Never Say Die

Never Say Die 
by Will Hobbs

When the motto of your village is "never say die," you have a lot to live up to. . . .

At home in Canada's Arctic, Nick Thrasher is an accomplished Inuit hunter at fifteen. About to bring home a caribou for his ailing grandfather, Nick loses the meat to a fearsome creature never before seen in the wild. It's half grizzly, half polar bear. Experts will soon be calling it a "grolar bear."

Returning to his village, Nick receives a letter from the half brother he's never met. A former Grand Canyon river guide, Ryan Powers is now a famous wildlife photographer. He'll soon be coming to Nick's part of the world to raft the remote Firth River in search of huge herds of migrating caribou. Ryan also wants to learn what Inuit hunters are saying about climate change in the Arctic. He invites Nick to come along and help him find the caribou.

Barely down the river, disaster strikes. Nick and Ryan are both thrown into the freezing river and find themselves under a ceiling of solid ice. With nothing but the clothes on his back and the knife on his hip, Nick is up against it in a world of wolves, caribou, and grizzlies. All the while, the monstrous grolar bear stalks the land. (description from Amazon.com)

I actually enjoyed this book a lot. It was full of action and danger.  It was a book that made me look things up, but not like I was learning stuff in school, more like I was just so curious to see if the nature-related stuff was real or not.  This book made me think about how we're affecting the environment and how that will reflect back and affect us later on.  I liked how Nick stays true to his heritage, even as he thinks about the larger world.  This book was very different from what I normally read, but it was a good one! 

Full disclosure: Borrowed through interlibrary loan

Redemption

Redemption 
by Veronique Launier
Hearts of Stone, book one

Aude Vanier is a sixteen-year-old rock star with a problem—stone monsters keep attacking her. And when they do, she finds herself chanting in a language she doesn’t understand.

Guillaume de Rouen has been stuck as a gargoyle on a church for the last seventy years, until Aude’s chanting releases him back to his seventeen-year-old human form.

An ancient Iroquois prophecy about the destruction of Montreal is coming true. Together, Aude and Guillaume can stop it. But Aude is the descendant of a centuries-old coven of witches—a coven that Guillaume failed to protect seventy years ago. This time, if they fail, the world will never be the same. (description from Amazon.com) 

Okay, I have to admit first thing that I am very fond of gargoyles. I love books with gargoyle characters. This stems directly from one reading the Xanth series by Piers Anthony, which brought some amazing character concepts to life for me, including Geis of the Gargoyle's, Gary Gargoyle.  That combined with my interest in art history and the beautiful stonework that exists on many historic buildings leads to a love and fascination for gargoyles and other stone creatures. 

 

I found Launier's debut book to be great conceptually.  It combined the existence of gargoyles with a very spiritual and pagan sort of witchcraft. Added to that mix is a Mohawk prophecy about the end of the world and you have a very, very intriguing sort of end of the world story.  

I really liked Aude and Guillaume as the main characters.  Aude, or as she likes to be known "Odd," is a rock princess who generally knows what she wants from life.  When her life is thrown into chaos, she very realistically goes through some stages of denial, acceptance, and general WTF?! I really liked how in some respects she was very much in charge of herself and knew what to do to handle things and in other scenarios, she accepted that she couldn't control the things happening around her.  Guillaume was able to help keep her safe and to give her a touchstone in the crazy new world she had to deal with, but he also respects that she is powerful in her own right.  At first, I didn't like jumping between their perspectives, but as I continued reading I actually found it to be a great way to see all facets of the story.  

This was a great summer read for me. Fast-paced, interesting and with a romance thrown in to boot. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the next book in the series goes... 

Full disclosure: eARC received from Netgalley

This Week's Library Loot (3)

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

 

My Library Loot:

Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator

by Josh Berk

 

Safekeeping

by Karen Hesse

 

Goblin Secrets

by William Alexander

 





So, that's what I picked up at my Library this week... did you swing by yours?

Half Brother

Half Brother
by Kenneth Oppel

Ben Tomlin was an only child for thirteen years. Then his parents brought home a baby chimp.

It isn't long before Ben is Zan's favourite, and Ben starts to see Zan as more than just an experiment. His father disagrees. Soon Ben is forced to make a critical choice between what he is told to believe and what he knows to be true -- between obeying his father or protecting his brother from an unimaginable fate. (description from author's website)

I was really impressed with the majority of this book. I loved the relationship between Ben and Zan, Ben's friendship with the research assistant, Peter, and the troubled family dynamics that Oppel explored once Zan became part of Ben's family.

To truly appreciate some aspects of this book, you have to remember that it's set in the 1970's. Oppel drops a lot of great hints, but it's not until a small, but significant portion of the book has been read, that Ben confirms the year. It was nice to finally know for sure that this was the 70s.

Once you knew the setting, though, it makes the perfect backdrop for not only the familial issues that Ben was experiencing, but also for his troubled romantic life. The sweetness of his attempts to worship the pretty, popular girl and his complete and utter failure to finally win her. (Don't worry...not a true spoiler! There are other happenings in the cards for Ben!!)

The real star of this book, though, will always be Zan. Not only is he unique and interesting simply because he is a chimpanzee, but he is lovable and sweet because of who he was raised to be. Zan is his own, fantastic character that steals the show 100%.

Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots

Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots
by Abby McDonald

Jenna may hail from the ’burbs of New Jersey, but Green Teen activism is her life. So when her mom suggests they spend the summer at Grandma’s Florida condo, Jenna pleads instead to visit her hippie godmother, Susie, up in rural Canada. Jenna is psyched at the chance to commune with this nature she’s heard about — and the cute, plaidwearing boys she’s certain must roam there. But after a few run-ins with local wildlife (from a larger-than-life moose to Susie’s sullen Goth stepdaughter to a hot but hostile boy named Reeve), Jenna gets the idea that her long-held ideals, like vegetarianism and conservation, don’t play so well with this population of real outdoorsmen. A dusty survival guide offers Jenna amusing tips on navigating the wilderness — but can she learn to navigate the turns of her heart?

This book was only so-so for me. I had really high expectations, I suppose, because I loved McDonald's Sophomore Switch so much when I read it earlier this year. This just didn't strike me the same way.

Although I didn't really connect wholeheartedly to Jenna's environmental dilemma, I did love the message about learning to become a well rounded person...to not just focus on a single aspect of one's personality. I also loved the subplot about one of the character's coming out.

This wasn't a bad book by any means, but I don't feel like it's a must read.