Wintersmith (Terry Pratchett)

I plunged into Terry Pratchett's latest with great hope, and found that it lived up to my expectations. Wintersmith is his third book starring Tiffany Aching, trainee witch, a most delightful character of whom I am very fond. In Wintersmith, the spirit of Winter gets a crush on Tiffany, with fairly disastrous results, and Tiffany cannot quite decide if she is pleased or scared by his attention. Pratchett writes the teenage Tiffany with her characteristic humour and common sense, along with rollicking story and appearances from Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, which is awfully fun. I think these books are technically YA, but I don't really think of them like that - to me, they're just Discworld books, and some of my favourites.

Uglies (Scott Westerfeld)

I've been meaning to try one of Scott Westerfeld's books for some time, and chose Uglies over his vampiric book, Peeps. This story is set in a futuristic society were people undergo surgery in their teenage years to conform to an idealistic standard of beauty, and to be known as Pretties. There are those who fight against such a regime, living outside the cities. They have discovered that there is more to the surgery than cosmetics.

Tally becomes reluctantly involved in the rebel movement, and struggles with the beliefs she has been taught about beauty and life. Uglies is an great YA novel, and is pleasantly subtle while still making its point about society's obsession with appearance. It has a dramatic ending, and I'll definitely be reading the sequel, Pretties.

Circle of Flight (John Marsden)

Circle of Flight is the latest (and I think, the last) in Marsden's Ellie Chronicles, three books which followed the characters from his Tomorrow When the War Began series. I think it's the worst book of Marsden's that I've ever read, and it's certainly not a stand alone book. It feels like he's just desperately hauling these characters ever onwards where they don't particularly want to go. I didn't care about Ellie during this book, and she's always been one of my favourite characters. A great disappointment.

Twilight (Stephenie Meyer)

I read good reviews of Twilight on several blogs, but was put off by the fact that it was a teen love story involving a vampire - not really my type of thing. However, I found an audio book of it in the library, and thought I'd give it a listen. I hated the voice of the narrator at first, but got used to it (I think you could get used to anything after listening to it for about 12 hours), and despite my initial irritation with it, really loved the story I was hearing.

Twilight is a super-romantic over the top love story between a teenage girl and one of her classmates, who's a vampire. Naturally, their relationship abounds in tension, mostly because Bella smells so very edible to Edward. I like Meyer's vampires - they're original and attractive creatures - and although some parts of this Romeo & Juliet-like romance made me roll my eyes a little, I still really enjoyed it, and was very involved with the characters. I think if I'd read this while I was a teenager I would have become quite obsessed with it - it's just my sort of thing. Can't wait to read New Moon, the sequel.

Incantation (Alice Hoffman)

Incantation is another one of Alice Hoffman's books for young adults. Incantation is a fairly short book, telling the story of Estrella, who lives with her family in Spain in the 1500s. Estrella discovers that her family belong to a rather different church to her friend Catalina - they light candles on Friday nights, keep pigs as pets, and have special names for each other to use in the privacy of their home. When their secret is revealed, it has terrible consequences for the family.

Incantation is surprisingly graphic in its violence, and I was rather depressed by the time I closed the final cover. However, it's very well written, and I imagine a reasonably accurate portrayal of the persecution of Jews in Spain at the time - a gripping story.

Charmed Life (Diana Wynne Jones)

I enjoyed The Pinhoe Egg so much I immediately wanted to reread some of my favourite books by Diana Wynne Jones, one of which is Charmed Life.

Cat and his sister Gwendolyn, a talented witch, are orphaned in a terrible boating accident, and go to live at Chrestomanci Castle. Gwendolyn quickly becomes enemies with Chrestomanci's two children, and perhaps Chrestomanci himself, while Cat drifts along in her wake.

I am very fond of the character of Cat, who evolves wonderfully from a meek shy boy to someone willing to grasp his independence and his own power by the end of the book. Gwendolyn is deliciously nasty, and Chrestomanci, in his first appearance in Jones' books, is an elegantly eccentric figure who drifts around the castle in a variety of brightly coloured silk dressing gowns. While there are a few questions left unanswered in this book, and a few elements that perhaps weren't thought through quite thoroughly enough, Charmed Life is really excellent YA fantasy.

The Pinhoe Egg (Diana Wynne Jones)

While I adored Diana Wynne Jones when I was a teenager, I haven't been a big fan of her books published while I was an adult. Mixed Magics, a collection of four short stories, was OK, and Conrad's Fate was about the same. I was rather disappointed with The Merlin Conspiracy, which I didn't enjoy at all.

So I was pleasantly surprised with Jones' latest novel, The Pinhoe Egg. This may be because it has appearances by some of my most favourite characters of Jones' - Chrestomanci (the government appointed auditor of magic in Jones' world), his wife Millie, and everyone at Chrestomanci Castle. The Pinhoe Egg is the story of the Pinhoe family, a family of witches living secretly in a village near Chrestomanci Castle and concealing their misuse of magic.

I always fall in love with Jones' characters - her awkward, well meaning heroes, the adults who hide evil under a bland exterior, and the humour that winds its way through all of her stories, not detracting from the tragedies that may occur but making them more poignant. A really fabulous YA author, and I think The Pinhoe Egg is a return to some of her best form.

Rebel Angels (Libba Bray)

I listened to Rebel Angels as an audio book, but not really by choice. For some unfathomable reason, my library has A Great and Terrible Beauty as a book, but they only have Rebel Angels, its sequel, as an audio book. So I didn't really have any choice, because I enjoyed Terrible Beauty a lot, and wanted to read more of the story.

I really enjoyed listening to this recording actually - the narrator had a terribly British accent, of course, and the Victorian school girls who populate these books saying all their "W" words with "H"s - so they say things like "hwhat" and "hwhere".

Rebel Angels almost has two main plots side-by-side - there are Gemma's continuing adventures within the Realms, and her search for the Temple in order to bind the magic. Then there is her life in the real world - her father who is addicted to opium and grieving her mother's death, and Simon Middleton, the wealthy young man who is courting Gemma. She is rather torn between wanting to be a normal girl, and being determined to fulfill her responsibilities in restoring order to the Realms. She's a really fabulous teenage character - she darts between feeling jealousy, anguish, remorse, grief, with sparks of a great nobility of character which I expect we will see in Gemma as an adult (if Libba Bray keeps writing about her).

I thought, occasionally, that Gemma and friends almost seemed a little too obtuse about the clues and signs that were spread before them throughout the book. I became a little tired of them being in incredible danger because of their own mistakes. But they are teenagers, after all, and they do manage to resolve things very well.

I think Libba Bray does a really wonderful job at combining the seemingly very different genres of fantasy, historical fiction, and teenage adventure into one story - I can't wait for the third book to be published. I'll just have to wait and see what format the library acquires it in this time.

Magic Lessons (Justine Larbalestier)

This YA fantasy novel is a sequel to Magic or Madness, which I read earlier in the year. Magic Lessons continues the stories of Reason, Tom and Jay-Tee, as is more fast paced than Magic or Madness, I think. There are a few quiet moments, when Reason talks about her childhood, for example, but mostly we charge frenetically through the story as a strange creature attacks the door between New York and Sydney, trying to get through to the other side. What is it and what does it want? These are the questions that Reason and her friends try to answer.

I felt a little lost at points within this book, trying to figure out what was happening, who to trust, and who the hell the good guys were - but this is how we're supposed to feel, I think. The characters are equally lost, and there are a couple of great instances of 'good' characters doing terrible things that they regret. Larbalestier's characters are very human - sometimes they make terribly bad decisions - and I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

I was a bit stunned by the ending - I probably should have seen it coming, but was shortsighted in that regard. I was confused by what these developments mean for Reason, and everyone else - confused in a good "come on, what happens next?" way, that is - and am consequently greatly looking forward to the third and final novel in the series.

Dreamhunter (Elizabeth Knox)

I picked up this YA novel while browsing in the library - the cover with the woman languidly reclining appealed to me, and so did the brief synopsis - a world where dreams are performed for the masses, who pay for the privilege. Dreamhunters travel into The Place, where they catch dreams - some are healing, some soothing, some erotic, some dangerous - and perform them for different audiences. It reminded me a little of Roald Dahl's The BFG, although I discovered that the dreamhunting in this novel is quite different.

Dreamhunter is actually an excellent YA fantasy novel, and I'm glad I discovered it. The story is wonderfully original - I loved the Victorian-style society, the world of The Place, and the mysteries set out for our heroines, Laura and Rose, to discover. The political and societal ramifications of dreamhunting are convincingly and intriguingly explored, without too much of a heavy hand. When Laura's father disappears, and Laura seems to make some rather irrational decisions, the story gets quite tense.

Dreamhunter is first in a "duet" and the story ends frustratingly, right in the middle it seems. I do wish they'd put out one big volume - now I have to wait until the second is published. It's an excellent story though, very exciting, and I'm eager to read the second book.

A Great and Terrible Beauty (Libba Bray)

Libba Bray's A Great and Terrible Beauty is a wonderfully lush Gothic/horror/fantasy tale set in a Victorian girl's boarding school. A boarding school! Naturally, I enjoyed it enormously.

Gemma is sent to school in England after her mother's mysterious death in India. She tries to find her feet in the hierarchical boarding school society, and at the same time is warned by a young man to ward off strange visions that have been plaguing her. There is a wonderfully creepy sense of menace that grows as the story progresses, and I became enormously fond of Gemma's friends, three somewhat unprepossessing girls whom she leads into danger, and temptation.

Enormously fun, and there's a sequel, which the library has not acquired yet. I'll definitely be reading anything else of Libba Bray's that I can get my hands on. Oh, wait, this was her first novel. Damn.

Forbidden (Judy Waite)

I'm half-hearted about Forbidden (which I picked up from the YA section of the library purely due to the cover and the "I grew up in a cult" blurb). On one hand, I'm enormously attracted to fiction that examines cults (one of the best I've ever read is Red Shoes by Carmel Bird). On the other hand, Forbidden suffered from several things, including over-capitalisation (stuff like "She know that she should feel Ecstatic, but instead she was overtaken by Grief. She would have to undergo Punishment." Not a direct quote from the book, by the way).

I was disappointed by the ending - without giving too much away, Elinor has been sexually abused, and is rescued from the cult, where her rescuers tell her she's wonderful, and give her lots of different coloured clothing and unfamiliar jeans. I found it rather strange - I would expect people to speak to her about more important issues than, "You're out of the cult, yay! Here's some clothes." Then again, we're seeing these people through a very confused teenager's eyes, which may explain it. But it just sat wrongly with me.

So yeah - mediocre YA cult fiction, basically. A fun way to spend an hour, if you have a free one.

Magic or Madness (Justine Larbalestier)

I put Magic or Madness on hold at the library after reading a bit of the author's blog - I have found myself doing this a lot since I discovered all these wonderful blogs by writers. If an author writes engagingly, and reads the same sort of books I like, I grab one of their novels to see if I like it. Justine Larbalestier is Australian, which also made me eager to go and try one of her books - I love finding new Australian authors.

Magic or Madness is a very cool YA fantasy, equally enjoyable for adults (and probably more so if you already appreciate a good YA book). After Reason's mother is institutionalised, she is sent to live with her grandmother Esmerelda, whom Reason has been brought up to hate and fear. When Reason escapes from Esmerelda's house and suddenly finds herself in New York, she is forced to confront the truth of the stories her mother has told her all her life.

Reason is such a delightful character - in fact, Magic or Madness is filled with delightful characters, all of them complex and real. I can't quite figure out how I feel about Esmerelda, and I love books that confuse me that way. Both the Sydney suburb of Newtown and New York are invoked wonderfully - Reason is a stranger in both places, and we see them through her eyes. I loved the way Reason's mathematical abilities were worked into the narrative, and her use of the Fibonacci number sequence, which I didn't know anything about.

Magic, in Reason's world, has a terribly heavy price which, she is told, there is no way to completely escape. The end of Magic or Madness hints that Reason may find a way around this price in future books - I can't wait to find out how.

The Betrayal of Bindy McKenzie (Jaclyn Moriarty)

Jaclyn Moriarty is one of my favourite YA authors - I've loved everything she's written, to greater and lesser degrees. The Betrayal of Bindy McKenzie was ratheer different to her previous books. Although it still communicates the story through a variety of things such as diary entries, notes, memos and so on, these are all written by Bindy herself, rather than different characters. Bindy is also a rather unsympathetic character, at least at first, although I quickly became fond of her clumsy attempts to be accepted by her peers.

I didn't expect the ending, and found it a little... melodramatic? Not very believable, in any case. It didn't spoil the book, but I wouldn't categorise this as my favourite of Moriarty's work. 3.75 out of 5.

Wizards at War (Diane Duane)

Wizards at War is the latest book in Diane Duane's (surely that name must be a pseudonym) Wizard series. I enjoyed the first few books in the YA fantasy series, but this one was overly complicated, overly strewn with new characters - the actual thread of the story and the threat to the world was rather lost to me as it divided itself between so many protagonists. 3 out of 5.

Drowned Wednesday (Garth Nix)

Garth Nix is a very cool Australian fantasy author, who mainly writes for young adults. Drowned Wednesday is the third book in his Keys to the Kingdom series, which is written for younger children, I think, which explains why I wasn't so thrilled by it. It's very inventive, but too simplistic in its characterisation, too rushed. I imagine I would have loved it if I was 10. Reluctantly, 3 out of 5.

Aunt Maria (Diana Wynne Jones)

Another book bought at an op-shop, although I thought I hadn't read this one, only to vaguely recall it after a chapter or two. Diana Wynne Jones is an excellent and generally very funny fantasty author - one of my favourites when I was young. I own piles of her books. Aunt Maria is the story of Mig and her brother Chris, who after the death of their father go with their mother to live with Aunt Maria. Aunt Maria appears sweet and gentle, but her more controlling and ominous aspects soon emerge, and Mig is left to fight for her family's lives.

Wonderfully creepy, it had a bit of a Stepford Wives kind of feel - you know something's really wrong, but it's difficult to see what at first. 4 out of 5 for this very good YA book.

The Foretelling (Alice Hoffman)

The Foretelling is a slim novel written for young adults, set in a fantasy troupe of Amazon warriors. Rain, a child born of rape, is destined to be their Queen, and it is she who tells this story. It is delicious with detail, as Hoffman's works usually are, but I found I didn't really connect at a very deep level with the world she has created, filled with fierce women and battles.

It is, however, a very enjoyable story, and I think it's excellent for young women to read stories populated by women being angry, warlike and loving at the same time - sometimes I feel you don't often get these images, especially in books written for young adults. Four out of five.

Incurable (John Marsden)

This is the second book in John Marsden's Ellie Chronicles, which follow the main character from his Tomorrow, When the War Began series. I loved that series - I was reading it as a teenager when they were being published, and my friends and I would get into frenzy waiting for the next one to come out. So I was excited when I heard Marsden was going to be continuing Ellie's story - although now, I kind of wished that he hadn't.

While I Live, the first book in the series, was not bad - it lacked the excellent writing and plotting that existed in at least the first three quarters of the War series, but it was still fun and exciting, and I liked seeing what he was doing with the characters, now that the war was over. Incurable, though - I think he's completely lost Ellie's voice. She goes off into tangents while narrating a battle, and I thought this book was really badly plotted. Essentially, two things happen, but it's so loose, with so many asides, that this takes up the entire book. There's no progression, with either the characters or the story, really.

Arrgh - I was really unhappy with it. I'm not even sure I'll read the next one... actually, I know I will, but I'm not going to continue buying them. The stories are just frustrating rather than enjoyable. Two out of five.

Odin's Voice (Susan Price)

This is an interesting YA book, set in an unexplained future where the Free are served by the Bonded - essentially slaves - and a variety of ancient gods are worshipped at temples. Odin's Voice is the story of a young Bonder who seems to speak with the voice of Odin, and a Free girl who is Bonded, and is befriended by the voice of Odin.

I was actually attracted to this book because of the title - I enjoy Norse mythology - and it was a good YA fiction, although both main characters are rather unsympathetic at times. The end of this book makes it very clear that a sequel is in the offing. I'd definitely pick it up at the library, but it's not something I'd want to purchase.