The Kid Who Became President Review

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(More customer reviews)Let me put it out on the table right now, right up front--this book is not to be taken seriously. Dan Gutman wrote the wildest, most implausible, fun book he could think of. Why? How have adult presidents done in office? Great? Really good? Horrible? Just to stir the waters a bit, Gutman published his book in time for the campaign season. Through the story he asks hard questions about presidential campaigns and candidates. Who do we elect as our President?
Gutman goes into the story with the proposition that even a kid could do as well as an adult in presiding over a country. Here are two give-aways that Gutman was spoofing: (These are obvious--I just wanted to have fun writing them)
1. What adult with even half a brain would vote for a 12-year-old kid, especially if that adult has a child that age or near it. Kids would put pressure on their parents to vote for Judson Moon? Parents would given in? Ya think?
2. Another wildly improbable idea is legally changing the age for president. It takes about nine months in the book. Congress is going to do this? No way. That's how you know that Gutman is pulling your leg.
That out of the way, we can examine the novel. I'm an old folk, a librarian to be sure, but still an old folk, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was fun to watch (in my mind's eye) a mere child--no less President of the United States-- who still has parents tell him to clean up his room in the White House. As Judson tells voters during the campaign, he doesn't know anything.
What do you think one of the first acts of a 12-year-old kid would be? Did you guess that he flies in all his friends from his home in Wisconsin over for the weekend in the White House? Can you imagine 30 unsupervised 12-year-olds roving all over the White House?
Because he does "not know anything," several local and international events occur, with one of utmost importance, involving a nasty, despicable South American dictator. Another of great discouragement is that Judson's Chief of Staff resigns and goes back home to a normal school life in Wisconsin.
His First Babe, uh, First Lady is beautiful (at 12?) Chelsea Daniels, who does know her etiquette, and style, and flair. Judson's style is light-hearted even though it makes him enemies (that South American dictator). One of my favorite scenes involves Chelsea morphing from a social butterfly into a worker bee--drab in sweatpants, ponytail, but devoted to helping hurricane victims--sincerely so.
Underneath the fun and work of being President, Judson, too, learns the seriousness (he ran as a lark), dedication (he did want to do good), passion (has it, does get to use it), and experience (a dead end). Gutman laces the story with civics and government mini-lessons, but only enough to clue in a reader who might not know this information yet. It's well-done and certainly not offensive.
How it ends is left for the reader to discover. Trust me, everyone is satisfied and even happy. A truly fun reading experience. Not to be missed. As an older woman friend would say, "A hoot!" As my fifth-grade niece would say, "Snap!"
As Judson Moon said in his inauguration: "Let's Rummmmbbblllee!!"


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Just in time for election season, Dan Gutman's hugely popular sequal to THE KID WHO RAN FOR PRESIDENT is back. Humor, adventure, and excitement will draw kids into the world of white house politics.
Judson Moon has done a big flip-flop. Immediately after being elected President of the United States, he resigned. Now, after a heart-to-heart with his running mate (and ex-babysitter) June Syers, Judd has decided to take office after all: He wants to make a difference.
Being President is anything but easy. Between dealing with a crazed South American dictator and people who are trying to kill him, Judson starts to wonder if it wouldn't be better just to go back to being a kid in Madison, Wisconsin. But with a lot of help from his friends, Judson might just figure everything out.

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Charlie Mike Review

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(More customer reviews)As a Viet Nam veteran this is the first book on Nam that I have ever finished and I am ordering three more of his books today. I lost track of the number of times I cried when I read this book and that was only one of the many emotions I felt. If you like action or want a realistic idea of what Nam was like you will love this book.

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If war may be said to bring out the worst in governments, it frequently brings out the best in people. This is a novel about some of the very best. Some led. Some followed. Some died. Meet Sergeant David Grady, Sarah Boyce, Major John Colven, Lieutenant Le Be Son...in the great Vietnam war novel, CHARLIE MIKE.

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Pandemonium Review

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(More customer reviews)Pandemonium is fricking brilliant. Here's the plot summary version: As a child, Del was possessed by a demon, the Hellion, known for targeting young blond haired boys. There are many demons in this version of the US, archetypes from classic stories, comic books, etc. Del got better.
Except now he's an adult and beginning to realize that the demon never really left. Something inside of him is trying to break out and take over. He has to chain himself to his bed at night to prevent himself from destroying his home or hurting other people in his sleep. So, he goes on a quest to find a doctor who can help him, then one of the most messed up priests you could ever imagine. He runs into other demon possessed people. Almost gets killed multiple times... And finds out that things are much worse than he ever imagined.
Here's the gushing stream of consciousness version: Demons! Comic books! Possession! PK Dick! PK Dick as a demon! The nature of narrative! Reality/truth. Comic books! The Shug! Archetypes! Creative unconscious! Jung!
Daryl Gregory does something with Pandemonium that I forgot you could do with fiction. He talks pretty intense philosophy without ever once making it feel like that's what he's doing. The narrative is just so strong that you don't notice you're going over really intellectual and dense territory. Del is a strong main character, the events are completely improbable but you don't even notice it until after you've read the whole book and been utterly seduced by it.

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Lonely Werewolf Girl Review

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(More customer reviews)This is one of the best books I've read this year. It's also the book with the worst editing I have ever seen.
The plot is wild and funny. The daughter of a werewolf Thane is being hunted by both her family (she tried to kill her father and quite nearly succeeded) and a guild of werewolf hunters. Worse, she battles her anxiety. Lonely Werewolf Girl has many, many characters. Sometimes it's difficult to keep track of them all. I enjoyed this book on many levels. I didn't finish this book quickly, not because it wasn't good, but the short chapters which jumped from character and place and did all sorts of funny acrobats which taxed my poor concentration. This was a good thing. I dragged the pleasure on for three days as opposed to finishing it in one swallow.
Millar, being at least as talented as Gaiman and Pratchett, would do himself well to find another editor. Or maybe the editor would do him or herself well by hiring a high school student to proof read the final draft before sending it to print. Obviously no human read the final draft, and any reasonably literary high schooler could do better than Microsoft Word at spelling and grammar. The sloppy editing did this writing wrong.
Regardless, I give this book a five. Reviews are generally seen as a reflection of the writer and not the editor. The writing was excellent.

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A Woman of Independent Means Review

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(More customer reviews)I just finished this book, of which I could not put down for a moment. It is an excellent read! I cried several times throughout the book. I was amazed by this woman, Bess. She was the obvious life-force behind her marriage and family. She always asked questions and made comments about life that were ahead of its time...classic...timeless! She was such a progressive thinker for her time.
The letters spanned from the beginning of the 20th century to the 1940s. Time and time again she surprised me with her observations and decisions: We should just do, instead of waiting for something to happen, since the future is unknown. She commented about philosophical concepts that many of us ponder today. Her thoughts on children-rearing were so refreshing too; that we shouldn?t lose ourselves in our children; that raising children doesn't necessarily mean one has to make it her sole occupation.
Her perception of life was so positive, even in the face of so many unbelievable tragedies. She treated death like an enemy, which forced her to live her life to the fullest. A very interesting, positive, way to look at things, especially in an age where a lot of us have become complacent about death. Her question about why society expects us to spend our lifetime of experiences with one person, is one that I'm sure many of us ask ourselves today! She sees the complexities of people and of life in general, which makes her so understanding, and so tolerant. Even her subtle way of introducing social change is brilliant, leaving a lasting impression. It was inspiring to read those letters, and reminded me of how important writing is...so much more thought goes into words when one writes them down. The written word can often be so much more powerful than words which are spoken.
It occurred to me that this book was written in 1978, which may explain why there's so much progressive thought here. However, history shows us that many women felt the way Bess felt. It was so thrilling for me to read these letters, imagining the setting of America in the 20s, 30s and 40s.
Most importantly though, I believed in this character. I felt for her deeply and her letters really moved me. Her life was astonishing...a wonderful read. I would recommend this book to every mother, daughter, grandmother...and every father, son and grandfather for that matter!

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A bestselling sensation when it was first published by Viking in 1978, A Woman of Independent Means has delighted millions of readers and was the inspiration for the television miniseries starring Sally Field.At the turn of the century, a time when women had few choices, Bess Steed Garner inherits a legacy--not only of wealth but of determination and desire, making her truly a woman of independent means. From the early 1900s through the 1960s, we accompany Bess as she endures life's trials and triumphs with unfailing courage and indomitable spirit: the sacrifices love sometimes requires of the heart, the flaws and rewards of marriage, the often-tested bond between mother and child, and the will to defy a society that demands conformity. Now, with this beautiful trade paperback edition, Penguin will introduce a new generation of readers to this richly woven story. . .and to Bess Steed Garner, a woman for all ages.

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Clown Girl: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)Monica Drake is a decent writer. She plays with the language the way clowns play with pratfalls and cream-filled pastries. There's no doubting that among the pages of "Clown Girl" is hiding an author with enough charm and wit to pen a book brimming with both humor and heart.
This, however, is not that book.
The story follows young Nita (you can call her Sniffles) who is struggling to make ends meet. Working the circuit in her home land of Baloneytown, Nita twists balloons into vague religious shapes, tries to find her lost rubber chicken and her drug-addicted dog, and deals with the absence of her beloved, a man named Rex Galore (he's away at Clown College, paid for by guess who?). The only thing is, Nita's got a heart problem (uh, ahem, an actual, physical heart problem), and so she's working fewer hours, earning less money, and her ex-boyfriend/landlord is threatening to kick her out of house and home. Add to the mix a cinnamon-scented copper with a stalkerish streak, and you've got more problems than a clown should have to deal with.
Drake shows us Nita's struggles through her daisy-shaped sunglasses, so those difficulties are all tinted with a painted smirk and lots of punny rejoinders. It's a silly-serious mood that works quite well at first, but which begins to grate more and more as the novel devolves into soap opera theatrics. By the final pages, what is meant to be funny is as eye-rolling as any knock-knock joke, and what is meant to be serious is just plain laughable.
Nita's/Sniffle's coworkers try to get her to do more high paying gigs (let's call it Clown Cuddling for Cash), to pander to the creepy-grins of the coulrophilic (read: Clown fettishists), but she (mostly) turns away from that path and chooses the road of commitment and dedication. This means she does a lot (A LOT) of pining for Rex, and she spends a good deal of time working on a mime-ish interpretation of Kafka's The Metamorphosis. These are lofty goals for a clown; good for her.
Unfortunately, for a woman with (sometimes shifting) standards and such ambitious intellectual pursuits, Nita is infuriatingly dumb. You can quite easily guess the conclusion of this book after reading twenty pages of it, as long as you're not too creative about it. And in the meantime, you must watch as Nita pushes back against obstacle after obstacle, most of which she has erected herself. Her heart, dog, chicken, relationship, and money problems all come across as the products of someone who is either too dumb to think for themselves, or simply can't be bothered to do anything but be sad and beleaguered. There's nothing quite as irritating as a central character who manufactures her own problems and then wonders for pages and pages, "What's to be done?"
To be fair, Ms. Drake is the real manufacturer here, and her literary intentions are clear: she wants you to sympathize with and care for Nita. Unfortunately, it is not a character's hardships that make them worthy of love or compassion, it is their hearts and souls. Nita may very well have one of those, but she's so busy mugging, jesting, and hiding under face paint (even to the last pages), that she is less a girl than she is a clown.
That would actually be a good premise for a short story, a small sidewalk show, a five-minute social treatise on what we are and what we make ourselves into, but that is not what Ms. Drake is going for here. At least, not solely. The love story. The heart problems. The prostitution, money, stealing, running, and constant fumbles and falls. Well-written, well-painted, and cleverly phrased it may be, this three-ring circus still has two rings too many.

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Death on the Installment Plan Review

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(More customer reviews)'Death On The Installment Plan' is a raging animal of a novel that eclipses even Celine's own 'Journey' (though, it must be said, not by much). Structurally it's a shambles, but the unbelievable energy behind each & every sentence is enough to propel the reader straight through the 600-odd pages. What few of the other reviews have pointed out is how gut-bustingly funny this book is. A laugh a line with Celine and no mistake...More than that, 'Death...' contains absolutely the funniest sex scene ever written, bar none. While 'Journey' is tighter and harsher and the later works are more crazily surreal, 'Death...' is the shot of pure Celine that literature needed when it was first published and which the literate world could use another dose of now. And that's no Cambridge lie.

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Death on the Installment Plan is a companion volume to Louis-Ferinand Céline's earlier novel Journey to the End of Night.
Published in rapid succession in the middle 1930s, these two books shocked European literatue and world consciousness. Nominally fiction but more rightly called "creative confessions," they told of the author's childhood in excoriating Paris slums, of serves in the mud wastes of World War I and African jungles. Mixing unmitigated despair with Gargantuan comedy, they also created a new style, in which invective and obscenity were laced with phrases of unforgettable poetry. Céline's influence revolutionized the contemporary approach to fiction. Under a cloud for a period, his work is now acknowledged as the forerunner of today's "black humor."

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Hick Review

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(More customer reviews)I loved this book. It's dark and gives you a lot to think about, even months after finishing it. Portes is a gifted writer and I can't wait to read more. Perfect for book groups--that is, book groups who like darker reads. If you like Virgin Suicides (the book, not the movie), read "Hick."

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Though its first-person narrating voice is fast-paced, powerful and unquestionably authentic, Hick is a debut novel. Beyond this voice, what makes the book so extraordinary is that, although all of the worst things imaginable do befall this 13-year-old girl, she is never defeated by them. Luli always fights back; she always resurfaces.Set as a coming-of-age novel, Hick tracks the real perils that modern teenagers so often face. And it does so with bright wit, energy, and an indomitable spirit. This is a book that will grab the reader from the first page and not let go.And it is written by a woman who is becoming a cultural force in the hippest parts of Los Angeles.

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Dreaming Anastasia: A Novel of Love, Magic, and the Power of Dreams Review

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(More customer reviews)I didn't really know what to expect from this book. I'm drawn to books about the Romanovs, so I thought I'd like this story.
Unfortunately, this is a badly edited book that uses the currently popular YA theme of the very-old-but-smokin'-hot man lusting after a teenage girl. The plot had promise, but the characters were so one-dimensional that they all but killed my interest in the story.
I liked the inclusion of the Baba Yaga element, but that sort of fell flat for me, too. For a much better novel that incorporates this folk tale, try Orson Scott Card's Enchantment.
After reading this book, I'm left with a fairly sour taste in my mouth. But at least I know that Ethan's eyes are blue. How could I forget that fact, after Anne mentions it more than 30 times?

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Tomorrow Girls: Behind the Gates Review

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(More customer reviews)This is the opening book in a 4 book series. Each is told from the point of view of one of the characters. This book does a great job of setting up the premise and the characters. It takes place in a future society where everyone is given a bracelet at birth and tracked by the state. This book is told from the perspective of Louisa. She and her best friend Maddie go to the school together (pretending to be twins). At the school they meet the other 2 characters, Rosie and Evelyn. Each girl has a distinctive personality and the bonds of friendship are tested as they face the struggles of dealing with adolescence and the real purpose of their attendance at the school. They are just being kept there for safety reasons, right? The answer to that question is the main plot of the book and as the girls search for answers, they must face their own and each other's problems and insecurities. This was a good read and would probably be a good choice for girls in the 8-14 range depending on their reading and comprehension levels. When I finished it I let my 10 year old neighbor read it. She completed it in one day and now she wants the remainder of the series!!!

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In a terrifying future world, four girls must depend on each other if they want to survive.
Louisa is nervous about being sent away to a boarding school -- but she's excited, too. And she has her best friend, Maddie, to keep her company. The girls have to pretend to be twin sisters, which Louisa thinks just adds to the adventure!
Country Manor School isn't all excitement, though. Louisa isn't sure how she feels about her new roommates: athletic but snobby Rosie and everything's-a-conspiracy Evelyn. Even Maddie seems different away from home, quiet and worried all the time.
Still, Louisa loves CMS -- the survival skills classes, the fresh air. She doesn't even miss not having a TV, or the internet, or any contact with home. It's for their own safety, after all.
Or is it?

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The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney Review

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(More customer reviews)Fans of Lauren Barnholdt will love her newest teen book. It's all about Devon 'Devi' Delaney and her lies.
Devon went away for the summer to get away from things at home and befriended Lexi. She told Lexi a bunch of lies about how back home she's really popular and her boyfriend is Jared, the most popular guy in school. It turns out, Devon is basically a social outcast and now Lexi moves into her town and is going to her school. What's a girl to do? Lie some more to cover up lies already told. Needless to say, things get pretty messy.
It was a very cute book for all teens and I can't wait to read her next book.

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Mom says karma always comes around to get you, and I guess it's true. Because last summer I was a total liar, and now, right in the middle of Mr. Pritchard's third-period math class, my whole world is about to come crashing down. That's because while Devon was living with her grandmother for the summer, she told her "summer friend," Lexi, that she was really popular back home and dating Jared Bentley, only the most popular guy at school. Harmless lies, right? Wrong. Not when Lexi is standing at the front of Devon's class, having just moved to Devon's town. Uh-oh. Devon knows there's only one way to handle this -- she'll just have to become popular! But how is Devon supposed to accomplish that when she's never even talked to Jared, much less dated him?! And it seems the more Devon tries to keep up her "image," the more things go wrong. Her family thinks she's nuts, her best friend won't speak to her, and, as if it's not all complicated enough, Jared starts crushing on Lexi and Devon starts crushing on Jared's best friend, Luke. It all has Devon wondering -- who is the real Devon Delaney?

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Night of the Veggie Monster Review

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(More customer reviews)I just borrowed this from the Library today and my 2 and 4 year old sons loved it! My 4 year old had me read it to him several times and he was cracking up through the whole book. We'll definitely be purchasing a copy for ourselves!

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When just a single pea touches the lips of this determined vegetable hater, an enormous battle of war and peas begins. But our hero doesn't just cry, whine, or refuse to swallow. He turns into a VEGGIE MONSTER! That is until—gulp!—he accidentally swallows the pea, and realizes that maybe vegetables aren't so bad after all. At least until broccoli night comes around. With inventive mixed-media illustrations and a short, snappy text that combines a child's dinner-time drama with a hilarious parents'-eye-view, George McClements has created a wry and funny story that just might inspire a few veggie monsters out there to give peas a chance.

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One Rough Man: A Pike Logan Thriller Review

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(More customer reviews)I am always intimidated to write book reviews simply because others before me sound like they are writing their thesis but One Rough Man deserves my time and energy on a review. I am more of an Emily Giffin kind of girl so this is my first fiction thriller novel. I heard Brad Taylor on a radio interview in Chicago and found him not only incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable about his content but I could also tell that he has a keen sense of humor. He was light hearted in a professional sort of way. That being said, I saw his book at the airport, bought it and then couldn't put it down. It's just really a good read. I don't have a thesaurus on hand to embellish my thoughts so just go with the fact that it's a darn good story that moves fast and keeps you entrenched with a lot of good details. Brad really has a knack with the details, especially when describing the bad guys which, as Americans, we all want a better idea about. Since he knows a thing or two about real bad guys, this makes the book all the more enjoyable. As I read it I pictured the author experiencing similar situations with similar people because, well, he actually has. Oh, and I also found little pieces of his humor in the book as well (something tells me that Brad once threw eggs at the principal's house too). I would really enjoy attending a lecture hosted by Mr. Taylor. I bet he is really, really captivating in person. This girlie girl is now a full fledged thriller fan. Thanks for the read Brad! When does book II come out? I am DYING for Pike and Jennifer to hook up!

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Vince Flynn and Brad Thor, move over: introducing a pulse-pounding new international thriller series by a former Delta Force commander. They call it the Taskforce. Their existence is as essential as it is illegal. Commissioned at the highest level of the U.S. government. Protected from the prying eyes of Congress and the media. Built around the top operators from across the clandestine, intelligence, and special forces landscape. Designed to operate outside the bounds of U.S. law. Trained to exist on the ragged edge of human capability. Pike Logan was the most successful operator on the Taskforce, his instincts and talents unrivaled-until personal tragedy permanently altered his outlook on the world. Pike knows what the rest of the country might not want to admit: The real threat isn't from any nation, any government, any terrorist group. The real threat is one or two men, controlled by ideology, operating independently, in possession of a powerful weapon. Buried in a stack of intercepted chatter is evidence of two such men. The transcripts are scheduled for analysis in three months. The attack is mere days away. It is their bad luck that they're about to cross paths with Pike Logan. And Pike Logan has nothing left to lose.

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Outlaws of the Marsh (Chinese Classics, Classic Novel in 4 Volumes) Review

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(More customer reviews)If you read one saga in your life, you would die happy having read Outlaws of the Marsh. This is a particularly good translation and edition in that they take perhaps eight or ten different versions of this story and pack it all together in one bit so you get more quality tale for the buck. Mr. Shapiro even discusses the differences between several of the versions in the beginning of the book.
The saga takes you through a few decades of this roaming band of Chinese warriors in a land of corruption and evil. Though they are no angels themselves (in fact they are demons on Earth), they fight together for loyalty and honor in the name of the Emperor during the Song dynasty.
The descriptions of the battles are vivid and enthralling, and the window into the culture of that time is truly something to cherish.
An ancient story such as this is not something to be taken lightly, though it has plenty of humor, sorrow, and action to captivate the attention of all ages. Characters such as Sagacious Lu, Stumpy Tiger Wang, and Liu Kui the Blackwhirlwind, will forever be a part of you in your travels. Chairman Mao, himself, actually carried this book with him during the Long March in China as a constant reminder of the proud traditions of the Chinese people.
[Revised Edit]
From reading some of the other reviews, I think I've come to a realization. For readers, Outlaws of the Marsh and Romance of the Three Kingdoms are a little bit like 1984 and Brave New World. Hear me out, doubters. If you read Brave New World first, you tend to have a pretty strong dislike for 1984, and vice versa. Those who've read Romance of the Three Kingdoms may pick up Outlaws of the Marsh expecting something similar in style. If that's what they're after, they'll be disappointed. I however read 1984 first, as well as Outlaws of the Marsh. Therefore, I couldn't even stand to finish Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Like it or not, Outlaws of the Marsh is truly one of a kind. You'll likely finish it like I did, wanting even more, but realizing that you've just eaten the very last Twinkie on the planet. Except here, you can just go back and reread it all over again.

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China's great classic novel Outlaws of the Marsh, written in the fourteenth century, is a fictional account of twelfth-century events during the Song Dynasty. One by one, over a hundred men and women are forced by the harsh feudal officialdom to take to the hills. They band together and defeat every attempt of the government troops to crush them. Within this framework we find intrigue, adventure, murder, warfare, romance ... in a connected series of fascinating individual tales, told in the suspenseful manner of the traditional storyteller.

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Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy Review

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(More customer reviews)I really liked Stop Pretending, even though I had to wait all afternoon for my mom to finish it. She kept saying "Oh, this is good! This is GOOD!" and then took the longest time to say she was done. Well, it was worth the wait because it WAS very good. The girl in the book sounded so real to me and she wrote all about her feelings which no one in her family really understood because they were so worried about their own feelings. No matter what, she loved her sister, and this is what made me really love the book. She never made what was happening to her sister sound easy and I know it's hard to admit how aful it is when someone in your family is sick, because you start to feel selfish if you do. When my brother was hit by a mailman he was in the hospital for a long time and my mom and dad spent all their time with him. Then he came home in a body cast for six months and he took up a lot of my parents time then too. I completley understood, but no one really understands how worried the other kids are too. I know that's different, but the worry is the same because you don't know whats happening and everyone sort of forgets to tell you. Anyway, this book is really, really good and I hate the word "crazy" because no one is really crazy, they're just sick. It's more ok to be sick in other ways than to be sick mentally. At least that's what a lot of kids think. Maybe grown ups too. I also liked the way this book was written because it was so pretty, even though the subject wasn't very pretty. I think a lot of kids should read this book because they will like the character a lot and it is about stuff they don't read about all the time. I'm going to do a book report on it as soon as Amazon sends me my copy.
Thank you for writing this book, Sonya Sones. I hope you write more books for kids like me that love to read!
Annie Hendershott age 14

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American Son: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)Beautifully written. I originally didn't want to read this book because it looked like a gang novel, but my girlfriend told me it was good. After I got into it I couldn't put it down. It is a really sad, at times painfully so, book. I really got caught up in the characters and the mistakes they would make. I am a Pilipino and found a lot here that resembled my own life growing up, like being ashamed of my own culture and feeling like Filipinos are invisible. The tragedy about these characters is that they suffer from a lack of pride. The mother is especially sad and endearing. This isn't the sort of Asian Ameican novel I've seen before, full of rice and orientalism for the NPR crowd. It's real and honest.

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Keeping It Real (Quantum Gravity, Book 1) Review

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(More customer reviews)While Keeping It Real by Justina Robson is her fifth published novel, she shows off the full strength of her imagination here and announces to those who may not have heard already that she is a major talent and that she will write a blend of science fiction and fantasy that demands to be read.
How is that as a selling point?
Keeping It Real opens with a not quite a chapter, not quite a prologue telling us what we need to know. In 2015 there was some sort of Quantum Bomb which detonated in Texas and which opened our world to five alternate / parallel worlds where there are elves, fairies, demons, the dead, and elementals. The other races insist they have known about us all the while.
The novel takes place in 2021 and we need to know that this is the state of being because this is not what the novel is about nor is it the story Robson is telling. But it is the setting.
Lila Black is possibly less than half human. The other half is machine. At the start of the novel we do not know why or how, only that she is assigned security for a rock band called the No Shows which consists of fairies singing backup and an elf as the lead singer. The No Shows are immensely popular and someone is trying to kill the elf, Zal. Lila, as it turns out, does not entirely trust elves and is barely comfortable in her own skin, such as it is. She is in control of her body and machine, but not entirely. There are glitches.
This is the starting point of Keeping It Real. The rest needs to be discovered to be believed. Robson keeps the novel moving at a reasonably fast clip with action, excitement, elf sex, imperfect cyborg machinery, inept fake [...] attempts, and a heroine who is broken more on the inside than on the outside...and this is the woman who must protect Zal, and elf who barely wishes to be protected.
Keeping It Real is perhaps the most original science fiction or fantasy novel I have read in some time and it is because Robson is able to blend the two genres so seamlessly that it is simply just good storytelling. Robson plays with familiar concepts (elves, cyborgs, different worlds, magic), but in doing so she puts them together in ways we haven't seen before. The elves here are aware of the stereotypes brought on by countless fantasy novels and Lord of the Rings (the elves crack on lembas bread so that the humans can't). Remember, this is our world, just altered in our future.
Keeping It Real is the first volume in a proposed trilogy and I cannot wait to see what Robson brings us next.
-Joe Sherry

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