Anyway, because of these entirely uninformed habits, it always kind of amazes me when I pick out a book I genuinely really like. And this weekend I read TWO. It was craziness.

Up first:

Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge

The first chapter of this book features misfit 12-year-old Mosca rescuing a conman from the stocks in exchange for employment, stealing a homicidal goose, and burning down her uncle’s mill. The conman, after various failed attempts at trying to lose her, eventually leads her into a world of disputed kingship, guild war and espionage, heavy censorship, and religious confusion. It’s not just Hardinge’s intensely detailed world-building, but Mosca and the reader are never really sure who’s on what side until the very end, which makes for exciting dramatic reveals. My favorite part was a Robin Hood-like escape turned sea battle between floating coffee houses. Also that the Guild of Stationers threatened to fight a battle by stabbing rival guildsmen with pens and crushing them underneath printing presses. Also: homicidal goose consistently saves the day. Come on.

You should read this book if:
1) Brave New World and 1984 are too old and serious but you want the same kind of message
2) You like characters who are mostly disreputable but sometimes decide to do the right thing, you know, just to keep people guessing
3) HOMICIDAL GOOSE

Then, as if that weren’t enough book love for one weekend, I also got:

China Mieville's Un Lun Dun

The only thing I don’t like about this book is that the girl on the cover looks kind of freaky, especially at night, so I always had to keep it cover-down when not reading.

Un Lun Dun is basically Alice in Wonderland on speed. After a series of weird and unexplainable events, Zanna and her friend Deebra follow a sentient umbrella to a strange parallel-London, an “abcity”, called UnLondon, where things from the real London go after they’ve become “moderately obsolete” or have just fallen through the cracks. Zanna is greeted by the strange inhabitants as some kind of mythical hero who will deliver them from their greatest enemy, a sentient form of smog banished from London after the Clean Air Act, but it eventually falls to Deebra to go on a bizarre quest with the help of a boy who’s half-ghost, a tailor with a pincushion for a head who makes clothes out of book pages, a bus conductor and his flying bus, and a sentient milk carton. Also, KILLER GIRAFFES. Here’s an excerpt:

“They’ve done a good job making people believe that those hippy refugees in the zoo are normal giraffes. Next you’ll tell me that they’ve got long necks so they can reach high leaves! Nothing to do with waving the bloody skins of their victims like flags, of course. There’s a lot of animals very good at that sort of disinformation. There are no cats in UnLondon, for example, because they’re not magic and mysterious at all, they’re idiots.”–Busconductor Jones pg. 53

And, as if that weren’t enough, China Mieville also does his own illustrations:

A Binja!

This and other illustrations (including the homicidal giraffes) can be found here.

This was definitely the best book I’ve read in a long time, and not just because they mention Extreme Librarians or Bookaneers. You should read this book if:
1) You are alive.

This cover has almost nothing to do with the plot

The Splendor Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore. I have made a check list for comparison.

1. Main character: Sylvie Davis v. Bella Swan

Sylvie Davis

Imagine a tutu instead of a cheerleading outfit and snarkiness instead of 80s hair

Backstory: 17-Year-Old international ballet sensation until the tragic accident that broke her leg. She’s better now, but with mom remarried she is forced to go spend the summer at her dead father’s family’s plantation mansion in Middle of Nowhere, Alabama.

Hobbies: Wishing she could still dance, talking to her adorable dog, solving mysteries, gardening, fighting the undead, historical research, being a reincarnation of an Ancient Welsh princess

Secret abilities: MAGIC, seeing dead people, and being from an Old Southern family

Growth throughout the book: She changes from a depressed, slightly snobby New Yorker into a ghost-fighting, mystery-solving True Daughter of the South.

When the going gets tough, she: runs headlong into the haunted woods totally ignoring her limp or personal safety.

Bella Swan

If I crease my forehead, it will look like I have emotions, which is more acting than you're doing, Robert

Backstory: When her mother remarries, she moves in with her father in Middle of Nowhere, Washington. That’s about it.

Hobbies: fulfilling the traditional woman’s role, falling down, EDWARD EDWARD EDWARD

Secret abilities: fainting, construing abuse as love

Growth throughout the book: She changes from a vapid, personalityless shell to a vapid, personalityless shell with a defining characteristic! Unfortunately, that’s dependence on a sparklepire.

When the going gets tough, she: swoons and then patiently waits for a big strong man to save her

2. Setting: Alabama v. Washington
Creepy Alabama

Take Disney's Haunted Mansion ride and add a sassy cook

Settings include Creepy Haunted Mansion with adjoining haunted forest, nearby small town of Mayberry Maddox Falls which apparently has good pie, creepy Civil War Era ghost town complete with creepy prison and grad student archeologists.

Product of: Actual research

Forks, Washington

I included this google image of it since that's all Stephenie Meyer knows either

Settings include rainy forest, rainy beaches, rainy Bella’s house, rainy school, rainy glass vampire house. Guess which is the only one described in any detail.

Product of: A fever dream and stereotypes

3. Villain: Every other character plus some ghosts v. the second dumbest vampire ever
Ghost Confederate soldiers/oddly charismatic student body president guy/hot Welsh guy/industry/the Self

One of the great things about The Splendor Falls is that it’s a mystery with suspense (words italicized so SMeyers will realize they are vocab words she needs to look up and use in a sentence or a novel). Therefore, until the last few chapters, it’s impossible to know who the bad guy is. But practically every other character is a suspect including Sylvie herself, since for awhile she thinks she’s going crazy (you know, a rational response to seeing the undead). Other possible suspects include: her ancestor the mean Southern colonel’s malevolent ghost, a shrieking ghost girl who turns out to be his disgraced daughter, a sad ghost baby (you can probs see where that subplot is going), the unquiet Union prisoner dead, Shawn Maddox the oddly charismatic leader of the Teen Town Council who, despite their idiotic name, are clearly UP TO SOMETHING NO GOOD/voodoo, and Rhys, a secretive Welsh hottie staying at the mansion/hotel and “doing research” that involves sneaking off into the woods and telling Sylvie she’s in grave danger but never elaborating.

When men get pushy, secretive, and generally act like asshats, Sylvie: tells them to stop being a dick, stops talking to them, walks away, avoids them

Some vampire

I know he has a name, but I doubt SMeyers even remembers it he was such a minor character

I mean, I’m sure this guy tried to be menacing, but when you’re introduced on page 400 there’s not much you can do besides take your shirt off, foil the main characters’ idiotic plans with your own only slightly less stupid ones, and hope for the best.

When men get pushy, stalkity, and completely abusive, Bella: falls even deeper in LOVE

4. Love Interest: Rhys v. Edward

Rhys

I typed "Hot Welsh Guy" into Google images and Christian Bale came up

Despite saving Sylvie from plummeting off a cliff this one time and being really considerate about her still hurt leg, Rhys may also be the bad guy considering how he’s 1) way too snarky, 2) sneaks off all the time to do something, 3) will not share what it is and gets way cryptic when you try to ask, and 4) may or may not have dropped a mine shaft on his BFF back in Wales. Also he may be a voodoo wizard?

His hotness: is no excuse for his jerkiness. Good job, Sylvie. Way to have priorities.

Edward

I tried to find one where his hair looks the most ridic, but it was too hard to choose

Edward’s main attraction is that he is the hottest male ever in any species (above picture apparently notwithstanding). He’s also way good at every possible skill, including entomology. But he may also be a villain considering that he’s a vampire and may rip Bella apart at any time and feast upon her flesh. I personally consider him to be a villain because he never does this. All the other reasons that he is a “love interest” revolve around being domineering and abusive, so I count it towards evidence for his impending trial rather than reasons why he is a mysterious and exciting male lead.

His hotness: is a license to stalk. And can blind unwitting motorists. Apparently.

5. The Plot: Constant Confusion vs. Constant Boredom

The Splendor Falls
I feel like I need some kind of complex flow chart to explain this plot. But when I tried it I got this:

And that is ignoring some of the subplots

I seriously still did not know what was going on till the last chapter.

Twilight
Happily (or sadly), Twilight’s was so easy to draw, that I even took time to add labels:

I thought about writing out more of the characters' names, but then realized I don't remember them for a reason

6. Authors: Rosemary Clement-Moore v. Stephenie Meyer

Rosemary Clement-Moore
Although her website is way less syrupy and self-indulgent than SMeyer’s, Rosemary seems to be pretty bitchin’. She lists Arsenic and Old Lace, Firefly, Guitar Hero, and Jasper Fforde as some of her favorites, which means that we could sit next to each other on a bus and become instant BFFs. However, she doesn’t seem crazy, which is something I like in my authors.

Stephenie Meyer
And crazy is one area where SMeyer doesn’t disappoint. I don’t even know what to say here because there are TOO MANY options. First, she wrote Twilight. Second, it came to her in a dream. Third, she claims to be in love with the main characters. Fourth, she went to the trouble to explain how Edward can deal with being around Bella when she’s menstruating (and her explanation is ridic). There’s more, but I’m sick of thinking about Twilight. Oddly, I think this round goes to SMeyer, simply because she enriches my life with her crazy. And by that I mean, I like laughing at her.

Splendor Falls: 5 Twilight: -8,999
I took off points for how long it took me to slog through.

The Barbarian Princess

If you throw in a few Latin words, it's historical, right?

The Basic Plot
Lydda is the headstrong daughter of a Roman prefect in Britannia who is kidnapped by Irish pirates along with her childhood BFF. She escapes and swims back home while he appears later in the novel as St. Patrick for no real reason. After meeting a burly Saxon named Thel who foreshadows like woah that They Will Meet Again and He Will Do More Than Just Feel Her Up when they do. Then she is married to a Roman nobleman who is not-so-secretly gay and spends a few chapters torturing her for being a “disgusting woman”. Then, just when it looks like Lydda and Thel may have a chance to run away together, Alaric the Goth sacks Rome and kidnaps Lydda. After escaping from him, she visits nearly every major city in the Mediterranean looking for Thel, being kidnapped by various lascivious men, and forced to do “unspeakable things” to survive. Eventually she is shipwrecked on the coasts of Ancient Scotland and kidnapped by a druid who tells her that she is the reincarnation of a druid priestess and that she should lead his tribe against the Saxon invades. So she her army against the forces massed to the South who are led by none other than… THEL! Naturally the war immediately ceases and everyone becomes friends (despite all the dead bodies) and Thel and Lydda live Happily Ever After.

Patricia’s Review
So I was actually kind of impressed with this, when comparing it to other romance novels. Sure, the characters were all vapid and annoying archetypes, and sometimes I got sick of hearing about how earth-shatteringly beautiful the main character is, but the author simultaneously managed to have entire chapters involving ONLY (reasonably accurate) historical description and not sex while AT THE SAME TIME including a wide spectrum of sexual kinks usually not found in your average romance novel (because they offend the 1970′s housewife). I would say the author descended into drink-induced haze around three-quarters of the way through, when everyone EXCEPT Lydda dies on a ship during a hurricane and the sketch druid guy makes her a priestess/warrior queen.

Steven’s Review
Traditionally, the phrase “romance novel” has always made me picture long, drawn-out scenes of soap-opera-esque interpersonal drama with the occasional bland and overwrought “sex” scenes that vie with one another for the title of “most phallic euphemisms on one page.” Surprisingly, this book kept the soap drama to a minimum while throwing in every kind of interesting bizarre kink you can think of without completely ruining a romance novel. Lydda wends her way through an in-depth survey of the ancient world, randomly encountering notables like Emperor Honorius, King Alaric of the Goths, Hypatia of Alexandria (sliced to death by rabid Christians on the church steps in this version as opposed to her real-life stoning near the library), and various unknowns representing political and religious groups of the time. The meetings are pretty improbable, but fascinating, if laced with illicit sex. Light to heavy S&M themes underlie pretty much the whole book, as well as themes of feminism and an anti-Christian motif, only to all be resolved in the end with a loving, tender, Christian and remarkably rape-free marriage and simple peasant life. A little disappointing, at the end, but otherwise a fascinating read. If you like mid-Imperial Rome and drunken Florence King trying to get herself evicted from romance-novel-authorship with prejudice.

… and I can’t believe I just handed the computer to Steven saying “Quick! Review The Barbarian Princess!” and he took it seriously…