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Tag: librarian reviews

✨Unsettling✨ nostalgia for your holiday reading

Ah, December. A time of things-slowing-down, the official start of Summer, and oh, that Christmas thing as well. With the warm* weather, many people going off on holiday, and the end of the year rolling around, I always start to feel nostalgic. And my nostalgia often manifests as reserving a bunch of my favourite books to re-read.

*Warm-er? Warm-ish? Not-as-much-rain?

Now I’m sure I’ve mentioned before my love for The Queen’s Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner, and my almost-constant-need to be listening to one of the audiobooks**. So if you haven’t read or listened to those you should immediately go and do so! These books are wonderfully written, full of complex and real characters, political machinations, some excellent god/human interactions, complicated relationships, and very good depictions of characters dealing with trauma. But they’re also funny and all the characters tell stories to each other and care a lot about their people and ugh, they’re just so good.

**Yes, I really like them as audiobooks. I have had conversations about this with Teen Blogger Grimm who just cannot get into the audiobooks because magnificent narrator Steve West pronounces the names differently to how she says them in her head, but while we cannot agree on this point, we do agree that these books are Excellent and Everyone should read them.

A small cat lying in a box with all her legs hidden

You need a picture to break up all these words. Please enjoy this unsettled cat – where did all her legs go?!

Why am I telling you about these books again? Well, mainly because the books I tend to get nostalgic for are not books like this series***. I get the itch to go back and re-read some of those (dare I say it) simpler adventure stories**** I enjoyed when I was younger. But whenever I venture forth into the stacks to retrieve these particular books, I’m always surprised by how dark and grim they are, and by the unsettled feeling I’m left with.

***But I still wanted to tell you all about this series again! Go read them. Seriously.

****Ok, ‘simpler adventures’ maybe, but still often a bit twisty.*****

*****I apologise for the footnotes? Not sure why so many are creeping into this particular post.

So, obviously, I’ve decided to share some of these books that I love with you, in case you also want something to read over the summer that is vaguely unsettling, enjoyable, and not too long. So read on for books about bone porridge, many discreet murders, horrible family members, and a fair share of malignant spirits.

The stolen lake / Aiken, Joan
This is always the first one that comes to mind. Joan Aiken wrote a fantastic series of books that started with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase about an alternate history version of England where the Stuarts kept the throne, and it was never passed on to the Hanovers. Different books in the series focus on different characters. The Stolen Lake features Dido Twite, a girl who was swept out to sea and picked up by a ship in a previous book. She’s slowly navigating her way home, and in this book her ship is called to aid fictional New Cumbria in South America. Dido finds herself in a very grim place, where giant birds carry people off and the queen eats bone porridge (sourced from the bones of young girls she’s had thrown to the piranhas) to maintain her youth. Brilliant stuff!

Is underground / Aiken, Joan
Another in the same series as The Stolen Lake! No bone porridge here, just some pretty awful child labour. Children, including the Crown Prince of England, have been going missing in London and another young Twite is tasked with figuring out what’s going on. And what’s going on (and this is not a spoiler given the cover illustration) is that they’re being kidnapped and transported up North to work underground in a coal mine. And a foundry. And there may be accidents involving molten metal.

The owl service / Garner, Alan
Why yes, that character probably did murder that other character in the past. But what can you expect when a fragment of tale from the Mabinogion amplifies itself throughout history and keeps repeating and repeating and repeating? Owls are bad, flowers are not, but both are still creepy. I could say SO MUCH about this book, but that might put you off. Just let me tell you this: you don’t need armies of ghosts or witches with ovens to create something truly spooky and (I can’t forget my keyword here!) unsettling. Just some plates found in an attic, some pebble-dash, and a whole lot of interpersonal angst.

Under the mountain / Gee, Maurice
Ah, my most-read book in my primary school library. It’s set in Auckland and has been made into both a TV series and a movie over the years and is full of volcanoes and weird-worm/slug-mud-aliens that are set on total world domination and annihilation. It’s just one of those fun adventures with some red-haired twins with special powers, right? Err, not quite. It’s slightly scary, very unsettling, and not everyone comes out unscathed in the end.

Tripswitch / Gordon, Gaelyn
Another New Zealand author who has written something that is both kinda fun, and very unsettling the more you think about it. Three orphaned cousins are brought together to live with their aunt (coincidence? Or multiple sororicides on the aunt’s part?), and she’s just so …evil? Mean and nasty yes, but when you find out the reason she had her twins everything just gets much more serious. But there’s also a lot of humour in it (the sports team who just decide to steal a bus??), which possibly makes the grim details stand out a bit more.

Black Maria / Jones, Diana Wynne
Diana Wynne Jones is WONDERFUL. She’s written some marvellously fun and twisty books for children full of weird magic and quirky characters. But she’s also written some truly chilling books. This is one of them, and there’s just so much going on. From buried imprisonment, to not-really-dead fathers, a sweeter-than-ever Great-Aunt with a will of iron, to an entire town under one person’s thumb, it just makes you look at small town life in a different way. And Great-Aunts.

The time of the ghost / Jones, Diana Wynne
More Diana Wynne Jones creepiness. This time, we learn what happens when some kids mess with something beyond their ken or control. When the ghost comes back in time she knows that something awful is going to happen, so we also know this, but all the characters that the ghost is watching don’t know this so as they creep closer to disaster we just know that something will go wrong, but we don’t know what will go wrong… So there’s a lot of tension and trying to figure things out, and let me just say that I will not be going near any soft toys left outside to grow mildew after reading this!

The changeover / Mahy, Margaret
Margaret Mahy’s another author who can write joyful and fun, adventure and excitement, and also haunting and chilling. And this book is the latter. Laura’s day starts with a warning, and ends with her younger brother getting his soul slowly sucked out of him through a stamp on his hand. This is very understated horror, but there’s just so many very normal things in there that what happens really sticks in your mind. They even made a movie of it, set in post-earthquake Christchurch!

And I’ll even add a bonus book in, because how can you talk unsettling childhood stories without delving into the Brothers Grimm?

The complete Grimm’s fairy tales / Grimm, Jacob
We all know some of the Grimm’s fairy tales, but there are a whole lot more that not many people stumble across. And a lot of them are VERY weird!

Below, I have written out one of the shorter unsettling stories from this particular collection, under the Read more. If you want to feel incredulous that such a story was written, and really put the grim in Grimm, well then, just read on…

Read More

Our Best Reads of 2022: What Your Librarians Have Read This Year

2022 is (almost) at its end. It’s over and done with. We can hang it out to dry, wash our hands of it, and kick it to the curb.

Or we can cling to the last remaining hours of 2022 and look back over the year that has been. And by “the year that has been” I do of course mean “the books we have read”.

There are many librarians who work for Wellington City Libraries, and these librarians read many books, and many of these books are YA (or YA adjacent), and many of these YA books are actually very good. And people definitely like knowing what their librarians are reading, right?

So I have pestered and poked my colleagues until they have given in and sent me a review of their own personal Top YA Book of 2022. The books in this list may not all have been published in 2022, but they have been discovered by us lofty librarians over the last twelve months, and we think they are worth sharing. So read on, and judge not our reading choices lest you too be judged!

Bridget

The gaps / Hall, Leanne Michelle
If you’re into psychological thrillers which are more than just psychological thrillers I recommend The Gaps! While I really wanted to know who kidnapped Yin, I also appreciated the characters of Chloe and Natalia, their interactions, and how they transform from what could just be school stereotypes into really real people.

Also available as an ebook.

Grace

Cinderella is dead / Bayron, Kalynn

Despite this book being out since 2020 I only picked it up this year, and I definitely did not regret it! In a world where the Cinderella story has become a tool of the patriarchy, women and girls are second-class citizens whose job is to be good wives and mothers. Sophia has grown up wondering why she can’t be the hero of the story, and when the sexist rules of society come between Sophia and her girlfriend Erin she is thrust down a path that will change her life. I loved the fairy-tale retelling vibe of this book because it wasn’t trapped by the original Cinderella story and instead created a captivating world in its own right. Would definitely recommend to YA readers looking for a fantasy book with queer romance, and anyone who loves to smash the patriarchy!

Also available as an ebook.

Gus

Superman, son of Kal-El. Vol. 1, The truth / Taylor, Tom

Jon Kent, son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, must take up the mantle of Superman while his father is off on a mission in deep space. It’s a big burden to place upon a teenager, but not only is Jon up to the task, he sets out to be a better Superman than his father, one more willing to tackle today’s issues: climate change, refugee crises, journalism under threat, and the military-industrial complex. Writer Tom Taylor has a great handle on all the characters, and explores some genuinely fresh angles on Superman and his supporting cast that I’ve never considered; speaking as an emigree, I particularly loved Jon and Clark’s conversation about whether one should actively improve or simply make the best of your adopted home. Artist John Timms nails the emotional beats, particularly the landmark issue where Jon is confirmed to be bisexual and gets a new boyfriend in underground journalist Jay Nakamura, and the action scenes demanded of character who debuted in ‘Action Comics’. Superman: son of Kal-El gives us the Man of Tomorrow we need today, one who is unquestionably heroic, unapologetically queer, and always striving to improve.

J’shuall of Jackanapery

All summer long / Larson, Hope

This short little comic is just a wonderfully sweet coming of age story about how relationships and hobbies can change as you grow up. A young teen, having to deal with summer break without her best friend, becomes close to the friend’s sister over a shared love of music. It’s a very nostalgic story that can remind people of their recent past or show how you can deal with these oh so common problems. It has two sequels, about her efforts in making a band and the growing complexity of teenaged life. Great short read.

Also available as an ebook.

Maiph

Firekeeper’s daughter / Boulley, Angeline
I must first admit that I did start this book under a slight misapprehension. I was browsing various queer-related subject headings on our catalogue to find some holiday reading and this book came up listed under “Lesbian teenagers Teen Fiction”. Unfortunately I did discover that there are in fact no lesbians in this book (and subsequently requested that a cataloguer remove this accidentally applied tag), but actually, I didn’t mind.

I listened to Firekeeper’s Daughter while camping with friends out of cellphone reception. At one point I had to walk half an hour along the gravel road back into reception to update my Libby app so I could continue listening. It was worth it: this is a brilliantly immersive book, and it really felt like I had to dig myself out of main-character Daunis’s world as she struggled with family tragedy, murder, Ojibwe tribal enrolment, and her precarious position as an FBI informant investigating a new drug that is harming her community. And that’s a lot to deal with! But this really is overall a heartwarming story as Daunis is a character who just embraces her identity and culture and community so fully and is in turn embraced back – that scene on the ferry with the elders and the cars? Read it and you’ll understand.

Also available as an eaudiobook and ebook.

Stephen

The rest of us just live here / Ness, Patrick
Patrick Ness’s trademark poetic and slightly oblique style is really brought to bear in this YA sci-fi deconstruction to end all YA sci-fi deconstructions. What if something remarkable and improbable is happening in your town (dark and mystical forces colliding; people’s family members disappearing in the woods; extra-terrestrial beings descending from the Great Beyond to wreak terror and destruction, only to be stopped at the last minute by an ordinary teen who just happens to be the only one with the power to stand up to what may or may not be the gods of old made manifest in this realm), but you’re *not* the Chosen One? In fact, you’re just a background character. In most books like this, you’d be among the first to go, possibly before we even got to hear your tragic backstory. And frankly, you’d really like it to stay that way. You’re not trying to save the world, you’re just trying to make it through the day without embarrassing yourself too much. A fun and quick read that has more than a little heart as well, thanks to Ness’s trademark lyricism in prose. Read this book only at night, ideally while listening to Radiohead (but not, like, Kid A or anything, this is more In Rainbows fare). 8.5/10.

Also available as an eaudiobook and ebook.

TackyCardigan

Fat chance, Charlie Vega / Maldonado, Crystal

I’m always on the hunt for fiction that is relatable as well as entertaining.  Fat Chance, Charlie Vega is the story of a popular, funny, smart teenage girl who also happens to be fat.  A fact which people can’t seem to stop reminding her.  Particularly her Mum, who is constantly on her case about it, even cruel sometimes.  When her long time crush asks her to the big school dance, she’s thrilled, but it turns out he’s only trying to get at her best friend, the thin and pretty Amelia.  When Charlie finds out her friend Brian really likes her, she keeps it secret for a while, worried that everyone around her will think he’s pretending too.  Brian tries really hard to reassure Charlie that he really does like her, but when Charlie finds out he once had a crush on Amelia, Charlie isn’t able to cope, feeling like she’s a consolation prize.

Fat Chance Charlie Vega is a sweet, charming story that also holds the realities of living in a world where thinness and whiteness are held up as the ideal.  It’s a relatable story, because when you’re a young fat girl, you’re so conditioned to believing that no-one will love you as you are, that when they do, you can’t believe it’s true.  I also love that it shows how sometimes we’re so bruised by the world around us, that we take it out on the people closest to us even though we know it’s not their fault.

Also available as an ebook.

Tessa

Alex / Duder, Tessa

Had I read this before? Yes. Did I know exactly what was going to happen to Alex? Yes. Did I still miss my bus stop while reading about Alex’s final race because I was so invested? Yes! Alex is about a 15-year-old swimmer working towards qualifying for the 1960 Olympic games. It’s compelling because Alex is so relatable, she’s dealing with school, boys, periods and friends all while breaking swimming records and training for hours a day. By the end of the book you’re just as desperate for her to succeed as she is because you’ve been right there beside her through all the training, hard work and struggles she’s had to deal with. 10/10 a New Zealand classic that’s worth (re)reading!

Also available as an ebook, or read the whole quartet in one volume.

Starters by Lissa Price

Set after a war where most adults have been killed by a biologogical weapon, the people remaining are mostly either children or teenagers (Starters) or the elderly (Enders). The Starters are unable to work and if an adult doesn’t claim them they can’t get accommodation, and can be arrested if they are caught. Enders are at the other end of the scale. They have health care to keep them alive until well into their hundreds, near limitless wealth and live in huge mansions.

Callie lives in an abandoned building with her friend Michael and her younger brother Tyler. Tyler is only seven, and unwell but they have no access to any kind of health care and no way of getting help. However, Callie has heard of one way she might be able to earn enough to get them a house and some safety. Prime Destinations run a body bank where Enders can rent the bodies of Starters, be young again, play sports, all that sort of thing. Callie should be asleep while the Ender is having fun being her, but the chip used to control her is defective and she wakes up to find out that the Ender who hired her wasn’t just planning on playing tennis or going dancing – she wants to use Callie’s body to kill someone.

 

Starters is a really good read, highly recommended if you are looking for more dystopia, and especially if you liked Scott Westerfelds Uglies trilogy.

Lissa Price’s blog is here.

Best of 2010: Andrée’s and Lucy’s Pick

Manstealing for Fat Girls, Michelle Embree

A great book for older teens, characters are not your usual beautiful mall rats but interesting people with quirks, family issues and are just trying to get their rubbish together.

~ Andrée

(Set in St Louis (in the US) in the 1980s; the goodreads.com description says this is an “off-kilter” novel, which we like.)

This is also favourably reviewed by Lucy Longstockings!

Based in the 1980’s and published in 2006, Manstealing for Fat Girls came to our library this year and the odd title and pretty cover intrigued me. Warning though: this book is RAW. This messed up account of Angie aka ‘Lezzylard’ is not your typical tale of high school romance with football jackets and promise rings. Angie’s crowd are the outcasts, the dealers, the kids who wag school and get wasted on whatever. I highly recommend this, and, although the setting might be different and the music and the slang are way 80’s, the angst of being a teenager, frustrated and bored, is timeless.

~ Lucy

Best of 2010: Monty’s and Raewyn’s Picks

Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel

Slightly epic fantasy ghost comic with nicely gruesome humour and characters you like – to be released as a film soon…

~ Monty

Geektastic : stories from the Nerd Herd

What happens when a Klingon wakes up in the morning next to a Jedi!? I mean they are the enemy – Star Trek versus Star Wars! “Once you’re a Jedi, you’re a Jedi all the way” is the first short story scenario in this anthology of funny stories of geeks.

~ Raewyn

Best of 2010: Grimm’s Pick

The Piper’s Son, Melina Marchetta

<3

I recommended this book to (I think) absolutely everyone I know. Sorry to the people I nagged (except my sister, who I shall continue nagging until she reads it), but it is a wonderful book and I now recommend it virtually, again.

It’s about Tom (who you might know about if you’ve read Saving Francesca), and his aunt Georgie, and how important family can be, and how devastating it is when your incredibly tight-knit family cracks under pressure, and how not forgiving people can tie you up in knots, as well as the person you’re steadfastly not forgiving. It’s also got some very funny moments (in case that all sounds a bit hard).

Read it!

~ Grimm

Best of 2010: Pippa’s Picks

Two trilogy-completing dystopian epics from Pippa – an interesting combo.

I can’t decide between Mockingjay (last in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins) and Monsters of Men (last in the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness). Both are very exciting, action packed books (and very violent, so maybe not suitable for under teenage years) that deal with issues of power and corruption in very different societies from our own (futuristic settings, but not sci fi really). Both have strong female and male teen characters who have to make terrifying decisions in order to survive. Fantastic!

~ Pippa

Review: The Raging Quiet

We’ve asked library staff for some reviews, here’s one of a great book written by New Zealand author Sherryl Jordan.

This year, I really enjoyed The Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan. It’s the tale of Marnie, married at 16 to a wealthy landowner and beginning a new life in the seaside town of Torcurra. Set in Medieval Europe, it richly invokes the living conditions and atmosphere of the times. Jordan writes in a beautiful style, and all of her books are hard to put down. Highly recommended!

~ Rowan