Middle School Book Reports just got a whole lot more awesome because I have successfully connived Steven Wiggins into helping me!!! I’m sure he wouldn’t have agreed if the book series in question wasn’t all about different Greco-Roman gods and goddesses in middle school! It’s called Goddess Girls by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams! Clearly Steven wanted to be the first classics major to really make a close study of this groundbreaking new text in the field.

You can tell he's secretly enjoying himself

Props to Caitlin for convincing me to read all of these!! Well, she mainly just posted a link to it on my facebook wall, clearly well aware that I require almost no convincing to read ridiculous tween book series based somehow on really violent and sexually explicit ancient source material! Of course I immediately checked out as many as the library had available. Therefore I’m not reading them in any order–this one is actually book 3–but they each seem to be a separate story so Steven and I were not completely bewildered. Well, Steven was, but that was mostly about the term “godboy”.

I can't be the only one weirded out by her gigantic insect eyes, right?

Summary of Amazingness
By Patricia
Aphrodite decides to give her frumpy friend Athena a makeover!! But then gets super jealous when school hottie Ares, her secret crush, starts paying more attention to her friend! Plus, Hephaestus, a sweet but ugly boy keeps sending her flowers and gifts to woo her and making everyone gossip about how they’re an item when everyone knows Aphrodite has got STANDARDS, you guys. Everyone learns a lesson about true love and being honest by helping Hippomenes trick his way into Atalanta’s arms, and Athena reveals that sleazy Ares just wanted her advice on how to get a city named after him. Then Aphrodite sets Hephaestus up with some other nerdy chick and everyone lives happily ever after.

Thetis is all like "Make me some armor for my son or I'll stuff you into a locker, NERD"

Faithfulness to Original Mythos
By Steven
Okay, so firstly let’s ignore the whole middle school metaphor thing. Or that in this continuity the instructors (Principal Zeus, Mr. Cyclops, et al.) are supposed to be >= 1 generation in age and stature above the students (Athena, Atlas, Pandora, etc.). The characters mentioned are all more or less representative of their Greek originals–with the juicy bits left out–and there were a few standouts outside the normal range of the Pantheon. Props to the author for including not just Medusa, but also her sisters Euryale and Stheno, and double props for providing Ares the posse of Kydoimos (confusion in battle) and Makhai (spirits of battle), even though none of the above are really provided any back story. Small mistake in making Makhai singular (it refers to the brethren of spirits associated with battle, including Kydoimos) but otherwise pretty accurate. The Atalanta story is pretty spot on and Hephaestus’ loss of Aphrodite to Ares and subsequent matchup with Agleia is quasi-accurate as well, if missing the whole sex-in-a-net thing. Small demerit (or prop? I can’t decide) for “Arachne’s Sewing Supplies” in the Immortal Market, where Athena goes for yarn and needles; isn’t that sort of bad taste on Athena’s part? Four out of five stars for accuracy, the fifth being that I can’t get over this middle school metaphor! And the term “godboy”, of course.

Tween Girl Life Lessons
By Patricia
1) Every girl is super hot if you just restyle her hair and slather on enough makeup!
2) If you don’t like the way your friends look, just change them!
3) Beauty-ology is a completely serious class that you need to study; Athena, as a nerd, is completely failing!
4) If someone’s not hot enough to be your BF (and it’s totally okay to judge them on their looks or disabilities, btws) just string them along for awhile until you can set them up with someone more their scene

Patricia’s Favorites!!!
Character: Medusa! Her snake hair is fab and she’s fatally dangerous to all mortal students at the school, but no one seems worried about that? Plus, she thinks “Bubbles” is an appropriately mean-spirited nickname for the Goddess of Love.
Part: Anytime anyone says a spell. Example: “Blow wind, blow. Off you go. Deliver this message, and don’t be slow.” Even Ron Weasley wouldn’t have trouble with that one!
Thing I Learned: I didn’t know that Hephaestus got married after his divorce from Aphrodite (in the book represented by him going over to talk to some other girl in the cafeteria)! Which is cool because I always felt bad for him before.

Her hair's so big because it's full of SECRETS. And snakes.

Steven’s Favorites
Character: The sentient makeup brush, hands down. Goodbye Pantheon, hello Beauty and the Beast! Pheme (goddess of Fame but also vicious rumor) gets a mention, too, if only for being written closest to her original form.
Part: The Immortal Marketplace: Arachne’s Sewing Supplies and Cleo’s (Cleopatra?) Cosmetics for the girls and Arts of Warfare for the boys.
Thing I Learned: I learned that adding “-ology” to any term immediately makes it an Immortal class subject. I’m now shooting for “Mortal-ology,” hopefully this series’ answer to HP’s “Muggle Studies.”

Goddess Girls Glossary of Ridiculous Terms
textscroll–like a textbook, but a scroll! Comes in colors
scrollizine–a magazine! Useful for getting makeover inspiration
godboy–the boy equivalent of a “goddessgirl”
lyrebell–how you tell when to change classes!
hero-ology
beauty-ology
craft-ology
beast-ology
metal-ology

Next Time: Artemis the Brave!!

The Wedding by Danielle Steel
Can two people who are vaguely different make it? Yes, because they have so much boring in common! I read this for class because it was a bestseller (I think in the 90s?). The main character is a Mary Sue named Allegra, and I can’t remember anything else about it besides that I hated her and wanted her to get attacked by flesh-eating bees. Sadly, she got married instead. ONE STAR.

The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom
A creepy ghost whose only power is surprise pregnancy. Terrifying, yes, but not what I want out of my ghost stories. ONE STAR.

Stork by Wendy DelSol
I did a more detailed hate-writeup of this here, but it’s basically Twilight, but with surprise pregnancy instead of vampires. ONE STAR.

Callie’s Rules by Naomi Zucker
I really don’t remember anything about this book or why I hated it. I think it had something to do with the town banning Halloween. Unless that debate involves wild accusations of cannibalism and someone counterattacking with how pagan all Christmas traditions are, I don’t care. ONE STAR.

Twenty Times a Lady by Karyn Bosnak
This book made me sad for women everywhere. Clearly revisiting all your ex-boyfriends because of the arbitrary advice from Cosmo is the best life plan after getting fired. Sure, they were jerks before, but I’m sure they’ve all changed since then. NEGATIVE ONE THOUSAND STARS.

Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner
All I can remember is everyone talking about a way cool fairy/human war that would have made a much better book than this. ONE STAR.

Narcissus in Chains by Lauren K. Hamilton
For some reason, having sex in public is the answer to most of the heroines problems. Also a vampire and a werewolf are vying for her affections. I think my brain has blocked out everything but that. ONE STAR.

Pornified by Pamela Paul
I took off a lot of points for misleading summaries of research and really unscientific research methods. Also I think I was suspicious of a lot of her sources, since I read all of the citations after becoming increasingly skeptical of her findings. (A Billion Wicked Thoughts, which I also read this year, covers porn in much more interesting and scientific way. ONE STAR.

The Alpha Bet by Stephanie Hale
college has only two sororities! One is pure evil and the other is perfect and amazing and fun and everyone is so nice!!! ONE STAR.

One Butt Cheek at a Time by Amber Kizer
I honestly don’t remember anything about this book or why I didn’t like this. But I know I did. I’m going to guess I found the main character irritating.

The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance or Candle Man by Glenn Dakin
I still can’t tell which is the series title and which is the book title. This book annoyed me so much that I actually wrote a review on GoodReads! Here is what it said:

I really wanted to like this book. The title definitely hooked me, and I was interested to see why the main character, Theo, was being imprisoned by the clearly evil Dr. Saint. Unfortunately, the plot quickly slowed to a series of random events which did not mesh seamlessly (or really at all) into a whole plot. Theo himself is completely unlikeable, spending most of the book scared, unsure of himself, and not understanding what is going on around him, making his a very poor narrative point of view. His sidekick, Chloe, is mainly used as a deus ex machina. Each time the author writes himself into a corner–SURPRISE! Chloe is a double agent with secret connections, Chloe has memorized the secret system of tunnels, Chloe has been fighting the evil Society of Good Works since she was six! I can tell the author wants me to find Chloe funny, exciting, and awesome–mostly because Theo spends the whole book telling me she is–but I never found a good enough reason to care about her. I also spent most of the novel confused about the time period. The narrative had a very steampunk feel, but at one point someone hands Theo a laptop. Dakin’s attempt at world-building seems haphazard at best. At the end, a very minor character dies, and we’re told by a tearful Chloe that this character “was the real hero of the story”. Unfortunately, this is true, as this character–appearing in probably two scenes at most and doing nothing in either–was by far my favorite, since she hadn’t appeared often enough to be annoying. What was she like? I have no idea, but almost anything would be better than the “heroes” we have. Hopefully some of these issues are cleared up in the sequel, but I can’t see myself attempting to slog through more of Dakin’s uninspired prose to read.

Vanish by Sophie Jordan
This is the sequel to Firelight, which James convinced me to read. Jacinda spends most of it whining about everything that happens, even when she gets her way. Also, I don’t understand why people who can turn into dragons are so scared of normal humans. YOU CAN TURN INTO A DRAGON. One star.

Continue on to The Ugly

"YA" is my most popular category!

I thought I would show you The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of what I’ve read this year, based on the amount of stars I gave them! Starting with The Good first! These books all got 5 stars from me:

The Alanna Series by Tamora Pierce
I reread these this year and gave them 5 stars mostly for nostalgia purposes. Alanna used to be my favorite book character ever, complete middle school role model. This year I’ve decided I actually like Kel better, but Alanna and her magical lady knight ways will always have a place in my heart.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Intrepid girl detective/chemist solves two grisly murders! Also there’s pie!

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern
Sewing, LARP, D&D, and audio books! I’m pretty sure this book was written specifically for me!

Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King
Vera solves a few crimes, sees ghosts, and is a badass!

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
90s nostalgia! A book written in emails! Secret IT love! I’m there.

What the World Eats and other books by Faith D’Alussio and Peter Menzel
This series was amazing! It’s pictures of either a single person or a whole family with the food that they eat for an entire week or day! With explanations about their food choices, living situation, country, where their food comes from etc. I learned so much about other countries from these books!

Hereville by Barry Deutsch
An orthodox Jewish girl fights monsters!!! The best!!!

King George: What was his Problem? by Steve Sheinkin
The American Revolution made hilarious! I read this with the girl I tutor and I learned so much!

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
The concept of this book was intriguing, and the writing sucked me in immediately. The main character is forced to continually relive the day she died over and over, changing things each time. Kind of like Groundhog Day, I found the different choices she made and how they effected everyone around her completely engrossing.

Meanwhile by Jason Shiga
A choose your own adventure graphic novel!!!! Hours of fun!

Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury
Mummies! Napoleon! A coming out ball! Spies! The British Museum! This book was amazing!!

Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
Scarlett’s family owns a whimsical hotel in NYC and she ends up as the assistant for one of their eccentric, wealthy guests! I loved her older brother, who spends a lot of time on a unicycle, and was surprised when her love life didn’t follow the typical YA novel course. Maybe because it’s a series!

Maggie Quinn, Girl vs. Evil series by Rosemary Clement-Moore
I’ve never read anything I didn’t like by Rosemary Clement-Moore, but the series (a trilogy so far) about Maggie Quinn is awesome! It has a kind of Buffy-esque fighting-demons-while-snarking quality to it, and I even really like all of the supporting characters too, which is sort of a shocker! I can’t even decide what my favorite of the three would be!

Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey
Violet’s mother is terrible but sort of good at pretending to be a ghost-whisperer in a Victorian London that is obsessed with that kind of thing. Unfortunately, Violet really can see ghosts, and is forced to solve a murder. Plus, a cute boy!!

Cakepops by Angie Dudley
I haven’t tried any of the super-elaborate cake pops in this book yet, but I can’t wait to!

Fly Trap by Frances Hardinge
This is a sequel to Fly by Night which I LOVED, so I was super excited to see that she wrote a sequel!!! I love her system of little saints that look after everything (Mosca’s patron is Palpitattle, he who keeps flies out of the cream. They play a much bigger role in this book, a Mosca and Clent become trapped in a city that divides everyone according to the goodness or badness of their patron beloved. I love who scrappy Mosca is, and smart. “If all damsels had claws they would spend a lot less time in distress”. This book made me so happy!!

Continue to: The Bad or The Ugly

You could maybe tell from the title of this book that it’s about Daja, who has metal and smith powers! I’ve never had anything against Daja, except her moping through two Circle of Magic books before realizing that the Circleteers were really her friends. But that all got cleared up in Daja’s Book when she stopped a forest fire. This book is also about Daja stopping fires, perhaps because Tamora Pierce has a hard time thinking of ways for her to save the day with metal? Once again, Daja has to use her powers to try to save lives when fire gets out of control, only this time she’s up against an arsonist instead of the forces of nature! And you know I love when there’s a bad guy!

Daja and her teacher Frostpine are staying the winter in a medieval-fantasy version of Denmark? Maybe? It’s really cold and everyone gets around by ice-skating the frozen canals. As in the first two books in the series, Daja notices that the twin daughters of the family they’re staying with have special, previously-undetected magic with cooking and carpentry. Unlike the other two books, the city is apparently full of cooking-mages and carpentry-mages, so Daja is able to pawn the girls off onto better-suited teachers fairly quickly, leaving most of the story devoted to catching the arsonist who is hiding in their midst! Not-even-a-spoiler alert: it’s the guy in charge of fire brigades. This would be a huge shocker if we didn’t get whole passages from his point of view plotting to set things on fire fairly early on, making all the “No… IT CAN’T BE!” moments at the end kind of tiring.

Awards

Best New Character Award: It’s a tie between Heluda Salt, Police Mage, and Olennika Potcracker, Kitchen Mage. But I like them both for the same reason: being tough kickass women! Olennika doesn’t attend mage banquets because she’s “referred publicly to the richer of our members as parasites”(203). Heluda responds that she’s probably being too generous since at least real parasites feed other creatures so they can be good for something. Rock on, Lady Mages!

Returning Character Honorable Mention: Frostpine!
I’ve never really noticed Daja’s teacher before, except once when some other adult hints that he was (is?) a total, total player, but he is actually pretty funny. I like how he acts casually protective around Daja at times (like when BOYS are involved), but also casually gives her a lot of freedom to experiment and screw up. Plus, he sits naked in the kitchen fire.

Daja’s Improvement Score: +10% =85/100
Previously Daja has been a C-student for me. She’s not bad by any means, and I sometimes really like her stoic nature. She was about average as a main character in the first series, and luckily she has improved somewhat in this one! Congrats, Daja, you’re a B-student now! Without her friends to help her, Daja has to do more talking and standing up for herself, which she does pretty well! I don’t know if she’ll ever be my fave, but I wouldn’t mind hanging out with her.

Thing I Most Wish Was Real: Cooking magic! I think I’ve finally found the Circleeter-world magic that is for me! Now I guess I just have to wait for one of these wandering teen-mages to discover me and be forced to become my teacher!

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
Daja and Frostpine are staying with Frostpine’s friends in the Frozen North! He has a bunch of daughters, but only two important ones, twins named Nia and Jory. Daja sees Jory put some magic into something she’s mixing in the kitchen. FIRE! Everyone runs outside and forms efficient bucket chains to put out the fire. Ben, a local merchant/expert in fire prevention, taught everyone how to handle fires because the whole city is made of wood. Daja is mad impressed that he can do all that without any magic, and he is mad impressed that Daja can command fire.

Chapter two
Frostpine bitches about being cold, as he will for the entire book. He explains that Daja has to help the twins with their magic, and that if one twin has magic, the other will too. It’s the first law of twins. Daja talks to Nia and Jory’s parents, who are happy their daughters have magic, but also annoyed that it will apparently ruin marriage negotiations. No one wants a headstrong mage wife!

Chapter three
Their mom writes up a list of carpentry and cooking mages for Daja to visit to see who would be the best teachers. Daja grumbles about it, even though this seems way easier than being stuck with the kid for good like Sandry and Briar. On her way back she sees a fire! She runs inside to help a blind girl get out! Then we get Ben’s point of view later, revealing that he started the fire because he thought his fire brigades were getting too complacent. Also that he thinks Daja is some kind of goddess. Yay, a crazy supervillain!

Chapter four
Ben lost his wife and children in a fire, which is what inspired him to go off and study fire and then come back and help others! Ben’s mom is a complete bitch to both him and Daja! I assume it’s because she knows her son is a crazy person. Also, Ben keeps creepy mementos from fires? One of them is a skeleton hand?? DAJA WHY ARE YOU NOT MAD SUSPICIOUS!?

Chapter five
Jory and Nia find teachers, but Daja still has to teach them how to meditate. Also, Jory’s teacher works in a hospital kitchen in a bad part of town which is a SCANDAL.

Chapter six
Jory is terrible at meditation because she can’t sit still. So Daja decides to teach the girls some kind of fighting/meditation hybrid with staffs. Of course, Nia is bad at that. Frostpine really wants to get warm, so he sits naked in the kitchen fire place. Surprise, kitchen maids!

Chapter seven
Daja works with some smiths around town, some of whom seem to be suspicious of Ben and why he would want to be all about fire after it killed his family. Then they talk about what a bitch his mom is and how she beats her servants. Daja still thinks Ben is a hero and decides to make magical fire-proof gauntlets for him to use.

Chapter eight
Daja finally realizes that, though twins, Nia and Jory are not the same, and need different teaching. She uses quiet normal meditation with Nia and movement meditation with Jory. The second law of twins is that they always know where each other is! Daja fails at Magical Fire Gauntlets and is pissed. For some reason she blames Frostpine for not “warning her about pride”. Luckily Frostpine is having none of that, because he is awesome.

Chapter nine
Ben’s mom: still a bitch! Daja is mad that his mom is so mean about Ben, and I hope soon the truth will be revealed and the mom will be proved right that he is terrible. Ben starts a fire, then runs home gleefully to wait for them to summon him. But they don’t! Finally they come get him, saying they thought they could handle it without him, but some people die of smoke inhalation. He visits them in the hospital, and is so happy about his power over life and death that he starts crying.

Chapter ten
Daja and Frostpine head to one of the city’s mage banquets. Most of them are rich and fancy. Daja tries to talk to the apprentice carpenter-mage who’s been helping Nia, but his friends make fun of her for being 14. She shows them her mage qualification medallion and they freak out. On their way home, they see a huge fire at a fancy house! Ben is there, and for some reason seems annoyed to see them.

Chapter eleven
Both Frostpine and Daja run inside the burning building to help! Daja ends up hurrying children and servants out of the nursery, but some of them die anyway. She and Frostpine use up all their magic. Heluda comes by and says it’s a weird coincidence that the burning house belonged to a councillman’s mistress, the same councillman that recently refused Ben more fire-fighting-funding! But what could that mean? Daja has NO idea!

Chapter twelve
Ben comes to visit Daja and they have a weird conversation about whether or not they’re friends, and Ben begs Daja not to give up on him for being weird. Daja thinks the person that’s starting fires on purpose is evil and Ben disagrees. DAJA YOU ARE LIKE THE LEAST OBSERVANT PERSON EVER.

Chapter thirteen
Ben is so happy with the gloves Daja finished for him! He leaves her alone in his parlor while he tries them in the kitchen fire. She notices there are more creepy fire mementos on his shelf! Suspicious? NAH IT’S FINE. Later Ben comes over to her place so she can measure him for a full suit made of magical fire-proof metal. Teen girl measuring older man’s body? Awkward? Yes. Frostpine comes in to meet Ben and later tells Daja Ben’s mom started a rumor that Daja is a gold digger trying to marry Ben and his money.

Chapter fourteen
Ben is going away for two weeks, so now is the perfect time to start a huge fire on his way out of town. Using the magical gloves, he’s able to put some exploding powder (“boom dust”) into the furnace of a big bathhouse. It explodes later on and he is gleeful. Lots of people die! Later, Heluda comes and hands Daja this iron bar that was touched with her magic! What? How can that be???? Daja asks the iron bar to tell its story and she sees Ben doing his crazy thing. Heluda has had her suspicions, and she blames his mom for being such a bitch. Poor Ben’s Mom, I don’t think she’s going to get her redemption at the end. Heluda will arrest him when he comes back to town.

Chapter fifteen
Ben’s trip gets cut short because of weather. He notices some of his creepy fire mementos have been moved and he has a note from Heluda asking to see him. He gets suspicious and decides to cut and run. Later Nia tells Daja she thinks Ben’s house is on fire! They break in to try to rescue Ben’s mom, but find Ben has already gruesomely murdered her. They put the fire out, but Nia knows that Jory is in trouble!! Third law of twins!! Daja races towards the hospital, which is, of course, on fire.

Chapter sixteen
Ben is at the hospital helping get people out, but then he maybe dies when the roof falls? Daja has to go in and get the people in the insane ward out, by tying them together and leading them like horses. Daja doesn’t believe Ben is dead. It was all part of his plan to fake his death and go on starting fires elsewhere. She follows him and traps him for justice!

Previously: The Circle Opens Book 2: Street Magic
Next: The Circle Opens Book 4: Shatterglass

This book had lots of things going for it! One, it’s about Briar! He is my second favorite Circleteer! I realized last night that I pretty much like them in order of bitchiness because it seems more realistic to me. Like the first book in this new, more badass Circleteer series, it also has actual bad guys! A lot of them! And, like Sandry, Briar finds a young kid with strange magic and is forced by the “He who smelt it dealt it” law of mage-finding to be her teacher! Also, Briar gets back to his street rat roots with some gang warfare! Exciting!

The cover on the left makes Briar really look like a creeper

Briar and his teacher Rosethorn are traveling to the far off land of Yanjing, which seems to be fantasy-medieval Japan if their penchant for Bonsai trees is any indication. On the way they stop in the dusty, ancient city of Chammur, somewhere in fantasy-medieval Arabia. I would be cool with this change of scene, except that there is absolutely NOTHING good about fantasy-medieval Arabia! Everyone is a jerk or some kind of criminal, the land is constantly described as “tired” and too old to function, and Briar and Rosethorn pretty much can’t wait to get away. Chammur has, literally, no redeeming qualities. Briar meets no nice people besides foriegners who are equally attempting to escape, discovers no natural beauty, interesting customs, or anything to be happy about at all. The moral of the story apparently is that Islamic countries suck, and you should do everything within your power to escape them before you are trapped forever in this scorching, corrupt cesspit with no redeeming features.
So… kind of an interesting stance for a children’s book.

Awards

Best New Character: Lady Zenadia doa Atteneh
Okay, there weren’t a lot of likable new characters to choose from because, as I’ve said, Chammur is the worst place ever, and Lady Z is kind of annoying and not really developed. BUT she’s a fancy rich lady who decides to sponsor a street gang because she’s bored. And then dispenses swift, languid murder when they don’t do as she says. Way to commit to your hobby, Lady Z.

Returning Character Honorable Mention: Briar
Briar and Rosethorn are the only two returning characters, and Rosethorn spends most of the book on some kind of farm field trip despite the fact that Briar and Evvy are almost murdered by street children like every day.

Briar’s Improvement Score: -7%= 89/100
What happened to you, Briar, you used to be cool! Unfortunately, Briar has left his past as a wise-talking street urchin behind him, so much so that he forgets to protect his valuables in public and glamorizes gang life. He keeps pressuring Evvy to join a gang, even though gangs have caused pretty much all this book’s problems. He’s still my second fave, but I was sad to see that he’s grown more responsible and less funny.

Thing I Most Wish Was Real: Magical Bonsai Trees
Bonsai trees are already amazing in the normal world, so I can only assume adding magic would make them even better!

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
Being back in the big city makes Briar think back to his street rat days a lot. As he’s wandering the market he sees a girl polishing some stones at a gem merchant’s stall. He notices that she’s putting magic into them or something and asks her about it. She freaks out and runs away. Some kids his age with fancy nose ring bling try to rough him up for being on Viper territory! Briar insists he’s not in a gang. The Vipers are apparently funded by fancy Lady Z, who is now interested in Evvy! Since apparently stone mages are really useful? I must assume so, since this is basically the plot of the rest of the book.

Chapter two
Rosethorn explains the rules of finding mages to Briar, who grumbles, realizing he’ll have to find Evvy again. This leads to a chase across the rooftops because we are apparently in the movie Aladdin.

Chapter three
Briar bribes Evvy to come over to his rooftop by leaving food for her like a stray cat. He tries to talk to her about learning to control her magic, but she just steals the food and runs. Briar decides to go talk to the one other stone mage in the city, but on the way he feels Evvy freaking out and using magic! Some Vipers tried to kidnap her and she hurls burning stones at them! Briar finds her and demands she meet him tomorrow, and also that she take a bath.

Chapter four
The Camelguts are another local gang, and they ask Briar to help their wounded leader, but he is too hurt and ends up dying. More Camelguts come in injured, claiming Vipers jumped them. The Viper in charge of grabbing Evvy reports back to Lady Z, who punishes failure with murder! Evvy shows up as promised at the same time as the Camelguts come asking for more medical help, since now they are pretty much all wounded.

Chapter five
Briar spends all day caring for them, and Evvy helps by making stones light up and making stones warm. Another of the Camelguts dies, and the rest have a conference about what to do, since the Vipers have offered to let them join their gang. They decide to do it, and Briar thinks they are cowardly wimps.

Chapter six
Evvy is suspicious about why Briar is helping her, but he assures her by telling him “I like them prettier, fatter, and older.” Evvy talks about how her parents sold her into slavery when they were stopped here on their journey from Yanjing, her original home, and how she escaped.

Chapter seven
Briar goes to meet the stone mage who lives in the palace, but he’s a jerk.

Chapter eight
Briar teaches Evvy to meditate, but still insists that the stone mage will eventually be her real teacher when Rosethorn verbally beats him up. Lady Z kills another gang member for getting cheeky.

Chapter nine
Briar is selling his tiny Bonsai trees in the market! Lady Z decides to get Evvy by sucking up to Briar, so she buys one of his trees and offers Evvy a chance to come and live with her, but Evvy says no.

Chapter ten
Bitchy stone mage arrives, having been harassed by Rosethorn into meeting Evvy. He tests her, and harrumphs a lot because she’s more powerful than him. He grudgingly agrees to teach her, but Evvy refuses to go with him because he’s mean, and Briar is secretly glad. Rosethorn is cool with Evvy moving in with them.

Chapter eleven
Briar and Evvy go to get Evvy’s cats. She lives in a small cave inside a cliff that is made entirely of tunnels and secret passages where all the city’s poor live. She doesn’t mind because the stone protects her from things. She has seven cats, and I’m really grossed out, even though I think I’m supposed to think they’re cute. Briar goes to install his tiny bonsai at Lady Z’s house. Her gardens seem really nice… too nice. Once again Lady Z tries to get him to give her Evvy, but he refuses.

Chapter twelve
On his way home some policemen who are watching the house question him about it since they are suspicious of Lady Z and think she has been killing policemen. Briar tells them her gardens are suspiciously nice. Just when I think we’ve met some okay characters, the police start being jerks and want Briar to give Evvy to Lady Z to be a spy. Briar tells them to shut it off and leaves.

Chapter thirteen
Rosethorn is going on a farm-inspecting field trip for a few days, leaving Briar and Evvy without adult supervision which seems really smart. Briar starts teaching Evvy how to read, using rocks as motivation. One of the former Camelguts comes begging Briar to help her friend who was badly beaten in a fight. She acts really sorry that she ever joined the Vipers. Briar puts wards on all the doors and windows and then leaves to help the friend. She is super beat up, and something is keeping her from talking! Also, the original girl has disappeared! Briar breaks the spell on her tongue and the girl tells him it was really the Vipers that beat her up!!! Oh noes!!!! Plus, he forgot to ward the roof trap door so Evvy totes gets kidnapped.

Chapter fourteen
Briar can sense where Evvy is, so he follows her across the city, remeeting a series of people who remain jerks, including the police. Oh well, he’ll just have to get the job done himself. He gets into Lady Z’s gardens and sees a bunch of human bones and a dead body!!! OMG!!! That’s what she’s been feeding the plants!! Her murder victims!! Gross gross gross.

Chapter fifteen
With the help of his plant friends, Briar defeats all of Lady Z’s guards. Meanwhile, Evvy has tried to escape by calling on her stone powers to wreck up the place. The policemen whom Briar reported this to on the way have apparently decided to do something for once and are trying to get in the house. At first Lady Z is like “Whatevs, no one will care that I murdered a bunch of street children” but Briar points out the policemen will care about their missing spies. Then she poisons herself. When Rosethorn gets back she finds Briar and Evvy have been kicked out of the city. They all are super grateful to leave!

Previously: The Circle Opens Book 1: Magic Steps
Next: The Circle Opens Book 3: Cold Fire

You thought I’d forgotten my goal to read every Tamora Pierce Book ever!! Ha! It’s like you don’t even know me and my implacability when it comes to books aimed at middle schoolers. Today I read the first book in the second series about the Circleteers, following the Circle of Magic series. While the books in the first series were about the four Circleteers learning to use their magic and inevitably working together to fend off some natural disaster (and one memorable magical pirate attack), in this series the Circleteers are separated and have to work as individuals! So much so that I’m not even sure I can call them Circleteers anymore! You know, since their powers don’t combine and all. It’s something I’m pretty bummed about.

BUT this series seems to be vastly superior to the first in almost every other way! It’s almost like Tamora Pierce heard my complaints about there being no villains and every character being insufferably good, their only faults being things like “working too hard”. This book definitely has bad guys! And a series of grisly murders! Plus, Sandry is less insufferable than before! She’s 14 now, and has to deal with her own apprentice who seems to annoy her a lot for some reason, so she actually ends up complaining sometimes! Like a real person! I was thrilled. The basic premise for this series seems to be that each Circleteer is out seeing the world, runs across some slightly younger kid with weird magic that no one has ever seen before, and then becomes that kid’s teacher. Apparently the rule in Circleteer land is that if you find an untrained magical kid, you HAVE to become their teacher. So Sandry now has an apprentice who has dancing magic. Which seems a little weird, but, you know, after thread magic, I feel like I’m just going to go with it. I do hope these “strange and unknown magics” become ever more ridic as the series progresses until Book 4 is about Daja finding some boy with magical spit or something.

Here are the two covers! I like the one on the left better, even if he is clearly doing jazz hands

Awards

Best New Character: Wulfric Snaptrap
No matter Wulfric Snaptrap’s personality, he would have won this award based on his name alone. BUT he’s also a police mage, hardened by everything he’s seen. It seemed for a while like he and Sandry were going to turn into a great mentor/novice buddy cop duo, but alas.

Returning Character Honorable Mention: Duke Vedris!
We get to see a lot more of Sandry’s uncle including his steely resolve to both do what’s right and flirt with dancing girls. You go, Duke Vedris!

Sandry’s Improvement Score: +50%=50/100
Although Sandry is vastly less annoying in this book, I still can’t forget that I hate her.

Thing I Most Wish Was Real: Dragonsalt.
Not that I want to become addicted to magical drugs, I just wish drugs had cooler names/backstories like they apparently do here. I imagine drug dealers stealing into dragon caves and using a cheese grater to capture some of this sought-after narcotic right from the sleeping dragon’s scales.

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
Sandry is living with her uncle, Duke Vedris, since he had a heart attack and no one else can nag him into not having another one like her. She does a lot of random making pieces of fabric move so we get that she has thread magic. Pasco’s friend’s family pays him money to do a good luck dance before they take their fishing boats out. Sandry sees him!

Chapter two
Sandry tells Pasco he has dancing magic, but Pasco thinks that’s stupid. Sandry makes a bet with Pasco about whether or not the fishing boats will do better today or not because of his dancing. Rokat, a rich merchant no one likes has been murdered! Apparently he was a jerk, so no one is sad.

Chapter three
Sandry and the Duke head to the crime scene, where the cops are mean to her and make fun of her thread magic. She thinks it’s weird that none of Rokat’s protection spells seem to be disturbed, even though he is in all kinds of pieces. Almost like the killers were invisible! To magic! Pasco has to learn police hand to hand combat with his cousins, because his whole family is apparently required by law to be cops. His cousin makes fun of him for liking to dance, but doesn’t question his sexuality because this book is shelved in the children’s section. Sandry wins the bet when the ships come back full!

Chapter four
Sandry goes back to the temple to see her teacher, Dedicate Lark, and they reminisce about the absent Circleteers. I realize we probably won’t see anyone besides Sandry for this whole book and get really sad. Lark tells Sandry that she’s never heard of dance magic and that Sandry is required by plot device magical law to become Pasco’s teacher.

Chapter five
Pasco is practicing cop fighting with his cousins again when his guy cousin starts trying to beat him up for being a dancer. He does a dance, and all of his cousins are trapped in the air! Surprisingly, this doesn’t really change anyone’s opinion about dance magic’s existence/usefulness! Sandry comes and helps him bring them down. Then we flash to the murderer’s point of view! There are three of them! A husband/wife team and their crippled, drug addict mage! The drug he’s addicted to is called “dragonsalt”.

Chapter six
Rokat’s brother is super scared that the murderers are after him next! He tells the Duke it’s a rival trading family whose patriarch his brother killed! Now they are murdering everyone in his extended family! Duke Vedris is clearly not a fan of blood feuds, but sends some of his guards to protect Brother Rokat. On his way back to his house, Brother Rokat is killed in the street by completely invisible assassins!

Chapter seven
Sandry meets the police-mage investigating the murder case, who has the great name Wulfric Snaptrap. I start to wish this was a gritty crime drama starring him. Together they discover a weird shadow on the injured guards that seems to be sucking up surrounding magic! Lark brings in a world famous dancer who just happens to have a school in town to teach Pasco. Her name is Yazmin, and she and the Duke flirt it up. Rather than being sketched out, Sandry is excited to maybe shuffle off her responsibilities with him on someone else. Wulfric discovers that weird shadow is “unmagic”, which is just what it sounds like. The bad guys kill another member of the Rokat family, plus all his kids.

Chapter eight
Sandry happens to be just wandering by the crime scene and decides to Nancy Drew her way in to investigate because she knows that as a 14-year-old thread mage she is way more competant than the police. The police actually point this out, proving that they clearly DON’T EVEN KNOW and that we should hate them. Sandry notices pools of unmagic in a trail, and she decides to cover them up with silk sheets and her underwear so that Wulfric can get them when he arrives.

Chapter nine
The Duke orders all the other Rokats to hide in the magically protected part of his own citadel for safety. Pasco is super motivated to try harder when he hears he will get dance lessons! Then complains when dance lessons are hard. The Duke comes by for more hot reitred dancer flirting action, and Wulfric politely tells Sandry to step off because, again, she is 14 and not a police mage.

Chapter ten
Sandry says “cat dirt” a lot, and it takes me awhile to figure out that’s her version of cursing. Sandry, I hate you. She and Wulfric decide to go to the scene of the original murder, which has been sealed off, to clean up any unmagic that might be lying around. OH NO that is where the killers have been hiding! They immediately kill Wulfric, and start fighting Sandry and her guards before jumping into an unmagic portal.

Chapter eleven
I still can’t believe a good guy DIED in this series! Especially someone who had a purpose in the plot besides dying to make us feel bad or who later didn’t get magically pulled out of death (I’m looking at you, everyone in Briar’s Book). Sandry forms a plan to trap the killers! She’ll weave a net made out of unmagic and then Pasco will do his fish-calling dance around it to bring them in! Everyone argues that this is too dangerous, she is only 14, Pasco is worthless etc. until one of the invisible killers is discovered inside the citadel.

Chapter twelve
Pasco is super happy to be doing magic that his police-cult family would deem useful! Sandry weaves the unmagic net in a special magical quarantine tent. She angsts some more about how her friends aren’t here, proving that even Sandry hates being trapped alone in a book with the boringness that is her.

Chapter thirteen
The killers have pretty much lost all motivation besides sitting around, since apparently unmagic leaches at your will to live. Then they all become addicted to dragonsalt because at least that gives you energy. One of the Rokat’s agrees to act as bait for the trap, and a bunch of guards, Sandry, and Pasco hide in his house. Sandry sets up the net and Pasco dances his dance, and then is ordered to go home. Of course, he disobeys.

Chapter fourteen
The killers and their mage follow the bait into the house. They get sort of caught in the net, but have also managed to take Pasco hostage because he is an idiot. Sandry pretends like she is going to let them go, but then lets them fall into unmagic and get exploded! Also, their mage was just a little kid!!! Shocking plot twist!!! But he dies, and Sandry is wracked by guilt that she had to kill them. For some reason she doesn’t get mad at Pasco at all.

Epilogue
Pasco has finally won his family’s respect! For being kind of an idiot? Sandry goes to visit Lark at the temple and finds she has a shy new apprentice. Sandry realizes she is growing up and should live with her uncle permenantly! She is super sad to be leaving her childhood behind, and keeps being all broody about poor dead mage kid. She vows to write to her fellow Circleteers to look out for mage kids so they can’t fall into the hands of evil, and the set up for the other three books is born!

Previously: Circle of Magic Book 4: Briar’s Book
Next: The Circle Opens Book 2: Street Magic

The problem with these books is that all the characters love each other so much it’s impossible to tell if there’s supposed to be subtext or just “EVERYONE IS BFF WITH EVERYONE ELSE.” That is, except Dedicate Crane, Rosethorn’s chief rival and the guy in charge of finding a cure. He’s totally devoted to his work, but also totally grumpy and annoyed with every other character. Much like Tris, towards whom he is relatively cordial. Needless to say, Crane is my new second favorite character, and I secretly hope he and Tris get together later, leaving Winding Circle and its insufferably self-righteous spirit forever.

The other funny part of this book is how much of the plot is furthered by the simple truth that the Water Temple and its dedicates are apparently way stupid. Other books have included people remarking in passing about how everyone in Water Temple is an airhead and causes extra work, but in this book pretty much everything that goes wrong does so because someone at the Water Temple screwed up. There’s only one Water Temple dedicate portrayed as competent, but then she uses too much of her healing power and dies.

Briar’s Book by Tamora Pierce

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
Briar and Rosethorn are going to the slums! Rosethorn is going to give medicines to the free clinic and Briar is going to hang with his streetrat friends! Alleypup leads Briar into the sewers where his friend Flick is totally sick with blue spots.

Chapter two
Sandry’s appraisal of Tris: still fat and a bitch, but at least now she’s wearing nice clothes. Rosethorn, Briar, and Flick all go into quarantine because blue spots are an unknown illness! Usually during an epidemic, Rosethorn and her chief rival Crane work together to find a cure, but now she’s in quarantine!

Chapter three
Of course the stupid Water Temple is low on metal sample boxes so Daja and Frostpine go into box-making frenzy. Also, they’re low on magical gauze masks and gloves, so Lark and Sandry weave up a storm.

Chapter four
A few more people are brought to quarantine! Plus, Henna, the one competent person from the Water Temple, comes to help Rosethorn and Briar nurse. Lots more sick people are being found, mostly in the slums. Henna explains to Briar that if he’s not a healer he can’t use his powers to heal. All of the free clinic is now in quarantine since there are so many sick people!

Chapter five
Niko asks Tris to make the rain stop, because apparently WATER is spreading the disease! Tris points out that he has spent the last three books telling her not to mess with nature, but he pretends that this time is totally, totally different. She uses her Dopler 90000 powers to tell him that there is a 100% chance of rain for the rest of the book and there’s nothing she can do. Also, the Blue Pox has spread outside the slums!

Chapter six
Apparently someone who used to work at the free clinic sold all the useful medicine, so Rosethorn and Briar have to use their plant magic to make the remaining medicine not-expired! The whole city is contaminated, but Briar still can’t go home because there’s no sickness in the temple complex yet.

Chapter seven
Frostpine and Daja find time to help Frostpine’s apprentice find love. Rosethorn puts a thumbprint on Briar’s forehead that stays red, which means that he isn’t carrying the disease, and they can go home! Flick has conveniently died during the night, so he doesn’t even feel guilty. Everyone is super happy to see them and acts like everything is going to be fine even though the book is only half over.

Chapter eight
I swear Tris and Dedicate Crane are flirting in a improbable romantic comedy hate-turns-to-love kind of way! Crane has come to ask Rosethorn to get her butt into his greenhouse workshop to help him find a cure. He has to tell her how awesome she is before she will agree, which I totally get since I make people go through the same thing before I do them favors. Briar gets to work in the greenhouse too! All the assistants make bets about how long each other will last since Crane tells people to leave for reasons like “dropped something” and “don’t like his face”. Crane is my favorite character, hands down.

Chapter nine
Some Water Temple lady is supposed to be taking notes for Crane, but of course they are all out of order and terrible. Briar thinks he’s sees a glimmer of magic in the samples of the pure disease, but isn’t sure. Apparently no one else can see magic except him, Tris, and Niko, so when Crane finally gets fed up with his secretary’s inability to spell, Briar suggests Tris as replacement. Tris is the best secretary ever because she actually thinks about what Crane is telling her, and reminds him when he’s trying something he already tried before etc. Tris, of course, sees the magic just like Briar, but unlike Briar does not mind telling Crane the sitch because she is awesome.

Chapter ten
Niko wants Tris to come into the city with them so they can do their “past seeing” spell and figure out how the magical disease got started. Crane refuses to let her go because Tris is the best secretary ever. Tris is super nonchalant about how older men are vying for her attentions. Finally, Niko wins, which sucks because it means a gross field trip into the sewers. They end up in an apartment with a mage corpse. They look into the past and see the mage doing failed experiments with bacon, then throwing them into the sewer instead of disposing of them the right way! Also, some Water Temple dope spills some Blue Pox serum on Rosethorn! But her magical thumbprint is still red so it’s okay?

Chapter eleven
Apparently that mage was trying to invent a weight loss potion! Then it morphed in the sewers and created the blue pox! Oh noes Rosethorn’s thumbprint turns white!!! Sickness!!!!! Lark takes her back to the cottage to nurse her.

Chapter twelve
Everyone works extra hard because Rosethorn is sick! They are on their way to success, but Rosethorn makes Daja promise to look after Briar when she’s gone. This quote is kind of great:

Daja was a Trader: they held it was mad to argue when the sick thought that Death approached. Denials only told Death here was someone who would be missed, Death’s favorite kind of victim

Crane finally finds a cure and gives it to Rosethorn!!!

Chapter thirteen
There’s still work to do since the cure doesn’t work for all ages. Rosethorn’s cough hasn’t gone away! Lark goes to find a healer that isn’t totally tired to deal with Rosethorn’s pneumonia, telling the Circleteers that if Rosethorn goes, they shouldn’t try to use magic to save her since it is completely impossible. Of course, that is exactly what happens. Everyone is freaking out that they brought Rosethorn back from the dead, and then decide never to speak of it again. The end!!

Book 1: Sandry’s Book
Book 2: Tris’s Book
Book 3: Daja’s Book

Next up: going back to Tortall with my SUPER GROUP PROJECT review of Trickster’s Choice

Daja’s Book by Tamora Pierce

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
The Circleteers and their teachers are on a field trip to the north! Daja is making some nails at the local smithy when a Trader woman comes in wanting work done for her caravan. Then she realizes Daja is a trangshi, and basically puts her hands over her ears shouting “I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!!” Daja is being attacked by a metal plant she accidentally made! Meanwhile Sandry accidentally burns some threads on this guy’s jacket, even though she doesn’t have fire magic!

Chapter two
We discover Frostpine the Smith Mage was (is?) a total player! The Traders inspect the magical metal plant thing and want to buy it! Daja demands that they acknowledge her presence before she’ll sell, and they grumble away. Apparently this valley is all about growing crocuses, and Brian accidentally kills one with lightning? Lark says this weird mixing of magic has to stop, and Sandry has to weave a map of their powers!

Chapter three
Sandry commands the circleteers to keep some thread with them for the next few days so it can absorb their essence or something. Lady Inoulia, who owns the land this field trip is on, is a total bitch. Her mage, Yarrun Firetamer, keeps all fires except grass fires out of the valley, and is kind of a jerk about it. To prove this, some cottage sets fire, and he finally puts it out, after wasting time taunting Niko about how he can’t. Rosethorn yells at him that the forest NEEDS fire sometimes; Briar loves it when Rosethron talks mean, if you know what I mean. Niko yells at the Circleteers for using magic to eavesdrop, and tells them they are BANNED FROM MAGIC until further notice.

Chapter four
Polyam, the original Trader who found Daja, comes back in a crazy yellow get up, which apparently is supposed to keep her safe from Daja’s bad luck. She is still super rude, and the Circleteers demand she come back with all the proper bargaining paraphernalia, like food, music, cushions, and a gift. Rosethorn makes them start making burn ointment, either to piss off Yarrun or because she’s seen the cover of this book.

Chapter five
Everyone gets food poisoning! Which is a weird set up to get Briar and Daja off by themselves, where they accidentally cause a fissure in the earth to open up, magically dive down to check it out, find some lava, hot springs, and a glacier!

Chapter six
Polyam comes back with a gift, food, and all that Trader-bargaining jazz. Daja puts the gift, a metal cup, next to the vine, which promptly starts eating it. Sandry starts spinning their magic into a Magic Map, which means they can’t use any of it.

Chapter seven
Everyone wants to take a trip to see the glacier! Polyam agrees to guide them because she secretly likes Daja.

Chapter eight
Daja brings a metal flower clipped for her creepy metal plant as a centerpiece for their glacier picnic. Then she can’t pick it back up because it’s taken root in the ground! Hidden copper mines? Def! Polyam tells Daja the sad story of how she fell down a mountain, lost her leg, and stopped being useful to her clan. Tris and Niko think if they use the hot springs to melt some glacier water, it will help the drought-stricken land! But don’t melt too much or the LAVA will escape!! This is exactly how nature works!! They decide to think about it. Yarrun puts out some more fires and acts like a jerk some more.

Chapter nine
With the power of weaving, Sandry thinks she can keep their magic separate but equal. Daja goes up to the lookout tower, where Yarrun is chilling looking for more fires. He’s drinking something he calls “Yanjing tea, treated with stimulants” which I assume means “Red Bull mixed with speed”. Yarrun confesses to her how pissed he is that everyone is all about Niko. That guy can’t even put out a fire!

Chapter ten
Polyam comes to pick up the freaky metal plant, and Daja volunteers to travel with the caravan a little while because she misses Traders and how mean they are to her. Everyone else has to have dinner with bitchy Lady I.

Chapter eleven
Lady I proudly tells them all that every wildfire is extinguished! Five seconds later Tris points out A TREE IN FREAKIN FLAMES. Yarrun freaks and puts it out. But more fires are starting! Oh noes! Fire has been building up for days hidden in the piled up dead forest undergrowth! Everyone offers Yarrun magical strength, but he disdainfully refuses and then dies of tiredness and speed overdose. Oh noes! The fire is spreading through the forest where Daja and the caravan are! They telepath to her to turn the caravan around! Of course, the caravan don’t listen to her since she’s trangshi. Finally they start to turn around, and Daja and her friends use their magic to hold the fire back a little bit. Except, uh oh, now it’s behind them too! TRAPPED!

Chapter Twelve
Daja uses her magic to send the fire away to melt some of the glacier? It totally works! The Traders are super grateful and tell her they’ll buy her name off of the Trangshi list and let her into their caravan!

Chapter Thirteen
Also, the brass cap from her staff got burned onto her hand, and now she can’t get it off. Super magical metal skin!! Daja tells the Traders she can’t come with them because she wants to stay with the Circleteers, but gives Polyam a magical metal living flesh new leg!

Next: Circle of Magic Book 4: Briar’s Book
Previously: Circle of Magic Book 2: Tris’s Book

This book is also clearly the best because it has an actual bad guy! And that bad guy is a pirate queen! And her brother, a pirate mage! Pirate magic attack, you guys! The other books have messages like “Some people are vaguely annoying, but you’ve still got to work together with them to defeat the real threat: nature” when our characters face earthquakes, forest fires, and an epidemic. Tris’s Book is the only one where the Circleteers are actually fighting against other people, which gives me hope that Circle of Magic Land is not just full of incredibly self-righteous people entirely. Usually I’m not so bloodthirsty, but I was beginning to doubt that actual villains existed in these books, so the pirate attack made me really happy!

Other than those two differences, the plot of this book basically follows the general theme of all Circle of Magic books: we learn some things about Tris’ past, everyone learns more magic, and the Circleteers combine their powers to save Winding Circle Temple from an exterior threat. Plus, Tris’s CLEARLY treacherous cousin comes to visit, and it takes them an annoyingly long time to figure out that he is totes a spy.

Tris’s Book by Tamora Pierce

The ReCap

Name: Sandry
Class: Noble
Power: Thread and weaving
Teacher: Dedicate Lark

Name: Tris
Class: Merchant
Power: Weather
Teacher: Niko the Mage

Name: Daja
Class: outcast Trader
Power: Metal and fire
Teacher: Frostpine the Smithmage

Name: Briar
Class: street urchin
Power: plants
Teacher: Dedicate Rosethorn

The Play-by-Play

Chapter one
It is super hot so the Circleteers are up on the temple complex walls to catch a breeze. They magically here a conversation and a murder on the wind, and then two watchtowers in the harbor explode!

Chapter two
Niko the Mage needs Tris to solve the Mystery of the Exploding Watchtowers! She’s psyched to get out of chores, until she realizes what he really needs is to suck her power out of her for magic amplification! Not cool, man. Plus, all they end up figuring out is that some guys used magic to blow up the temple. Niko: clearly a medieval fantasy Nancy Drew. Tris finds an orphan starling and determines to nurse it back to health, despite having almost no empathy for other living things.

Chapter three
Daja is helping the smith Frostpine find the pieces of a buried magical metal net that was damaged in the last book’s earthquake. The net basically makes anyone who comes near it hallucinate wildly, thus somehow protecting the temple from pirates. But now it’s all broken up on this side! And Daja keeps seeing a disappearing ship out in the harbor! Pirate scout? Nah, it’s probably fine. Lark teaches Sandry to magically weave bandages. It’s just as unexciting as it sounds.

Chapter four
Rosethorn apparently knows all about birds because that has something to do with gardening? She sends Briar to get supplies for the bird and dinner for the cottage from the main temple kitchens. Briar is chilling in a semi-secret passage eating a possibly stolen pastry from the kitchen when he smells cinnamon and poppy which apparently automatically equals an invisibility spell! Sure enough, some doors open mysteriously when there’s no one there. Daja finally mentions her sort of invisible ship to Frostpine, who confirms that it is obvs a pirate scout, thanks for the heads up, Daja.

Chapter five
Duke Vedris, Sandry’s great-uncle, visits and tells Sandry that her parents were the most pathetic humans ever, but maybe she’s not as useless, despite the fact that at the start of this chapter she has passed out from EXTREME WEAVING. Vedris says that a pirate queen called Pauha is prowling around with her fleet looking for easy pickings after the earthquake, and–OMG–her brother Enahar is a powerful pirate mage! Aymery Glassfire, Tris’ cousin and a student mage comes by to ask Niko some stuff, and is unpleasantly shocked to find Tris there. Aymery starts acting super sketch and tells Tris her dad is dying and that she should probably go home. Tris is all “No one’s told me that so clears they don’t want me, thanks for making me feel bad jackass”. Then every magical crystal and mirror and bowl of water for telling the future cracks all of a sudden!!

Chapter six
Tris wakes up in the middle of the night and ends up on the walls staring at So Totally Not a Storm. Oh noes! Pretty sure a large pirate fleet is right outside the harbor, and now Frostpine wants Daja to help him strengthen the spells on the harbor chain asap. The pirates start shooting at the watchtowers anyways, and they have more exciting things than canonballs that explode on impact!

Chapter seven
The surrounding towns and villages start fleeing inside the temple walls since there’s, you know, a pirate fleet in the harbor. The Circleteers freak out a little about the pirates’ new “thunder-weapon”.

Chapter eight
Briar and Tris get sent on errands to Moonstream, the head of the Temple, and the kitchens. Briar calls skirts “flap-rags”, which is awesome. Moonstream is on the walls and at first all the soldiers and warrior mages are all “No kids allowed” before realizing that they’re talking to the main characters. Niko is on the walls too and tells them they have to wait for the navy to come rescue them, and that the pirates will shoot cannonballs at them, and then land once they figure out the magical LSD net is gone. The pirates start shooting thunder-weapon-balls at them, but Tris uses some wind magic to keep the walls safe–for now. The kitchens are super crowded since they’re cooking for all the refugees too! But the cook still gives them pastries. They meet Aymery coming out of the kitchens, and Briar thinks it is THE MOST SUSPICIOUS THING POSSIBLE that he got out of the kitchens without speaking to the cook. Aymery is moving into the cottage with them!

Chapter nine
All the senior mages are up on the walls, trying to use their magic to work in place of the LSD net. Rosethorn and Briar start doing some serious magic to build a giant Sleeping Beauty-esque thorn barrier. Pirates are landing and attacking with magical battlefire! Something happens to Rosethorn, but Briar calls to the other Circleteers telepathically and they help him finish the huge spell, but–ruh-roh–they’re psychically trapped in it! Luckily Aymery yells in Tris’ mind in the voice of their bitchy aunt and that somehow saves the day.

Chapter ten
Briar snoops through Aymery’s stuff and finds more SUPER SUSPICIOUS things: 1) he is a fancy guy, but only has a few sets of fancy clothes despite supposedly staying for weeks, 2) he has a magic mirror, somehow not cracked like the others, and 3) invisibility potion ingredients! That night Briar sneaks out and tells Tris his findings. His main argument is “Students are poor, but he’s got fancy shit! Where’s he getting that money? VILLAINY?” Aymery starts sneaking around at midnight and Tris and Briar follow. They discover a lot of drugged soldiers–presumably what Invisible!Aymery was doing in the kitchens. They follow him to the gate before Tris calls out to him. Aymery owes the pirates money, but still seems totally cool with them killing and pillaging. He shows Tris his Pirate Blood Contract Earring, and admits that her dad’s not really dying at all. He opens the gate for the pirates, who, of course, then kill him. Tris is PISSED and attacks everyone with hail, which also helps to wake up all the drugged soldiers.

Chapter eleven
Tris starts learning to get lightning to strike on command. One of those exploding thunder weapons hits the carpentry shops and starts massive fires, so all the adults run off to help. The Circleteers realize the earring Tris took from her dead cousin is still totally linked to pirate mage Enahar, like a cursed half of a Best Friends Forever heart charm.

Chapter twelve
The adults start talking about evacuating the kids, and the Circleteers throw a tantrum and decide to solve this war on their own. They start making a plan for how, during which Tris sneaks off alone. Luckily, Tris is fat so the Circleteers catch up pretty fast. Tris makes a cyclone to attack the ships, Daja starts taking apart all the metal pieces in the ships, Briar attacks them with seaweed, and Sandry has a protective circle around them to prevent enemy mages/the soldiers on the wall from interrupting them. Tris explodes a ship!

Chapter thirteen
Unfortunately, Enahar is still alive, and Tris uses her cousin’s bling to find him. Too bad Enahar has trapped them all in a “mage trap” and is stealing their magic! By this time, Niko, Lark, Rosethorn, and Frostpine have made it to the wall, and now they give their strength to the Circleteers. They break out of Enahar’s trap and Enahar dies! Also, the navy is finally here! Tris’ baby starling is healthy and annoying! She names it Shriek.

Next: Circle of Magic Book 3: Daja’s Book
Previously: Circle of Magic Book 1: Sandry’s Book

I’ve decided to take a break from Tortall for awhile, not because I’m trying to avoid the series about Alanna’s daughter, but because I’m hoping it will be a SPECIAL GROUP PROJECT BOOK REPORT. We’ll see. Either way, I’ve had to turn to the Circle of Magic series, which follows the fates of four children gathered together by a powerful mage for their own unique powers. They’re basically a fantasy-medieval version of the Planeteers without the bling. Middle School Patricia read all of the Circle of Magic series, but she didn’t like it very much. Possibly having four main characters instead of one makes it harder to care about them, and, since they start out at 11, Middle School Patricia was clearly WAY TOO OLD for this book. There weren’t any love connections or anything. I really don’t remember much about how the other books go, but this one, at least, has a very meandering plot, given over to long descriptions of the children learning to control their magic and having lessons. The main antagonist is MOTHER NATURE in the form of a sudden earthquake two chapters from the end. Luckily the four children work together with magic to save themselves. The end. Yeah, I’m not really stoked to read the sequel, either, but I will power through. Here is the Planeteer Circle of Magic roster:

Sandry
Real Name: Lady Sandrilene fa Toren
Rank: Noblewoman, almost royalty
Magic: Thread-working. Basically, sewing and weaving
Tragic Back Story: Parents killed by small pox, survived by locking herself in a creepy cellar
Why I Hate Her: 1) she pretty much has a mullet on the cover, 2) it’s clear she’s supposed to be the “sweet one”, which means she has no personality, 3) she just wants everyone to get along. Boring, 4) it seems already like she and the boy are going to be an item, 5) thread magic is lame

Briar
Real Name: Roach, until he gave up his life of crime; now it’s Briar Moss
Rank: Thief/street urchin
Magic: Plants
Tragic Back Story: Orphaned street urchin on his third offense
Why I Hate Him: I know singling out Sandry as your eventual love interest gives it that cloying “We’re from two different worlds!” aspect, but could that BE any more cliche? Besides, Briar, you are kind of spunky and Sandry is SO BORING. You could do better.

Daja
Real Name: Daja Kisubo
Rank: Trader; trangshi
Magic: Metal
Tragic Back Story: Sole survivor of a shipwreck; cast out by her people as a trangshi, or bad luck
Why I Hate Her: Daja is actually pretty cool. The Trader class are looked down on by everyone, and now she’s even avoided by them because of her “trangshi” status. Like all Traders, she carries a big staff everywhere with which she kicks butt, and I like seeing a girl doing blacksmithery. The only reason Middle School Patricia was not her BFF was her constant whining about being all alone when clearly she has three besties.

Tris
Real Name: Trisana Chandler
Rank: Merchant Class
Magic: Weather
Tragic Back Story: Assuming she’s possessed by evil spirits, her family passes her around for awhile, eventually abandoning her at various temples
Why I Love Her: Tris was the one character Middle School Patricia was really rooting for because 1) weather magic is clearly the best, 2) she has red hair, 3) she likes books and libraries, 4) she’s the most adventurous magically, even if it means getting in trouble, 5) people tease her for being fat

The Play-By-Play

Chapter One
Trapped in the dark cellar hiding from small pox, Sandry somehow makes her embroidery thread glow for light. Adrift at sea, Daja makes a chest of supplies move towards her across the water. Later, she’s rescued by Numair Niko Goldeye. Roach asks some moss to grow in his usual prison cell to get a good night’s sleep. It’s his third offense, but before he can be sentenced to hard labor, Niko Goldeye tells the judge he’s taking him to Winding Circle Temple. Tris is at another temple where everyone is mean to her. She gets mad and it starts hailing. Niko agrees to take her to Winding Circle. He also rescues Sandry from that cellar.

Chapter two
Sandry’s great-uncle, Duke of Emelan, is all “I would take you in, but I’m a bachelor and girls are annoying” so she goes to Winding Circle. The Trader Council proclaim Daja an outcast and banish her forever because of her bad luck. Niko takes her to Winding Circle. Briar hates baths. Apparently these two chapters are like a series of random flashbacks and Niko can’t actually be in four places at once.

Chapter three
The other noblewomen being educated at the Temple are dead boring, so Sandry makes friends with Daja even though no one else will talk to her since she’s a Trader. Tris predicts an earthquake and the girl’s dormitory nun is freaked out. Some other kids try to beat up Daja, and Briar gets accused of stealing something even though he didn’t. Also, he has a bunch of knives? Anyway, they all get sent to live at Discipline Cottage, on the outskirts of the temple complex, though still within its big walls.

Chapter four
Two nuns dedicates run Discipline Cottage: Rosethorn, who’s all about her garden, and Lark, who is all about weaving. Rosethorn is the bitchy one. Some plants try to give Briar a great big hug, and Rosethorn rants about how much greenhouses suck.

Chapter five
Daja goes on a walk and finds the smithies. Tris learns how to meditate. Briar goes looking for this greenhouse, and finds a sick plant inside but gets chased away by Dedicate Crane. Lark teaches Sandry how to spin thread. Everyone has to do chores and take baths.

Chapter six
Some other kids start insulting the four and Tris almost attacks them with tornadoes! Niko shows them The Hub, which is the center of the Temple and where all the important magic happens, like Listeners hearing things on the wind.

Chapter seven
Sandry has trouble spinning thread because the wool just wants to stick to her since it “likes her”. Niko teaches Tris how to predict where lightning will strike, but warns her about trying to control nature and how it’s totes dangerous. Daja goes back to Frostpine, the Smith, and he agrees to teach her metalwork even though it is totes against the Trader Code. Lark used to be an acrobat.

Chapter eight
Briar stole the sick bonsai tree from the greenhouse, but Dedicate Crane saw him and chases him back to Discipline. Sandry, Daja, and Tris all run outside, possibly to fight him? Luckily Rosethorn is there and stops a children-on-monk smackdown. Rosethorn makes a deal where Briar can keep the sick bonsai tree if she gives Crane one of her tomato plants, which apparently he has a hard time growing in his totally blasphemous greenhouse. Because that’s a fair trade?

Chapter nine
Tris has to teach everyone else how to do chores because she grew up as cinderella. Sandry thinks after facing down Dedicate Crane they are all BFF but Daja and Tris aren’t so sure. Bonsai trees are full of MAGIC and totes sentient. Briar can talk to it with his mind. Sandry makes thread glow again and Daja catches a red hot piece of metal with no ill effects.

Chapter ten
Time to go to market and sell stuff the Temple has made! Rosethorn and Lark make the mistake of giving the children free time, and Sandry quickly finds WRONGS THAT MUST BE RIGHTED. She starts a fight with a gang of boys who are tormenting a stray dog. Natch they beat her, but Briar and Daja run to her defense. Tris decides to use her powers to help, trying to bring water from the nearby harbor to throw on them. WHOOPS she accidentally creates a water cyclone! Luckily she controls it until Lark comes and banishes it. Then the townsfolk are all bitchy until Duke Vedris/Sandry’s uncle comes and is all “Being mean to dogs is mean” and confines Tris to the Temple until she stops being a walking disaster. The children are also SHOCKED to discover that they are all MAGICAL! Seriously, shocked. Despite all the events of the last few chapters. Also, they get to keep the dog and name it Little Bear.

Chapter eleven
Tris decides to experiment with how powerful her magic is by trying to turn the tides. Of course, she almost dies because you can’t mess with nature.

Chapter twelve
A big earthquake is going to hit some other town tomorrow! The Temple seers send messages to warn them. Wave Circle Temple near there sends back the message “You may be surprised”. Everyone says that the guy who runs the Temple, Huath, is crazy because he builds machines to turn one kind of energy into another. The next day the children are out walking and a big earthquake hits! They are buried by rubble! Doomed to die? No, wait, they have magic! Daja uses her metal magic to firm up the rocks around them so the ceiling of their rubble cave doesn’t fall in. Sandry is freaking out because she’s afraid of the dark, and Tris warns them that another giant quake is coming, this time with magic!

Chapter thirteen
Sandry weaves their magical powers together so that they can help each other and their magic can work together to avoid being crushed by the next quake. In the process she gets a handy friendship bracelet of ULTIMATE POWER. Finally some people dig them out, and they hear the story of what happened. Apparently this Huath guy wanted to contain the power of the earthquake and put it to other uses. Obvs that backfired, broke out of the holding spell and “went in every direction”. Huath and everyone in the temple are dead, which is a bummer because I thought at least he was going to be the series main villain. Also, now the children can mind-speak. They make a magical glowing crystal for Sandry so she won’t have to ever be in the dark.

Next: Circle of Magic Book 2: Tris’ Book
Previously: Protector of the Small Book 4 Lady Knight