The Children of Green Knowe by L. M. Boston

Title: The Children of Green Knowe

Author: L. M. Boston
Illustrator: Peter Boston

Type: Children's Story
Genre: Fiction

Series: Yes

Pages: 157
Copyright: 1954
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace & World, INC.

Rating: 4 out of 5


Summary: from Good Reads
"Tolly" Toseland 7 is rowed up to great-gran Linnet Oldknow by servant Boggis - always been a Boggis. The real "castle" is over 900 years old. Gran tells old family stories, and songs. Everyone can see, hear, and feel the ghosts, evoked by white-on-black illustrations. Toby 14, Alexander, and Linnet 6 linger after Plague, as does cursed topiary Green Noah.


Feelings: 
I really enjoyed this story it is a ghost story while not being scary. A friend, adult, recommend the book and I decided to give it a try. I ended up really enjoying the story and the writing style. It almost feels like a fable to me but the writing is very similar to other children's stories from the time. Writing has changed so much and our current style of writing differs greatly from this.

I loved the opening scene of the story with the train in the rain and that him being driven out in a taxi as far as he could into the flood waters and being meet by a row boat and with a lantern was rowed to the door step of his great-grandmother's house, Green Knowe.

I really appreciated that Tolly felt like a normal little boy and that he doesn't do anything extraordinary but mostly ordinary things but yet it is still a very good story.

This is a fun book and I really enjoyed it I will be checking out the rest of the series. I don't think this book has to be read by children I think adults can enjoy the story too. 

Copperhead by Tina Connolly

Title: Copperhead

Author: Tina Connolly

Type: Young Adult Novel
Genre: Fantasy

Series: Yes, Ironskin #2

Pages: 318
Copyright: 2013
Publisher: Tor

Rating: 3 out of 5


Summary: from Good Reads
The sequel to Tina Connolly's stunning historical fantasy debut.

Helen Huntingdon is beautiful—so beautiful she has to wear an iron mask. Six months ago her sister Jane uncovered a fey plot to take over the city. Too late for Helen, who opted for fey beauty in her face—and now has to cover her face with iron so she won’t be taken over, her personality erased by the bodiless fey.

Not that Helen would mind that some days. Stuck in a marriage with the wealthy and controlling Alistair, she lives at the edges of her life, secretly helping Jane remove the dangerous fey beauty from the wealthy society women who paid for it. But when the chancy procedure turns deadly, Jane goes missing—and is implicated in the murder.

Meanwhile, Alistair’s influential clique Copperhead—whose emblem is the poisonous copperhead hydra—is out to restore humans to their “rightful” place, even to the point of destroying the dwarvven who have always been allies.

Helen is determined to find her missing sister, as well as continue the good fight against the fey. But when that pits her against her own husband—and when she meets an enigmatic young revolutionary—she’s pushed to discover how far she’ll bend society’s rules to do what’s right. It may be more than her beauty at stake. It may be her honor...and her heart.

Feelings:
Let me start by saying I didn't think I was going to like this book as much because Helen seemed a little bit like a stuck up woman who thinks she is always right and that money is most important. I actually ended up liking this book more than the first one and I was surprised I did. The reason I liked it more I think was that Helen as she changes throughout the course of the book actually becomes a stronger person and she realizes the past mistakes and tries to learn from them. This isn't to say she doesn't make more mistakes but she seems a little more human than Jane did and I liked that.

Something else that bothered me in the other book was the relationship between Jane and Edward and how fast it happened. This book has a romantic leaning to and I felt like it was more developed and I was able to believe it more. I'm not going to spoil anything but the last page in the book as a line that every time I see it in a novel makes me a little annoyed. Really is that the best you could do? "Came up for air"? I really hate that line and I wish it hadn't been used on the last page because now the romance part of the book is going to be flawed for me.

That is my complaint with the book though. I really enjoyed the rest of it and will be interested to see what the last book is like. I recommend this book to those that enjoy fantasy and a slightly more mature version of young adult.

Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund

Title: Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer
Author: Sena Jetter Naslund
Type: Novel
Genre: Fiction
Series: No

Pages: 704
Copyright: 2005
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Summary: from Goodreads
A magnificent, vast, and enthralling saga, Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife is a remarkable epic spanning a rich, eventful, and dramatic life. Inspired by a brief passage in Moby Dick, it is the story of Una, exiled as a child to live in a lighthouse, removed from the physical and emotional abuse of a religion-mad father. It is the romantic adventure of a young woman setting sail in a cabin boy's disguise to encounter darkness, wonder, and catastrophe; the story of a devoted wife who witnesses her husband's destruction by obsession and madness. Ultimately it is the powerful and moving story of a woman's triumph over tragedy and loss through her courage, creativity, and intelligence.


Feelings:
This book goes in many directions as it follows the main character Una. I really enjoyed the story and I think that it stands by itself and stands better alone not in connection with Moby Dick. However, this tells the story of the wife of Ahab thus connecting it to Moby Dick.

The story gives a female perspective to the time. Una is a strong female voice and one that stays with the reader. I really liked the meanderings of the story enjoyed the writing. Reading some other reviews of the book may people found the writing to be a little verbose and thought it would benefit from some slimming down. They may be right this is a big book. However, I really liked the writing and did not feel that the book should have been any shorter.

There were some very powerful sense in this book. The opening of the book includes one such with Una in child labor and freezing yet she is able to deal with slave hunters that come through.

Another such scene is where the boat Una is on is shipwrecked and they must live in a lifeboat floating aimlessly hoping that there will be a passing boat. While on the lifeboat Una with the help of her two friends continues to hide the fact that she is female. To survive the sailors must resort to cannibalism.

This story is probably not for readers who really enjoyed or loved Moby Dick, this I can not speak for because I have not read Moby Dick,  but more for individuals that like historical fiction with strong females.

I would recommend this book to those that do not mind a longer read.

Across The Universe by Beth Revis

Title: Across The Universe

Author: Beth Revis

Type: Young Adult Novel
Genre: Fantasy

Series: Yes, Across The Universe #1

Pages: 398
Copyright: 2011
Publisher: Razorbill

Rating: 3.5 out of 5


Summary: from Good Reads
A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone - one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship - tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.


Feelings: 
Space travel on a huge ship with hills and farms sounds pretty cool right? Well it is a ship and it is heading for a planet that is supposed to be an earth substitute, but is possible that it might not be habitable.

The story moves back and forth between Amy, who is traveling as frozen cargo aboard the ship to be woken when the reach the new planet, Centauri-Earth, and Elder, the next leader of the ship. This turns out to the the story of Amy and Elder as they get to know each other and protect the other frozen people from being killed and woken up. Amy is terrified by the fact that she won't be able to see her parents and that everything she knows is gone. Elder is frustrated that he is stuck on a ship and the planet is still in the future. Elder has never been of the ship but he longs to leave.

I enjoyed the story of trying to figure out how and why Godspeed, the ship, was the way it was and how the people ended up being so different that what Amy remembers, yet they think they are normal.

It would be interesting to think about space travel in this way, generation after generation piloting the ship on its way across space. I enjoyed this book a lot and am looking forward to reading the next in the series.

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Title: Seraphina

Author: Rachel Hartman

Type: Young Adult Novel
Genre: Fantasy

Series: Yes, Seraphina #1

Pages: 467
Copyright: 2012
Publisher: Random House

Rating: 2.5 out of 5


Summary: from Good Reads

Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.

Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.

In her exquisitely written fantasy debut, Rachel Hartman creates a rich, complex, and utterly original world. Seraphina's tortuous journey to self-acceptance is one readers will remember long after they've turned the final page.

Feelings:
This book wasn't bad there were just a few things that I didn't buy that made it turn for me. I thought the romance was off, didn't seem to me like the characters actually felt the way the author said they did. The book was also a little slow at times. This is why it is getting a 2.5 rating. I was really looking forward to reading this book and that may be part of why I was a bit picky about the pace and relationships.

I enjoyed the story and liked the dragons that could shape shift into humans that was an interesting addition and I thought a good one. The idea for the story is an interesting one and I thought the conflict between humans and dragons as well as the tension was well done.

Seraphina is a very interesting character and I enjoyed reading her. However, I didn't completely buy that Princess Glisselda would be so close to her new music teacher nor that Seraphina would have such access to the people she had access to in such a short time. The castle seems to be there for Seraphina when she is doing her best to stay hidden.

I don't want to give the wrong impression about this book I did like it I just wasn't impressed. I thought it could have been better. There is a second book in the series and I'm wondering if the story line will be enough to support a second book. I will probably try reading it to find out and see if maybe the character relations become more believable.