jbronderbookreviews

In An Absent Dream (Wayward Children – 4) by Seanan McGuire

This fourth entry and prequel tells the story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should.

When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she’s found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well.

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About the Author

Seanan McGuire was born in Martinez, California, and raised in a wide variety of locations, most of which boasted some sort of dangerous native wildlife. Despite her almost magnetic attraction to anything venomous, she somehow managed to survive long enough to acquire a typewriter, a reasonable grasp of the English language, and the desire to combine the two. The fact that she wasn’t killed for using her typewriter at three o’clock in the morning is probably more impressive than her lack of death by spider-bite.

Often described as a vortex of the surreal, many of Seanan’s anecdotes end with things like “and then we got the anti-venom” or “but it’s okay, because it turned out the water wasn’t that deep.” She has yet to be defeated in a game of “Who here was bitten by the strangest thing?,” and can be amused for hours by almost anything. “Almost anything” includes swamps, long walks, long walks in swamps, things that live in swamps, horror movies, strange noises, musical theater, reality TV, comic books, finding pennies on the street, and venomous reptiles. Seanan may be the only person on the planet who admits to using Kenneth Muir’s Horror Films of the 1980s as a checklist.

Seanan is the author of the October Daye urban fantasies, the InCryptid urban fantasies, and several other works both stand-alone and in trilogies or duologies. In case that wasn’t enough, she also writes under the pseudonym “Mira Grant.” For details on her work as Mira, check out MiraGrant.com.

In her spare time, Seanan records CDs of her original filk music (see the Albums page for details). She is also a cartoonist, and draws an irregularly posted autobiographical web comic, “With Friends Like These…”, as well as generating a truly ridiculous number of art cards. Surprisingly enough, she finds time to take multi-hour walks, blog regularly, watch a sickening amount of television, maintain her website, and go to pretty much any movie with the words “blood,” “night,” “terror,” or “attack” in the title. Most people believe she doesn’t sleep.

Seanan lives in an idiosyncratically designed labyrinth in the Pacific Northwest, which she shares with her cats, Alice and Thomas, a vast collection of creepy dolls and horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard. She has strongly-held and oft-expressed beliefs about the origins of the Black Death, the X-Men, and the need for chainsaws in daily life.

Years of writing blurbs for convention program books have fixed Seanan in the habit of writing all her bios in the third person, so as to sound marginally less dorky. Stress is on the “marginally.” It probably doesn’t help that she has so many hobbies.

Seanan was the winner of the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Feed (as Mira Grant) was named as one of Publishers Weekly’s Best Books of 2010. In 2013 she became the first person ever to appear five times on the same Hugo Ballot.

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My Review

5 stars

When Katherine Lundy is six she realizes that she is different from other kids and that her life has essentially been chosen for her. But she doesn’t want that path, she wants something different. This leads her to a door to the Goblin Market. The market has wondrous creatures and things but a strict set of rules with one of the most important being Fair Value.

Lundy goes on various adventures in the Goblin Market throughout until she is eighteen years old. Then she has to decide if she is going back to her world or if she is going to live in the Goblin Market. But she is not alone in her adventures, her father had a similar experience when he was younger and he doesn’t want to lose Lundy to the market.

I love Seanan McGuire’s work and jumped at the chance to review this book. It was a bonus that it was an audiobook that was wonderfully narrated by Cynthia Hopkins. I admit that I have not read the first books in this series so I didn’t really understand what was going on at first. But I easily caught on and quickly got sucked into Lundy and her life.

This is an incredibly touching story. I felt for poor Lundy being the odd person out and finding herself in the Goblin Market. And having the ability to go back several times before she turned 18 made it harder to return to her family and hard to lose the family she has at the Goblin Market.

This is a wonderful story and one I recommend checking out. I really enjoyed it and want to find out what I have missed from the first three books in the series.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I voluntarily chose to read and post an honest review.

I would like to thank Macmillan Audio for the opportunity to listen to and share this book.

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Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale by Lauren Myracle

When fourteen-year-old Selina Kyle, aka the future Catwoman, becomes homeless, she must confront questions of who she is and who she will become.

She rejects human cruelty, but sometimes it seems as though brute force is the only way to “win.” And if Selina is to survive on the streets, she must be tough. Can she find her humanity and reconcile toughness with her desire for community … and love?

From Lauren Myracle, the New York Times best-selling author of books like ttfn and ttyl, comes the story of a teenage Catwoman, as she struggles to find her own identity while living on the streets of Gotham.

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About the Author

Lauren Myracle is the author of numerous young adult novels. She was born in 1969 in North Carolina. Lauren Myracle holds an MA in English from Colorado State University and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College. she has written many novels, including the famous IM books, ttyl, ttfn, and l8r, g8r.

Her first novel, Kissing Kate, was selected as one of ALA’s “Best Books for Young Adults” for the year 2004. It was named by Booklist as one of the “Top Ten Youth Romances” of the year, as well as one of the “Top Ten Books by New Writers.” Her middle-grade novel, Eleven, came out 2004, followed by its YA sequels (Twelve, Thirteen, Thirteen Plus One).

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My Review

4 stars

Selina Kyle has had a hard life. Her mother does what she can to keep them going but finds herself scumbags that will hang around for a while. Those scumbags are loud, have some kind of addiction, and like to beat on both Selina and her mother. Then one day she saves a kitten and nurses it back to health. But the current boyfriend doesn’t like it and solves the problem.

Selina takes this as a sign to stop being weak and leave. She realizes that school just doesn’t have the same meaning and even though Bruce Wayne seems to want to help her she is better off on her own. But things are tough until she finds a family. But when she starts to love them something happens again.

I don’t know much about the original comic stories of these characters. But I did like this book. I really felt for Selina and understood her choices. She does find a family but it is almost like she is meant to be alone. I thought it was a great introduction to the character.

This is a great graphic novel. I really liked the story and thought Isaac Goodhart did an amazing job with the illustrations. It’s definitely one to check out.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. I voluntarily chose to read and post an honest review.

I would like to thank Netgalley for the opportunity to read and share this book.

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