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Genius: The Game

Genius: The Game by Leopoldo Gout

Rex, Cai, and Tunde are three of the most brilliant kids in the world. Which is why they number among the 200 youth who attend The Game, a competition pitting these young geniuses against each other for an unknown prize. Running the Game is the young CEO Kiran Biswas, who seems to have some mysteries of his own. They know this is an oppotunity of a lifetime, not just to compete, but to accomplish their own goals. Rex is determined to find his missing brother, Tunde has to work for a corrupt general to keep his family safe, and Cai (under her blog handle, Painted Wolf) needs to learn more about what's going on behind the scenes of the game, and her father's business. As the competition heats up, these three teens discover they're in more trouble than they know.

When I picked up this book, I was afraid that it was going to be more Hunger Games style kids-killing-kids sort of deal, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out it wasn't. They are competing in engineering and coding and all sorts of awesome, geeky stuff. It had sort of a Ready Player One feel for me, but it's also young adult, so it's a lot cleaner. The book was also very visually interesting with a lot of diagrams and just a cool layout.

Each chapter would trade off between the three main characters telling their own story. I thought all three were likable and interesting characters. Tunde was my favorite, and I think the author did a great job of writing in his voice. Tunde is from Nigeria and his way of speaking is shown without being over the top, and sometimes he throws in a pidgin language which I thought was cool too. It was also nice to see these characters who were very genuine with each other. The story is exciting enough and I'm glad there's not a lot of angst-ridden teenagers running around too.

I was kept interested the whole time reading, and was excited and frustrated to learn that this is the first book in a series. Excited because I am ready for more, and frustrated because it doesn't come out until next year.

Genius is a new book to our library, and it can be found in the Young Adult section.

Pardon our dust

Closed for remodel....

The Paper Magician

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

Ceony Twill has graduated at the top of her class in only one year at the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined. Students learn the basics behind the magic of manipulating manmade materials. Despite her success, and her desire to learn metal magic, she has been assigned to be a paper magician. And once she's bonded to the material, there's no turning back. 

She arrives at her apprenticeship with Magician Emery Thane in a thoroughly bad mood, but is soon charmed by her teacher, if not by her work. When an Excisioner--a user of dark magic--attacks Thane and leaves him dying, it's up to Ceony to save him and herself in an unexpected adventure.

This is the kind of fantasy that I like, where everything is happening in the real world, there's just magic in it too. This story took place in the early 1900s, but I enjoyed that it sort of existed in its own unique time and place. It didn't feel like a "historical fiction" by any means. I also really like how the magic was done. It was all pretty simple and had more to do with technique than with power.

The book definitely took me by surprise when it came to Ceony's battle to save Thane. It's hard to explain without spoiling it, but it was an idea that impressed me. I love when I'm reading a book and I think, "How did the author even come up with this?" While I had a little trouble with Ceony's bad attitude at first, I found that I liked both main characters quite a lot in the end. And the antagonist is nothing to sneeze at either.

It is a relatively short book. but it is full of substance. It didn't take me too long to read, but only because I wasn't willing to put it down very often. It is the first in a series and I look forward to reading the next two books!

The Paper Magician can be found in our Adult Fiction section.

The Queen's Poisoner

The Queen's Poisoner by Jeff Wheeler

This is the first book in the Kingfountain Series. At only the age of  seven, Owen is sent away from his home to live in the King's palace where he must learn how to survive the politics of the kingdom. Owen is not a guest of the king, but a hostage who is being held as ransom while the king determines the fate of his family. He soon makes a few friends as well as a few enemies in the castle, but somehow he needs to find a way to outwit the king and keep his family alive.

Although this book had some intrigue, I could not get very involved in it. I did finish the book because I wanted to see how it ended, but it took me a long time to read because it just did not keep me captivated.

Book Club

We also have our Book Club on Thursday in the Evening!

 

Zentangle Class Tomorrow AFTERNOON!

Red Rising

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Red Rising is a book that people seem to really love or really hate, according to the star ratings on bookseller websites. The plot deals with a 16 year old Darrow living as a miner on a terraformed Mars who is chosen to infiltrate a school of other elite teens. They will have to show their aptitude for leadership in a huge Hunger Games-like test. His goal is to bring down the corrupt government which took everything he once loved.

Does that sound like every other dystopian teen novel? Because it was.

The main character was a sort of Gary Stu – he was somehow good at everything, always had good luck (especially after really bad things happened), and had a heart of gold. He was in danger throughout the book, but I never really felt like he wasn’t going to make it out alive.

Red Rising was an easy read, and I did want to finish it and see how things resolved. I never felt like I really knew what was coming, though it still felt a little too much like Hunger Games. I guess the main difference was that in this approximately year-long game, the point is not to kill one another, but to take the opposing teams’ lands and resources. Killing was not supposed to be the method, but it happened frequently enough that it was a big concern for most of the students.

There’s a fair bit of Roman mythology weaved in, which was fun to try to see if there were comparisons to figure out. The Roman elements didn’t seem to have much bearing on the plot, but it may become so in future books.

The content in the book was a bit more mature than in Hunger Games, but not really too adult either. There were some sexual references, including name-calling and insults, and there were several mentions of rape. This book may be in YA sections in some libraries and Adult fiction in others, however, the characters are all teens, and the writing itself feels like other YA fiction. It’s likely that older teens would find this book interesting, a little edgy, but probably not be embarrassed telling their parents about it.

This is the first book in a trilogy, and this one ends with a huge set-up for whatever comes next. So, even though the plot felt a little too unoriginal, it was still a decent read. I would hesitate recommending it to younger teens or anyone who wants a squeaky-clean book – the characters are vengeful, sometimes murderous, manipulative, etc. Darrow is all of these things, but he is conflicted about it and thinks about it often – he has to infiltrate the government to bring it down, and he has to be the things he hates to do it.

There is a movie in the works, so you can be sure this book will only grow in popularity. You’ll probably see more and more of it in the coming months.

Overall, if you like books with sci-fi elements that don’t deal too deeply with complex technology or space travel, and if you like huge casts of characters with interweaving plots, this book will likely entertain and leave you wanting to find out what happens next. I’d give it 3 out of 5 Mars, er, stars…

Secrets of a Charmed LIfe

Kendra Van Zant is an American student just finishing up four months of studying in England, it's the end of the term and she is interviewing a survivor of the Blitz during WWII, for her final writing project. Everyone was surprised when Isabel agreed to be interviewed by Kendra, but no one was more intrigued than Kendra when Isabel begins her story that reveals decades of secrets.

Isabel's story begins with two sisters who live with their single mother at a time when single mothers were not really accepted in society.  It was also at the beginning of England's involvement in WWII and many had not yet felt the affects of war, until children were shipped off to the country where they would be safe from Germany's bombs.

This was a touching story of two sisters who were tragically separated during the blitz and their story of trying to find each other and how their loss haunted them even into their adult years. I did enjoy reading this book. Towards the end, there is a section made up of letters and I found myself skipping through them just to get to the end, otherwise a very good book.

Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner