Available from Audible.com

Short Review: Elizabeth Wein continues the heart wrenching legacy begun by Codename: Verity. This is the story of Rose Justice, an American ATA pilot, who gets captured in by Nazis and is thrown into Ravensbrück concentration camp. What follows is a brutal story of trying to find hope in a hopeless situation. Wein delivers a book that will leave you emotionally spent, read by Sasha Pick.

Long Review: Rose Justice is an American ATA pilot whoâ€s come to England to help with the war effort. While transporting an Allied plane from Paris to English soil, Rose is forced to land and is promptly captured by Nazis and taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Wein details the daily humiliations of concentration camp in a way that feels viscerally real.

Although the book is set in a series with Codename: Verity, there is very little that remains from the first book in the series. Rose Under Fire focuses on the survival and search for hope of a single individual who, unlike the protagonists of Verity, is American. There are planes and heartbreak for the reader but that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Rose Under Fire is a much more brutal and a much darker book than Verity ever was. This is not necessarily a bad thing as such but it’s important for the reader to know that this is an emotionally draining book, which is not entirely unexpected from Wein as an author.

As it was for Codename: Verity, Rose Under Fire is extensively researched and while fictional, no doubt shows a composite of many real lives. The atrocities described in the book really happened in Ravensbrück and the visceral details Wein provides only serve to make it more real. She does not pull any punches.

Sasha Pick does a good job of setting the scene with her voice acting and distinguishes characters easily. She conveys the emotions in the book in an understated way that manages to not take away from the listener. However, some of the voices she lends to the characters start to get a little tiring with the sheer brutality of the book.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who loved Codename: Verity and anyone who is a fan of historical fiction, especially books set in the second World War. It gives a voice to rarely heard viewpoints. However I don’t think anyone should go into this unprepared. The book will leave you chewed up and spit out. Allow me to recommend spending some time on Emergency Kitten! afterward.

Author: Delilah S. Dawson

Reader: Rebekkah Ross

Short Review: Hit by Delilah S. Dawson is an engaging, at times painful YA story about what happens when the banks completely take control of America.

Long Review: Valor National Bank has taken over America. There is only the United States of Valor. 911 calls get relayed to Valor voicemail. And then the men in black start showing up at the doors of a few select debtors. Each of them is given a choice; be killed or hunt down the debtors whose name appears on their list during the five days of service they sign over. Patsy has been a good girl all her life whose most rebellious act has been yarn bombing. But her motherâ€s been sick and the bills have been piling up. When given a choice of going on a killing spree or watch the man in black kill her mother, the choice is obvious.

What follows is the harrowing journey of a young woman being forced to grow up in a rather brutal fashion. She has five names on her list and she has to give each of them a choice: pay the debt on the spot, agree to work as a contract killer, or be killed at the hands of the person offering the choice. Because itâ€s YA, the talk never gets too maudlin but all the feels are present and accounted for. The main character Patsy’s loss of innocence is heartbreaking to follow. On top of that, the book is a really interesting take on connecting dystopia and the world that we know and at least sometimes love.

Rebekkah Ross, the narrator, has only narrated YA and New Adult books as far as I can see and that shows. She has a voice that is very well suited for the genre, capable of delivering so much emotion without becoming hysterical, despite the characterâ€s occasional bouts of the same.

Overall, I think Hit is a good choice for anyone who likes dystopian YA books. Itâ€s fresh and original without veering too far from the genre norms. Itâ€s engaging enough that even though there are undoubtedly holes in the plot or the world, I never noticed them. This is a book that will grab hold and wonâ€t let go until the very last words.

Welcome to Bordertown: Special Edition: New Stories and Poems of the Borderlands

Edited by: Ellen Kushner and Holly Black
Readers: Holly Black, Ellen Kushner, MacLeod Andrews, Steven Brust, Neil Gaiman, Dounya El-Mohtar, Cassandra Campbell
Extras: Introduction by Terri Windling. There is now a Special Edition version available featuring a fully-produced track of the song “Run Back Across the Border” by Steven Brust, with the author himself on lead vocals,  and Neil Gaiman reading his own poem, “The Song of the Song.”

Short Review: A tantalizing collection of stories and poems from the city at the intersection of the elf and human worlds. We get stories featuring all kinds of characters including runaways, elves, humans, halfies, a bookstore owner, an entrepreneur, an artist, an astronomer, and more.

Long Review: If you are not familiar with Bordertown, this new anthology is a great introduction to the city on the border between the elf world and human world. In the mid 1980s, the Bordertown books paved the way for the popular urban fantasy genre many of us know and love today.

There is a lot to love here. The range of stories and poems was fairly balanced. Lots of points of view, lots of great readers. I warred with myself about posting this review before I even finished listening to all 15 discs, just so you all could know about it sooner – but I decided I wanted to get a sense of the full collection before posting my review.

The readers did a fabulous job across the board. I am often nervous when I see so many different readers for a collection like this, but I think they used the different voices to their advantage. They matched them well to the stories and poems.

One of the challenges of reviewing a collection of short stories is deciding if I am going to review each and every one of them. I have decided against it because I want you to have the joy of discovering them as you go, just as I did. I can tell you that I fell in love with Bordertown. It seemed obvious to me that the contributors to this collection love it too. There are a few stories here that I expect to stick with me for a long time.

The three introductions (one each by Terri Windling, Ellen Kushner, and Holly Black) were a treat. This collection was my introduction to Bordertown and I appreciated being given the perspective of the history of the world and earlier anthologies and novels set there.

I loved the way that the stories weave together, touching each other here and there. The landscape is the same, but from different points of view. The protagonist in story A might show up or just pass through story B.

I have to admit I am more of a fan of the stories than the poems, but maybe I should just say that I think that the stories spoil me with their rich details. I did NOT hear the special edition version, so I might have appreciated Steven Brust’s song more if I had heard it performed. (Wait, I just found a source for the song online: Steven Brust song “Run Back Across the Border” on Soundcloud!)

If you are still not sure, some of the stories are posted online or available via various podcasts. Check out the Welcome to Bordertown web page and scroll down to the bottom.

And if you do fall in love with it, there is a bunch of short stories and even novels which take place in this shared world. You can read more about the history of the Bordertown Series and see a full bibliography.

Author: Veronica Roth
Reader: Emma Galvin

Short Review: Intense first-person YA tale with strong 16 year old female protagonist trying to find her place in a very complicated far future world. Fabulous reader, great story.

Long Review: ‘Divergent’ takes place in a future Chicago after some unnamed violence has dramatically reduced the population. As part of the process to broker peace, the remaining people divided themselves into five factions. Each is focused on what they believe is the key to peace. The Candor seeks total honesty, the Abnegation aim for total selflessness, the Dauntless value being brave and strong, the Amity strive for peace above all else, and the Erudite seek knowledge for answers.

Beatrice has just turned 16. She was born into Abnegation. Soon she will have to choose a faction to join for the rest of her life. This is not something that people discuss. It is a deeply personal decision – one which will make Beatrice choose between the faction of her birth and the strong feeling she has long had that she doesn’t belong. Leaving her faction means leaving her family. There is a saying that reflects the permanence of the choice: “Faction over blood”.

I really enjoyed both the story and the reader. It would have been easy for this book to be ruined by a reader who didn’t fit Beatrice. While Galvin’s voices for other characters are not as differentiated as I have heard from some other readers, she does a good enough job that you never are confused about who is speaking. The most important thing to me in the reading of this story is that Galvin’s choices for Beatrice’s inner voice are perfect. She sounds like a sixteen year old girl, but she sounds like a strong and fierce girl making hard choices and doing the best she can.

There are a number of other very interesting characters, none of which I will tell you about since I don’t want to spoil anything for you. Just trust me that there are others who you will follow anxiously, many who are more complex than they first appear.

Many people are saying that Divergent is like The Hunger Games. While I see the similarities (strong young girl in a dystopian future) I also see a number of major differences. Even though her word is constrained, Beatrice has more room to make choices for herself than Katniss ever does. While Katniss’s choice is one of self-sacrifice for others, Beatrice can and does make hard choices seeking to be true to herself. The biggest similarity I see between them is that once they make their hardest choices, they fight hard to survive and succeed. I suspect that if you liked The Hunger Games, you will enjoy Divergent.

This is just part one in a series. I look forward to see where Roth takes us. There are so many unanswered questions at the end of this book – but in a ‘I can’t wait to see what happens next’ kind of way rather than a ‘why didn’t she explain more’ kind of way. We make discoveries and learn about the world as Beatrice does. I appreciate the slow reveal and look forward to the rest of this great tale.

The Fault in Our Stars

Author: John Green
Reader: Kate Rudd

Extras: Q&A interview with the author.

Short Review: Heart-wrenching and uplifting roller coaster ride. Brilliant reader does justice to this amazing story.

Long Review: Hazel is 16 and she has cancer. This is her story. Life is different when you are young and dying faster than the average person. Hazel is alive thanks to a miracle tumor treatment. She has to tug an oxygen tank behind her everywhere she goes, even to the church basement for a Cancer Kids Support Group. Enter Augustus Waters, another ‘cancer kid’. A tall, handsome, funny cancer kid. The next thing Hazel knows she is starting to have the ‘teenage life’ her mother is always talking about.

Augustus and Hazel do lots of the things that a boy and a girl do when they are figuring out if they like each other. They talk about books. They play video games. They also do things most teens don’t – they deal with cancer and hospitals and their overprotective parents. On the other hand, I guess lots of teens have overprotective parents, so that one isn’t specific to their health.

The reader does a beautiful job bringing us Hazel’s story and giving voice to those in her life. It seems like getting a voice just right for a teenage girl is a challenge to many readers – but this is thankfully not the case here.

This book made me laugh out loud. It made me cry in public, forcing me to hide my tears while riding the subway to work. While there are definitely dark aspects to the story (cancer inherently brings that along), the overall sense is one of treasuring the moments and appreciating the world around you. I don’t know how to tell you anything else without getting into spoiler territory.

Audio sample available

Mockingjay (Hunger Games, Book 3)

Author: Suzanne Collins
Reader: Carolyn McCormick

WARNING: Have you read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire yet? No? Then stop and go listen to them (in order) before reading this review. There is NO way to even begin to describe this book without huge spoilers of the first two books.

Short Review: Intense, captivating final book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Lots of twists and turns lead us through this darkest chapter of the series. Action plus emotional turmoil make this a roller coaster ride. Satisfying conclusion for most, perhaps bleaker than some readers are expecting.

Long Review: The end of Catching Fire leaves us with Katniss rescued and being transported to District 13 while Peeta remains a captive of the Capitol. Mockingjay gives us a lot more information about both District 13 and the Capitol. Finally the veils are lifted so we can see the full scale of the rivalry between the two for control of Panem. All this is revealed as we watch Katniss put through the emotional wringer time and again.

For me, the beauty of this installment of the story is the contrast between Katniss’s personal struggle and the struggle of the resistance against the Capitol. I expect that most readers are chasing after this sequel to find out if Katniss ends up with Gale or Peeta – and those readers will have their questions answered clearly. For those who have been wondering at the bigger picture of Panem and how District 13 fits in – those readers should be satisfied as well.

Mockingjay makes a clear choice to focus on Panem as a society. We learn, along with Katniss, about the politics and the powers at play. I think it is a good thing that Collins is able to surprise the readers. I know that some who loved the first two books will be disappointed by the shift in tone and scale of the story – but I hope that most of you out there will enjoy it as much as I did. And don’t worry – there is still plenty of action and suspense.

As I have mentioned in my reviews of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire,  I donâ€t love McCormick as a reader – but after two volumes with her as a reader, her voice (and those she uses for the characters) is familiar. With another reader I suspect I would push this up to a 5 star rating.

Audio sample available.

Fire Will Fall

Author: Carol Plum-Ucci
Readers: Julia Whelan, Paul Michael Garcia, Eddie Lopez, Neil Shah, Kirby Heyborne and Tai Sammons

Short Review: More character driven (but still fairly suspenseful) sequel to Streams of Babel. Round robin of readers still pleasing.

Long Review: This sequel to Streams of Babel picks up shortly after the end of the prior story. I cannot review it without sharing some spoilers of the first story, so if you think that a post-9/11 suspenseful teen driven spy thriller sounds fun, go look at Streams of Babel.

For those of you who read the first book, Fire Will Fall starts with Cora, Scott, Owen and Rain (now known internationally as the ‘Trinity Four’) on their way to a secluded location to recuperate.

Shahzad and Tyler are also in their own recovery – but many miles away. The two v-spy computer geniuses just won’t let go. They are desperate to follow through and catch the bad guys who got away at the end of the last book.

The easiest thing to say is that we get another suspenseful mystery to solve with our overly clever teens who have the shadow of illness hanging over them. Plum-Ucci shares with us the emotions and fears and confusion of these teens, who in addition to dealing with normal teenage stuff (does he like me? should I call her?) spend a lot of time worrying that the people who tried to kill them might try again. In fact, they may already have killed them – just in slow motion.

I liked the first book a bit better, but this one was still worth the time for me. I like knowing what happens next to characters I care about, so this book succeeds at least on that front. The suspense is slightly lower, the action slower than in the first volume.  In fact, the author shares on her Amazon.com blog “I think of FIRE as more of a character piece..” – and that was very clear to me.

Shahzad and Tyler also get more airtime in this book than the last one. I will admit to having a large soft spot in my heart for Tyler – and this book gives him more room to try to harness his mania to save the day. I don’t have the skills to analyze the plausibility of Shahzad and Tyler’s computer hacking brilliance – but for me it wasn’t hard to just suspend disbelief for the v-spy details and stay around for the character development.

If your favorite thing about Streams of Babel was the suspenseful thriller and you don’t care much about the teen protagonists, then you should probably give this book a pass. If you are dying to know what happens next to the six teens from the last book, I think you will enjoy this book!

Boneshaker

Author: Cherie Priest

Readers: Kate Reading and Wil Wheaton

Short Review: A steampunk adventure set in an alternate-history Seattle where the Civil War just won’t end, airships abound, mad scientists run amok, volcanoes make zombies, and intricate questions about liberty and rights continually rear their heads.

Long Review: For no good reason whatsoever, a paper copy of this book languished on my shelf for a few months before I finally broke down and bought the audio version. Initially, I’d been hesitant to listen to it because I was never a of Star Trek (I know, I know) so I didn’t have any particular connection to Will Wheaton. I also hesitate to get hooked on series that are still being written. I finally got over it and dove right in, listened to the whole series, and then listened to them again. I’m itching to start a third time, but figure I can wait for the next installment.

Will Wheaton does a great job narrating the sections of the book following Zeke, a runaway teen trying to prove that his father was a good man. Kate Reading reads the sections following Zeke’s mother Briar Wilkes, the daughter of Seattle’s late Sheriff and widow of a disgraced scientist and inventor. I adored both readers, but I particularly fell for Kate Reading’s voice. She strikes the perfect balance between Briar’s strength and the desperation that she struggles with as she searches for her son and tries to survive the nightmare that Seattle has become in the wake of her husband’s actions.

Priest is an excellent researcher, and this series really showcases her knowledge of 19th century American history. I’m often hesitant to read historical fiction or alternate histories because I find weak research so annoying, but there’s nothing to worry about with Priest’s books. She picks the perfect things to extend the Civil War in her story, and develops a creepy, fascinating plot to explain her changed Seattle.

Moreover, Priest develops excellent characters. Many series fizzle out after the first few books because the author only manages to build a few solid, interesting characters. With this book, Priest introduces a cast of fascinating people, all of whom I want to follow for book after book. The women she writes are particularly interesting, and Zeke reads true as a good but confused teen. Priest set the hook deep with Boneshaker, and I can’t wait to see where she’ll go with the rest of the series.

Short Review: Imaginative and original steampunk story set in a distant future London and beautifully read by the author.

Long Review: Fever Crumb is an odd girl. She has no hair (hair is apparently not logical). Raised by London’s Order of Engineers in the far distant future, Fever has been taught to trust only logic and has spent most of her time assisting her adoptive engineer father Dr. Crumb.

Outside the enormous statue head in which the Order lives, London is a chaotic place more concerned with fear of the fairly recently overthrown tyrannical Scriven than with logic and reason. Anyone who looks different is suspect. The most revered are those known as Skinners who did the dirty work of killing the Scriven and reclaiming London for the regular humans.

The steampunk flavor is steeped into the story, with plenty of odd machines and quirky science against a backdrop that feels Victorian. Strange automaton creatures made of paper, known as paper boys, are capable of both surveillance and attack in a style reminiscent of terminators – if not as durable.  The interesting thing about the technology is that no one knows how to recreate the parts for the machines. It is all about scavenging parts and reusing them to build what they need now – and here is why the Order of Engineers is so important and revered. They are best at figuring out how to fix and build with all these old technology bits. Archaeologists are important for their finds of new caches of old tech. Out beyond the well guarded edges of London we know there are enemies – and who knows what they would do if they broke through the defenses and took over the city!

This is Fever’s world, in which babies are often named after the symptoms they experienced while pregnant. There are mysteries and mis-communications all around, and by the middle of the book I felt truly sucked in and anxious to see where we would end up. This is a prequel to Reeve’s Mortal Engines Quartet, but I have never read the main series so I cannot speak to how it relates. I do understand that it precedes the Mortal Engines books by many many years. I like the world that Reeve has built for us. It is imaginative and often amusing in the tidbits that are dropped from our pop culture into the time of Fever Crumb – often with little or no understanding of their origin.

As I have said before, some authors should not read their own work – but that is NOT the case for Philip Reeve. I was disappointed to go hunting for the Mortal Engine audio books only to discover that they doesn’t seem to have ever been recorded – by Reeve or anyone else.

The only thing that kept this from being a five star book for me is that it did feel like a prequel at times. I want the next book more than I want to listen to this one again, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is a steampunk fan or who is looking for a new world of intricate surprises and mysteries to solve.

Author: Carol Plum-Ucci
Readers: Julia Whelan, Paul Michael Garcia, Eddie Lopez, Neil Shah, Kirby Heyborne and Tai Sammons
Available from Audible.com

Short Review: Welcome a the post-9/11 world in which terrorists wield bioweapons and our best intelligence is gathered online by teenagers. Kept me listening and then made me hunt for the sequel.

Long Review: This book is an interesting combination of the lives of an assortment of teens, but it is far from the typical high school drama. The book opens with the death of Cora’s mom. Cora is a loner at school, which we quickly learn has a lot to do with the mom who came home from a life as a photojournalist injured and addicted to morphine.

As the story moves forward, we meet Scott Eberman (paramedic), his brother Owen and Owen’s friend Rain Steckerman (both popular high school athletes), Shahzad Hamdani (teenage computer hacker in Pakistan) and Tyler Ping (teenage computer hacker in New York). The story is told in a round robin of first person, cycling through this assortment of high school students who have all been pulled into the center of an act of bioterrorism.

With six readers, I do list this as a ‘Full Cast Audio’ book – but it isn’t really. Each voice is tied to a single character and tells their part of the story. It is a good set of voices – though I did like some better than others. That might have a bit to do with my preferring some characters over others, but it certainly wasn’t enough to take away from the enjoyment of listening to this book.

I find myself writing this review on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and it is definitely a story that is informed by that event. It spends a lot of time chasing down terrorists via what they term ‘v-spying’, an abbreviation of virtual spying done by computer hackers trying to watch for, translate and convert into usable intelligence the online chatter of terrorists.

It is definitely an intense and suspenseful story, but in the end this is a story about six teenagers and their lives. Some of it is about being in the wrong place at the wrong time – but it quickly becomes clear that each person in this story has their own opportunity to take action. For these six, their choices and experiences reach far beyond the personal sphere – but in the end they are still teenagers. A good deal of the narrative traces the inner journey that every teen has to take as they navigate their way to adulthood.

I don’t want to tell you any more details for fear of spoiling some of the suspense. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed it and quickly sought out the sequel.

Audio sample available.

Available from Audible.com

Author: Daniel Woodrell

Reader: Emma Galvin

Short Review: A stark, beautifully written and expertly read novel about an overburdened girl in dire straits.

Long Review: Set in the Ozarks, Winter’s Bone follows Ree Dolly as she tries to locate her missing father, care for her broken family, and save their home. Ree, 16, is the oldest of three children, and her life seems to be made entirely of danger, neglect, and undue responsibility. The Dollys are part of a larger near-tribal community of outlaws bound by strict rules of secrecy, respect, and gender roles. Ree’s one dream is to join the Army so she can escape, but she’s too young to leave, and her father’s disappearance leaves her family with only her to lead them.

Emma Galvin does an amazing job reading the book. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I find it extremely annoying when readers voice teenage girls with breathy, high-pitched, weak voices. The book follows Ree closely, so we have largely her voice throughout the audio book. Galvin’s reading is spot on. Ree sounds strong, and smart, and desperate–exactly as she should. During the descriptive sections, Galvin’s pacing and diction are excellent as she gives voice to Woodrell’s sparse, dense prose. She is thoroughly believable and restrained. As the book progresses, we learn that Ree’s relationship with Gail, her best friend, has grown beyond the bounds of friendship. Galvin’s reading remains true, without any veering towards stereotypical butchness. She doesn’t ask or answer any more questions than the author did.

Woodrell’s style is often referred to as “country noir.” I find that a lot of books set in the South or Appalachia are down-right condescending and inaccurate. I’m certainly no expert on the Ozarks, but I never got the sense that Woodrell used this imagined community for target practice. He shows their faults, but he shows strength as well. He stares right at their poverty, drug problems, feuds, and failures and relates those things without pity or judgment. His characters are engrossing and layered, and Woodrell never gives us too much. Often, I feel like he’s leaving us wanting for information on purpose, knowing it will keep us entranced. Because of my own academic interests, I was particularly intrigued to know more about the roots of Ree’s strange community–are they descended from Travellers, are they the remnants of a charismatic cult? We never know for sure, which is both annoying and brilliant.

As an aside, after listening to the book, I also watched the film adaptation of the story. It’s been very well received by critics, and it has some real strengths. But, as is almost always the case with films made from movies I love, it was lacking. The filmmakers omitted Ree’s sexuality entirely–as people are wont to do with stories like this. A son turns to a daughter, the mysterious origins of Ree’s community are erased–but overall it’s a very good movie.

Available from Audible.com

Author: Maureen Johnson

Reader: Jeannie Stith

Short Review: A disappointing audiobook that’s hard to listen to.

Long Review: I expected to enjoy this book, because I love young adult novels, I love the theater and theater people, I love art deco design, and I love New York City.

I was annoyed by Jeannie Stith’s reading from the outset. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I prefer deeper voices, and I understand that not everyone does. But I also know a lot of teenage girls. I used to be a teenage girl. Teenage girls don’t automatically talk with high, breathy voices at all times–no matter what MTV or Disney says. Even if they did, an experienced actor and audiobook narrator should know how hard it is to listen to shrill, piercing reading for hours at a time. Stith’s delivery is perpetually over-done and pitched too high. It never lets the listener relax into the story, not for a moment. Stith sticks to that delivery style, no matter the subject matter, and it feels flippant and dismissive in the more serious sections of the novel.

The book itself has some problems as well, but I think Johnson started with a good concept. I think Scarlett’s family and their residence and work in a historic New York hotel are a great jumping off point for a novel. I think the madcap plot and pacing were engaging, and it reminded me of classic French farces. I think Spencer could be an interesting character in the series if Johnson worked on his character development a bit more. But his obsession with his sisters’ romantic lives is unrealistic and/or disturbing, depending on how you look at it. The girls in the story drove me mad because of how undeveloped their characterizations were and because of how Johnson relied on some nastier steroptypes about girls to frame and sketch them. Scarlett’s older sister cares far too much about appearances and is apparently dating a boy because he has money, and her younger sister is portrayed as a brat who uses her bout with cancer as an excuse to railroad her entire family and gets away with it. And Scarlett–Scarlett is a doormat.

I love a strong female lead, and Scarlet just isn’t one. She takes manipulative, borderline-abusive treatment from all and sundry and keeps on going without defending herself. Scarlett needs to grow a spine, and quickly, for the sake of the story and for the sake of Johnson’s readers. Her brother, her beau, her boss, and her younger sister all constantly push her around, manipulate her, and expect her to bow and scrape, and she does. I didn’t want to read stories about girls like that when I was a girl, and I don’t really want my nieces to read stories like that now. I’ll stick with the March girls, thank you very much.