Liesl and Po

Liesl has been kept in the attic of her house ever since her father grew progressively sick and then died. Her stepmother Augusta hates her and keeps her there, feeding her meager meals and rarely allowing her to leave. Liesl draws to pass the time and does little else. Three days after her father's death, she receives two unexpected visitors: a ghost named Po, who is neither a boy nor a girl, and his ghostly pet Bundle, who is neither a dog nor a cat. Po agrees to try to find her father on the other side in exchange for a drawing and discovers that her father wants to go home and only Liesl is left to undertake the journey. Liesl and Po's journey will inevitably intertwine with Will's. He's an apprentice to a cruel alchemist and accidentally mixes up Liesl's father's ashes with the greatest magic ever created. Po and Liesl take this magic and embark on a wonderful and strange journey, with both friends and enemies following them, to take Liesl's father to his proper resting place.

Lauren Oliver opens the book with an explanation of the circumstances that led her to write the book: her best friend died and she wrote the book as way of coping with it. I can definitely see that reflected in the story and I feel that anyone who has lost a loved one can relate to it, not just children. Liesl's situation locked in the attic of her own house is simply miserable and she goes through every robotically without any real excitement. Sunlight has also disappeared, leaving the world cold and gray. The lovely charcoal drawings illustrate this feeling wonderfully. This is a physical representation of Lauren Oliver's own feelings in the months after her friend's death. Liesl and Po's journey to lay her father to rest is symbolic of anyone's personal journey in accepting a death in their lives and saying goodbye to that person. I love that the setting and time period of the book is unspecified, so the reader can imagine it as wherever and whenever they like. Liesl and Po deals with death in a way that doesn't talk down to children and acknowledges that children can (and have to) deal with death in their own lives.

Although the tale is fairly dark, Lauren Oliver tempers it with humor, levity, magic, and unique characters. Liesl, Will, and Po's unlikely friendship is delightful and they have their own very different personalities and states of being. They were all alone in the world and found solace in each other in the grayscale world they live in. Liesl is surprisingly creative and brave for a girl who unquestioningly stayed in the attic for so long. Po is an enigmatic being that seems to become more and more human as he stays in the living world. Will is an abused child and has insecurities as a result, but remains a good, loyal friend to Liesl. The other characters, namely the adults in the story besides Liesl's father, are flat characters that are simply villainous. This aspect gives the story a fairy or folk tale feel that doesn't take away from the story.

I enjoyed Liesl and Po very much and found Lauren Oliver's prose engaging and lyrical. Those who enjoyed Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book or Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events books would enjoy it as well.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Dearly, Departed

In the year 2195, catastrophic events and society rebuilding itself has resulted in New Victoria being height of civilization and technology. Nora Dearly is just out of mourning. Her father died a year ago and she lives with her cold, uncaring aunt, who views the mourning as a social inconvenience and ruined Nora by putting them in great debt over the year her father has been dead. When Nora returns home from school for winter break, her ordered life is disrupted by crazed, flesh-eating zombies trying to kidnap her from her home. She ends up being kidnapped by an opposing faction of more sane, rational zombies who worked with her father. Captain Abraham Griswold AKA Bram, zombie soldier, takes an interest in Nora. At first, she is repulsed and rejects the zombies, no matter how civilized and nice they are. As they get to know each other, Nora and Bram feel an undeniable attraction resulting in an odd, yet sweet romance between the living and the dead. This pales in comparison to the zombie plague running through New Victoria. Can Nora, Bram, and the zombie troops save the city or will it be overrun with zombies?

Dearly, Departed is an unexpected, genre bending adventure. The world is an impressive mixture of dystopia, steampunk, and advanced technology. The world has basically fallen apart and reduced to individual tribes without any sort of centralized government. A certain conservative tribe decided that the Victorian era was far enough in the past that no one had any emotional ties to it and liked the idea of the virtuous, moral society that they decided to adopt it as their own. The resulting situation is Victorian era fashion, sensibilities, and social constructs coupled with futuristic technology. New Victoria isn't the only tribe out there. The Punks are an opposing faction that abhors New Victoria and things they are making the same mistakes that led to the original destruction of society: a hierarchical model and a reliance on technology. The Punks promote basic technology that man is in control of: nothing digital and nothing that creates a false reality. I really like that the main society does have a backlash movement against it, but these two deign to cooperate when their very lives are at stake.

In accordance with the New Victorian society, women are oppressed and can only succeed in limited fields if they navigate through the shark-infested waters of society by upholding ridiculous social constructs and customs. The two main female characters, Nora and Pamela, both have interests and attitudes outside of the realm of what is acceptable for their gender. I enjoyed seeing them just as frustrated as me when they were shunned or disapproved of for frivolous reasons and I relished with them when they overthrew the niceties of society when the situation became so dire that what people would think was the last thing on their minds.

The zombies are a little different than the zombies you may be used to seeing, but no less awesome. A prion is the culprit and it's transmitted through bodily fluids, which of course includes biting. There are two types of zombies that result from infection: the mindless, ravenous zombies and coherent, sentient zombies. The sentient ones are just regular people who have the minor misfortune of being dead and the inconvenience of decomposing. The zombie soldiers are easily patched up when injured and take injections to further preserve them, but they will all eventually succumb to being a ravenous zombie when the prion destroys their brains. I like the new mode of infection and the logical reasons for two types of zombies.

Dearly, Departed is a wonderful read that would appeal to a wide variety of readers. It has romance, adventure, zombies, action, science, and war. The only thing I didn't like about the novel was that the world building took a while and a lot was told to us rather than shown. Since the world has already been established, I predict that the second book will be even better as I eagerly await it.

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Dearly, Departed will be released on 10/18. Check it out here.

Frightful Fall Read-a-thon: Wrap-up

I had so much fun with the Frightful Fall Read-a-thon. The mini-challenges were super fun and I got a lot of much needed reading done. Here are my final stats:

* Marquis of O: 30 pages

* Dearly, Departed: 471 pages

* The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer: 452 pages

* Cold Kiss: 292 pages

* Hellbent: 122 pages

* total books finished: 3

* total pages read: 1,367

Reviews of these books should be going up within the next week or so. :)

Frightful Fall Read-a-thon Mini-Challenge: Urban Girl Reader

More mini-challenges! This one comes from Urban Girl Reader and she asks for a fake summary of the next book in the series of a horror novel. Since I haven't started it yet (and I would be way to tempted to post spoilers about the books I've read), I will choose the sequel to Hellbent by Cherie Priest:

Raylene, cat burglar vampire, is hired by an unknown source to steal the Necronomicon that inspired H.P. Lovecraft to write all of his horror stories. It started off as a normal smash and grab situation, but quickly descended into running for her life territory after the owner of said book sicced an unspeakable and tentaclely horror after her. Barely escaping with her life and the book (yay!), Raylene keeps the book at her house overnight to recuperate from her adventure, only to have a crazy group of cultist steal the book and firebomb her house. Will she be able to get the Necronomicon back unscathed? What will the cultists invoke with this powerful book? Can Raylene just get this job done and so she can relax?

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Progress:

* The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer: 374 pages Finished!

* Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey: 130 pages

Total pages for today: 504

Total books finished: 2

Total pages read: 1,083

Frightful Fall Read-a-thon Mini-Challenge: My Book Retreat

Another mini-challenge! This one is from My Book Retreat and the task is to identify a character and what book their in, choose a costume for them with a rationale for why, and provide a picture of the costume.

The character I chose is the dashing Captain Abraham Griswold AKA Bram from Lia Habel's Dearly, Departed. The best costume for him would be a zombie. He is a zombie, so he would just splash some fake blood on his mouth, wear some ragged clothes, and shuffle around a little more than normal. It provides Bram a way to blend in with living people without attracting unwanted attention, namely screams, stares, and people running away. Plus it would give Nora Dearly and his zombie friends some amusement. Here is what he would look like in his zombie costume:

* photo from ~uncherished at deviantArt

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My progress for the last 2 days:

* Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel: 276 pages Finished!

* The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin: 78 pages

Total for whole read-a-thon: 579 pages

Frightful Fall Read-a-thon Mini-Challenge: Knitting and Sundries

Yay mini-challenges! This one challenges me to create a creepy sentence out of book titles, so here's mine:

We feed the living dead forever in the house of leaves. (of course it had to have zombies in it!)

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Now for my progress so far!

* Dearly Departed by Lia Habel: 195 pages

* The Marquise von O (novella) by Henrich Kleist: 30 pages

total pages: 225

Frightful Fall Read-a-thon 2011

I love read-a-thons, especially when I've let books pile up more than usual with due dates loomy creepily close. This one is hosted by Castle Macabre. The only requirement for this event is that at least 1 book read is horror related, which is no problem for me. Here is what I intend to read over the next week:

* Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel

* The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

* Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey

* Hellbent by Cherie Priest

We'll see if I get through those and worry about the rest later. The event runs from October 2 to October 6, which gives me lots of time to participate and I don't feel pressured. It's going to be fun, so sign up here if you're interested.