Bibliophile Support Group

Another Throwback Review, this time from February 2012. Take a looksie: The Game of Triumphs is a YA urban fantasy by Laura Powell. Fifteen-year-old Cat is on her way home, doing her best to avoid human contact as always, when she can’t help but notice a man being chased – a man that asks for her help. But Cat sees the gleam of excitement in his eyes, along with the fear, and figures he’s just a weirdo. Yet something about it all sparks her curiosity, and Cat can’t seem to help pursuing the situation. Doing so brings her to an extravagant party that introduces her to the Game of Triumphs. It’s a centuries-old game played between modern-day London and an alternate, unexplainable reality called the Arcanum where game players embark on challenges having to do with the tarot cards they are dealt, or the card they are trying to win. It’s all a bit confusing to Cat at first, but the intrigue is undeniable. Not long after becoming involved in this enigmatic game, though...

Interview with the Vampire is the first book in Anne Rice’s adult horror fantasy Vampire Chronicles series. When a young reporter gets a chance to interview with the enigmatic, pale man that claims to be a vampire, he takes it. Such begins the long, harrowing tale of Louis, his maker Lestat and his “child” Claudia. Sweeping from pre-civil war Louisiana to the mists of Europe, Louis weaves his life story for the reporter from the tragic, defining moments before his transition and those bloody, unsettling moments immediately following his meeting with the vampire Lestat – and beyond. Anyone who has seen the film starring Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and a young Kirsten Dunst may know many details of the turns the novel will take – as it is a fairly strong adaptation, likely due to the fact that Anne Rice herself penned it. However, here we have the original book form where Rice lends that miserable, contemplative, gloomy voice of Louis who is a reluctant vampire, to put it ...

Cruel Beauty is a YA retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Rosamund Hodge. Nyx’s birth was the result of a bargain between her father and the evil ruler of their kingdom, the Gentle Lord Ignifex. In order to provide Nyx’s mother with children, the Gentle Lord secured the promise that one of the daughter’s would become his bride. Her father never thought to confirm that his wife would be able to survive the birthing. No one ever does think through their bargain entirely… Since her childhood, Nyx has been being prepared to marry the Gentle Lord – this demon king who caused the death of her own mother. Her family preps her to kill him, to enact the ultimate revenge and save their people from his ongoing bargains and tyranny of curses. So it is that on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx weds the immortal Gentle Lord via a stone proxy in the town church and proceeds to the mysterious castle that no one but the desperate – looking for a deal – ever comes near. Yet Igni...

Illuminae is the first book of the YA futuristic sci-fi thriller series The Illuminae Files by Amie Kaufman and Jay Krisftoff. It started off like a day like any other in the year 2575 on the human inhabited planet of Kerenza. Kady had made the difficult decision to break up with her boyfriend Ezra – and she thought that would be the toughest thing about the day. She didn’t realize her planet would be attacked that afternoon, the victim of two rival mega-corporations battling over the tiny speck of universe they called their home. There was no warning before nearly everything was on fire and people were dying all around them. Suddenly she and her ex, barely speaking since that morning, are forced to flee together – in a desperate attempt to evacuate the planet. Yet even once they are off Kerenza, it is not the end of the nightmare. There is a warship after their refugee fleets. There’s mysterious talk of quarantines. And the AI that is supposed to be keeping them safe may actuall...

The Dead House is a YA contemporary psychological thriller by debut author Dawn Kurtagich. Two decades ago there was a fire at Elmbridge High, leaving dead and missing students. So much was unknown at the time, though fascination and mystery surround the now abandoned, condemned former boarding school. Then a diary is found among the rubble. It is not that of Carly Johnson, a primary focus in the initial investigation – a student who vanished without a trace. Instead it was written by Kaitlyn Johnson. Who is she? How is she related to Carly? Did she truly exist? This new information reopens the case – and an examination of the diary alongside gathered psychiatric reports, video footage, text message and emails creates a far more disturbing account than anyone expected… The Dead House is CREEPY. It’s been a while since I read a book that left me a bit unsettled each time I put it down to go to bed, go about my daily tasks, etc. But this one did it. Uh huh. CREEPY. ...

Uglies is a YA dystopian novel by Scott Westerfeld. Still an ugly, Tally is looking forward to her upcoming sixteenth birthday. That is the day she will have her operation to become a pretty, as everyone does at sixteen, and move to New Pretty Town - the place all the newly gorgeous young people in society spend their time having fun all the time. Her best friend Peris has already turned pretty – and the loneliness Tally feels as she waits for her day to join him is hollowing out a hole in her heart. She worries he forgets about her as he adapts to his new, pretty life. When she meets Shay, Tally is shocked to learn that Shay is not as excited to turn pretty. She says odd things, such as not liking the idea of looking like everyone else – not liking that they are unable to consider their current faces pretty. So, Shay running away right before her own operation stuns Tally – but not as much as it might have. Yet, when heretofore unknown authorities in their society approach ...

Finding Audrey is a YA contemporary novel by Sophia Kinsella, author of the bestselling Shopaholic series. After an incident with classmates, Audrey has developed an anxiety disorder. She now rarely leaves the house and wears dark sunglasses at all times to avoid eye contact. Her family is loving, if crazy, and are working hard to help her get better – as is her kind therapist, Dr. Sarah. It’s a slow, but steady, progress. When her brother’s gaming teammate, Linus, comes over to the house she initially feels as much anxiety as she feels about anything she is not comfortable with – that is, A LOT. But soon she finds that Linus is patient with her disorder and is encouraging her to push farther into recovery than ever before. Suddenly, there is momentum. And perhaps some romantic feelings… I have never read the Shopaholic series, so I wasn’t sure what kind of writing style I was getting into at all. I have to say, all in all, I am pleasantly surprised by Finding Audrey ! ...

The Monstrumologist is a YA historical horror novel by Rick Yancey. Orphaned apprentice Will Henry lives and works with Dr. Warthrop – a man whose area of study is monstrumology, i.e. monsters. Already Will Henry has seen terrors that many men three times his age could never imagine, but when a midnight caller drags in the corpse of a young woman entangled with the carcass of an Anthropophagus, the first of his most horrific cases begins. A headless monster of extreme height and size, eyes deep in its shoulders and a mouth of razor-sharp teeth in its stomach, Anthropophagi are not supposed to exist in New Jerusalem. Yet, here one is. Will and the monstrumologist now must race against time to put a stop to these horrors before they kill again. And again. And again… The Monstrumologist is a gory, suspenseful, creepy novel that demands a strong stomach of its reader. What’s wonderful about it is that as grisly and graphic as the novel is, as it delves into a monsterific myst...

Everything, Everything is a YA contemporary debut novel by Nicola Yoon. Madeline is allergic to the world. She never leaves her sanitized house or sees anyone besides her mom and longtime nurse Carla. She reads a lot, her books arriving in vacuum sealed packaging, and does her schooling online. Used to this life, Madeline has accepted it and enjoys it. She looks forward to her movie nights with her mom and doesn’t think about how she hasn’t met anyone new in seventeen years. Then one day a moving truck arrives next door. A boy about her age, named Olly and dressed all in black, notices her looking from her window. Their eyes meet and now she can think of hardly anything else. When they start emailing and IMing, Maddie becomes sure of one thing – things are changing. And it’s certainly going to be a disaster… Everything, Everything is a beautifully constructed story. When we first meet Maddie, she is fully uncomplaining of her life – loving her books, her mom and Carla. S...

A Million Miles Away is a YA contemporary novel by Lara Avery. High school senior Kelsey’s life changes when her identical twin sister, Michelle, dies in a car accident. Her other half is gone. There’s an emptiness inside of her that she can only see reflected in her parents grief-filled eyes. When Kelsey accidentally intercepts a broken Skype call from Michelle’s boyfriend Peter, deployed in Afghanistan and unaware of Michelle’s death, he thinks he’s seeing Michelle. Immediately, Kelsey tries to correct him – but the call is so broken he cannot hear her. Soon she realizes that thinking of Michelle is one of the only things keeping Peter going and she finds the truth stuck in her throat the next time she has an opportunity to tell him. So, she pretends to be Michelle. Emails, chat, written letters. Initially she tries to write like Michelle – finds an odd comfort and connection to her twin by identifying with everything that made her who she was. But it doesn’t take long b...