Bookish Britt

I actually stumbled upon this book in the the pages at the end of Rachel Vincent's My Soul To Take. I've never actually gone by an advertisement in a book but I was glad I did!

Nitty Gritty:
My Rating 4/5
Book 1 of a trilogy. Next Book in series: The Iron Daughter to be released 8/1/10
Book Description (shamelessly c/p'ed from PBS):
Meghan Chase has never fit in at her small-town high school, and now, on the eve of her 16th birthday, she discovers why. When her half brother is kidnapped, Meghan is drawn into a fantastical world she never imagined -- the world of Faery, where anything you see may try to eat you, and Meghan is the daughter of the summer faery king.

Now she will journey into the depths of Faery to face an unknown enemy... and beg the help of a winter prince who might as soon kill her as let her touch his icy heart.

My Own Personal Take on the book:

First of all, lets talk about the cover art. Yum! And those delicious little swirls are actually raised on the cover and decorate the page edges throughout the book. I love those little things that make the book visually attractive. Because I'll openly admit I bought this book because of the cover art more than the description.

Now onto the content. I really like Julie's style. She mashed up a lot of fae mythology and introduced some entirely new ideas about the fay. Namely, the Iron Fey. I feel like talking too much about the Iron Fey would be a spoiler, so I'm going to tread delicately: in most fae books they talk about how the fae are "loosing" their magic/power. Man is more and more dependent on technology and iron, which is toxic to the fae. And part of the Fae's power is mans belief in them. All those Old Wive's tales that used to be passed on to children to keep them from misbehaving, that sort of thing. But what no other author has addressed is the Fae-world's adaptation to this power vacuum, as Julie did. The Iron Fey. So for that, I have to commend her imagination.

I liked Meghans character overall. Sometimes when a character is thrown into the deep end of a new and strange world, they tend to get whiny or just keep underestimating situations based on disbelief and it really annoys me. But half-breed daughter of the Summer King, Meghan went in for a penny, in for a pound. And the sidekicks that help her follow the yellow brick road, as it were, Robbie (aka Puc), The Ice Prince (Ash) , and Grimalkin (snarky cat creature) were enjoyable. I'm really looking forward to the relationship between Meghan and Ash develop. Granted they have a bit of the "forbidden love" thing going on being from opposing fae courts and all, which can be tiresome if it's not done right.

I've read this from other reviewers, but there are elements of this book that are very similar to the Labyrinth. (One of my favorite movies, so NOT complaining) Mostly the stolen baby brother aspect and her having to travel through a crazy new land to retrieve him. But also the "pack rat" characters near the end. I also saw some Alice in Wonderland aspects, namely Grimalkin and how he's pretty much a dead ringer for the Cheshire cat. And some of the parts involving the Iron Fey seemed a bit...out there. At least to me, they did. Like the Iron King having a Blue tooth headset. I guess it made sense, but I couldn't really take it seriously. But of the whole book, that is my only real complaint. I am looking forward to her next book!

Julie of course, has a blog. And it's pretty fun to read, like a lot of the good YA authors. So go visit it!

Synopsis: Set in the sleepy Connecticut town of Swoon, Malkin's novel is narrated by Dice (short for Candice). Dice is a New York native with family roots in Swoon. She quickly integrates herself via her cousin, Pen (short for Penelope). But after her cousin suffers a bump on the noggin after falling of an Ash tree, the slightly psychic Dice begins to sense another presence in her barbie doll cousin. Soon Pen is acting on impulses she never had and doing wanton and violent things as though they were the most normal thing in the world. Dice manages to manifest the presence in Pen and learns that he is a ghost who was unjustly hanged in the 1600's by a lynch mob after he was framed for his beloveds murder. Thus begins an interesting love triangle, which Dice falling for Sinclair (referred to as Sin from there on out...aptly), who is stuck in Pen. But when Dice manages to separate Sin from Pen, the residents of Swoon start spiralling out of control and Dice as at a loss of what to do...

Commentary: I wanted to like this book. I really did. But first I must give a warning, even though this book is listed as Young Adult, there is excessive casual drug use (even crystal and coke are referred to by the main character, and not in a negative sense), gratuitous sex references and acts (the oddest being an orgasmic spanking session taking place in a corn maze with 7-year-olds in presence), and entirely irresponsible behavior by all characters. Now I'm not Conservative. I've read and enjoyed books with explicit sex in them. However, this book was meant for teenagers. The drug use bothered me the most, though.

Ignoring all that, the author seemed to have tried to use dialogue that she thinks youngsters nowadays use, but it just ended sounding like my grandma saying "Fashizzle," extremely awkward and out of place. And often the author uses obscure words that scream of improper thesaurus use. For example: "He stroked my cochlea..." First of all...what teenager knows what that is? Second of all...it's a inner-ear tube, I don't wanna know the logistics of someone stroking the inside of your ear.

In all fairness, I did want to continue reading this book. It was engaging and at moments, decent. But at least half of the time I was just incredulous that parts of this book made it through an editor, and managed to get categorize and sold to young adults.