Ghost Moon Night

Allen, J. (2014). Ghost Moon Night. Grantsville, UT: Treasured Stories.

YA / Paranormal

I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars

The prologue of this YA paranormal story grabs readers and pulls them back in time to a small town in the Philippines, 1881. Thieves have been caught and are shown no mercy and put to death in a torturous way. One young village boy tries to save them, and in doing so, saves himself but not his town from the curse of the langbuan. Starting that very night and every Ghost Moon Night after, the evil winged spirits of the dead rise and kill the villagers by clinging to them until the langbuan have drawn all the warmth from the victims' bodies.  SUPER creepy. I am not surprised that Jewel Allen, the author, won a first chapter contest with this story.

From there, the story jumps forward to the same village in 1956, still cursed but accepting the monthly Ghost Moon Night as the norm.  They have a new parish priest, Father Sebastien, who wasn't told about the town's curse ahead of time, and is quite shocked to hear about the langbuan from Antonio Pulido, the seventeen-year-old main character of the story.  Father Sebastien decides it's his mission to get the villagers to stop putting their faith in pagan rituals, but instead in God, and to figure out how to break the curse. He befriends and confides in Antonio, who has great respect for the priest.

Ghost Moon Night is definitely a coming of age story for Antonio, though he deals with a great deal more than does your average teen -- and that's without factoring in his encounters with the langbuan, which are intense! Antonio is a complex character who really grows by making mistakes and learning from them. His relationship with his father is particularly complicated and often painful, even more so as Antonio discovers his father's many secrets. What is most revealing about Antonio's character is his love for his grandfather and what he's willing to do for him.

Allen's writing is beautiful and descriptive, and her passages really bring the setting of a small village in the Philippines to life.  She uses a lot of Tagalog words, which mostly can be defined by context, but also there is a glossary at the end of the book that lists all the words (which I didn't find until I finished -- would be great to have a heads-up at the beginning). There were a few scenes that were confusing to me and which I didn't feel moved the story forward (ex. nuno sa punso, cleaning the morgue). They seemed out of place or in need of more explanation as to how they were connected. Also, the action slowed down significantly through the middle of the story and got a bit bogged down with some unnecessary details; however, the last third of the book had some great, unexpected twists as well as some pretty intense and scary langbuan encounters, which forgave the parts that dragged.

Ghost Moon Night will leave readers thinking about more than just its flying zombies -- there are many deeper messages.  There is no profanity or sexual situations, but there are death and grief, references to domestic abuse and alcoholism, and violence, though it is not overly graphic. As such, I would recommend this book for upper middle grade or young adult readers.

This book was provided to me by eBooks for Review in exchange for my honest review -- the only kind I give. 

Insurgent

Roth, V. (2012). Insurgent. NY: Katherine Tegen Books.
YA Fiction / Dystopian
ALA Best Fiction for Young Adult Readers,

I was able to snag this Advance Release Copy at the TLA Conference in April, and YES, I got it signed and below is a picture of me with the author, Veronica Roth, signing my book. YESSSSSS again!  As I waited in line to be one of the first to get this yet-to-be-published sequel to the most awesome Divergent, I wondered what it must be like to be Ms. Roth. At the tender age of 23, she's set for life and can look out amongst the middle-aged people like me, who jockeyed for a place in line, and think, "Dang, I hope I never have to sink to that level."

So the book. . .  you know I'm not really into spoilers, but man, could I spoil this one for everyone.  I will say that divergence (what it is to be Divergent) is more fully explored and explained, and that makes for some interesting twists and turns in the story.  Tris is really dealing with the implications and emotional destruction of what she did in the first book, and at times I got impatient with that. Deal with it! Talk to someone! Work through it already!  I really thought the book started off a bit slow, but it may have just been my impatience at getting the story rolling so I could find out where it was all going.  I dunno.  It was worth wading through the slowness to get to the meat of the story. Talk about conspiracies and confusion and the shaking up of everything that had been accepted as truth in their society. Good is not necessarily good, bad might be good, evil may not be in the form it seems. And trust is not easily given or received.

******WARNING: JUST A LITTLE SPOILER ABOUT TRIS & FOUR******
I was happy that this didn't turn into a cheesy romance between Tris and Four, and truly I was surprised that their relationship was survived in spite of the hardships and the psychological scars they both have.  At times, they both displayed very real teenager-ish behavior, which can be the kiss of death. But they continued to be drawn back together and were really pretty patient with each other, considering how messed-up they each are.  I was very glad that the romance aspect was not the focus and did not take away from the story.

****YOU MAY NOW SAFELY RETURN TO THE NON-SPOILER PART OF THE SHOW****
For the careful reader, there are plenty of hints and a bit of foreshadowing about where the book ends.  I was not totally surprised by the ending -- maybe a bit by the specifics of it -- but I thought it was great because Roth hasn't boxed herself in.  There are many directions she could go with it.


And here's a cool little trailer about it. . .

The Twilight Saga

Meyer, S. (2005-2008). Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn. NY: Little, Brown.

YA Fiction / Paranormal Romance (or should we call this "Abbynormal Romance?" yes, nod to Young Frankenstein.)

I gagged my way through Twilight last year when it was required reading for one of my classes.  I decided that I would give it a fresh try and dedicated myself to reading the whole series straight through.  

When I stepped back and approached the books as a teenaged girl might (since, after all, the teen girl is the intended audience), I was able to enjoy the series as entertainment.  The writing is not stellar but the story is interesting and the appeal to teen girls is understandable: here is a female lead who is socially awkward, clumsy, not particularly beautiful, but who has two complete hottie guys - and most other males at her new school - falling all over themselves to win her heart.  She's a bit flaky, emotional, dramatic. . . really pretty wimpy, too, until the later novels, but she's a man-magnet? And why again did females of ALL ages flock to these books?  It really made me a little sad that this series was the end-all/be-all of books.  But I digress.

For entertainment value, these are worth the reads.  Everything ties together very conveniently, the impossible is made possible, and things work out just fine without anyone's tender feelings being hurt.  Vampire love conquers all!!  And I try to not let it bother me that Bella basically gets married so she can have sex. . . with a vampire. . .who is 150-years-old (but dang, he's sure purdy.)  Could this be any more teenage lusty and pedophiley than that?

There is much talk about the Mormon parallelism. . . big deal. Stephenie Meyer is Mormon, after all. But if you want to read a funny, possibly offensive take on the Mormon angle, go to http://stoney321.livejournal.com/317176.html and enjoy.  The author is Mormon herself and holds no punches, and beware - she does use a naughty word or two - but it's a very complete summary of each book and the Mormon influences, and I found it humorous and eye-opening. 

As a final note, I did watch all four of the movies after reading the books.  Based on the books, I would definitely be Team Edward.  I don't feel like they cast him right in the movies, and there's no way I'd be anything other than Team Jacob after movie two.  Rrrroooooowwwr. 

Divergent

Roth, V. (2011). Divergent. NY: Katherine Tegen Books.
YA Fiction / Dystopian
Click here to see the official Book Trailer, which doesn't do it justice!

WOW!  This is an awesome story!  Even after a week of barely any sleep, I had to stay up and finish this book last night.  Roth does a wonderful job of building-up: building-up tension, anxiety, curiosity - you name it.  The premise of the story is an interesting one, and though it's been done before, it's done differently and believably.

The future has us divided into factions, based on which of five virtues is predominant. You are born into the faction of your parents, but at sixteen, you are given an aptitude test that tells you to which faction you should belong. The results aren't always clear. . .and that's dangerous.

As is typical with society and books of this genre, forcing people into neat little boxes generally leads to unrest, which generally leads to rebellion and war.  Beatrice, the main character, is spunky and smart and admirable,  and stronger in her tiny frame than most anyone else in the book.  The supporting characters are well-developed (OOOH, I hate Peter) and Beatrice's relationships with them are equally well-defined (OOH, Beatrice hates Peter).

Guess we have a movie to look forward to, but I'm just happy we have another book in the series to look forward to coming out soon.
 

Can't get enough? Check out the excerpt from Roth's sequel, Insurgent. (below)

Insurgent Excerpt