HAUNTED NIGHTS

If you're in the mood for a good horror anthology, this is it. I zipped through it in two days. Would have been less if I hadn't had to work. Considering I've been poking through a Tanith Lee vampire anthology for like a month now, speed-reading is clearly the sign of a good anthology.

All the stories are either Halloween-themed or similar holidays. Not one is bad, although some are better than others. The standouts were:
"A Small Taste of the Old Country" by Jonathan Maberry
"Sisters" by Brian Evenson
"All Through the Night" by Elise Forier Edie
"A Kingdom of Sugar Skulls and Marigolds" by Eric J. Guignard
"The Turn" by Paul Kane
"Lost in the Dark" by John Langan

S.A.S.S. 7

Sigh. This one's another mixed feelings book. I want to like Nori, the lead character, because she has moments of amusing sass, but she spends almost the entire book trying to be something she's not. She's spent her whole life trying to be what her parents wanted, only to feel abandoned by them both because they're separating. (And not communicating it to her very well.) She's been forced by them to be more American, so she has no connection to her Japanese side, despite her parents being directly from Japan. It's something that's been othered for her. She feels different because of it, instead of being encouraged by her parents to celebrate it, which is something I think she should have addressed with them in the book, but never does.

So she's in for some culture shock when she's off to Japan for study abroad. Then she meets a hot German guy and when he thinks she's one of the school's Japanese students, she lets him, even getting help from one of the actual Japanese students, another attractive boy who she doesn't think actually likes her and sees her more as a rescue project.

There's also a bitchy, boy-crazy, Japanese girl, a blonde roommate that turns out to be a lot more deep than Nori thought, and an amusing redheaded Australian girl that I liked a lot.

The highlight of the book is Nori's stay-with-an-actual-Japanese-family week. She's off to Kyoto to live with her great aunt and uncle for the week, and it's got the best sightseeing scenes and characterization, despite the Mr. Miyagi-esque moments with her great uncle.

She comes back ready to apologize to those that need apologies and come clean with the German guy, who does not take things well, because he's been an asshole all along. I was amused when he won the scholarship prize at the end, only to have it taken away because he plagiarized. Nori's not-so-simple-after-all blonde roommate wins it.

It's a decent book, but I wish there was more to it than another post-divorce angst fest and more boy drama. They could have fleshed out the other parts better. Nori's parents were practically invisible and the friend characters all fell short of ones in previous books.

Next stop: Sweden.

One of Us Is Lying

I learned about this from my friend Ryan and then bought it, because the Breakfast Club meets a murder mystery sounded pretty good.

It was decent. The writing is fast-paced and the characters were mostly enjoyable. The problem is I immediately knew who the killer was. The only thing I didn't know was the accomplice.

I'm going to say if you like YA fiction and the idea of this book, grab it from the library. Don't buy it. I'm passing mine on to Ryan, since he told me about it. I don't regret reading it by a long shot, but I'll never read it again.

S.A.S.S. 6

Mixed feelings on this one. The sightseeing was enjoyable and the program work itself, spending the summer building a school for local orphans, was new and good, but the characters and their drama fell flat. A shame considering this is the same author I just praised for the previous German book.

So Cat is off to Mexico. Most of the book is focused on her poor reaction to her parents' divorce and her mother's remarriage. Her father is some sort of international businessman, so he was an absentee dad, and then when her parents got divorced, her mother remarried and she was forced to relocate, Cat decided to basically hate everything and sabotage her own life. She tried to fail her classes, but being a good student, the best she could manage to fail was by getting Cs. She gave up her passion: diving. She didn't try to make friends or get to know her new stepfather. She was basically a spoiled brat and this behavior I've read in other books but from far younger characters. She's too old to be pulling this bullshit.

So off she goes to Mexico, planning on spending the summer girl-bonding with her best friend from her former home in Arizona. Only said best friend turns up with a boyfriend she never told Cat about. I would have confronted her with this immediately, but Cat's kind of a pussyCat. And the reasoning behind it is sheer petty bullshit. Sabrina, the Arizona friend, got mad at Cat for being all into her own problems and not asking about Sabrina's life, so she hid a giant part of her life from Cat. Fucking petty bitch. Sabrina is the worst friend character I've read so far. Eco-obsessed girl who becomes a total pushover around the new boyfriend. Fucking weak bitch.

Cat has about two chapters of bumping heads with her host family's revolutionary daughter, but she turns out to be cool, because we can't have problems with both her AND Sabrina, now can we?

The other side characters are a pair of twins with almost no personality. Pete, the male twin, is a scrawny nerd who hits on anything with boobs, and Rachel, the girl twin...is the girl twin. Seriously, she has no character.

Aidan, the romantic interest, is the best character in the whole thing, because he points out all the shit Cat is doing wrong in her life and she finally stops being afraid of dating, afraid of romance, and gets the fuck over her living situation because she realizes she has it pretty good compared to the orphans she's building a school for.

So Cat's working out her own issues and then she sees Brian, Sabrina's boyfriend, being a cheating asshat, but of course, Sabrina doesn't believe her and drama drama boring drama until she seems him in action herself. At least at the end, Cat realizes she's got to move on with her own life and her friendship with Sabrina is never going to be the same. I see her sticking with Aidan, who's not that far away from her new Boston home in his home of NYC. Stick with him, girl, he's not stupid.

In summary, lackluster or just plain annoying characters drag down a decent Mexico S.A.S.S. set up.

Next stop: Japan with the idiot Japanese-American who thinks she can impress the German guy by pretending to be from Japan when she actually knows as little as he does. This one is already painful.

S.A.S.S. 5

Ah, finally, I can give another good review of one of these! I had high hopes for this one, because I'm mostly German and I've actually been to Munich, unlike any of the other places in this series.

Siena is a new agey girl from California, which I thought might be a problem, but she's not a preachy vegan or anything like that. She wears flowy clothes, follows her horoscope, likes yoga, feng shui and the pagan origins of things. All simple things that don't get much of a focus, just a few throwaway lines every now and then. Siena's father died when she was young, so it's just been her and her mom running the family bakery. I connected with her, despite the new agey thing, because she's close with her mom and has a German family background. Her father had a Carpe Diem list that got almost completed except for one thing: travel to Germany and meet the man that helped him and his parents flee East Berlin. So Siena's off to Germany to connect with her German side and track down the man her father never got to meet.

The book is a good blend of the things I love about S.A.S.S.

There's plenty of study, but it's not overwhelming. Siena's got a film project that's the main thing she's working on.

There's a bit of romance, but the RAs are forbidden to date the students, so it's more does he like me or not romance angst until nearer the end.

There's a mean girl who gets her comeuppance. Always fun.

And there are German sites, food, discos and travelling. They visit Heidelberg, which was my first stop in Germany so many years ago, and Rothenburg, although I was mad they didn't describe it at all. Rothenburg was one of my favorites.

Siena is a fun character and her enthusiasm for life is fabulous. The two friends she makes there are also great: country-loving, jock-boyfriend-having Meg from Texas and fashion-loving, secret poet, deadpan, future med student Chen.

Siena ends up meeting her second cousin and tracks down the man who helped her father and grandparents, so the book has some emotional moments that are written nicely.

It's the best example of this series so far, along with Cece's China book.

Suzanne Nelson wrote the next one, too, so hopefully it's as good, although it's not Germany, so I doubt it will be. We're going to Mexico.

LORE 1

I'm a big fan of supernatural non-fiction books and I was pleased to discover this series, based on podcasts, on Amazon.

The first volume covers Monstrous Creatures, but they're not all monsters. There are definitely some ghosts and more folkloric creatures in there.

I don't listen to podcasts, but apparently, the majority of the chapters are word-for-word transcripts of them, so if you've listened to them, this may not be for you.

Also, if you're a stickler about more formal language for books, don't buy this. It's like listening to someone talk, which is one thing I really like about it. He's got some great dramatic endings to some of these chapters that work just as well in print as spoken, but when you're reading it, you can imagine him talking to you, telling you these stories.

I loved this a lot and am looking forward to the next two: Wicked Mortals (late May) and Dreadful Places (early October).

They are expensive though. My advice is to catch them marked down, which Amazon does a lot.

S.A.S.S. 4

We're off to San Sebastián, Spain with protagonist Elena Holloway. Elena is Spanish on her mother's side and even has a great-aunt and other extended family living in Barcelona, but with her pale skin and brown hair, she doesn't feel Spanish.

Elena thinks of herself as more of an introvert, but she chose to live with a host family instead of in the dorms and they never once take her anywhere. They just give her directions at best. She acclimates to the area faster than any of the other characters we've met so far and navigates Spain with a quiet confidence, although she doesn't believe in her own Spanish skills, so that's a bit of a conflict. Like how is she doing all these things on her own without speaking to people?

Elena comes to Spain to do something her other siblings have not done, but there really is no sibling rivalry and that's not much of the story.

Elena and her group of friends do some sightseeing, but it's not really focused on like it was in some of the other books. Some wander bored through a museum in Madrid while the other half of the group is bored by a bullfight (except for one guy, who loves it). The entire Madrid side trip is a rather pointless excursion with the main thing taken away from it being Elena's conversation with her friend and playwrighting partner Alex about how Elena has to do something to let the guy she likes know she likes him.

The romance is lukewarm at best. Elena has what she feels is a one-sided crush and they only get together for her last few hours in Spain. Friends Jenna and Alex only get together for the same, despite liking each other the entire time.

On one hand, I enjoyed the book, but it felt...too light. She adjusts to being in Spain, despite not using the language, too easily, even going to Barcelona by herself to visit her great-aunt. The relationships aren't properly explored. Alex gets away with barely attending any classes because he's a surfer and somehow nothing is ever done about this. He and Elena have an initial rocky start to their joint play project, but once he gets inspired, he's a good partner. Being in Spain itself seems condensed down to going to tapas bars and liking a Spanish boy. Compared to the others, this one feels like it was phoned in, but it was still better than the boyfriend-obsessed chick in France from last time.

Next stop: MUNICH. The only one of these places I've actually been to and I LOVE Germany. I'm a little worried though, because the protagonist might be a new agey flake. Sigh. We'll see!

S.A.S.S. 3

Mehhhh. This one unfortunately was more like the first. More guy drama than studying and sightseeing. Although this one makes the first look a million times better.

I knew I'd probably be very frustrated with this protagonist, because she didn't want to come to Paris and be away from her precious boyfriend. She's freakin' seventeen and thinks this is the person she'll follow to college then become a housewife and mother for and that's her entire life ambition. It's so antiquated. 

The set up is a bit different, because the students are staying with host families and not dorming it. I got annoyed with this a bit, because it seems so irresponsible. She gets lost on the subway because no one ever shows her the right route. Don't show her on a map. Take her to the school and back. That part was so unrealistic.

I didn't hate this character, because she so obviously has gotten used to other people telling her what to do and it's interesting to see her very slowly realize she has opinions of her own. By the end of the book, she's been dumped and then re-dumped the guy when he wanted to get back together, she's taken control of her pseudo-thing with her host family's dude nanny, she's made a unique group of friends, and she's realizing she can figure out her life on her own.

The friends helped me get through the book. Annika was pretty awesome.

Still the worst one of the four I've read so far, but it wasn't horrible.

Next stop: Spain! I think this chick was the playwright, so that might be interesting. I always approve of writers.

S.A.S.S. 2

Okay, so at the end of last post, I'd had hopes but not quite for this one, writing off the main character because she seemed like a fashionista party girl and not expecting anything much from this.

I was WRONG.

I'm very sad that this author seems to have only ever written two books and the other isn't another from this series. This is the best of the 3 I've read so far.

Kelly's a Chicago party girl who visits Rome mostly to check out the Italian guys and hot outfits.

The first part of the book has her getting caught up in a lot of drama, because she meets a cute guy in the program, but he's a drug-addicted asshole that gets her into massive trouble. The second part is her finding new sides of herself and making unexpected friends. There's a final conflict with the guy that's resolved in Kelly's favor and then she starts going out with a nice Italian boy nearer the end of the book.

This book sticks with my ideal format.

Firstly, it's at least 50% sightseeing. They even travel to Siena, Florence, Pompeii and Tuscany. They do so much sightseeing and it's well-written and just plain fun.

Secondly, the schoolwork is actually deemed important. It's not as focused on as it was in Cece's book, but it's enough to remind the reader that these girls are STUDYING abroad, not just having guy drama abroad.

Thirdly, there's romance, but that's never the focal point.

Fourthly, there are interesting supporting characters. Kelly's old childhood friend is there. Studious, serious and tell it like it is Sheela is pretty awesome. It's never flat out said, but based on her last name, she's Indian-American. Arizona Goth Marina was my favorite though. Not just because she's Goth, but because she's spending a lot of time finding the perfect design for a tattoo to commemorate her mother, who died a couple years before. She's the youngest in a family of car-loving brothers and a father, so she sports car paint as nail polish. And she looks for somewhat creepy details in paintings and is even more blunt than Sheela. She's actually been my favorite character of all the mains and supporting so far in these three books. We'll see if anyone in the rest of the series can hold a candle to her.

I really enjoyed this book, which should be obvious, as I stayed up until almost 4 finishing it and then after 4 writing this up while it was still fresh.

Next stop: France with a girl that seems way too into her boyfriend. I hope this one pleasantly surprises me, too, because the same character is back later on in the series.

S.A.S.S. 1

I was super excited to receive my lot of 10 S.A.S.S. books in the mail today! I'm a big dork, but I'm loving these, despite my couple criticisms from last entry (too Eurocentric, too many white girls). I can't help it. They're fluffy fun.

In the first and what looks like shortest book in the series, Abby is off to London from her home city of New York.

Abby, however, is no Stacey McGill. She's 16, but her parents are so overprotective that I bet she barely enjoys the fact that she lives in my favorite city in the world. Wanting to broaden her horizons because she considers herself too "vanilla," she lets her friend talk her into attending a college party, where she meets her first ever boyfriend. He's a freshman, but the almost-40 part of me says "What does a freshman want with a high school girl? Ew." Abby's parents have the same thoughts and force her to apply for the S.A.S.S. program. She gets in and she's off to London.

Abby's determined to add a little chocolate sauce or sprinkles to her vanilla self and she ends up befriending a punky Philly native with green-striped hair. I liked Zoe's character and wished she'd appeared more. She also meets Ian, a freshman at City College, where the S.A.S.S. program is taking place and summer term is on for the other students.

Unlike with Cece's book, Abby's classes are ones she randomly chose and we never get to meet a single professor. It's barely like she's taking classes at all, even though the point of the series is STUDY abroad.

The sightseeing aspect is also much less, which disappointed me a lot. I loved Cece's book because it blended the romance bits with Cece's personal drama, her schooling and her travelling. This book focuses 99% on the personal drama and it's a disappointment that way.

There is drama indeed, because Abby's got boy trouble. You see, when her parents learned about James and forced her to apply for S.A.S.S. and she got in, she bought him a plane ticket to visit her. Then learned he'd been in a relationship with another girl at the same time. So she's getting over him in London, when she meets Ian, and falls into whirlwind, moving way too fast for 16 (minus the physical part) love with him...until James shows up, having used his ticket. James is there to win Abby back and instead of telling him to fuck off, she decides to run off to Dublin with him for a few days and see if there's anything there worth saving. I felt really bad for Ian, because even though their relationship is doomed by distance, that was still a dick move. While Abby has a good time with James, she sends him flying home without promise of them getting back together. And then avoids Ian for awhile after he blows off her call. They eventually talk, but Abby's decided she wants to be by herself, which is all well and good, but then she shouldn't have led him on in the first place. "*Sebastian voice* Teenagers."

The book is decently-written for what it is and I enjoyed it a lot, even laughed aloud a few times, but I wasn't thrilled that the study and sightseeing aspects were tossed aside so easily. I'm hoping the other authors in this series don't do that. It might explain things a bit that the most recent thing by this author is the novelization of Mean Girls. She's good at drama, but maybe was too lazy to research London to write about it properly.

Next stop: Rome. But the girl's a fashionista, so my Classicist side is likely going to be disappointed in her lack of appreciation of the ancient world.

S.A.S.S. Series

I found this book in Ollie's yesterday for $1.99 and loved the cover. I don't think it's the same artist, but it's definitely reminiscent of English Roses artist Jeffrey Fulvimari. The blurb on the back sounded interesting, so I bought it.

And now I'm hooked.

There are 13 regular books in the series plus one 320-page Super Special. The first book came out in 2005 and the Super Special ended the series in 2010.

Having only read one book, I'm not sure if the formula is all the same, but S.A.S.S. stands for Students Across the Seven Seas and they're definitely all about students studying abroad.

My protagonist, Cece, was 16 and in an anthropology program. Not sure if all the girls are the same age or if there's a range. We'll find out.

Obviously, the anthro program kept things interesting for me, but I've always been a fan of travelling in books. The BSC Super Specials, the Fabulous Five ones, the time the Unicorns went to Hawaii. I loved that stuff. So a book series where the entire point is travelling? So into it. I loved all the sight-seeing done through Cece's eyes.

As I figured, there was a smattering of romance and some brief mean girl shenanigans, but Cece's main dilemma is her family drama. She was adopted from China when she was two and knows nothing of her birth parents, so most of the book's drama comes from her angsting over that.

The book is lightly-written and a fast read, but also thoroughly enjoyable.

I bought a set of 10 on ebay and then the other 3 from another bookseller, so hopefully they arrive quickly, because I'm itching to do some travelling!

My only complaint is that these are decidedly Euro-centric. London, Rome, Spain, Paris (twice with the same character), Munich, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, and Australia make up the majority of the series. Mexico and a Caribbean cruise represent the Americas, as well as an Australian in Washington DC in the Super Special. China is visited by the Chinese girl and Japan by a Japanese-American. No characters seem to be black, based on the book covers. No one goes anywhere in Africa, not even touristy Egypt, or to cool places like India or South America. Perhaps if the series had continued, we would have gotten there, but obviously I think they should have been included earlier. I am really looking forward to the Munich book though. I loved Munich.

I just hope all the authors do as well as Cynthea Liu. Four of them do double duty. One does London and the Aussie/DC Super Special. One does both French books with the same protagonist. One does Munich and Mexico. One does Japan and Finland. The remaining books each have a different author.

Further reviews as the books arrive! But if you want a pretty fun jaunt through China with a mostly likeable protagonist (she's wishy washy sometimes), give this one a read.