Dragonhaven

By Robin McKinley
342 pages, 2007

I've been a fan of Robin McKinley since I read "Sunshine", which I will have to post about soon. Sunshine turns out to have been one of my favorite books, maybe not of all time, but that I read in 2007. I read a lot of books in 2007.

Since reading "Sunshine", I read "Deerskin"... twice. I re-read Sunshine earlier this year, just for fun (actually it's a great book to read in the middle of a dreary sunless winter), and was reminded how great it was, so I put Deerskin on hold, and when it arrived and voraciously started reading... and it was eerily familiar. I opened it randomly later on down the book... oh yes! I've definitely read this. I didn't actually re-read it all the way through, but it is now fresh in my mind again. I'll have to post about that too.

But anyway, back to Dragonhaven, after my disappointment in having already read Deerskin, I was very eager to start this book. This is a young adult novel. It's written in a boy's first person point of view. He lives in an animal preserve in the middle of nowhere with his dad and some other naturalists, but it's a pretty lonely life. He's still depressed from his mother's untimely death a couple years ago. Just to make things worst, his dog died too.

As a kind of coming of age ceremony, he gets to go on his first solo overnight hike into the depths of the animal preserve. Not to worry, the animals that live in this preserve are secretive and have never been reported to attack humans. They also happen to be wild dragons. Something happens on his solo hike that changes his life forever.

So yeah, this is another coming of age story, but with a wild premise. I didn't particularly care for the style it was written in, since a huge amount of the head and end of the story are exposition and denouement. It really took a lot of movement away from the telling. I got kind of bored, even though he was talking about dragons and other exciting things. I really liked this middle parts though, where he's telling the action as it happens, and I could get really wrapped up in it.

I read this while I was quite sick, and it really distracted me from my suffering. I would recommend this book if you like a little fantasy mixed with a little realism.

War of the Flowers

Just finished War of the Flowers by Tad Williams. I'm kind of a sucker for him, so I was excited to see some books by him I hadn't read yet when I was at the bookstore the other day. This one is just one book; he tends to write multi-part epics, each volume being over 500 pages. Wordy. But, if you like sci-fi and fiction, he's quite fun to read, so I like the length.

This one is about a 30-year-old guy whose life is going horribly and then he's suddenly whisked off to an alternate world that's all fantastic and stuff. He gets all wrapped up in that world and its various societal changes and impending war, and it turns out that his help is needed to save the world! (surprise!) The whole time he's being pursued by evil forces, including an unstoppable "Terminator"-like creature.

Williams introduces many characters and plot thickeners, and deftly ties them all together. I felt like he did that perhaps too well in this book. As I approached the climax of the story, I realized there were still a couple plot thickeners he hadn't resolved yet... and lo! here they come to help resolve the story. So, I wasn't very surprised by the resolution. It was still satisfying though.

Pretty fun stuff, a long but swift read.

Pucker

Pucker
by Melanie Gideon
• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
• Hardcover: 273 pages
• Publisher: Razorbill (May 18, 2006)
• ISBN: 1595140557
• Genre: Fantasy, coming of age

Thomas Quicksilver, a 17-year old with disfiguring burn scars on his face from a childhood accident, lives with his mother who earns money by telling people their futures. Thomas and his mother escaped from Isaura, a parallel world where seeing the future is an everyday occurance, after a terrifying attack that killed his father and wounded his mother, and caused the fire that burned Thomas’ face. Now, his mother is slowly dying as a result of the attack and only one thing can save her. However, this thing remains back on the world from which they ran. Now Thomas must return and seek out a way to save his mother’s life.

Thomas’ life since the accident that burned his face has been difficult; few people seem to be able to see past the burn marks that disfigure him. An outcast at school and in the world at large, he has grown accustomed to not being seen. All that changes when he returns to Isaura. His face is magically healed and he must become accustomed to attention and the effects of attention on him. As he struggles to remain faithful to the reason he came back to Isaura, he learns things that finally help him understand himself and his past.

Told in first person in the voice of Thomas, this book is extremely engaging. The reader connects immediately to the pain of this disfigured teenager and struggles with him in his search for meaning. When Thomas discovers the attention of girls, it almost overwhelms him. This book would appeal to both girls and boys by exploring coming of age issues such as emerging sexuality, self-knowledge, and getting to know your parents as people. Although told in a boy’s voice, girls will identify with any of the many female characters. Some profanity, mild sexuality described but nothing explicit.