Remember in Midsummer Night’s Dream, the whole reason Titania and Oberon are fighting is because of a human boy Titania likes? Ever wonder what happened to him? I sure didn’t, partly because he’s described in the play, but never in the stage directions, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a production with him on stage at any point. But Bauer did wonder and uses that idea as a starting place for this book.

Salman was a foundling and has gone from foster home to foster home, hoping to find one where he can stay. When he starts 7th grade at another new school, he meets two kids who quickly become his friends. Lu is a little shy and missing her best friend, and Blos is somewhere on the Asperger’s scale and tends to be very literal about everything. The three of them work through their various personal problems together and each of them changes. Meanwhile, the Fairy Court is once again in uproar over the Queen’s affection for Salman, and both Titania and Oberon force Puck to spy on the kids and occasionally interfere on their behalf .

I liked this book, and would definitely recommend it to younger tweens, especially if they just read Midsummer in English class. I thought the characters were charming and realistic, and I liked the way the story treats Blos. It’s sometimes hard to find characters with Aspergers or other neurological disorders that aren’t just treated as comic relief or a tragic figure, and while kids at school do make fun of Blos, I don’t think the story does. Lu and Salman are good to him without pretending they don’t get exasperated sometimes, and Salman appreciates Blos’s direct nature and lack of guile.

There are a couple of things that dissapoint me about the book, however, the main one being that I sort of felt cheated by the story. If you aren’t familiar with Chekhov’s Gun in theatre, the writer once said that “a pistol on the wall in the first act must be fired by the last act.” In this story, Fairyland was the gun on the wall. Fairy is always just beyond the human realm, and although there are several points in the story that seem to foreshadow one side breaking through to the other, it never actually happens. Puck is spying on the kids for both monarchs, and we get his perspective on what’s going on, but he doesn’t directly intervene. The kids never find out about Fairy, never cross over, and I really expected them to. Every time someone got lost in the woods (I think they all do at some point) I kept thinking that now they would look up and be in Fairy. Oberon and Titania call each other’s bluffs and say they’re going to bring Salman to Fairy, and at one point Oberon hints that he will bring Lu over, but it never happens. It should be noted that when I compared this to Midsummer, the only human that ever interacts with Fairy directly is Bottom, so the choice makes sense in Come Fall. It still felt, however, like my expectations were brought to the brink and then sent back, and having that happen multiple times in a book gets frustrating.

I said that Puck never intervenes directly, but that sort of depends on what you consider to be direct. Apparently, the fairies have some influence or control over humans who share similar names. So Salman’s foster-mother Tina grows an amazing garden because her full name is Titania, and Puck is able to use a boy in Salman’s class named Robin Puckett to cause trouble. Which, ok, that’s kinda cool, except that one of the main three kids is named Blos Pease. And Peaseblossom is never mentioned. Again it just feels like a tease, why give a character such a specific name with this setup if you aren’t going to use it for something? I don’t know, this is part of what made me feel like maybe some things got edited out.

Overall I think younger readers may not be bothered by these issues the way I am, and I would definitely recommend it to a lot of them. Especially kids reading Midsummer in school, whether they love it or are indifferent to it, since this story will give them a different angle to view Shakespeare’s work.

It’s better than I expected, I’ll say that. I think this is the first time on this blog that I’m reviewing something I’m not sure I recommend, although there are some really interesting things going for the novel. So I’m going to try to discuss what the book made me think about. This got long, so follow the jump if you want to see me think too much.

1. The nerdy plain girl is actually beautiful. Ok, I’m just going to say it, I’m sick of this trope. Especially considering that the movie will have this character, the True Love interest Lindy, being played by Vanessa Hudgens. Can’t WAIT to see how they make her “plain.” By which I mean, braided hair and glasses don’t mean “plain,” ok? The scene where the main character, Kyle, realises that Lindy is beautiful was pretty much the Taylor Swift “You Belong With Me” video all over again. DONE. WITH. THIS. Because really, the whole point of the book is supposed to be that people should see past looks, right?

That said, something in the scene resonated with me, because part of the reason Kyle starts seeing Lindy as beautiful is that he’s getting to know her, and is clearly attracted to her personality. I’m not entirely convinced that it comes across as finding her attractive as a person, rather than seeing her in the pretty dress with her hair down, though. This is one area where I feel like the writing could be stronger. There’s also the problem of how much his affection for her comes from wanting to save her from her previous miserable life and addict dad, but at least she does actually have a personality to be attracted to (BELLA ADORAKLUTZ SWAN-CULLEN YES I AM LOOKING AT YOU).

2. “Teen” dialogue. I don’t know, maybe I’m old and out of touch, but a lot of the dialogue didn’t ring true for me. Sometimes it felt like a parody of how teens talk to each other. Like if you’re watching the new season of Scrubs, the annoying kid, Cole, it sounds like him. “Trippin’” is thrown around a lot. So this is an area where I wish I had more teenagers in my life, so I could get them to read this and see what they say about it.

The other thing I was interested in with the dialogue is that there’s definitely a shift in the language after the fairy tale elements come into play; Kyle finds himself almost speaking lines from a script, maybe because he is now part of this story, he is forced to play the part correctly. When Lindy’s father breaks into his green house, Kyle yells “Who dares disturb my roses?” and thinks “Why did I say that?” It’s an interesting choice, but I really can’t decide if I think it works or if it’s just really contrived. I was talking about this last night and remembered that I think this has been done better by a lot of other stories, but it might resonate with teens who haven’t encountered it before.

3. Kidnapping/power dynamics. One of the things that came up in the discussion of the movie description is how rarely the relationship dynamic in the Beauty and the Beast story is discussed or pointed out as actually being really disturbing. Kyle is a kidnapper, when it comes right down to it. Sure, Lindy’s father gives her to Kyle to buy his own freedom (ALSO HORRIBLY CREEPY) but for Kyle to keep her there with no way to contact the outside world and expect her to do anything but hate him? It does point out how very spoiled and out of touch with reality the character is, and believe me, I get how romantic teen girls think Edward is in Twilight, but I don’t really want to encourage that. Luckily, Beastly does actually acknowledge this! Which honestly, even if it isn’t handled with much depth, I consider a win at this point. Kyle’s tutor calls him a kidnapper to his face, and Kyle even calls himself a kidnapper when he thinks it all through. He still manages to justify it like crazy, and he even has some good points, but he still gets how incredibly messed up it is that he made the choice instead of letting Lindy decide for herself. So how do we know it’s not Stockholm Syndrome instead of real love? I don’t have an answer for that, for the record.

The other note on this is that there’s at least one scene where Kyle is in Lindy’s room watching her sleep, then realizes what he’s doing, DECIDES THAT IT IS A SUPER CREEPY THING TO DO, and LEAVES THE ROOM. If I hadn’t been proctoring an exam when I read that, I would have had a hard time deciding between laughing my head off or standing up to cheer. Take that, Edward Cullen! Of course, this didn’t stop Kyle from watching her sleep in his magic mirror before she came to live with him, and after he leaves, and he also talked about spying on his former classmates in the mirror when they were naked or showering, so I’m counting it as half win.

4. Inner beauty vs. Outer Beauty. Isn’t that what the Beauty and the Beast story is supposed to be about? In most of the versions I’ve heard, and in this version, the Prince is handsome and vain, and manages to earn his curse for treating the “ugly” witch badly, at which point she reveals herself to actually be beautiful. Then he has to make someone love him even though he’s a scary monster. The woman who does happens to be beautiful. I mean, the story isn’t called Fugly and the Beast, now is it? Why does it matter if the witch is actually beautiful underneath her disguise? So inner beauty is more important than looks. . .unless you’re a woman. In the fairy tale versions we tend not to see the Prince interacting with the outside world before or after his transformation, so it’s a little easier to go along with the idea that appearances shouldn’t be so important to him. In Flinn’s version, I saw a fairly grim worldview. The witch doesn’t want Kyle to judge people by appearances anymore, but what is she doing about the entire rest of modern society? Kyle’s friends are all just as bad as he is, and it really puts the lie to the idea that appearances aren’t important. So what’s the message here, withdraw from the world, find your one true love and ignore everything else?

5. Continuing the theme of Flinn’s possibly grim view of the world, date rape is treated very casually in this book. When Kyle is standing outside a party, he’s listening to guys talk about drugs in their pockets and who they’re going to use it on. There are other instances as well. Once again, society is just completely messed up and our witch is fixing it by. . .cursing this one kid?  

6. Speaking of sex and sexuality in general. . .there’s some weird stuff in this book about slutty “evil” girls and Lindy’s purity. So at the beginning of the book Kyle is talking to his friend and comparing school dances to legalized prostitution, because he spends all this money on a limo, tux, corsage, and more, and in return he gives the girl what she wants and he gets some (more or less a direct quote, but I don’t have the book in front of me). It’s made very clear, without being graphic, that Kyle and his girlfriend Sloane are having sex. Which, ok, pretty realistic, at least. Kyle and Lindy, however, do not ever have sex? Even after he breaks the spell and returns to his life, and they continue to live together in the house, but on separate floors? Plus the white rose on the cover is actually important to the story, and the fact that white roses are a symbol of purity comes up kind of a lot, plus the contrast of Sloane= evil girl and Lindy= good girl is strongly drawn. So yeah. Slut shaming in YA books, woo?

7. And finally, a completely trivial point that might actually be a little petty on my part! At some point after the transformation, Kyle decides that he is changing his name to Adrian. See, he looks up the names, and Kyle means handsome, and represents his old life, and Adrian means darkness and he just likes it way better, ok? Let me make this as clear as I can, I absolutely believe in the right to self-identify, whether that be with a nickname or a name change or whatever, but in this case it just comes across as a ham-handed demarcation of old= Kyle new= Adrian and also now he is mopey and he needs a new name to make sure we REALLY GET HIS PAIN. After he breaks the spell he goes back to being Kyle, and I have to wonder if his housemates call him Adrian at home? Either way it just came across as silly.

I guess I should also point out that a lot of my problems here are with the Beauty and the Beast story in general. I did actually enjoy reading the book (no really, which is part of the reason I’m dissecting it so very thoroughly) and think it’s a pretty good version of the story, but geez, that story has some serious problems. Maybe this is a good thing about the book though, maybe it actually manages to point out those problems without necessarily resolving them, leaving the reader with some discomfort? Or maybe I’ve been thinking more critically since starting this blog, who knows.

I am passing my copy on to a friend in my office who absolutely loved the Twilight books, so I’m going to be interested in hearing what she has to say about this one.

I guess I’m trying to give some context to my feelings about the book, because I whole-heartedly loved it from page one, had trouble putting it down, and almost didn’t sleep a few nights for wanting to read more.

In the Garden of Iden is Baker’s first novel, and the first in a series about The Company; scientists who discover the process of immortality and time travel, and create immortal agents from history and use them to preserve antiquities that would have otherwise been lost. Baker’s writing brings humor and sweetness to the drama of immortal agents and the tricky moral questions about the Company’s purpose. I liked the romance and didn’t feel like the science or the reality of the situation ever took a backseat once it was introduced, rather it fit in with the story and added another dimension to the dilemmas of Mendoza, the main character. I am so excited that there are more books for me to read in this series.

I wrote most of this post on Friday, and left it over the weekend while I continued to think about the book and what I liked. Yesterday morning, Kage Baker passed away. I am so sorry for the loss to her friends and family, and to her fans.

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have finally read this book, knowing that there are more Company novels for me to devour, but at the same time I am so incredibly sad that there will be no more when I am done. 15 novels, short story collections, and novellas in this story, plus Baker’s other works, will certainly keep me reading for quite a while, and yet I am still feeling bereft: there should have been more. Thank you, Kage Baker, for what there is.

http://www.kagebaker.com/iden.html

Kiki is a fashion magazine for young girls (I’d say probably as young as 7 would enjoy it, up to around the 13 year-old range) that completely breaks the mold and has a blast doing it. There are no ads in the mag, no articles about dating or boys (which ok, some people feel is a detriment, but I agree with the editors that girls are getting that stuff thrown at them so early and from so many sources that I don’t think they’re going to miss it here), and the models are real girls, not older models made to look young. One of the cover models even has *gasp* braces! I picked up two issues to look through, and completely fell in love with Kiki’s fun, intelligent voice. The mag doesn’t talk down to its readers, and the fashion is a way to talk about a variety of topics like science, business, interesting careers, and more.

I especially loved that in one of the issues I looked at, there was a spread on some pretty extreme couture designers like Alexander McQueen, and then at the end was a page with a girl wearing some outfits put together from McQueen’s line for Target. I thought it was really cool to see the wild high fashion, and then have the magazine say “ok, clearly that is not what you, a young girl, are probably going to wear to school. Here are some things that are actually reasonable for you to wear, that just about anyone can probably find without living in a big city, and without making your parents go broke. Also, you do not have to look like a fashion model to wear this.” So very yes.

Every issue has a theme (the two issues I have are the “Extreme” issue and a History of 20th century fashion issue) with fashion that explores that theme and articles taking the theme into areas I didn’t expect. In the Extreme issue there’s an article on astronaut Sunita Williams, after which readers are encouraged to design their own version of the space suit. The magazine has DIY projects and recipes, and really just feels like something a lot of girls can get into.

I handed one of the issues off to two sisters (13 and 10) to see what they thought, and both girls were pretty enthusiastic about it. They liked the projects and thought they looked like stuff they could probably manage, and said that the writing was interesting. I already said that I’m personally in love with the mission of the magazine and the aesthetic they’ve chosen, and I’d love to see this in magazine racks in public and school libraries, giving girls an alternative to Seventeen and other magazines like it.

Genevieve Welsh is convinced her summer has been ruined. The 14 year-old is being forced to go on a “Frontier Camp” vacation with her family, where they and several other families will spend the summer pretending to be in the year 1890, with no technology, no swimming pool, and no indoor plumbing. Gen manages to smuggle in a cell phone, and her texts to her friends back home are used as a blog, which turns the girl into a celebrity.

I have to admit, after the first couple of chapters I almost put this book down. I was a fan of the “Little House” books as a kid, but let’s face it: going back to that time would be very uncomfortable for more than just physical reasons. Reading the set up in the book, and the first few days at Frontier Camp just made me annoyed thinking about the realities of life in the 1890s for minorities and women. I did pick the book back up after a day or two, and I’m glad I did.

There’s really a lot going on here about parents and children, and about the choices that parents try to make for their children. Ron and Betsy, the couple that runs the camp, have raised their daughter almost entirely as though it really were 1890. Sure, there are communities that do this for various reasons, but a key word there is “community”. Ron and Betsy’s daughter Nora has grown up almost entirely isolated with her parents, except during the summer when campers come to the camp, hate it all summer, and then claim to be “transformed” at the end of the experience. At the end of the book Nora is chance to leave the frontier behind, and her parents are horrified that she might choose the modern world, when they’ve worked so hard to show her something better. The fact that they did not give her a choice, and have only let her tangentially experience modernity doesn’t seem to occur to her parents, and I thought it was a really interesting parallel with Gen’s conflicts with her own parents. Gen of course has been raised entirely in the modern world, but really wasn’t given a choice about going to the camp for the summer. Gen and her brother do find things they love about this life, and when Gen is offered fame and a book deal, she turns it down rather than hurt the people at the camp. This could have been an incredibly cheesy ending, or felt false, but the perspective from Gen’s narration does ring true with her motivations. The major difference between Gen and Nora is that Gen has been given choices, and Nora has been forced into something she never agreed to.

I said earlier that I the idea of the camp itself annoyed me, and I should also say that I think deals with most of these issues in a fairly satisfying way. A few of the women nearly lead a feminist uprising (which would have been AWESOME), and when there’s a medical crisis and the illusion of 1890 is broken, Ron is honest with the kids about how things would have gone differently if it were actually 1890.

I totally want to do a book club discussion of this someday, to talk about the good and bad aspects of life on the frontier as the characters are experiencing it, finding balance in life (is it ok that Ron and Betsy occasionally take breaks from 1890, even though they so desperately wanted to leave the modern world?), the decisions parents try to make for their kids and the ways that can go wrong, and some of the other issues the book raised.

Overall I would absolutely recommend this to teenage girls and boys, especially if they read the Little House books as younger kids.

First, a tangentially related review. If you’re a librarian, spend a lot of time at you library, know librarians, or maybe a teacher and you aren’t reading Unshelved, well, you should be, is all. On Sundays they do “Book Club” strips which are basically book talks, and that’s how I found out about Project Mulberry. (The strip in question is here.)

Since reading that strip gives a better and more concise overview than I could, I’m just going to jump into my reactions to this book. LOVED it! The characters are all really likeable, and the changing relationship between the main character, Julia, and her younger brother is sweet. Not in a cloying way, just realistic. Not that I had a younger brother, but I remember seeing my friends with siblings go through a similar sea change when we were young. I would definitely recommend this book to kids having trouble getting along with younger siblings. Julia’s friend Patrick not only explains some of the reasons why siblings might have trouble with each other, but models some good coping and redirection tactics for the older sibling to use. I also enjoyed that Julia is amazed by how well her friend handles her younger brother, but also points out that he isn’t able to do the same thing with his younger siblings.

Between chapters Park has included sort of a running commentary, like you might find on a dvd, that takes the form of conversations between herself and Julia, her main character. She explains what she’s doing at the beginning of the book, and makes it clear that these are not at all necessary to the story, and can be entirely skipped if the reader so chooses. The interludes function as a behind the scenes look at how the story was written and what the author and character think about the book. There are also tidbits including where character names came from, and certain character quirks. Many young readers probably will skip these, but any kid who wants to write could learn a lot about story crafting from the way Park interacts with her character.

Another big reason for me to recommend this book is  the discussion of race that comes up. The author and main character are Korean-American, Julia’s best friend is white, and the character of Mr. Dixon is black. Park doesn’t shy away from the topic, nor does she offer an easy solution or fix to the problem. Instead the reader is invited to the discussion and confusion happening in Julia’s head as she works through the problems she sees before her. Is her mom racist because she doesn’t seem to trust Mr. Dixon? Or is she just concerned about her daughter? Is Mr. Dixon racist because he assumes Julia is Chinese? What about Julia’s own issues with being Korean, and not liking the silkworm project because it’s “too Korean?” I felt like the questions were raised in a sensitive manner, giving readers something to think about without telling them what to think, exactly. I appreciated that the main character is a person of color, giving her perspective on such a difficult subject that many young readers will be faced with as they grow and see racism around them.

*Spoiler alert, I am about to discuss the ending for a second.*

I also loved that in the end, the kids had a fantastic project but didn’t actually win in their categories. They still got a triumphant ending without being totally unrealistic, and it’s something I’d like to see more of in childrens’ literature.

Overall this book gets an A+. I really enjoyed reading it and I think the 9-12 age range will get a lot out of it. I may go check out the author’s other books, including her Newberry winner, A Single Shard.

That’s right, Friday at 7:30pm at the Lily Pad in Inman Sq, Cambridge, authors will be reading their stories from the Interfictions 2 Anthology, while musicians give us a concert to go with the words! So cool! So much fun! Everyone come! Tell your friends!

And while we’re talking about Interfictions, you should know that the Interstitial Arts Foundation, who put out the book and are sponsoring the event, are also running an auction of art pieces inspired by the stories in the collection. You can see them all here, and, oh, right, this one’s mine.

Thanks for reading!

1. Isn’t actually about libraries at all, it’s about women in tech from the Geek Feminism Blog, and I decided to go ahead and post it here because so much of librarianship these days involves technology, but I’m not sure how our numbers stack up for women in actual technical positions. Anybody know?

2. Next up we have Karen Springen at Publisher’s Weekly letting us know that the new hot thing in YA literature this Fall is going to be Angels. YA librarians, if your vampire readers are looking for the next thing, make sure to take a look at these titles!

3. Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing is asking for YA authors to send electronic copies of their books to a Detroit teacher so she can print them in Braille for her blind students. If you have a YA novel or know someone who does, please pass this along, accessibility is one of my big issues in librarianship, and this is a fantastic project she’s doing. In Massachusetts we’re lucky to have the Perkins School for the Blind and their amazing library serving the entire state, but I understand that not everyone has access to the same resources.

4. This is just tragic. Philadelphia is closing their entire library system due to budget cuts. I’m not sure I even have words for how sad that makes me. Here’s hoping things turn around there and libraries are able to re-open.

5. And finally, you’ve probably already heard about this, but a MA prep school has gotten rid of all their books. They’re going completely digital this year, and I’m torn. It really bothers me that they’re getting Kindles for some students but not all, for one thing. I’ve also already heard rumblings from many of my friends and peers that they wouldn’t send their kids to a school with no books in the library. So if nothing else, it’s a pretty bold and gutsy move, and I’m going to be interested to see how it works out for them. I really disapprove of getting rid of the reference desk in favor of a coffee shop as well. Just because they’re going digital doesn’t mean the students won’t need help with research, and in many cases it may mean they need more help navigating new databases and other electronic resources. To be fair, the article says they’re getting rid of the desk, but I’m not sure if it means that the library will not have reference services available. I also think the circulation numbers mentioned in the article are interesting, and the move to digital could turn out to be a really good thing for them. It looks like a lot of the success will depend on how the school sells the change to the parents who send their kids there. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

So that’s my link roundup for today, feel free to leave me other interesting library or book related links in the comments!

ANYWAY. Now that I’ve said all that I should maybe fill you in on this book, so you’ll know if maybe you’d like to read it too (oh, and the free e-book download ended September 5, sorry. Thought I’d better say that before people go looking for it.)

In the not-too-distant future of Uglies, beauty has been perfected, and society has been segregated into three sections. Children live with their parents (Crumblies or Middle Pretties) until they turn 12, at which point they are moved into a town of their own. It’s a pretty sweet set-up in some aspects. The kids all live together in big dorms, and they still have to go to school and have electronic minders keeping tabs on them, but they’re afforded a lot of freedom too. Science has fixed a lot of the problems of our current world, with pollution being pretty much a thing of the past, and poverty and hunger are completely eradicated, thanks to some interesting tech, which is glossed over more than a hardcore science fiction fan might appreciate, but I was ok with it. Learning how the maker technology works isn’t really the point of the book, you really just have to understand enough about how this society works to contrast it with our current world, and with an outside world that comes along later in the book.

I said earlier that beauty has been perfected, and it’s a pretty interesting concept. When the kids turn 16, they’re taken away from the Uglyville, given extensive plastic surgery, and turned into a “Pretty,” then sent to live in New Pretty Town until they get a bit older, are given another surgery, and become Middle Pretties. Everyone looks pretty much the same, with giant anime eyes and the most symmetrical features possible, bones are smoothed and shaped, eye color is enhanced, hair is made as glossy and lovely as possible, etc. Creepy as hell, right? But here was where it really got interesting for me. When I started the book and began to understand the system Westerfeld has set up, I was a little bit bored. It feels like territory that’s been covered many times before, and I think even with our intensely appearance-based society most teens would still be pretty freaked out by the idea of looking like everyone else. So instead of hammering home why it’s bad to look like everyone else, Westerfeld gives us some pretty compelling reasons why it might be good to make everyone look the same. The children are taught from a pretty early age that only by having everyone be beautiful in the same way can society have true equality, and the idea is basically that because they’ve perfected these surgeries and now give them to everyone, society has moved forward and can stop worrying about appearance so much. It’s clearly a pretty false system, but through the eyes of our main character, Tally Youngblood, it’s easy to see why it’s such a seductive system as well. One sticking point I have with the book is that race really doesn’t come up. It’s briefly mentioned by Tally that people used to kill each other and go to war over differences in skin color, and her teachers have impressed on her that this is stupid and insane, but it’s not made clear whether those different skin tones still exist or if they’ve been eradicated as part of the surgery as well. There’s a fairly typical science fiction trope that in the future, there will be enough inter-racial marriage and breeding that we’ll all be sort of taupy-beige, and a lot of times that’s presented as an awesome way to get past racial inequality. In this book it’s pretty clear that if that is the case, it’s not necessarily a good thing.

Tally spends most of the part being very much a part of this system. It’s another thing Westerfeld does to make us uncomfortable with our assumptions about the system being bad, because Tally’s pretty likeable, and a good kid with a nice rebellious streak in her. As the book continues and Tally is given more reason to question the current system, and maybe even question whether or not she really wants to be pretty, I almost felt a sigh of relief. Of course the system is secretly evil, thank goodness it is! Even here though, the way the Westerfeld reveals the problems within the set up is done really nicely, and the way that Tally is forced to abandon her comfort zone is pretty believable. I don’t want to say too much beyond that for fear of spoilers.

One other issue I have with the book is the fact that it ends on a cliffhanger. Like really really, OMG WHAT HAPPENS NEXT kind of cliffhanger. I know there’s going to be a second book, and I almost can’t imagine any way around the cliffhanger, but if that sort of thing bugs you, be aware of it here. It bugs me, but that’s totally a personal preference, of course.

The bottom line here is that I really enjoyed this book. I like the way Westerfeld has set up his world, and I like the way that the outside comes in, subtly at first and then in a way that our protagonist can’t ignore anymore. I think it’s a pretty fantastic read and great for kids and teens, especially those going through their awkward phase and wishing they could just be pretty.