Fiction Review: The Ferryman

With my husband's encouragement, I chose The Ferryman by Justin Cronin from my stack of Big Books in late August. It was longer than some of the other books still in my pile, but he assured me it was a quick, gripping read. And he was right! This inventive novel from the author of The Passage trilogy (and a very different (not sci fi) novel,  The Summer Guest) took me on a rollercoaster ride, with surprises around every corner.

Proctor works as a Ferryman, a very respected position, on the island of Prospera. There was some sort of global crisis out in the wider world that resulted in the creation of this hidden, remote paradise. No one dies on Prospera. Mental, physical, and emotional health is constantly monitored, and when someone's rating starts to decline (and definitely before they hit 10%), they "retire." Ferryman like Proctor guide them through this transition phase and accompany them to a ferry, where they will travel to a neighboring island known as the Nursery. There, they will be "reiterated," eventually taking the ferry back to Prospera as a new 16-year-old iteration (with no memory of their past life/lives) to start fresh. Proctor remembers his own ferry ride to Prospera at 16, meeting his adoptive parents, Cynthia and Malcolm, who were delighted at his arrival. Now, Proctor enjoys his important job--and is very good at it--but he has started to have some difficulties. First, his mother dies (actually dies) in a very unexpected and unusual way, and now he's been summoned to retire his own father. Even more disturbing, Proctor has been dreaming, which isn't supposed to happen to Prosperans, and his dreams are increasingly disturbing. He begins to see cracks and flaws in their perfect society, as he wonders what is happening to him.

That is just the broad framework of the earliest chapters in this unique novel, which is continually surprising. As Proctor's journey continues, the reader goes along for the ride. Every time you think you have something figured out or know what's coming next, there is another shocking twist you never saw coming. It's a truly unique science fiction plot that provides insights into our own humanity and society (as the best sci fi does), like this passage:

"It's been my experience that a lot of human interaction comes down to just these sorts of exchanges, less an actual conversation than a form of parallel confession--the two parties performing their interior monologues, not really listening to each other but merely taking turns. I do not mean this cynically or as a statement of personal superiority; I'm as guilty as the next guy."
 

Cronin's writing pulls the narrative along at a fast pace; this was indeed a quick read because I couldn't bear to set it down. His characters are fully fleshed-out and feel real so that you are rooting for (or booing for) them throughout the story. I love this combination in a novel: unique, gripping plot with plenty of emotional depth and thoughtful insights. The end result is truly magical and a delight to read, and the ending was perfect. I wish I could read it again for the first time, not knowing what was coming.

538 pages, Ballantine Books

Random House Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Monthly Motif Reading Challenge - August: Seasons, Elements, Weather
Big Book Summer Challenge

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. It sounds great, with multiple narrators.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 

Fiction Review: Our Missing Hearts

My first book read in the new year was a Christmas gift from my son and his girlfriend, Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. I had never read anything by this author and really wanted to give her a try. This latest novel of hers has a scary real-life dystopian setting but with a lot of heart and a touch of hope.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives with his father in a dorm room in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his dad works as a librarian. Bird is half-Chinese, and his father his white. His dad used to be a professor of linguistics, but after Bird's mother left, his dad lost his position and they left their house with the wonderful garden his mom had planted. Bird's real name is Noah, and everyone calls him that now, but in his head, he's still Bird. His mother left suddenly and without warning three years ago, and Bird doesn't know why, only that a book she wrote had been banned. His father gives him strict instructions to walk straight home from school each day, following the route he outlined, with no detours or stops. In spite of this, sometimes Bird notices strange things, like the street in front of their dorm painted red overnight, or a group of maples on the common yarn-bombed, dripping with red yard and a sign reading "Our Missing Hearts." One day, a letter arrives addressed to Bird, and he knows it must be from his mother, since no one else calls him that. There's no return address, just a New York, NY postmark, and nothing inside but a single sheet of paper, covered with drawings of cats: sitting cats, sleeping cats, playing cats, cats--big and small--all over the page. It tickles an old memory in Bird's mind, and he struggles to retrieve it. As Bird begins to investigate the meaning of the letter and where his mother may have disappeared to, helped by a local librarian, it sets him off on a perilous journey to find out what happened to his mother.

I haven't described much about the world that Bird lives in, a near-future dystopia with chilling connections to what's happening in our own world, because the book is written from his perspective. As Bird slowly figures out what is happening in the wider world and all that his father has protected him from, the reader comes along on that journey of discovery. From Bird's school assignments, answering questions and writing essays about a law called PACT, to the art-based protests Bird witnesses to the way that people treat him, Bird eventually begins to put the pieces together, all leading him back toward his mother. Bird is a wonderful main character and guide to this changed world so like our own. His innocence and his love for his mother guide his actions, and we get to come along. It's a heartbreaking story of a society that has lost its way and is now led by fear, but it is also a beautiful, moving story of the power of the mother-child bond and of art to guide change. I was completely immersed in Bird's world and was rooting for things to turn out OK for him and his family. While frightening in its connections to our own world and elements that we see today in society, there is a thread of hope in the ending, and I loved the role that librarians play in that hope!

331 pages, Penguin Books

Penguin Audio

This book fits in the following 2024 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge (starting the year off right!)

Motif Challenge - "Red Carpet Reads" (award nominee or winner) - Booklist Editor's Choice award

Alphabet Soup Challenge - O

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - Massachusetts 

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. Audio is read by Lucy Liu and sounds great!

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

Print and e-book from Amazon.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local! 
  

 

Fiction Review: When She Woke

Back in 2010, I read Mudbound, an award-winning historical novel by Hillary Jordan and loved it (and read it again for book group in 2019 - review here). So when Jordan published a second novel, When She Woke, I got it in 2011 as soon as it came out in paperback. And then ... it sat on my shelf! I can't explain why it took me so long to finally read it, but I'm glad I did. This future dystopian novel that riffs on A Scarlet Letter, with hints of The Handmaid's Tale, is entirely different than Mudbound but just as compelling and well-written.

"When she woke, she was red."

So begins the story of Hannah, a young woman in near-future Texas. In her society, all but the most violent criminals get their skin dyed a color to match their crime, to relieve prison overcrowding. Red means murder. Hannah spends her first month as a "red" in a small, transparent cell, with a live feed that people watch for entertainment, as she tries not to go mad from the isolation and boredom. While there, Hannah thinks back to the events that landed her there: her illicit love affair with a married man and her illegal abortion to protect his identity in a world where genetic testing is routinely carried out so that fathers will support their children. She also remembers her innocent past before she met the man, growing up in a very sheltered family, among a strict religious community. She is a seamstress who used to work for a bridal salon, and before the affair, her worst crime was secretly sewing beautiful (but not properly modest) dresses for herself, to wear in private. Now, after a month in the cell, she is released to the wider world, to begin her new life with red skin. Her mother refuses to speak with her, and her sister's controlling boyfriend won't let her contact Hannah, so she is almost alone in the world. Strangers avoid her on the street or openly harass her. Her father tries to help by sending her to a sort of halfway house, focused on reforming its female criminal residents. Hannah has a long road ahead of her, making a new life for herself and considering for the first time ever, what she thinks, apart from her family and church.

That's just the very beginning of the novel because I don't want to spoil this gripping tale filled with so many unexpected twists and turns. It is suspenseful and compelling but also immersive, as the reader inhabits Hannah's mind and sees everything through her eyes. Jordan has created an imaginative dystopian world here that, like the best dystopian fiction, is firmly rooted in our real world. Chillingly, some of the details she includes--like the pervasiveness of reality TV and the overturning of Roe v. Wade--have come to pass in our real world in the 12 years since the book was published. That rooting in the real world makes this novel very thought-provoking; it would be perfect for an open-minded book group discussion. Hannah is an absorbing main character and heroine, struggling against not only her sentence but over 20 years of indoctrination and being told not to think for herself. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this engrossing, original novel--it was worth the wait!

341 pages, Algonquin Books

Highbridge, Recorded Books

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge (this should count extra after sitting on my shelf for 12 years!)

Diversity Reading Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - Texas

R.I.P. Challenge
 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores (audio sample here, too).

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

   
  

Fiction Review: Afterland

My husband and I both loved The Shining Girls, Lauren Beukes' suspenseful, creepy novel about a time-traveling serial killer (and its fabulous TV adaptation). So, when I saw Beukes' name while book shopping for my husband last year, I picked up her novel Afterland, another action-packed sci fi thriller.

Chillingly, this dystopian and post-apocaylptic novel begins in June 2023 in a world that looks very different from our own present. In the aftermath of a new, unique pandemic that only affects those with a Y chromosome, more than 99% of the males around the globe have died. In this new post-pandemic world inhabited mainly by women, the few remaining boys and men have become much sought-after. As the novel opens, a woman named Cole escapes with her twelve-year-old son, Miles. They are on the run from the U.S. government, from their latest luxurious but stifling protected custody, and even from Cole's own sister, Billy. Everyone wants something from Miles, and Cole's instinct as a mother is to keep him safe from all of it. They got stuck in the U.S. during the pandemic when her American husband died, but now Cole desperately wants to get herself and Miles back home to South Africa, and away from the U.S. government. As they travel across the country, switching cars and hiding in various abandoned homes, Miles dresses like a girl and pretends to be Mila. In escaping from Billy's horrible scheme involving Miles, Coles is worried she may have actually killed her sister. They encounter groups of women along the way--including artists in a communal-living home in Salt Lake City and some crazy female church group all dressed in neon-colored robes in Colorado--but Cole doesn't know who she can trust. Meanwhile, in alternating chapters, Billy is reluctantly teamed up with some really rough characters chasing after Cole and Miles, to make sure Billy keeps her promise to deliver the precious boy to the highest bidder.

The suspense never lets up here, as Cole and Miles/Mila travel across the U.S., trying to stay safe, keep Miles' real identity a secret, and make it to the East Coast so they can find a ship to take them back home. Beukes' world-building here is creative and immersive in this post-apocalyptic all-female world that is still new and unstable.  With Billy and her criminal handlers hot on the trail, the danger to Cole and Miles is very real and imminent, keeping the narrative moving at a fast pace and the tension high. It's a pulse-pounding, action-packed thriller set against a fascinating, unique backdrop. I very much enjoyed the ride.

404 pages, Mulholland Books

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

 

Mount TBR Challenge

Diversity Challenge

Literary Escapes Challenge - Utah

Big Book Summer Challenge

 

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. It sounds like a great audio production.

 

Or get this audiobook from Libro.fm and support local bookstores.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

    
  

Teen/YA Review: Scythe

My husband, son, and I are big fans of Neal Schusterman, author of dozens of outstanding middle-grade and YA novels. Two of our favorites are the middle-grade Skinjacker trilogy (starting with Everlost), an imaginative look at the afterlife, and the YA dystopian series that starts with Unwind, which is still a family favorite, many years later. Schusterman doesn't just write fantasy and science fiction, either. Bruiser is a mostly realistic YA novel about abuse, with a bit of a supernatural twist, and Challenger Deep is a creative, powerful YA novel about mental illness, based on the author's own son's experiences with schizophrenia. So, I wanted to read Scythe even before I heard all the rave reviews. I don't know why it took me so long! It was just as good as I expected.

Scythe takes place in a far-off future, where technology has evolved to the point where there is no more suffering. The Thunderhead (which began with the present-day "cloud") has evolved into intelligent AI that oversees every aspect of life, so there is no more need for government or politics. Disease has been eradicated, and nanites in each person's bloodstream automatically heal injuries, treat pain, and even control mood to prevent anger or despair. Even middle seats on airplanes have been abolished! Sounds like a pretty great way to live, right? The only problem is that with no natural death and humans now essentially immortal, the world needed a way to control population so it wouldn't outstrip the world's resources (which are carefully apportioned by the Thunderhead so everyone gets what they need). The answer to that problem was to designate certain humans as Scythes who are tasked with gleaning (i.e. killing) a certain number of people each year to keep the world in perfect balance. Ideally, these Scythes operate under a strict moral code and are revered for their role in society, but as is always the case where humans are involved, not all Scythes follow the rules and aspire to ethical behavior.

In this world, two ordinary teens, Citra and Rowan, have recently been selected by Scythe Faraday (each Scythe chooses a historic name) to train as Scythes. Neither of them wants to dedicate their life to gleaning, but that--along with evidence of honesty and compassion--is precisely why Scythe Faraday chose them to be his apprentices. He's one of the good guys and begins to train Citra and Rowan rigorously in killing techniques, as well as old world history and philosophy and the moral code of the Scythes. Their training is interrupted, though, as some of the Scythes with more selfish motives intervene.

As in all of Schusterman's dystopian novels, he has created a thoroughly unique and fascinating future world, where you can easily see the chilling links back to our own world. His novels are always gripping and suspenseful, yet thought-provoking, and Scythe is no exception. The reader quickly comes to like Citra and Rowan--and Scythe Faraday, too--and all of the characters are interesting and three-dimensional. It's an action-packed story, full of surprising twists, that kept me turning the pages. Schusterman has done it again, with another thoughtful, high-stakes dystopian thriller. I can't wait to read book two, and I've already moved Scythe onto my husband's to-be-read pile, because I know he'll love it, too.

435 pages, Simon & Schuster

Audible Studios

This book fits in the following 2023 Reading Challenges:

Mount TBR Challenge

Big Book Summer Challenge

 

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

 

Visit my YouTube Channel for more bookish fun!

 

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

 

    (as an Audible production, it seems the audio is only available through Audible)

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

Teen/YA Review: Feed

M.T. Anderson is always good for an engaging sci fi novel, so when I noticed his teen/YA book, Feed, way at the back of my backlog of audios for review (from 2012), I decided to give it a try for #RIPXV Challenge. Better late than never, right? Feed won loads of awards when it was first released and was a finalist for the National Book Award. This thought-provoking, creepy world felt all too real to me, given the way technology is taking over our lives.

At some undetermined time in the future, Titus and his teen friends are on a spring break trip to the moon. Like any spring breakers, their main purpose there is to party and have a wild time, but in a teen club one night, something goes terribly wrong. A criminal hacker manages to hack into their feeds, causing them to malfunction and sending the kids to the hospital. In this world, most people are implanted with feeds as babies or very young children. The electronics are connected directly to their brains and nervous systems, receiving information from them and feeding back a constant barrage of entertainment, communication, and advertising (lots of ads!). People can message each other, connect with friends, or buy things without typing or talking, just by thinking. This is just normal life for Titus and his friends, so their stay in the hospital (first on the moon and then back home on Earth) with the feed completely off while it is being fixed is a unique experience for them. Without the feed, they do what any quarantined teens would do: they talk to each other and joke around and make up silly games to occupy themselves. But Titus met a new friend on the moon named Violet, whose feed was also hacked, and Violet is different. As she explains to him later, her dad is a professor and her family doesn't have much money, so she has been homeschooled and didn't even have a feed until age seven. This makes fixing her feed more complicated. Once they are out of the hospital, Titus and Violet begin dating and get to know each other better. Violet is different from anyone Tutus has ever known before, and she opens up his mind to new thoughts and possibilities, like that perhaps the feed isn't all good and maybe sometimes people should think for themselves.

This was an engrossing and original dystopian story. The author makes it feel more realistic, despite its futuristic setting, by giving the teens their own slang, so that they sound much like today's young people (only different). A friend who teaches and often introduces high school students to this novel said that kids often tell her it's not realistic, but being older and knowing how quickly our world has changed as technology has taken over makes this story feel eerily possible. It was originally published in hardcover in 2002, which makes it even more impressively prescient. The audio is excellent because it includes some passages that mimic the feed, and the noisy barrage of information makes this world feel all the more real. The story focuses in on Titus and Violet and their relationship, with interesting insights into their differing backgrounds that are just as relevant today as in this future world and some frightening consequences of the hack. I was captivated by this original and suspenseful novel about a future that felt all too possible.

299 pages, Candlewick

Listening Library

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible. You'll hear Titus narrating during the trip to the moon and some of the futuristic teen slang.

 

You can purchase Feed from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

 

 

You can also buy through indie bookstores using Bookshop. 

 

Or you can order Feed from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Teen/YA Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

With so little time to myself these days for audiobooks, it took me more than a month to finally finish listening to my latest (and a Big Book), The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. It is a prequel to The Hunger Games trilogy, which takes place decades before that famous story. As with all of Collins' novels, it was suspenseful, surprising, and thoughtful.

As readers of the trilogy know, Coriolanus Snow ends up being President of Panem ... and he is pretty evil by then, fully committed to the barbaric Hunger Games and to keeping the Districts under the control of the Capital. But here in this novel, only ten years after the war, Coriolanus is just a teen-aged boy whose once-important family has fallen on hard times. There are only three of them left: Coriolanus, his teen cousin, Tigris, and their Grandmam. Everyone else was killed during the war (and his mother was killed in childbirth). They survived the war period on a diet of lima beans and cabbage, while Corilanus' father was a hero, off fighting the Districts, and they could very possibly lose their beloved family home, if the rumors about imposing a property tax in the Capital are true. Thanks to his family connections, Coriolanus attends the prestigious Academy, but he will have to win awards and scholarships in order to continue onto college. He works very hard to keep up appearances at school, and Tigris, who is a gifted seamstress and close friend to her cousin, helps him to look his best, to keep their poverty a secret.

Into this quiet, routine life of behind-the-scenes struggle comes the 10th Annual Hunger Games. For the first time ever, the Capital is assigning Academy students to mentor the tributes from the Districts. On Reaping Day, one tribute stands out: Lucy Gray from District 12. While initially disappointed he wasn't assigned a big, strong boy, Coriolanus quickly sees the positive aspects of his own tribute, in her outrageously cheery and colorful dress, with her beautiful singing voice and haunting song. At first, Coriolanus helps Lucy Gray in his own self-interest, so that he can get a scholarship for his role in helping her win the Games. Soon, though, he gets to know her as a real person, and the two become friends ... and maybe more. Coriolanus becomes confused and pulled in different directions: he's supposed to be a proud member of the Capital, but how can this be right, forcing sweet kids like Lucy Gray to fight to the death? The evil Game Master, his classmates, and his headmaster all play roles as Coriolanus fights internally to decide what to do and how far he will go to protect Lucy Gray.

As always, Collins has provided thought-provoking, morally-complex subject matter that is set in a wholly different world but somehow also reflects our own issues. I love this about her writing (we were huge fans of her Gregor the Overlander series long before The Hunger Games), and I thoroughly enjoyed this new novel, as well ... until the end. I struggled with the ending. I was thinking (as all readers will) throughout the book, "What will happen to Snow to make him turn him from this tormented teen into the evil President of Panem someday?" But when that moment came, it didn't feel quite believable to me. I had one of those moments where I thought I missed something on the audio and rewound a bit to listen again, but I hadn't missed anything. All that said, that sharp turn in Coriolanus' life comes in the very last chapters of this long book, and I very much enjoyed all the rest of it. Lucy Gray is a wonderful character, the other characters and setting are richly developed, and I enjoyed learning Snow's backstory.

528 pages, Scholastic Press

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, as Coriolanus talks to a friend and worries about the proposed tax, and/or download it from Audible.

You can purchase The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

You can also buy through indie bookstores using Bookshop.

Or you can order The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Fiction Review: Lakewood

Lakewood by Megan Giddings was one of the selections for Booktopia 2020 (cancelled, of course, but with some author events being held online now - click events at the link). Exploring themes of class and race in a dystopian-like plot, it is now even more relevant than ever. I listened to this dark, disturbing novel on audio.

Lena is in college in Detroit, but the recent death of her beloved grandmother, who raised her, has revealed financial problems in her family. With the care of her mother, Deziree, and her overwhelming medical conditions now on Lena's shoulders, she's afraid she may have to drop out of school. But how can she ever earn enough money to support the two of them and pay all the bills? Then, Lena hears of a job that sounds too good to be true: if she signs up as a research subject for a company in the remote town of Lakewood, she will be paid an enormous salary, be given free housing, and all medical expenses for her and her mother will be covered. Lena signs up and drops out of school to move to Lakewood. She has misgivings, though, when she finds out that she must keep everything about her new job and her situation a secret from her family and friends. She and the others hired with her are even given fake jobs in a fake company, with daily discussion points of a boring corporate job to share with loved ones. It all seems kind of creepy, but Lena needs the financial security and hopes that she will be helping to bring medical remedies to fruition with her role. The experiments, though, are sinister and get worse and worse the longer Lena remains there: eye drops that turn brown eyes blue, a pill designed to make bad thoughts disappear, and a cure for dementia that only seems to scramble Lena's brain. In fact, all of the experiments have serious side effects and damaging consequences. How much is Lena willing to sacrifice for her family?

On its surface, this is a sinister, disturbing science fiction novel about evil science gone wrong. It soon becomes apparent, though, that this book is also a thoughtful exploration of the pressures of being lower class and not being able to support your family, and the long history of horrific scientific exploitation of people of color (i.e. Henrietta Lacks, Tuskegee syphilis experiment). The experiments that Lena is subjected to become more and more alarming, and she notices right from the first day that the research subjects are all minorities, while the Lakewood employees are all white. The tension and dread grow as Lena gets deeper and deeper into this diabolical situation, with some surprising plots twists in the mix. It's a dark, troubling novel but one that makes you think about issues of race and class and things we take for granted.

288 pages, Amistad
HarperAudio

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

Listen to a sample of the audiobook here and/or download it from Audible.

You can purchase Lakewood from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

You can also buy through indie bookstores using Bookshop.

Or you can order Lakewood from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Middle-Grade Review: The One Safe Place

My first audio book, downloaded free from SYNC this summer, for the annual fall RIP XIV Challenge was The One Safe Place by Tania Unsworth, a middle-grade dystopian/sci fi adventure. I enjoyed listening to this haunting story, loaded with suspense and unpredictable developments.

Devin was very happy living with his grandfather in a protected valley on their small family farm. Between the two of them, they could manage caring for the farm, but after his grandfather died, Devin realized he couldn't do it on his own. He left for the city that his grandfather had told him about, though he'd never been there before himself. He was stunned to find such a dirty, decrepit place where many children, orphaned like him, were living in the streets and almost starving, barely staying alive by stealing food. Though most of the surrounding countryside has been abandoned due to terrible chronic drought, Devin notices one section with green lawns and big houses, where the wealthy live. Devin soon meets Kit, a vibrant girl full of life, who shows him the ropes and lets him share her rooftop "home." They are still struggling for food, but at least Devin has a friend now.

One day, Devin is picked up in a huge car, convinced by a boy to come to the Gabriel H. Penn Home for Childhood, where the boy says children are well cared-for and have everything they need, including plenty of food. Devin says he won't go without Kit, so the two of them join the latest recruits and are driven far outside the city to a beautiful campus filled with children who are well-dressed and well-fed, with all the toys and amusements they could ever want. So why don't they look happy? Devin soon realizes that this is no ordinary orphanage. Something feels "off" about the place from the first day and eventually, Devin learns the Home's terrible secret. He must come up with a plan to save himself and Kit - and all the other innocent children, too. But how?

I enjoyed this original story set in a slightly futuristic world that is easily imaginable from our own. Devin and Kit are both likable characters, with plenty of depth that is slowly revealed throughout the story. The audio was well done, with Mark Turetsky voicing Devin's narration and bringing this world to life. Suspense grows in this creative, imaginative, and very, very creepy story filled with surprises. The sense of dread slowly builds, as Devin and the other children learn what is really going on at Gabriel H. Penn Home for Childhood. Middle-grade readers needn't be scared, though. This group of smart, resourceful kids figures things out in the end, in a rousing, exciting, and very satisfying conclusion.

304 pages, Algonquin Young Readers

Listen to a sample of the excellent audio book, a scene from the start of the novel, while Devin is still on his grandfather's farm.

Note: This post contains affiliate links. Purchases from these links provide a small commission to me (pennies per purchase), to help offset the time I spend writing for this blog, at no extra cost to you.

You can purchase The One Safe Place from an independent bookstore, either locally or online, here:

Or you can order The One Safe Place from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Middle-Grade/Teen Review: Fly By Night

My third Big Book this summer (for my annual Big Book Summer Challenge) was Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge, a middle-grade/teen novel. Most of my Big Books read each summer come from my own overflowing shelves, but this one takes the prize, having sat on my shelf since its release in 2005! I wanted to read it but just never seemed to get to it. That's what the Big Book Summer Challenge is all about! That gave me the extra motivation to finally read this exciting, action-packed adventure set in an unfamiliar world.

Twelve-year-old Mosca was orphaned when her father died when she was eight years old. Now living with a cruel uncle who keeps her locked up at night, Mosca is eager to escape and see more of the world than her damp hometown of Chough. Mosca lives in a world where books are forbidden:

"Everyone knew that books were dangerous. Read the wrong book, it was said, and the words crawled around your brain on black legs and drove you mad, wicked mad. It did not help that she was the daughter of Quillam Mye, who had come to Chough from Mandelion amid rumors of banishment, bringing city thoughts crackling with cleverness and dozens of dark-bound, dangerous books. Mosca might as well have been the local witch in miniature."

Having been taught to read by her father, Mosca is very smart and eager to learn, but reading and learning are not readily available in her world. When a stranger named Eponymous Clent comes to town and gets locked up in the stockades as a con man, Mosca sees her chance to escape her suffocating town and see the world. She steals the keys and frees Clent, on the condition that he take her - and her beloved goose, Saracen - with him. He grants her the position of his secretary, with the intention of getting rid of her as soon as possible, and the two escape into the dark night. Once they arrive in Mandelion, they encounter political turmoil, evil plots to overthrow the government, secret schools, a hidden printing press, and much more.

I struggled a bit with this book at first simply because of the density of new information, but it grew on me. It is categorized as fantasy, though there is no magic or special powers or fantastical animals. But it does take place in a completely made-up world, with its own unique geography, politics, names, and terminology. Once I adjusted to that and became more familiar with the world, I ended up enjoying the novel very much. It is full of action, suspense, and adventure, as Mosca and Clent first work toward their own goals and later get pulled into the larger conspiracies and intricacies of their world. Most of all, I enjoyed the subtle tongue-in-cheek humor of the story, as evident in the sample paragraph above and the clever names and turns of phrase throughout. This twisty, imaginative adventure story starring such a smart and capable young heroine captured my heart. It looks like the author also wrote a sequel, Fly Trap, which sounds just as enticing.

483 pages, HarperCollins

Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in return for an honest review. My review is my own opinion and is not influenced by my relationship with the publisher or author.

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