I've decided to cross-post my book reviews, which I will be writing each time I finish a book I have not reviewed before. I already post them to LibraryThing, and have started cross-posting them to Amazon as well. Now I think I'll post them here, too. So far I have written 11 reviews, which I'll post here, and in one or two other posts. All reviews will be under cuts, and posted with the tag "book reviews". If anyone's interested. Now, on to the reviews!


Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Uglies takes place in a utopian/dystopian (yes, it can be both) America several hundred years in the future. In this future, everyone turns "pretty" (ie, has a surgery to bring one's body and face to a physical point which is very close to average, and biologically pleasing) on their sixteenth birthday - and pretties are not only beautiful, but vapid, vain, and entirely focused on having fun.

Tally is looking forward to the operation and being able to rejoin her friend Peris, until her friend Shay shows her a different option: run away to the wildnerness and the Smoke, never turn pretty but keep your own choices. When Shay herself runs away to the Smoke, leaving Tally behind to have the operation she is so looking forward to, the authorities (Special Circumstances) offer Tally a terrible choice: go after Shay and turn her and the Smoke in, or never. Ever. Have the operation and turn pretty. The choices she makes and the information she discovers changes her life forever.

I found it hard to get through the first few chapters. Until Tally meets Shay, she is as vapid as the pretties she is eager to join. However, once the two girls meet, the book just FLIES. The only reason it took me two days to finish it instead of one is because I started it very late in the night and didn't want to stay up until dawn.

This is truly a book I would recommend to any fan of young adult fiction and/or sci-fi. (4 stars out of 5)



From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

As a kid, I loved "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." I could always imagine hiding out in a museum, fishing coins out of fountains (who else is using them, you know?), and I would have loved to have been able to sleep in all those wonderful beds they have! This is a wonderful book for any kid old enough to read and understand it, and it's especially delightful to the rare child wh oloves puns (bologna vs. baloney). (no star rating)



Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

"Ella Enchanted" caught my attention from the moment it came out, and it's had a special place on my bookshelf ever since. I've always beeninterested in Cinderella stories, so when I saw "Ella Enchated" in the store, I knew I had to buy it. And buy it I did. I read through it in a matter of hours.

"Ella Enchanted" is a re-telling of the Cinderalla story set in a fantasy world of trolls and ogres and fairies that can do magic (but usually they don't). It follows the basic plotline of Cinderella: a girl is forced to do what her stepmother and stepsisters say until she can marry her prince. But from there out, Levine takes the story into her own world and puts her own spin on things.

If you've seen the move but haven't read this book, be warned: the scriptwriters for the movie drastically changed things.They kept the same basic principle, but changed the story almost entirely, and made the movie much more frivolous than the book. I encourage you to read this book, but don't start it expecting it to mirror the movie, or vice-versa. (no star rating)



Mary, Queen of France by Jean Plaidy

Mary is the younger sister of Henry VIII, and he dotes on her. This book covers much her life - her betrothals to princes of Europe, her miserable marriage to the King of France, her love affair with Charles Brandon (the king's best friend), and finally her marriage to Brandon against her brother's wishes - a very dangerous game to play against Henry VIII.

The book's pacing was not even. At times the story raced and I flew through the pages; at other times it dragged on and seemed much longer than its 290 pages. Overall I liked the book, and I'm planning on eventually collecting all of the re-published books by Jean Plaidy. (3.5 stars out of 5)



Beka Cooper: Terrier by Tamora Pierce

Beka Cooper: Terrier marks Tamora Pierce's venture into the history of Tortall, and her first book written from a first-person point of view. Terrier is written as Cooper's diary (though there are entries from the journals of several other characters, Cooper's journal makes up the vast majority of the book).

Cooper is a puppy - a trainee ofthe Provost's guard - in the Lower City at a time when people are disappearing without a trace, the King of the Thieves is lazy and has stopped really doing his duties, and children are disappearing - including the grandchild of the most powerful (and corrupt) landlord ofthe Lower City. Beka, through her ability to hear the ghosts that pigeons carry, becomes involved in the disappearances, and through her friends reports to us the intrigues in the Court of the Rogue.

This is a great start to a new series of Tortall, and I cannot wait to read the next book, to see what happens to this ancestor of the Rogue cum Spymaster, George Cooper. (5 stars out of 5)

Tags: book reviews