Me on That Inevitable Victorian Thing

Title: That Inevitable Victorian Thing
Author: E.K. Johnston
Release Date: October 3, 2017
Publisher: Dutton (Penguin imprint)

Victoria-Margaret is the crown princess of the empire, a direct descendant of Victoria I, the queen who changed the course of history two centuries earlier. The imperial practice of genetically arranged matchmaking will soon guide Margaret into a politically advantageous marriage like her mother before her, but before she does her duty, she'll have one summer incognito in a far corner of empire. In Toronto, she meets Helena Marcus, daughter of one of the empire's greatest placement geneticists, and August Callaghan, the heir apparent to a powerful shipping firm currently besieged by American pirates. In a summer of high-society debutante balls, politically charged tea parties, and romantic country dances, Margaret, Helena, and August discover they share an unusual bond and maybe a one in a million chance to have what they want and to change the world in the process —just like the first Queen Victoria.

That Inevitable Victorian Thing is charming and intelligent, hopeful and kind, and oh so witty. It's an adjustment of the past and a look towards the future for three young people full of worry and expectations.

Victoria-Margaret is a crown princess. One day she will be queen of the empire. But until then, she's Margaret, a young British woman spending the summer in Canada before heading back home. Home where expectations, like finding a future spouse, await. She's kind, intelligent, and wondering if there's anything that could be hers in the future. Helena is quiet and thoughtful, a young woman who doesn't expect anything too grand in her life. She's happy enough to live quietly with her parents, and one day with her husband, who might very well be family friend August Callaghan. But is she sure? Is that really what she wants? Especially when she discovers something rather important and life-changing about herself. August is sure of his future, he knows he will spend it with the family's shipping firm. Even though their ships are being cornered by pirates. Even though he might've screwed up here and there trying to fix it all. Even though he's stubborn as a mule. He'll still have Helena by his side. Right?

Like most E.K. Johnston books, the world-building is exquisite and extensive. I so adore the premise of this book, where it started in history and took a turn. This is like if the wrongs of history were known and were righted sooner than they have been. If racial diversity had been embraced by Queen Victoria in terms of who her children and grandchildren should marry, and by extension the rest of the British Empire, instead of continuing the tradition of marrying into white European royal houses. But like all E.K. Johnston books, the characters are just as wonderful. Full of sense and practicality and curiosity. These three young people have their whole lives ahead of them, but who knows, when all is said and done, what the future will bring. Or what they will turn the future into.

As I read this book, I wondered if I'd ever be able to articulate my thoughts and feelings on it. In the end, all I have is how I felt while and after reading. This bizarre, charming creature made up of Victorian Era tones and moods, wonderfully funny Canadian references, the religion of genetics, and honest compassion. The heartfelt, hopeful attempt at making history better than it is. The wide range of diversity it holds, from race to sexuality to ability. This book is impossible to describe. It's full of wondrous charm and sense, of practicality and honesty. It doesn't talk down to the reader, no matter their age. I would definitely recommend this to readers looking for hope and sense in the world, to those looking for something completely different.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from Penguin Canada.)

Me on Invictus

Title: Invictus
Author: Ryan Graudin
Release Date: September 26, 2017
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Hachette Book Group imprint)

Farway Gaius McCarthy was born outside of time. The son of a time-traveling Recorder from 2354 AD and a gladiator living in Rome in 95 AD, Far's birth defies the laws of nature. Exploring history himself is all he's ever wanted, and after failing his final time-traveling exam, Far takes a position commanding a ship with a crew of his friends as part of a black market operation to steal valuables from the past. But during a heist on the sinking Titanic, Far meets a mysterious girl who always seems to be one step ahead of him. Armed with knowledge that will bring Far's very existence into question, she will lead Far and his team on a race through time to discover a frightening truth: history is not as steady as it seems.

Invictus is a twisted journey through time and space, a mystery within a mystery. A tale where time is now and then and will be, but unless they can figure out what's going wrong, it might never happen at all.

Far is determined, passionate. Focused on his goal, his dream of exploring history like his mother before him. But he's sometimes reckless, too bold for his own good. It gets him in trouble, into near-impossible to escape from situations. It gets him expelled, but it also gets him a ship that can travel through time. He can finally do what he's dreamed of, even if it involves being part of a black market group taking priceless artifacts from the past. It's time travelling, it's experiencing history. It's living. Until a stranger bursts in on his heist on the Titanic.

This is a curious, fast-paced story of history, complicated math, and the desire to live before dying. To do something meaningful and worthwhile. To see and breathe in history, to not waste life thinking about what ifs and could-have-beens. I don't know that I can say too much else, not knowing what's going on is part of the story, part of the reveal of what is happening to Far and his friends on their ship. If you're looking for a standalone book that's full of time travel and twists, full of impossibility and fate, then you'll probably enjoy this.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from Hachette Book Group Canada.)

Me on The Winnowing

Title: The Winnowing
Author: Vikki VanSickle
Release Date: September 1, 2017
Publisher: Scholastic Canada

Marivic Stone lives in a small world, and that's fine with her. Home is with her beloved grandfather in a small town that just happens to be famous for a medical discovery that saved humankind — though not without significant repercussions. Marivic loves her best friend, Saren, and the two of them promise to stick together, through thick and thin, and especially through the uncertain winnowing procedure, a now inevitable — but dangerous — part of adolescence. But when tragedy separates the two friends, Marivic is thrust into a world of conspiracy, rebellion and revolution. For the first time in her life, Marivic is forced to think and act big. If she is going to right a decade of wrongs, she will need to trust her own frightening new abilities, even when it means turning her back on everything, and everyone, she's known and loved.

The Winnowing is mysterious, full of whimsy, worry, and hard truths. Marivic lives in a curious town, a rather important town. But secrets are everywhere in such an important town, secrets that could change how Marivic sees the world around her.

Marivic is smart and kind, and perhaps a little lonely after her grandmother passed away a year earlier, but she still has her grandfather. And her best friend Saren. But then Marivic hits that age, when bodies change and kids get their ACES, the bizarre night terrors that happen because of a medical marvel that saved everyone some decades before. Marivic knows then that she won't be a kid anymore, that she'll go through the winnowing in order to keep her from hurting herself, from losing her mind. But when Marivic arrives at the Barton Center, things don't feel quite right. Some odd questions are asked of her, some strange people start talking to her. Her dreams are getting stranger. And soon she's on the run, soon she's learning the truth.

This book is part sweetness, part growing up, and part eerie all-encompassing mystery. It's a gentle, well-written combination of a young girl coming of age, reaching puberty, and the strange world of conspiracy, experiments, and big secrets she enters. The truth has to come out, the others have to be saved. But Marivic isn't sure if she's strong enough to do it. What she is sure of, though, is that she'll do what it takes to keep her grandfather and best friend Saren safe. I would definitely recommend this to middle grade readers, especially to those not quite ready to move up to YA, especially to readers looking for a combination of genres in their stories.

(I received a copy of this title to review from Scholastic Canada.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (323)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: The Carnelian Crow
Author: Colleen Gleason
Release Date: July 11, 2017
Publisher: Chronicle Books

From Goodreads:

Ever since the debacle of the Chess Queen Enigma, Mina Holmes and Evaline Stoker have laid low, trying to settle back into their quiet lives as young ladies of London. But the Holmesian deductive abilities won't remain dormant for long, and when Mina receives a strange package from a winged, midnight visitor, she is catapulted into a new, dangerous adventure: the search for The Carnelian Crow.

Meanwhile, Evaline has received some very disturbing news--news that will change her life forever. Along with that unpleasant knowledge is the strange disappearance of her nemesis, the disreputable pickpocket Pix.

When it becomes clear the arch-villainess the Ankh has made her next move, it will take all of Mina's Holmesian ingenuity and Evaline's courage and determination to stop the criminal from executing her boldest and most dangerous plan yet!

Yesssss. This series is a curious one, a combination of mystery and steampunk and intelligent young women and bizarre magic. It's a series that I enjoy in a not-taking-it-too-seriously way, and I'm rather curious to see what is coming next for Mina and Evaline.

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (294)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Iceling
Author: Sasha Stephenson
Release Date: December 13, 2016
Publisher: Razorbill (Penguin imprint)

From Goodreads:

Lorna’s adopted sister, Callie, is part of a mysterious group of non-lingual teens, Icelings, born on a remote Arctic island, who may not be entirely human. Now Callie wants to go home.

Seventeen-year-old Lorna loves her adoptive sister, Callie. But Callie can’t say “I love you” back. In fact, Callie can’t say anything at all.

Because Callie is an Iceling—one of hundreds of teens who were discovered sixteen years ago on a remote Arctic island, all of them lacking the ability to speak or understand any known human language.

Mysterious and panicked events lead to the two sisters embarking on a journey to the north, and now Lorna starts to see that there’s a lot more to Callie’s origin story than she’d been led to believe. Little does she know what’s in store, and that she’s about to uncover the terrifying secret about who—and what—Callie really is.

This sounds so weird! And very different. I'm super curious about this remote Arctic island aspect. If it leads to some kind of weird experiment or aliens or something.

Me on On the Edge of Gone

Title: On the Edge of Gone
Author: Corinne Duyvis
Release Date: March 8, 2016
Publisher: Amulet Books (Abrams imprint)

January 29, 2035. That's the day the comet is scheduled to hit—the big one. Denise and her mother and sister, Iris, have been assigned to a temporary shelter near their hometown of Amsterdam to wait out the blast, but Iris is nowhere to be found, and at the rate Denise's drug-addicted mother is going, they'll never reach the shelter in time. Then a last-minute encounter leads them to something better than a temporary shelter: a generation ship that's scheduled to leave Earth behind and colonize new worlds after the comet hits. But each passenger must have a practical skill to contribute. Denise is autistic and fears that she'll never be allowed to stay. Can she obtain a spot before the ship takes flight? What about her mother and sister? When the future of the human race is at stake, whose lives matter most?

On the Edge of Gone is a thoughtful, tense look at the end of the world, at what might happen if something were to collide with Earth. Yes, it's about survival, but value also comes into play. Is everyone's value the same, no matter what, or does it differ? Who is worth saving? How can you calculate something so intangible?

Denise is smart, quiet. Worried. Autistic. She's upset with her mother for dragging her feet, for wasting time they don't have in order to get to a shelter. Her relationship with her mother is complicated, needing her for a number of things that she can't do because of her age but not wanting her around because of her drug problem. It does leave Denise caught between saving her, because she's her mother, and pushing her away to keep her from spiraling.

Here we have the end of the world. Potentially. The comet is coming, and it will hit the Earth's surface, but after that? Who knows? In terms of world-building, I thought it was great, atmospheric and dismal. Even more so because of the setting, because it takes place in Amsterdam. The high density of Europe, the different people and cultures that mix together in European cities. How similar it would be if the book was set in North America. We're all human. We would all react to an event like this in similar ways, yes? Stockpile, build, protect. Survive.

As time goes on for Denise, the feeling of not knowing what to do builds and builds. Which is understandable. She's sixteen, she loves cats. What is she supposed to do in terms of survival? In terms of being on a spaceship? How is she supposed to know what to do? With the amount of time left? How are any of us supposed to know what to do? How are we to prove our worth? What if we believe we are worth more than others? What if the others disagree?

This book is as diverse as it gets, led by a biracial autistic narrator as she searches for a place to survive. The different people she meets, gay and straight and lesbian and bisexual and trans, Jewish and Christian and Muslim, able-bodied and physically or intellectually impaired. It's also, for sci-fi, not that scientific or impossible. This could very well happen. And it seems more about Denise and her connections with others, her internal struggles, her desire to find something to do when told she has to prove herself useful. I found this to be an intriguing look at the human aspect of science fiction and a pending apocalypse, a book I would recommend to those looking for more grounded science fiction and those looking for stories that explore people and their thoughts and motives.

(I borrowed a copy of this book from the library.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (269)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Company Town
Author: Madeline Ashby
Release Date: May 17, 2016
Publisher: Tor

From Goodreads:

They call it Company Town--a city-sized oil rig off the coast of the Canadian Maritimes, now owned by one very wealthy, powerful, byzantine family: Lynch Ltd.

Hwa is of the few people in her community (which constitutes the whole rig) to forgo bio-engineered enhancements. As such, she's the last truly organic person left on the rig--making her doubly an outsider, as well as a neglected daughter and bodyguard extraordinaire. Still, her expertise in the arts of self-defense and her record as a fighter mean that her services are yet in high demand. When the youngest Lynch needs training and protection, the family turns to Hwa. But can even she protect against increasingly intense death threats seemingly coming from another timeline?

Meanwhile, a series of interconnected murders threatens the city's stability and heightens the unease of a rig turning over. All signs point to a nearly invisible serial killer, but all of the murders seem to lead right back to Hwa's front door. Company Town has never been the safest place to be--but now, the danger is personal.

A brilliant, twisted mystery, as one woman must evaluate saving the people of a town that can't be saved, or saving herself.

This all sounds rather intriguing. The family empire aspect, the sci-fi bio-engineering aspect, the murders and mystery aspect.

Me on A History of Glitter and Blood

Title: A History of Glitter and Blood
Author: Hannah Moskowitz
Release Date: August 18, 2015
Publisher: Chronicle Books

Sixteen-year-old Beckan and her friends are the only fairies brave enough to stay in Ferrum when war breaks out. Now there is tension between the immortal fairies, the subterranean gnomes, and the mysterious tightropers who arrived to liberate the fairies. But when Beckan's clan is forced to venture into the gnome underworld to survive, they find themselves tentatively forming unlikely friendships and making sacrifices they couldn't have imagined. As danger mounts, Beckan finds herself caught between her loyalty to her friends, her desire for peace, and a love she never expected.

A History of Glitter and Blood is at times magical and gruesome, a story of what war leaves behind, of what war makes us do in order to survive. A story of family and friendship, of the ways we bind ourselves together.

Beckan, Josha, Scrap, Cricket. When the war starts, they're the only ones to stay in Ferrum. Why would they leave their home? But staying behind means surviving bombs. Staying behind means joining together. Staying behind means heading underground for work. It's not easy for any of them. In no way is anything any of them goes through easy. It's harsh, painful, distasteful. But it's what they do in order to survive. And when they're not working? They pretend as hard as they can, they laugh and love and look forward to the day when the war will be over. But when it ends, how it ends, is it what they expected would happen?

The narrator is unreliable. The story is told in a mixture of fictional prose and journal accounts, of what the narrator knows and witnessed and what the narrator imagines happened when they weren't in the room. It's an intriguing way to tell the story. It gives it authenticity, makes it sound real. Makes every cut and bite and fever dream feel that much more real. Like this war actually happened.

This book highlights all the parts of war, uncovers the secrets often left unspoken by survivors. What happens to those who stay, what decisions they are forces to make. What pieces of themselves they're forced to give up. If after reading this you're filled with all kinds of uncomfortable feelings, if you're all squicked out inside, then the book did its job. It's not a happy book, it's not meant to cheer you up. This book is all harsh reality and the day-in day-out of those living with war every single day, the stories you never hear about on the news. The stories you should hear about.

This is fairy tale, but one without the usual magic. The fairies do have glitter, but it's to keep the gnomes from eating too much of their limbs and bodies. This is a messy book about war, politics, racism, family, and love. It's a slap in the face and a punch in the gut. This won't be for everyone, but if you find yourself interested, read it for the characters. Read it for Beckan, for Scrap, for Josha and Cricket. Read it to learn what their lives become, to learn who they become. Read it to learn what war does to them, does to us.

(I received an advance copy of this title to review from Raincoast Books.)