Book Review: Under my Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, edited by Jonathan Strahan

Who doesn't love witches?

The tingle begins, the green fire rises inside her. She Smiles again, staring at the doorway, and waits...

Enjoy this inventive and quick-witted collection of witch stories by some of our most loved fantasy authors writing today. Young witches, old witches, kind witches, mean witches, witches' dogs, witches' curses. They are all here, in their diversity and richness, lurking amongst the pages of this treasury, just waiting to be set free to allow their magic to fill your imagination.

What's in it: Spider Silk, Eye of Newt, Black Moss, Snake Venom 

A short stories about witches, what could go wrong?

Intro by Jonathan Strahan: Strahan quoted from Wikipedia and does it wrong, as the internet changes you have to have the date. He also refers to Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty as being a witch when she a fairy. They might be few version where she a witch, but in the Disney version she an Evil Fairy. These are basic facts.

Stray Magic by Diana Peterfreund: A special dog appears at the pound. Interesting concept. Almost feels like the start of a novel. 4/5 stars for cheesy names.

Payment Due by Frances Hardinge: This one was interesting too. A teen girl gets revenge on a bailiff. 3/5 stars for Body Swaps.

A Handful of Ashes by Garth Nix: This features a Oxford like witch and wizard university so it has colleges within it. Snobish and evil bullies so fun. Well, thought out world, my brief research it doesn't appear to be an extension of another word. 4/5 stars for Radish Girls.

Little Gods by Holly Black: A baby Wiccan goes to her first covens gathering and big ceremony. Religion and wanting magic. This is was okay, kinda bland next to the previous ones. 3/5 stars for alcohol offerings.

Barrio Girls by Charles de Lint: Barrio girls are obsessed with Twilight/Vampire Diary clone and they come across a Vampire Witch. I liked the writing style of this book and the idea. 4/5 stars for Moonstream Merch.

Felidis by Tanith Lee: A guy wandering about in the woods, ends up lying and living with cat lady. This was old fashion thing, the idea was alright. Kinda sad.  3/5 stars for velvet skin.

Witch Work by Neil Gaiman: This is a poem. A poem about a witch by the sea. It's fine, not got many opinions about poems. 3/5 stars for silk cords.

The Education of a Witch by Ellen Klages: Once again Maleficent is called a witch when she not. She a fairy, mistress of all evil. Also I just don't think its that weird for a kid to like Maleficent. The fairies are the only actual characters in that film. This story has chapters in it and then nothing happens. There's all this build up for nothing. A five year is negated by her parents so she only starts to do bad things by the end 1/5 stars for bad puppets.

The Threefold World by Ellen Kushner: Elias Lönnrot is a real Finnish Historican figure and a witch according to this story. Okay... 3/5 stars for unwanted wares.

The Witch in the Wood by Delia Sherman: This writer is married to the writer before her story, which is kinda cute that they next to each other. So actual story is a girl coming across a deer and falling in love with said deer. The writing style worked for this type of story. 4/5 stars for Bad Deals.

Which Witch by Patricia A McKillip: This involves a musical band of witches with two violin players and murders of Crows. Something random happens. Better short film than short story. 3/5 stars for crow feathers.

 The Carved Forest by Tim Pratt: A fourteen year old girl decides to run away the day before Thanksgiving, so her brother follows her to the local witch house. 3/5 stars for Rootless Trees.

Burning Castles by M Rickert: This is the question of magic, unlike most of the other stories. The style was okay. 3/5 stars for tree earrings.

The Stone Witch by Isobelle Carmody: You're on Air plane and then you're on a quest for an egg. Also addressing making life discussion without realising. 4/5 stars for Hipster Demons.

Andersen's Witch by Jane Yolen: This is about Hans Christian Andersen, who made a deal with an Ice Maiden for three wishes. Karen Marie is referred as both his step and half-sister, and is obviously a sex worker in this story. Brief search says there no evidence of this, nor is it necessary. Yolen also equals marriage as love and that children love Hans Christian Andersen. Not really, they love Disney. Andersen's just seems a bit of dick going off his work. Disney too like that narrative considering in the Little Mermaid Cartoon series, he meets Ariel (pre-legs) and then writes a story in which she has her tongue cut out and has no soul, then dies. This story becomes more problematic with the bio-note that says the Yolen is refer to as the American Hans Christian Andersen so the ending is quite vain. Odd anyway. Basically, the Ice Queen definitely wins now. 1/5 stars for Gentlemen Callers or Stock Legs.
 
B is for Bigfoot by Jim Butcher: This is part of the The Dresden Files series, you don't need to know the series, it works without that knowledge. Though, I did watch the TV series, didn't recognize from that though. He's a wizard who also a PI. 4/5 stars for Ice Buckets.

Great-Grandmother in the Cellar by Peter S Beagle: Women either have bad taste in men or are weird not witches demon things. Those parts of the story ain't great. Kinda interesting otherwise. He wrote the Last Unicorn, book and film. HM... 3/5 stars for Witch Boys.
 
Crow and Caper, Caper and Crow by Margo Lanagan: A grandmother goes to bless their grand daughter. 4/5 stars for walnut-shell ships.

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for leaking cauldrons. These were mostly good, some were not about witches or magic users so disappointing. If you like witches, it worth checking out.

Book Review: Whispers in Graveyard by Theresa Breslin

This book might have been written for me if only for a few things.If it was Harder core and female lead.

They want me to join them. All I have to do is to reach out to them...

Nobody understands Solomon's dyslexia. The only place he feels safe in the old graveyard, under the rowan tree. But when the workment uproot the tree, a dark and terriflying power is released, and only only Solomon can stop it...

Whispers in the Graveyard won the Carnegie Medal, and has became a modern classic of children's literature.

This book has Graveyard in the title and main character dyslexia. If you've been playing attention then you'll know I am dyslexic (which explains weird spelling and grammer mistakes) and that if book has a graveyard in it I specifically tag it. Also Graveyards because character limits. It's a thing I have been doing since 13 February 2013. So of course, I checked this book of the library.

This book was written purely for Dyslexia by a librarian. I also stopped at Dyslexia so didn't see the modern classic bit. So once I started I checked when this book was written which as 1994.  Two years before Dunblane shooting where at lot of laws changed. It's of its time, but not in a bad way, it was just odd going in thinking this was a modern contempory and not realising that is was when it came out 23 years ago. When I was tiny and cute. So I'm talk a little abit about Dyslexia during this time and whether it get's it right.

So I was dynosis when I was eight meaning sometime in 2001, but had been probably going through tests since 1999 so 5 years after this book was published. Solomon has his eyes tested, colour tested, and hearing. I don't remember getting my hearing tested (nor does my mother). But my eyes were tested several times and remember doing the colour blindness tests a lot. Dyslexia was the thing during time, then it was ADHD (my headteacher was convinced what I had, though I had none of the symtoms). Now it's Autism, which basically means people know what it is in theory but also not at all.

So the writer has done their research. Do I think it is captured well? Not really, but kinda of. So I was dynosised just for having Dyslexia when I was eight, but also then Autism when I was Twenty-Two so my symtoms overlap. The crumsness of Dyslexia is there, but he never get offically dysnosised. There's just a wonder teacher that realises his disability.

My worst compliant about this book is that there's speech by the Wonder teacher that says dyslexia is not a dysabily. Oh, honey I just wrote Disability completely wrong and I will forever miss-spell basic words. I live in a world with google and voice reconsigation software and you didn't know those things were coming. Dyslexia is a Learning Disability. It's a disability. Calling it a difficulty as those two thing don't mean the same thing in this situation, is missing the point. It's like getting upset when someone calls a novel a book. Yes, two different definitions. A book can be a non-fiction or a collection of short stories but novel always come in book form whether e-book, physical or a stack of maginze. Not that last one so much now and the best of those ended in up physical book form. It's ableism. A Disability is something about your body that makes life more difficult for you than people who don't have the disability, that can be how brain processes things or that you can't walk un-assisant. Being Dyslexia obvious never used be a big deal when most people were illiterate and didn't go to school. You were just clumsy and had bad joints (yeah, those are dyslexic symptoms). However, you can be a real disadvantage now. A lot of Daily Life is reading whether that's paperwork or just trying to watch YouTube videos. Disability is not a dirty word. I know this was written over 20 years ago but I don't think enough people realise that now either. I say this as someone who could just passes as a bad speller most of the time and can read most things unaided. It's re-creating the written word I mess up (then there's the Autism and the thing that making my hands go dumb as I try to write this).  Also Beslin made the main character a boy because Statistically more boys have it, so stereotyping then.

There's a lot of other issues going on. Solomon's mother has left the family home due to Solomon's father being abusive Alcoholic and then there's the ghost in the graveyard. Also this book is set in Scotland somewhere. Probably Central Belt. He love his local Graveyard, which is next to Kirk (church) which how I realise that this was set in Scotland. There also an evil entry connected to Scotland's past (go on guesss what it could be linked on, if you know anything about Scottish Supernatural history then you're get it, but I'll leave out because it kinda spoiler). There is a lot for a book less than 200 pages and some stuff does feel underdeveloped. The graveyard and Solomon's home life storylines don't fit that nice together. Hell, the evil enty doesn't even specifically want/need Solomon. Anyone in theory could have stopped it. The plot kinda works, but I think it just need more developed or more character agrency in the plot. Things just kinda come to point and that's that. This book is set in a Primary school so I probably should be less forgiving about the plot but I found it in the YA Section of the library. That was probably a mistake like the time I found R.L. Stine's one adult novel there too.

It has horror elements in it, but it's not scary hence the P5 main character (9 years-old). Horror didn't come to mind till I saw other people call it horror in the review. But I was already desenstive to any horror by the time I was in P5. The idea I like, the excuation not so much. It's fine, some of it works. Someone does die in this...so there's that.

Solomon is pretty defined by his Dyslexia. He doesn't have any other characterisation. The story is told in his POV. Even the Dyslexia side is surface level. No one really does have much characterisation. His dad is probably the one with the most depth. The wonder teacher is unrealistic try hard. Also shows up at student's house which also how you know it was written in the 90s. Pretty sure you can't just take a kid out of his normal class on a hunch, even if his teacher is terrible and kicks him most of the time.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for Rowan Berries. I think the dyslexia is really all this book has going for it. Of the other Carnegie Medal winners I have read, it doesn't match up to them. I would like this book if his teacher had Dyslexia. I felt like it was building to that in places but she doesn't. It's an okay portrayal of dyslexia and his homelife is the better part of the book. The magic part doesn't work. I would love a book with magic with Dyslexia or any other disabled character published in the main steam but this wasn't great on the supernatural side. However, this book is less than 200 pages and is worth a read if anything that I have said interested you. While I wanted better it's fine for its intended age group, not amazing but worth the read. 

Book Review: The Haunting by Alex Bell

Water and Witches don't traditionally go together.

Some curses grow stronger with time… 

People say that all Cornish inns are haunted, but the Waterwitch’s history is particularly chilling. Built from the salvaged timber of a cursed ship, the guest house’s dark secrets go further back than anyone can remember. 

Emma is permanently confined to a wheelchair after an accident at the Waterwitch which took place when she was ten. Seven years later, she decides to return to the place where the awful event occurred. But the ancient inn still has its ghosts, and one particular spirit is more vengeful than ever…

This is Alex Bell's second book in the Red Eye series (I have reviewed them all but Sleepless which I'm technically currently reading, they are all labelled Red Eye). I was a big fan of Frozen Charlotte and had big hopes for this book especially as I had found the other Red Eye books to be a bit lacking.

Not quite sure what was with the changing first person point of view. I think the book would have worked better with just one. Especially as our starting narrator just falls by the waste lines at a certain point. We do have the experience of unreliable narrator but I'm not sure if it works. In a way it just distracts from the book.

I know one of the main character is disabled and that sucks, but why did she hate her wheelchair so much. She just kinda hates on it without any emotional depth behind it, especially as she hates on her spine as well. It just feels really out of place sometimes with the situation that Emma is facing. With my other issues with the choice of POV through the novel, this character feels unnecessary. While diversity is important in books, I think its also important that the character belongs to the story and I'm not sure what she brings to the story other than her disability and her service dog. Or I'm just over analysing, as I am probably hasher to media that feature characters with disabilities/disorders/chronic illness as lot of it does it terribly or just gets it completely wrong. She does contribution to the plot somewhat and doesn't fall into any of the clichés that for some reason often come paired with disabled characters.

The horror has a good foundation but is a bit underdeveloped. There is a lot of great set ups that don't go anywhere sometimes. There is disturbing imagery, except it somewhat ruined by who sees it. I did enjoy the mythos of the ghost and the Waterwitch. It is both creepy and exactly like hotel you find in Tourist Hot spots by the British Sea. I wish we had gotten more the building and it permanent residence. The magic was interesting and I haven't came across something like it.

Overall, I give this book 4/5 stars for incense sticks. I think there is good base for a story here, but the execution could have better. I enjoyed the story and think this would be a good introduction to the horror genre. While not as good as Frozen Charlotte, I would definitely read more of Alex Bell's work in the future. This is still the better side of Red Series and would probably rank it with Flesh & Bones, not that scary but good attempts.

I got this book for Review off Netgalley and it is being publish by Stripes Publishing on 11 February 2016.

Book Review: Witch Crag by Kate Cann

Tree Rat or Mad One do not seem like great nicknames to have.

Kita must make a choice: 

survive in a life she will hate

forever, or run away and almost

certainly die.

Death is a risk is willing to take.

But there's more to it than that...

Soon, Kita will find herself fighting

for the very enemy she was trying

to escape. 

This summary leaves out the important tidbit that this is a dystopia with a Society that has degenerated into sexist, joyless losers. It does have very slight fantasy element.  It also a standalone which is a nice to find in YA Dystopia especially as this book could have been dragged out into two, or a horrifying trilogy as they almost feels like two parts of this book.The length of this story was perfect.

Kita is a our protagonist who decides to escape with her friends from their home to the mysterious, possible deadly Witch Crag, through the forest and the waste lands of what use to be. It's intense adventure with Kita wondering where she belongs.

The characters were good. Kita is likable and her friendships were nice. The romances were good and realistic in their nature.

The plot and the characters worked well together. The world building was great and we were exposed to each part at good rate. It seemed like a real society.

Overall, I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars for Forbidden Herbs. I really enjoyed this novel, it was reading a saga without the time committed and would definitely recommend to other dystopia Lovers. 

Book Review: Half Wild by Sally Green

YOU ARE PLOT DEVICE!!!!

After finally meeting his elusive father, Marcus, and receiving the three gifts that confirm him as a full adult witch, Nathan is still on the run. He needs to find his friend Gabriel and rescue Annalise, now a prisoner of the powerful Black witch Mercury. Most of all he needs to learn how to control his Gift - a strange, wild new power that threatens to overwhelm him. Meanwhile, Soul O'Brien has seized control of the Council of White Witches and is expanding his war against Black witches into Europe. In response, an unprecedented alliance has formed between Black and White witches determined to resist him. Drawn into the rebellion by the enigmatic Black witch Van Dal, Nathan finds himself fighting alongside both old friends and old enemies. But can all the rebels be trusted, or is Nathan walking into a trap? 

There are going to be spoilers for the first book in this reviews so you haven't read that and don't want to be spoiled. Leave now and go to my review of the first.

There is a love triangle in this book. Different in two aspects, the centre is a boy and we still have two boys. This isn't a real triangle (most ain't because for it to be a true triangle the other two would have to get on too inside the canon). One of the angles, is not really a character, she is a plot device. I can understand Nathan's attachment to Annalise because she was first person outside his family to be nice to him. But as a reader we know nothing about her, I have no attachment and even though Gabriel is over top with his attachment, we know him and care about him. Him in danger effects me. Annalise just doesn't feel like a character to me, she is a damsel in distress. Anything she does and has happen to her in this whole series just feels like plot, meaning having her as love interest is boring and pointless. She could just be a childhood friend and Nathan feels he owns her. In this book defense, a lot of books fallen into this trap of just telling us the characters love each other and give no reason why: No show, only Tell. There is a least a reason, this is just more annoying in this case because Pixie Dream Girls are annoying and everywhere. If we just had one personal info about her that didn't involve any other characters, maybe she be more like a person and less problematic.

We have more flashback in this, in fact we have flashbacks of after Nathan escaped. I found this to be weird. Like why didn't we hear about that then if it was so important, though the writer did say she should have planned more in acknowledgements and this is her debut series. Just a sentence instead of some of the flashbacks would have been fine.

This time big players are even. If have read my last review, I found the fact that the big players mostly being men unrealistic (and boring) when women tend to have more powerfully gifts and witches value that. That being said, wouldn't be cool to have a female villain that's just straight up evil. One can only dream (or get writing). One of the players doesn't make that much sense to me and I don't believe that this character would ever be given a role of that much power and don't feel I can say more without spoiling things. 

The ending feels a bit rushed. I think certain scenes were rushed over or skipped completely near the end that were important for the characters and their relationships with each other. I would have liked a bit more development with these.

Overall, I gave this five out of five stars for letters. I still like this series and I enjoyed this book better than the first one. I think the setup we had in the first plays off and now we only have to wait for the final part of the trilogy to find out this wrap up well and we get a satisfying ending. I will see you next March where I will tell you if I think it does. I'm guess it coming on the 27th.

I got this book for review off Netgalley and it's being published by Penguin on 26th March 2014.

Book Review: Half Bad by Sally Green

I own two editions of this book because the design of this cover is awesome.

Wanted by no one.
Hunted by everyone.

Sixteen-year-old Nathan lives in a cage: beaten, shackled, trained to kill. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world's most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. Nathan's only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers—before it's too late. But how can Nathan find his father when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves?
  
This book was overhyped. When publishers/a mass lot of reviewers get excited about a book, it does more damage than good. I did like it and enjoy it, but I looking through this book reviews on goodreads a lot of people didn't like. Someone actually claimed that the whole book was a prologue, which is a nonsense and it would be annoying prologue. I think the problem with is highers expectations and people who would never pick up a book because the plot not really them, does pick up and guess what they don't like it but they got pressured into it (Note to self: do a video about over hyping).

This book is parts in the point of view main character and mostly in first persons, however, it is separated into parts and  the first part in seconded person. Not sure why that choice was made completely, except maybe it's normal target of engaging the reader but I did like how a scene was told in second and then first. I do the like the general sturcture of this book, with the parts and chapters.

The world building is interesting but problematic. Though, I don't think I can really judge in a proper critical manner till I've read the whole trilogy (or at least the second book). The book is plotted pretty well, the book ends where it should and is good start for trilogy. There is a tiny empty second half of the book, that is a bit lacking in realism. The ending is also sappy.

Some of the characters and relationships are good, some are just er...er. Nathan is a okay character, I cared about him, though a big problem with him is that he is given a characteristic that are ignore in the plot, lazy solved and it kinda bugs me. I can forgive it but having a similar characteristic myself it annoys me. There is romance in this book, but I know nothing about the main romantic interest except what find out from a I.D. and a family tree. She is literally just plot point, in terms of the plot that really bad thing. I don't care if we ever see this character again, except for Nathan's sake that can't carry a romance. There is sort of another romance that I feel is walking a tightrope as the end of this book (and not just because of love triangles). However, I care about the other party, we know personal stuff about this character and I want to see development instead of there being nothing to develop.


In this world, magic is meant to favour woman, woman tended to be stronger but it's strangely patriarchy. I'm not sure how to explain this without spoilers. I guess what I mean is by the end, almost all the big players are men and they are also arguably bigger players than that one woman. I don't know, I'm mean thinking about feminism in relation to media (which books do come under) so playing in the back of my mind, counting the genders of who influence the plot. Especially, since they don't have to be that sex. The woman are mostly just sisters (other relations as well) and dead. Some could say that it opposite of female lead YA books where woman are usually, no sometimes all the big players and men are dominant in the background. But no most YA still have mostly male villains so not the opposite at all. Something unsatisfying about this setup, it's no more sexist than most media but feels bit mismatching with the setting.

Overall, I give this book 3 out of 5 stars for bone samples. I originally gave this book 4 stars but in reflection it doesn't quite deserve that rating. There is a lot to discuss in this book and there are things set up in this book that could go terribly wrong in the next book so I'm anxious to see how things turn out. Though, I did enjoyed reading this novel and I want to see where this series is going. If I'm good then a review of the sequel will be out next week.