Sam Downing

Buried in the acknowledgements in the back of Black Heart is what might be the key to Holly Black‘s success. She writes (slight paraphrasing): “I have to thank my husband, who once again let me read the whole book to him out loud.”

That’s right: having a husband is the key to a woman’s success. Just kidding! I mean the bit about reading the whole book out loud. That’s kind of neat, right? The only people who read whole books out loud are the people who get paid to narrate audiobooks. But I think it explains why The Curse Workers trilogy, which concludes with Black Heart (at least I assume it’s a trilogy – trilogies are how YA series are mostly pitched and sold. So maybe there’ll be a fourth book. I have no idea), has such a distinctive, polished, convincing voice. Because Black read the whole book aloud, to someone else. It really pays off.

So. In this series magic is real, and most people with magic powers are criminals – mobsters, con men, killers. Cassel Sharpe is the youngest member of a family of “worker” lowlifes (worker is Black’s term for anyone magic) who’s been roped into using his rare magic ability, the power to transform anything into basically anything else, for the FBI. And of course it turns out the feds are as ruthless and untrustworthy as the worker mafia Cassel is also tied up with. “Between a rock and a hard place” comes somewhere close to describing this kid’s dilemma.

Cassel, bless his melodramatic moody teenage heart, is dealing with some heavy stuff. But The Curse Workers books are not hard hitters. That is not meant as a bad thing! This series is a noir thriller dressed up as young-adult fantasy: it’s sexy. It’s gritty. It’s readable. Please, television executives who are totally likely to pay attention to all the things I say: make a TV series about these books. It’d be Veronica Mars with magic. And I have to wrap this up now because I’m having heart palpitations at how awesome that would be.

Previously: White Cat, Holly Black/Red Glove, Holly Black

Young Adult is not the zany black comedy suggested by its trailer (which, by the way, basically spoils the entire movie, so you should probably avoid it. Here’s the link!). This is a dark, twisted-and-not-in-that-cute-Hollywood-way portrait of a disturbed woman, but it’s a portrait that doesn’t say enough about its subject.

(Light spoilers ahead.)

The trailer does get the basic plot right: beyond-beautiful Charlize Theron is Mavis Gary, the author of a failing series of young-adult novels who returns to her hometown to reclaim her high-school sweetheart Buddy (Patrick Wilson), who’s now married with a kid.

Soon after arriving in Mercury, a sort of Everywhere/Nowheresville that could stand in for pretty much any small town in America (or Australia, for that matter – the strip mall/fast-food landscape looks the same), Mavis encounters Matt (Patton Oswalt), a former classmate who was brutally beaten and crippled when he was at school. The two bond – who doesn’t love connecting with friends of the jocks who terrorised you as a teenager? – even as Matt tries to talk Mavis out of her ridiculous plans with Buddy.

The problem with Young Adult is that when I ask myself “What is this film about?”, I can’t really come up with an answer. “Continuing to behave like a high-schooler well into your adulthood has bleak consequences.” And… that’s it? The plot doesn’t move beyond that premise; it’s not thoughtful enough to be a character study, too sour to be a comedy.

Mavis sneers at pretty much everyone who enters her field of vision, but I didn’t dislike her because she’s so unlikeable. Unlikeable characters are fine in principle, and it’s not like I hated her: she’s best when her powerful sarcasm is turned up to 11, scoffing when a date boasts about travelling in South-East Asia and rolling her eyes at a stranger’s baby (strangers’ babies are the worst). Nor would Young Adult have been better if Mavis had experienced some vague redemption – that would’ve been way worse, actually – but unlikeable characters still need to offer some reason for us to follow them, and Mavis doesn’t.

She doesn’t feel complicated as much as she feels disparate; she’s mentally ill and an alcoholic and there’s a late reveal about an adolescent miscarriage that probably fuelled her present-day miscarriage, but none of it gels, and some her characterisations are just obvious (the bit where she looks over a chart used to teach autistic kids about emotions, then she remarks that she doesn’t feel any. CLUNK). There’s too little sense of Mavis and what her regular life is like, or how a bitchy high-school prom queen even became a writer in the first place.

(There’s a vague implication Mavis writes young-adult novels because she’s stuck in permanent adolescence herself, which I emphatically reject, and it suggests screenwriter Diablo Cody is pretty ignorant about YA as a whole. It’s not just Sweet Valley High these days.)

It’s not just Mavis who’s so oddly drawn: what is Young Adult trying to say about small-town America? Should we share Mavis’s contempt for Mercury and her classmates who stayed behind? Or come away believing that even escaping your past doesn’t guarantee you’ll escape mediocrity? I have no idea.

Director Jason Reitman offered a better portrait of a stunted adult in Up in the Air. Watch that instead.

The best argument against the existence of the supernatural is this: if all that stuff was real, someone would exploit it for profit. (There’s a great xkcd comic about it.) In Holly Black‘s series The Curse Workers, magic is real – and it’s exploited for profit.

Curse workers – those who possess the ability to alter memories, invade dreams, transform one thing into another, or other fantastic powers – rule New Jersey’s organised crime. Think The Sopranos with magic, but instead of a focus on Tony Soprano our hero is Cassel Sharpe, the youngest member of a worker family tangled up with a powerful mob syndicate.

White Cat, the first Curse Workers instalment, detailed Cassel’s discovery of his place within his family and the worker world. It was a great book, honestly, but felt light-weight despite its heavy themes – high on set-up, low on plot. But! All that establishment in White Cat means we know the rules coming into its sequel Red Glove, freeing Black up to get into the meaty stuff. And she gets right to the meaty stuff.

(Some spoilers ahead for White Cat.) (more…)

It’s been a looooong time between instalments, but Scott Westerfeld‘s Leviathan trilogy wraps up with a sterling conclusion in Goliath. Probably the best word to describe the third and final part of the series is “cracking”… which is also the best word to describe the series as a whole.

Minor spoilers ahead for Leviathan, Behemoth and Goliath.

So! Fresh off their adventures in Constantinople, our heroes Alek – secretly a prince – and Deryn – secretly a girl – venture to Siberia, Japan and then New York City in the flying warship Leviathan. On their quest the duo encounters several historical figures – including Nikolai Tesla, William Randolph Hearst and Pancho Villa – and finally confronts the romantic tension that’s been brewing between them the past two books.

Alek and Deryn are terrific characters, but Westerfeld’s greatest accomplishment is the world he’s built: set in the lead-up to World War I, the Leviathan trilogy pitches “Darwinists” (roughly equivalent to the Allied powers, who genetically engineer animals into terrifying war beasts) against “Clankers” (the Central powers, who battle with colossal hulking machines). There’s a lot going on here. It might’ve been laboured, or too complicated. But Westerfeld handles it all so cleverly!

Grown-ups will get into Goliath but be aware it falls squarely into the YA camp (never a bad thing, but some adults are weird about reading books “for” teens). Know a smart kid who you want to indoctrinate into the awesomeness of steampunk and alternate history and science-fiction? Give them this whole series.

If there’s a problem with Goliath, it’s that the story hints – and Westerfeld’s afterword makes it explicit – that 20th century history turns out very different because of Alek and Deryn. Their actions basically stop a world war. And that’s only a problem because World War I is this huge terrible epic thing, and the threat of it looms over all three books, but then it… doesn’t happen (or at least, happens on a much smaller scale than in our timeline). Which, on the one hand: yay, WWI averted, millions of lives spared. But on the other hand, from a narrative perspective, the climax loses some of its oomph.

But it’s a minor quibble. Especially since I don’t think this is the last we’ve seen of Alek and Deryn – or at least, not the last we’ve seen of the Darwinist/Clanker universe. With an entire century of history ready to be rewritten, Westerfeld’s got loads of territory left to explore. (Also, I want to see the perspicacious loris Bovril talking for reals.)

Lastly, major credit must go to Keith Thompson’s beautiful, lively illustrations, one of the true delights of all three books.

Previously: Book review: Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld, Book review: Behemoth, Scott Westerfeld

Rory Deveaux has two near-death experiences in about as many months: the first comes when she nearly chokes on dinner soon after quitting her native Louisiana for London – where she enrols at Wexford, a posh boarding school smack in the middle of Jack the Ripper’s old stomping ground.

The location is important, because Rory’s arrival coincides with the start of a series of murders that mirror the Ripper’s infamous, gruesome killings. Is it a copycat at work, or something even more nightmarish?

As Rippermania grips London, Rory encounters a mysterious man who her (adorably English) roommate Jazza can’t see. He’s a ghost, and Rory’s rare ability to see him grants her entry into a team that hunts London’s “shades”… which ultimately leads to her second near-death experience at the climax of the book, as the Ripper’s killings come to a head.

The Name of the Star has some great ingredients: English boarding school hijinks, murders, young people with implausibly awesome jobs with the police. But something about it is all a bit unsatisfying: I wanted the story to be more sinister, more romantic, more London. Johnson only captures flickering senses of the city and the sensational dread of the Ripper’s return, and the plot twists are often contrived; when the villain’s motives were revealed (via monlogue), my reaction was pretty much, “Why would anyone go to all the effort of X just to achieve Y?” And many of the supporting characters fall flat, though others are terrifically vivid – especially Rory’s oft-mentioned, never-seen American relatives.

I really wanted to enjoy this but I just wanted more; it’s less than the sum of its parts. Johnson is a lively, funny writer but The Name of the Star feels like it’s going through the motions of setting up a new supernatural YA series, rather than transporting us to spooky and mysterious London.

Dear Rhiannon Hart: thank you for writing a brooding romantic interest who isn’t also a complete jerk. Too many young adult books have young women inexplicably falling for young men who are either monster-creeps or borderline-abusive psychos – Blood Song‘s hero Rodden has wit and smarts to match his tall dark handsomeness.

And ditto its heroine, Zeraphina: she’s a princess (not in the entitled spoiled way; in the literal lives-in-a-castle way) and a skilled archer and followed everywhere by her loyal animal companions. And yet she’s not annoyingly perfect, as so many of these heroines are. Sometimes she’s a stubborn, stupid brat – which isn’t necessarily a bad quality in a narrator, not when it’s balanced with her wit and smarts.

In addition to those archery skills and animal friends, Zeraphina has a secret: a mysterious, unquenchable, painful craving for human blood. She begins to uncover clues about her condition when her sister is married off to the prince of a country that borders Lharmell – a cruel land ruled by even crueller beasties which hunt humans for their blood.

Blood Song is an unpretentious, competently crafted fantasy that mixes familiar elements into an entertaining story. If I knew a young reader with a burgeoning fantasy obsession, I’d definitely recommend it.

Young adult meets fantasy meets noir in the captivating novel White Cat from Holly Black, the first entry in her new trilogy The Curse Workers. (Book two, Red Glove, is out in a couple of months. Hurrah!)

Our hero is Cassel Sharpe, though hero isn’t quite the right word: he’s a murderer, who accidentally killed his first love Lila several years ago. Now in his late teens, he’s still so traumatised, so wracked with guilt, that he’s sleepwalking – the very first scene has him waking up on the roof of his school, precariously close to the edge. (Fantastic opening, by the way.)

Cassel has a messed-up family: they’re curse workers, with powers to manipulate people’s emotions, hurt people, erase their memories, influence their luck. That sort of magic is illegal, driving curse-workers underground – making them gangsters, mobsters and con artists. Cassel is the only non-criminal in his family… if you overlook that whole “he killed someone” thing.

The complication: Lila, that someone he killed, was the daughter of a powerful curse-worker boss, forcing his family to cover up the crime.

After Cassel’s disturbing dreams about a white cat get him booted out of school, he starts to suspect his brothers are involved in another massive con – one he’s unknowingly tied up in too.

The noirish details are perfect: Cassel is an alluring antihero (without being a bad boy, that most overdone of YA creatures), clever and introspective without being whiny, and Black slowly draws her oh-so-intriguing story out of the shadows.

But the problem with White Cat is that it feels a lot like the first entry in a trilogy. That’s not to say the story isn’t satisfying, because it is, immensely so, but it feels very… linear. There isn’t a lot going on away from the main plot, and the twists in the story are pretty predictable (though to Black’s credit she reveals them about halfway through and builds on them for the climax; if she’d saved them for the end it would’ve felt pretty limp). I finished the book with a sense of… dissatisfaction, like I only ate half a plate of a mouth-watering meal.

That said, the set-up is so rich that if Red Glove can keep up the atmosphere and suspense of its predecessor, it’s pretty much a surefire winner.

A book with the title Zombies vs Unicorns is pretty much guaranteed to be made of awesome, and this is indeed made of awesome: not only because of its subject matter, but also because it’s edited and written by some of the foremost members of the YA mafia.

So the premise is basically that Justine Larbalestier prefers zombies while Holly Black prefers unicorns (Team Zombie FTW, btw), and they’ve each gathered writers to their cause to prove, once and for all, that one supernatural beastie reigns supreme over the other.

I reckon Team Zombie has the edge here: there are some fantastic (in both senses of the word) stories by Cassandra Clare, Scott Westerfeld, Maureen Johnson, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Carrie Ryan and Libba Bray, who writes ‘Prom Night’, perhaps the best entry in the whole book (though it’s a tight race).

That said I have newfound respect for Team Unicorn thanks to the stories of Margo Lanagan, Naomi Novik and Meg Cabot.

Unusually for a short story collection, there aren’t any stinkers in Zombies vs Unicorns – though some entries waver on the lengthy side, the majority of the twisted tales are haunting or funny or both.

Not to be forgotten is the bold, brillmazing cover art by Josh Cochran: it depicts a gory, bloody, deliciously cartoony scene of zombies and unicorns locked in a battle to the death (or the afterdeath, or whatever it’s called when you kill the living dead). It kinda reminds me of a really violent Where’s Wally scene. I’d happily buy a print and put it up on my wall. (It turns out you can buy a print at Cochran’s website. Hmm. So tempting…)

There must be a sequel. Pirates vs Robots, perhaps?

I’ve been a reader of Cassandra Clare for a while: in the early ’00s I enjoyed her Harry Potter Draco trilogy (pretty much the only fanfic I’ve ever read, I swear!), I lapped up the Very Secret Diaries like everyone else on the internet, and last year I consumed her The Mortal Instruments trilogy in about a week.

Thus I am qualified to say that Clockwork Angel, the first instalment in The Infernal Devices trilogy, is her best work yet.

So Devices is basically a prequel to Instruments (it’s not necessary to have read Instruments to get Devices, though I’d recommend it), set in a late-19th century London infested with demons and “Downworlders” – Clare’s term for vampires, werewolves and other supernatural beasties. Fortunately regular humans, or “mundanes”, are protected by the Shadowhunters: an elite band of warriors descended from angels (more or less).

Tessa Gray comes to this world from New York City, searching for her missing brother Nate, and soon encounters two teenage Shadowhunters and best friends: the beautiful, arrogant Will (who’s basically the same character as Jace from Mortal Instruments, at least at this stage in the trilogy), and the sensitive, sickly Jem¹ . Naturally a love triangle begins to blossom, as Tessa is pulled into a dangerous mystery building in the Shadowhunter world.

The individual elements of Clare’s works are rarely that original, and that goes for Clockwork Angel – there’s the usual steampunk tropes, familiar demon-hunting tropes, the character-types you’ll find in most YA novels, all wrapped in customary snark – but that isn’t an insult. Clare has a knack for combining stuff we’ve seen into an enjoyable, compelling story.

Clare’s writing adopts a Victorian style which suits her well, but be warned that Angel is very heavily geared towards setting up the next two parts, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess – don’t pick it up yet if you’re the type of reader who interprets “tantalysing clues” as “frustrating loose-ends”.

Fortunately I am not that type of reader. Clockwork Angel is entertaining, dare I say ripping stuff, crammed with invitingly detailed world-building – I even read it during my lunchbreak at work, and let me tell you, I don’t do that for just any book.

1. for the record: Team Jem! Will is the Bad Boy, and I’m not into the Bad Boy. [↩]

Hungry Beast, an Australian TV show featuring a bunch of smug undergraduate types waxing lyrical about current affairs, ran a report in its most recent episode titled “Things we think might be bullshit: Adults reading kids’ books”:

Harry Potter, Twilight and other novels are deemed books for “children”, and adults (so the reasoning goes) need to grow up and presumably start reading “adult books” lest they develop a creepy Peter Pan vibe akin to Michael Jackson’s. Why, if adults continue reading “kids’” books, one day Spot Goes to School might be taught in universities – because after all, there’s no difference whatsoever between a book for preschoolers and a book for older teens!

Adults reading children’s books, we’re informed, is like owning golliwogs: “a bit wrong, but mostly just embarrassing”.

STFU, Hungry Beast. First of all, do your research: children’s books are very different from the genre known an “young adult” (note the use of “adult“). And guess what? There are loads and loads of YA books that aren’t Harry Potter or Twilight! (Shock!)

Why is it weird when adults read books about teenagers, given that adults were all once (another shock!) teenagers too? Is it also “weird” for senior citizens to read books about twenty- or thirtysomething characters?

Lastly, and most importantly, why are stories about young people automatically “childish”, and/or valued below stories about adults?