The Victoria in My Head

Well, another contemporary YA that I really liked. I feel like I'm making a liar out of myself. Or I've been incredibly lucky. Or YA Fiction is changing.

I'm gonna go with the latter.

The Victoria in My Head is about Victoria, a Cuban-American high school student in New York who's focused on getting into a good school (this feels familiar, right?), but her life is incredibly boring. She can predict everything that happens from the time she wakes up in the morning to dinner in the evening. Nothing ever changes.

But.

There's always a but.

Victoria sees a boy putting up a flyer for band auditions. And the boy is gorgeous,  BUT A BAND! The band is looking for a lead singer, and in a moment of insanity, Victoria believes she can do it.

A brief moment.

Then she realizes not only is it a crazy idea, but her parents would never let her.

But luckily, she has a best friend named Annie who isn't afraid to share a video of Victoria's 11 year old self singing. And the band says, come audition! And despite being completely humiliated that they saw the video, she does.

Aaaand she bombs it. Stage fright. She does ok, but didn't blow anyone away.

I mean...of course she gets in. What story would there be without that? She has to hide it from her parents--pretends she's still in track. They find out, of course. She gets in trouble. Pretends to quit. Oh, and there's a love story. The whole time Victoria is with this one guy, I just wanted to scream at her: HE IS CLEARLY THE WRONG ONE! YOU'RE DOING THIS ALL WRONG! It was a first boyfriend, so of course it was all wrong.

Ultimately, it was a cute story. There was nothing spectacular or life changing about it, but it was a fun read. Probably made more fun by the fact that I didn't expect to like it much. I mean, I don't know anything about music, and that was a big part of the book. Every chapter title had a song name and band, and I didn't recognize even one. I probably would have appreciated the story even more if I had.

The characters are fun. The story is fun. Worth reading if you like contemporary fiction.

The Forbidden Wish

I don't know if you guys noticed, but retellings are HUGE in YA. Here, let's make a list:

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
Hunted by Megan Spooner
A Twisted Tale series by Liz Braswell
A Thousand Nights by E.K. Johnston
Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh
The Splintered series by A.G. Howard
The Dorothy Must Die series by Danielle Paige

And the list goes on...

The Forbidden Wish is an Aladdin retelling, and there aren't very many of those. There are a few Thousand and One Nights retellings, but not many that focus on just Aladdin.

One thing I love about Jessica Khoury is that her books are stand alones. That is very rare in YA. I read Origin years ago and I loved it, too. That was before I was quite the YA buff I am now. I don't know how I'd feel about it now if I read it again. But I will say The Forbidden wish did not disappoint me. Jessica Khoury is vastly underrated, I think. We don't get a lot of requests for her books in the bookstore, and it's a shame. She's a fantastic storyteller.

It's a story about Zahra, a thousands year  old (female!) genie, and Aladdin, a thief. But it's also about fixing past mistakes, finding redemption, saving a kingdom and, oh yeah, love. Aladdin is hired to steal a ring from the palace, but instead of taking it to the party that hired him, he keeps it. As soon as he steals it, it starts speaking to him, pulling him toward something. That's how he finds Zahra's lamp, which has been hidden for 500 years. Zahra expects Aladdin to be just like any other master: to make his three petty wishes and move on while she gets passed from greedy hand to greedy hand. Instead, he uses his wishes to take revenge on the man who killed his parents: the  Grand Vizier character who is the Sultan's brother. To do this, he has to become--you guessed it--a prince. He has to try to win the princess's hand in marriage. Aladdin and Zahra have to spend a lot of time together to make this happen and their forbidden attraction grows.

There is so much depth and subplot to this story that it's difficult to fully summarize it, especially without giving anything away. Ultimately, the book was amazing. I think Khoury found a great balance between action, character development, and the backstories, which must habe been incredibly difficult. The rimance between Aladdin and Zahra is not even the most important part of the story, which was nice. There was definitely growing romantic tension, but it wasn't over-emphasized. She didn't sacrifice the story to the romance.

All of the secondary characters are very well-developed. You get glimpses of their backstories that help you inderstand their motivations, who they're trying to impress, what their goals are, and so on. The setting is so vivid: it's a city with a rune-like shield around it to keep out magical creatures. A war between humans and jinn has been waging for centuries, and genies are an object of hatred (which makes Aladdin having a genie pretty dangerous). There are secrets and loyalties are tested. It has all the best, natural type of drama you want in a good story. Also, the cover is really pretty!  Trust me 😉

Caraval

Caraval got a ton of attention when it came out. It was Stephanie Garber's debut novel, and everyone in the YA world was talking about it. First of all, the cover is BEAUTIFUL. And everyone judges books by the cover. Don't lie-you do it. Second of all, it was widely compared to the Night Circus, which is an amazing adult novel full of magic and elegance and mystery. I think Caraval didn't quite hit the elgance mark, but two thumbs up to the other comparisons!

Caraval is about Scarlett, a character whose roles define her. She is a big sister, an abused daughter, and just generally afraid of life. She is most definitely NOT a strong female heroine. Scarlett is cautious and always thinking of consequences. She is engaged to marry a man she's never met, but with whom she corresponds regularly. Judging by his letters, she believes her betrothed to be a kind and and decent man. Scarlett's sister, Donatella is rash and reckless, and Scarlett strives to protect her, but it's hard when Tella is always doing things that will infuriate their father if she gets caught. Their father is one of those quiet, hidden evil kind of people. He's manipulative, abusive, and controlling. When one sister gets caught doing something that angers him, he abuses the other sister to use their close relationship against them. It's not something you see much in the book, but it definitely defines Scarlett's character.

As a child, Scarlett heard stories about the Caraval, a type of magical show where the audience goes on a scavenger hunt and follows clues to win the game, whereupon they earn a prize. She writes to Legend, the leader of Caraval, every year, asking him to put on a show near them so her sister can attend. Finally, she gets an invitation. But why would she accept? She's engaged and on the cusp of escaping her father and taking her sister with her. Her whole life is about to get better.

But then Donatella, with her reckless and roaming nature, leaves without her. And as a good big sister, Scarlett has to go after her, of course. So she gets a ride from a young (attractive!) sailor who agrees to take her in exchange for her extra ticket. So Scarlett goes to Caraval!

This book wasn't everything (for me) that the hype claimed it was, but it was still really good. I most liked the growing relationship between Julian (the sailor) and Scarlett. You could tell he had his own agenda going into Caraval and that Scarlett couldn't completely trust him, but even when he tried to be mean or leave her on her own, he couldn't do it. Like when Scarlett has to pay for something with two days of her life (you don't use money in Caraval), and it's not what she's expecting, he helps her. He was definitely one of my favorite characters in the book. Tella, on the other hand, I did not like very much. In all fairness, she wasn't in much of the book because she gets kidnapped during Caraval, but during her limited screen time, she annoyed me. Maybe we get a more accurate assessment of her character in book two.

Despite the fact that I didn't fall in love with Caraval like I expected to, I am still really excited about book two. It will be the author's second book and I feel like the writing can only get better!

Daughter of the Pirate King

Guys, this book was fabulous! Pirates! What is more romantic than pirates? Obviously, I don't mean the unbathed, missing teeth, greasy hair, one legged cut-your-throat-for-a-shilling type pirates. I mean the tough-on-the-surface-but-with-a-heart-of-gold type pirates. And also, dreamy. Can't forget dreamy.

Except in this story, it wasn't just the love interest who was a pirate! It was the main female character. And I loved her. She was brilliant.

The book is told from the point of view of seventeen year old pirate captain, Alosa. She's the daughter of Kalligan, the man who created the rules for pirates and basically rules the seas. Being the daughter of a pirate--the king of pirates--she had a pretty rough upbringing. Her father had very high expectations for her intelligence, cleverness, stamina, fighting skills, manipulation, etc.

When the book opens, her ship is being boarded by other pirates, and she is being taken prisoner. Not very promising, right? Her captors are Captain Draxen and his first mate and brother, Riden. They think they have quite the prize and plan to ransom her off. But Alosa is more than they bargained for: she's on a mission. There are three pieces of a treasure map that were divided between three pirate lords, and she plans to retrieve them all. And to do that? She has to get on Draxen and Riden's ship.

First of all, there is so much chemistry between Riden and Alosa.

“And what about me? I was on a very important mission for my father when you captured me. You've ruined my entire week. I should take an ear for that.

“You wouldn't take my  ear. It would make it difficult to hear your whining. And I know how much you love that.”

Pirates, amIright? Even though you could definitely tell Riden was going to be the love interest, it didn't move too fast. You watch them get to know each other and try to repress their growing attraction. They bickered constantly and it was hilarious.

Also, there's actual death and killing in this book. It wasn't tamped down just because one of the pirate captains is a girl. She totes kills people, and feels no remorse about it.

Why aren't there more pirate fantasy books? I'm not going to reveal the fantasy part of the story because I feel like it's kind of fun and would spoil part of it for you. But let's have more pirates, yeah?

Also, I forget to mention, I accidentally sprayed my copy of the book with a hose when I took it outside to read one day. Fitting for a book that takes place on the water, right?