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Print.

Reader’s Annotation

When Alina’s magical powers are discovered she’s removed of everything she’s ever known. Life in the First Army, with her best friend Mal, becomes a painful and ever distant memory as she begins to focus her attention to developing her long dormant talent. Things aren’t as simple as they seem though and as the secrets of the Grisha begin to unravel so does Alina’s ability to tell who and what she can trust.

Plot Summary

Alina and Malyen, Mal, are best friends. They grew up together in the Duke’s orphanage and while they’re not in the same unit now that they are old enough to serve in the First Army, at least they’re together and can often chat after a long days march. When Alina and Mal have to cross the Fold, a wasteland completely devoid of light an inhabited by terrifying harpy-like monsters, the volcra, Alina is scared but remains hopeful that the First Army will make it across without incident. Unfortunately Alina is wrong, and her unit is attacked by volcra.

After Alina saves Mal’s life by releasing long dormant magical powers she had no idea she even possessed she’s immediately whisked away to train with the Grisha, the elite magical army lead by the alluring and handsome Darkling. Alina works hard learning to control her powers, but the lessons seem endless and she doubts her ability ever master what she’s spent her whole life denying. The Darkling never wavers in his belief of Alina, and is convinced her power is what will unite their war torn land. As the Darkling convinces Alina she can, and indeed must, master her powere, Alina begins to realize that things aren’t exactly as they seem. In a world where everyone is working toward their own agenda, Alina begins to realize that the only person she can trust is the one who has been with her forever. Will she ever find her way back to the safety of her best friend? Or is she a prisoner in gilded chains in the court of the Grisha?

Critical Evaluation

A lot of reviewers nit-pick Bardugo for her liberal use of a pseudo-Russian within the pages of Shadow and Bone. I can’t claim to know anything about how the Russian language works, so you’ll hear no complaints from me about how she’s doing it wrong. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that she’s not doing it wrong at all. Shadow and Bone is good. Alina’s character is appealing, and hardly simpering at all. She’s a good balance of hard and soft, a fierce young woman who knows she doesn’t know everything, but learns as the story progresses how to trust herself and what she truly loves. The novel isn’t so deep into fantasy cannon that’s alienating to readers who are outside of the normal fan base, there is enough realism there that I believe this work will be equally appealing to all readers.

Author Information

Leigh Bardugo is not your typical YA fiction author. Her day job is as makeup artist L.B. Benson, and her work has appeared on Re-Up/Toyota Scion,Project Ethos, Hunters & Gatherers, the Discovery Channel, and well as the film Worth. Previous to her life as a make-up artist she wrote for television, companies like Oxygen Network, David E. Kelley Productions, 20th Century Fox and the L.A. Weekly.

Born in Jerusalem, Bardugo was raised in LA, and attended college at Yale. She currently lives in Hollywood where the majority of her work as a makeup artist is conducted. Shadow and Bone is her first novel and a New York Times bestseller.

Genre

Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction, Magic, Dystopia

Curriculum Ties

n/a

Booktalk Ideas

Reading Level/Interest Age 

14+

Challenge Issues

This novel is a little dark, deals with magic and has some gory scenes. Objections to this novel would be handled in a similar way to all other books in the collection. Our collection development policy clearly states that we defend censorship when faced with it and encourage parents and teens to decide which books are right for them to read together. Challenges to the collection can be made and will be reviewed by the board. The director will make the final judgement based upon the results of the board’s findings.

Reason for inclusion

A fun fantasy novel, a light easy read for readers of any level.

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Birthmarked (Birthmarked, #1)

Posted on November 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

O’Brien, C.M. (2010). Birthmarked. New York: Roaring Book Press. Print.

Reader’s Annotation

Gaia is a fully trained midwife, taught by her mother, who has just completed her first solo delivery. She returns home eager to tell her parents of the successful delivery only to discover that they’ve been arrested and are being held in the Enclave for questioning. Now Gaia has got to figure out how to rescue her parents without arising the suspicions of the Protectorate, and everyone’s life is on the line.

Plot Summary

In a distant dystopian future the classes are separated into two categories, those who live in the Enclave and those who live without. The people have lived this way since the collapse of civilization and for a long time it worked, that is until inbreeding weakened the blood lines of those living within the Enclave. Now the first three babies born in every district on the outside is advanced into the Enclave where the will be raised with all the privileges befitting those within: most importantly enough food to eat, water to drink and a warm, dry place to sleep every night.

Gaia’s family lives outside the enclave where her mother works as a midwife and her father works as a tailor. A facial disfigurement has kept Gaia safe with her parents her whole life and now she is fully trained as a midwife, able to perform deliveries without the guidance of her mother. After Gaia advances her first baby to the Enclave, she returns back to her home ready to report the events of the evening, only to be warned by her mother’s assistant that her parents have been arrested, the assistant gives Gaia a coded message from her mother and urges her to find her long lost grandmother, rumored to have made way for a mysterious wood no one is entirely sure actually exists.

Instead Gaia enlists the help of family friends and sneaks into the Enclave, hoping to break her parents out of jail. Now Gaia has got to figure out how to rescue her parents before it’s too late, and when it becomes clear that will be impossible she has to decide who is trust worthy and who is working against her before it’s too late.

Critical Evaluation

This book was solidly mediocre. Indeed it was so mediocre that I haven’t got a whole lot of opinion on it at all. It takes place 300 years in the future, and the world O’Brien has created is bleak and without a great deal of hope. The most interesting portions of the book, in my opinion, were the birth scenes, which were described vividly and with surprising accuracy for a book for intended for teen readers.

Author Information

Genre

YA Fiction, Dystopia, Post-Apocalyptic

Curriculum Ties

n/a

Booktalk Ideas

 

Reading Level/Interest Age 

14+

Challenge Issues

Reason for inclusion

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Tithe (The Modern Tales Of Faerie, #1)

Posted on November 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Black, H. (2002). Tithe. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books. Kindle.

This book is part of a series, all three titles are included in the collection.

Reader’s Annotation

Kaye and her mom have been on the road a long time. When fate takes a turn for the worst and sends them back to their New Jersey roots, Kaye doesn’t spend anytime looking for her childhood friends, the faeries she whiled away the hours with before she and her mom left. That is until she runs into another faery and begins to realize everything she thought she made up as as child is true, and that knowledge just may cost her her life.

Plot Summary

Critical Evaluation

Tithe is gritty fantasy novel that takes place within the back drop of the working-class, ironed-imbued, run-down New Jersey streets. Holly Black writes poor real good, anyone who grew up with parents who never coud quite make ends meet will recognize the world that she has created. The beautiful thing about the world that Holly has created is that despite the alcohol abuse and absentee parents there is still magic around every corner.

Author Information

Genre

Curriculum Ties

Booktalk Ideas

Reading Level/Interest Age 

15+

Challenge Issues

Reason for inclusion

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A Great and Terrible Beauty (Gemma Doyle, #1)

Posted on November 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

Bray, L. (2003). A great and terrible beauty. New York: Simon and Shuster. Kindle.

This book is one in a series, the collection contains all three in the series.

Reader’s Annotation

Gemma Doyle is sent to finishing school after tragedy strikes her family. She soon finds out that she is anything but a typical English girl, as she and her friends gain access to the beautiful Realms where all of their dreams are made real. Everything comes with a price though, and Gemma soon learns her powers come with a responsibility she doesn’t know if she is ready for.

Plot Summary

Gemma Doyle has been begging her mother to be sent home to England for ages. Only now that it’s happened Gemma would prefer to have her mother still alive, to be safe and happy in India, rather than shipped off the the dreary finishing school outside London. Her roommate has a drippy nose, the popular girls are catty and rude, and she can’t stop worrying about her father and his alarming descent in to laudanum abuse. Possibly worst of all is the cryptic, yet handsome Kartik, who has followed her, from India, to warn against using a magical power she isn’t even sure she really possesses.

As Gemma starts to settle in at school and find a place in popular Felicity’s inner circle, magical things begin to happen. Gemma finds an old diary that tells of the Order, an group of powerful women magicians that protected the magical Realms. The diary also explains how to enter The Realms, where the girls find they can make all of their dreams come true. Gemma and the girls never want to leave The Realms and all of the magic contained within, but they cannot stay and taking the magic with them is not allowed. Despite Kartik’s urgent warnings Gemma and her friends keep going back to the Realms, what they have there is too good sacrifice.

Gemma soon learns that with her power comes a great responsibility as she is forced to accept the consequences for her actions and sets out to rebuild the Order.

Critical Evaluation

I loved The Gemma Doyle Trilogy. The story line is super compelling, a perfect combination of frightening, romance and magic. It’s true that some of the characters are really obnoxious, I could barely stand Pippa and Felicity, but Libba Bray writes such good story that I was able to overlook them. And while there is a bit of mooning and swooning over men, the girls are largely true to themselves and one another. Indeed, when Pippa chooses her “prince charming” she’s forced to live in the Realms and her body on this plane dies, she can’t come back. If that’s not a warning against shacking up too young, I don’t know what is! Gemma’s character development is one of the best aspects of the series. She goes from being a whiny brat who only cares for own immediate needs, indeed she won’t even listen to warnings of her dead mother, to a young woman who has learned exactly to what extents she will go for friendship, honor and love.  

Author Information

Libba Bray was born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1964. After she graduated from high school she got into a serious car accident, crushing her face and losing her left eye. It was during this time that she learned that you can write yourself out of what seems unwinnable and into something wonderful. After she finished college she moved to New York and started writing with no more than $600 to her name. She wrote 5 plays, 3 of which were produced and 1 that won an award. She’s in a YA-authored band, called Tiger Beat, with Natalie Standiford, Barnabas Miller, and Daniel Ehrenhaft. She’s written 6 books, most recently The Diviners, which came out earlier this year.

Genre

Fantasy, Magic, Period Novel

Curriculum Ties

n/a

Booktalk Ideas

Gemma’s mother repeatedly warns her against taking the magic outside the Realms. Why does Gemma decide to discard her mother’s warnings and do just that?

Reading Level/Interest Age 

16+

Challenge Issues

This novel contains magic and other worlds. The library would remind its users that it fully supports the ALA Library Bill of Rights and defends the right to read for all of its users. We trust that parents and their children have established for themselves what is an appropriate level of literature and do not keep records of what any of our users read. If the topics discussed within this text make the user uncomfortable we suggest that the user examine alternate titles like, Ophelia by Lisa M. Klein or A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson

Reason for inclusion

One of my favorite books!

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