R.L.S. Hoff's Blog, page 11

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This book has a lot of my favorite things in YA fantasy–great characters, coming of age, dragons.

I love the way Adelaide finds her own solutions to violence in a world that glorifies violence. And I love that these solutions don’t come instantly, but take some trial and error.

I’m not as thrilled with the glorification of anything-goes sexuality, but I understand how that could feel completely reasonable in a world that so unreasonably limits a woman’s choices. When most restrictions are nonsensical, why should a person pay attention to any restrictions at all?

I get that modern sensibility says that if I’m uncomfortable with this, I’m the one with the problem, but I still believe there’s value in keeping sex within committed, long-term, (and yes, I’ll even say monogamous, relationships). Sex is a powerful thing, and easily abused–and just because it has been abused one way (a lot) in the past doesn’t mean that going to an opposite extreme is a great idea.

Despite my concerns in this area, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The writing was good; the characters well-rounded; the pacing and plot exciting. There were also some great bits of humor, and I enjoyed the world-building, which was very well done (though the language sometimes dropped out of the more formal usage that helped create the feel of an older-style society).

All in all, this was well worth a read. At some point, I’ll probably be reading the sequels.

[image error]Artwork by Heidi Black. See more of her stuff at ElectricAbyss.com

Excerpt from Songs of Healing

Uh, huh. And Stralton was renowned for his circumspection and restraint. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Show you, rather. Come this way.” He took my arm and pulled me gently but irresistibly through one of the arches into a courtyard even lusher with foliage than the circular room.

I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this—a giant silver-barked tree with silver-green leaves and fist-sized golden fruit on every bough. The fruit hummed. “What is—”

Stralton pressed a finger against my lips and breathed, “Hush.”

A low fruit in front of me vibrated, its hum higher pitched than the others. It began to quake, and then, with a ring like a clear small bell, it burst open, and from it flew a rainbow-winged, sparkly, bird-like creature.

It flew directly at me. I stepped back, startled, into Stralton, who steadied me gently, causing tingles to go up and down my arms. In my confusion, I lost sight of the bird creature, but another fruit was vibrating. Soon, it too released a rainbow-winged bird. A third fruit vibrated.

The birds zipped off into the sky, over my head. I turned, to watch them alight on the wall behind me. There they sat, gently waving their wings like butterflies. The effect was of light sifted through a hundred prisms onto some bejeweled surface.

I stood, stunned.

“Breathe, darling,” Stralton murmured after a while, and I did, letting my pent-up breath out slowly, so as not to frighten them. I didn’t know how long I stood there transfixed, listening to the ring and hum of the births and watching the celestial quilt pattern of the creatures’ wings on the wall.

At some point, Stralton took hold of my arm again. I was afraid he would take me back inside or begin to talk, but he turned me back toward the tree to watch the equally absorbing explosions of the golden fruit. He did not take his hand away after turning me.

He turned me twice more before the chime of birth grew less and less frequent. At last, there were no more rings, only a soft hum, which I thought came from the birds’ wings.

Motioning me to be quiet, Stralton stepped softly to the tree and plucked one of the now open fruit. He gave it to me.

It hung together at the stem, but otherwise split and twisted in beautiful curves like a flower. The outside was gold, but the inside pearly. It felt cool in my hand, though the day was now warm. “Come inside,” Stralton murmured in my ear. “They should rest.”

Songs of Healing comes out October 22, 2020. If you’d like an advanced review copy, contact R.L.S. Hoff directly at [email protected]. Or preorder the book here:

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“Sam turned his head, glad to finally make out more than shadows. Eleanor was pointing to a streak of greenish-black slime in her hair. A quick survey of himself told him that more of the same gunk stained his uniform and his skin. He wondered how hard it would be to get out and if his mom had any cash for an extra trip to the wash-and-wear this week.”

–from Chapter 8 of Hope Gardens

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This is book 2 in The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, and it’s every bit as good as Cinder. The story continues, with great new characters taking center stage. I love Scarlet’s loyalty and tenacity and Wolf’s fight to hang onto the good parts of his humanity. Thorne is fun, too. (Though I’m not sure I understand quite how much my daughter likes him.)

I totally understand K’s love for the series, though. I can’t wait to start on the next book. (Actually, I have to wait to start on the next book because I have actual, you know, work I have to get done, and once I get into these, I tend not to stop. Still, I’m very excited to get to the next book as soon as I can open up a time in my schedule that’s long enough for it.)

If you like YA science fiction and fantasy, and you haven’t read these yet, you really should.

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I found this, strangely enough, when I was researching ways to format text messages in a book. (If you’re stressing about that, btw), this book does it seamlessly.

In the process of looking at the formatting, I got hooked on the story. Then I had to read the whole thing.

Find Layla chronicles a few days (maybe as much as two weeks) in the life of a brilliant teen who is raising herself and her younger brother in squalor as her mother struggles with drug addiction and possibly mental illness.

This book is a beautiful portrayal of the survival skills and savvy–as well as the trust issues–of a kid living the way kids should never have to live. I like the way Layla and those around her are shown with full nuance. Like real people, they’re not all good or all evil, but a mixture of both. And some of the most painful hurts Layla receives come not from active aggression towards her (though there’s that), but from the ignorance of people who care about her or who mean well.

This strikes me as very real. Almost too real. It’s hard to help teens who have been forced to survive on their own for far too long. This book at least helps people understand them.

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So, I’m not usually a graphic novel person, but every so often I run across something amazing. This is one of those things.

This is a story ripped from the pages of history–but not the history I learned in school. Why is that? well, because we didn’t do much Chinese history

I may have heard of the Boxer “rebellion” (can you really call it a rebellion when it’s local people trying to kick out foreigners?), but I certainly didn’t learn anything about its nuances when I was in school.

But this story tells the history from the perspective of two teens–one a Chinese Christian, one a “boxer” (think kung fu, not guys stripped to the waist and wearing leather mitts). It’s easy to relate to both. It’s easy to see how they take the paths they take. It’s easy to see how those paths collide.

And the artwork is incredible.

Read it. It’s absolutely worth the time.

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They call this type of fiction realistic–and I guess it is, if you use “realistic” to mean that any given event in the story could conceivably happen in the world as we know it. There’s no magic, and no not-yet-invented technology.

On the other hand, I often found my plausibility stretched (the kid with good, involved parents disappears for an afternoon, and isn’t even grounded afterward?)

Still, I found the story engaging, and I wanted Roy to succeed–to fit into his new school in his new town, to get out from under the bullying jerk who has it in for him, to find the intriguing young man who runs by the bus stop barefoot, and eventually to save the endangered owls who are threatened by a pancake franchise.

It’s fun to participate in Roy’s journey toward achieving these things. The characters are well-drawn, the setting immersive, and the voice delightfully humorous. For me, this would have been a love instead of a like if I hadn’t frequently found myself thinking, “no way would that ever happen.”

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One of the advantages of tutoring in English is that I sometimes get the chance to read books for young people that I hadn’t heard of before.

This one is fun. It features an unconventional teacher and his students–several of whom narrate the book.

The multiple narrators annoyed me a bit at first–I didn’t have a strong sense of whose story it was. But I came to appreciate the different voices, the different views–and the way each student was affected by this remarkable teacher.

I think many of us have a teacher like this in our lives–someone who inspires growth in both our heads and our hearts. My own was Mrs. Legato (eighth grade history). This story reminded me of her and also helped me think about how young people are profoundly affected by the people who teach them.

All in all, it was a pretty good book, sometimes funny, and occasionally poignant. I’m not sure I liked it well enough to go on to the sequels, but I’m glad to have been introduced to it.

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My fourteen-year old has been begging me to read this one for at least a year now–and it’s spectacular. I love the world-building. Everything from Cinder’s cyborg parts to her stall in the market is shown in beautiful detail that makes the story come alive.

And, of course, fairy-tale retellings are among my very favorite kinds of stories. This Cinderella remake is absolutely delightful. Yes, I’m reading the other books (just as soon as I make some headway on my to-do list).

I used to love the beginning of school. I loved shopping for supplies (even if it was difficult to find exactly what the supply lists said we needed). I loved outfitting the kids with new shoes and clothes for the school year. I loved the cooler air and the crunch of fall leaves and the excitement of new classes. Perhaps most of all, I loved the hours of time to myself to work and write and catch up on things that didn’t get done during the summer.

This year isn’t much like that. The kids already had most of the pens and pencils and notebooks and things they needed. (And the clothes–my teens aren’t growing as quickly as they were a bit ago, though that could change again, I suppose.)

We did have to get masks.

There have been a few cooler days, but fall hasn’t really set in here. This weekend is set to be in the nineties. The biggest wildfire in state history is raging in Colorado, and in a normal year, that would be a big deal.

This is not a normal year.

(Not that I need to tell anybody that.)

And, so far, school has been remote, which is hard on the kids, and certainly doesn’t provide me hours and hours of time to myself.

HOWEVER, we are all physically healthy.

And we are learning valuable things about supporting each other and learning to deal with the junk life can throw at you.

I feel like we could have done without the lesson–but maybe that’s just hubris.

Maybe we really did need time to reset, figure out what’s truly important, and be there for the people we care most about.

How are things in your part of the world?