Guardians of Dawn 1

 

I bought this back in 2023, but it's taken me this long to finish it. It's quite good, but we all know how easily distracted I am. Then time flies by without me even realizing how long it's been since I last cracked the cover. 

This was described as Cinder meets Sailor Moon. Cinder is in my TBR pile, but honestly, I think they should have just said Cinderella, not Cinder. 

This is definitely not a fairy tale retelling though. There are only the barest elements of the Cinderella story here. Orphan girl who's basically a servant for her stepmother, though her "evil stepsister" isn't evil. Meets the prince, though it's long before the ball and she spends a good chunk of the book not knowing who he is. Does get to dress up and go to a ball, including losing a slipper, but I think those are about all the parallels. 

Zhara's world is an odd one. There seem to be three types of people. There are magicians, who can wield a sort of magic based in writing spells using brushes. There is a group of magicians called anti-magicians, because they can neither use magic nor be affected by it. Technically, they're also magicians, but it's easier to think of them as separate. And there are regular humans. Magicians are open to being possessed by demons and they turn into monstrous beings called abominations. After this happened too often, one of the rulers decided to wipe out all magicians, so Zhara is growing up in a place where she has to constantly hide who she is. She also holds a lot of guilt because she blinded her stepsister when she was trying to heal her failing eyesight. So she puts up with her alcoholic stepmother's treatment and tries to make the best of her situation. 

She runs into the prince, thinking he's a student, and when their books are accidentally swapped, she gets a peek into the world of magic. Things keep happening and she, the prince and his palace BFF end up joining the Guardians of Dawn, a pro-magician group. 

The characters are all quite fun. 

Zhara herself is your basic teen girl hiding a secret. She's a giggly and bubbly and can be sassy and fun. She also holds a lot on her shoulders, so she's got a bunch of conflicting emotions and frustrations going on. As you probably guessed from the cover, she's the Guardian of Fire, though the reveal doesn't take place for maybe half the book.

Han is the Royal Heir. His dad is the actual prince, but Han is the Prince Charming character. He's also quite fun. He's a bit thick sometimes, as several of the characters point out, but he enjoys poetry as well as physical education, and he's hilariously innocent when it comes to double entendres. It's a running joke that's quite entertaining. (Oh, the names for the porn books!) 

Xu is Han's best friend in the palace. Xu is an interesting character, because of the pronoun setup the author has created. Basically, in this world, when you first meet someone, you use they pronouns until they give you their preference. Like there's a shopkeeper referred to as "they" until she introduces herself as "Mistress," which is when she becomes "she." Xu is always they. From little hints, you learn that Xu was born male and likes men, but that's it. I don't remember any other distinctions being given. Xu is flirty, promiscuous and likes the finer things in life. They're into expensive clothes and makeup and such. They're also very protective of Han, determined to get their prince to his majority (18). Definitely another fun character. 

Then we've got the northern Princess Yulana, Han's betrothed, who is the granddaughter of the man who wipes out a bunch of magicians, including Han's mother. Yulana is easily my favorite. She's epic. She's tall and a blend of masculine and androgynous. She's got red hair and freckles, which stand out in this East Asian-inspired fantasy world. She's blunt, funny, flirty, and very, very gay. Her nickname is Yuli and she's the Guardian of Wind. She can speak telepathically, though not read minds. She has an astral form that she can project and travel places. One of her first appearances has her meeting Zhara in astral form, so revealing she's Wind isn't exactly a spoiler. Also, by this point, she's been revealed as the third book, so it's pretty obvious. 

The last main character is Jiyi, who's a former courtesan turned writer/magical historian. She's not a magician herself, but she knows a lot. She's also the author of the most mentioned porn book, which is hilarious. Jiyi is another blunt character, but she's sassier than Yuli. She's got a short fuse and loses patience quickly, especially with Han. I think she's supposed to be a little bit older than the others, who are around seventeen. Zhara guessed her to be around twenty-one, but nothing was ever clarified. Jiyi is extremely beautiful, but also extremely doesn't give a fuck, and that makes her even more awesome. She and Yuli have a bit of a flirtation that I wish they'd done more with. Jiyi is called the Ice Princess, because she can be cold in personality, and there were a couple references to water when describing her. We know all the other guardians (the second book shows Ami, who's clearly Wood), so I'm wondering if Jiyi will become the Guardian of Water. Otherwise, it will be a new character we haven't met yet. 

Most of the book introduces the characters, their struggles, their motivations, and does a lot of world-building. The conflict is resolved in just a few chapters near the end, but it's an exciting read. 

I'm looking forward to getting into the second book. Ami's story is Beauty & the Beast-themed and we met the Beast at the end of Zhara's book. 

Definitely recommend this to those that enjoy magical girl-type fantasy and fairy tales. 

Finally Heard

I finally got around to picking this up and blew through it in one day. I loved Finally Seen, the first in this series. 

Finally Heard picks up with Lina dealing with puberty issues, as well as phone envy. She and her best friend Carla are the only two kids in their class without phones. Lina's family being poor, she doesn't want to bother her mom about puberty stuff and its added expenses. 

The entire book is basically about both kids and adults dealing with phone-related problems. The puberty stuff comes in second to all of that. Lina's mom is using Instagram videos to up her bath bomb business, with the help of Lina, Carla and Finn. The three kids even start earning money to help smaller local businesses make advertising videos. Which would have been the wise time for Lina to buy herself some of the things she wants, like deodorant or a bra. I mean, at least get the deodorant. Maybe I missed a line or two about what she was doing with the money, but deodorant also doesn't cost $14.99 like whatever she was looking at. There are plenty of cheaper options. 

So Lina's mom becomes too content-obsessed to see what Lina's going through. Lina should just talk to her mom about her body problems but instead gets hooked into the algorithm's ability to keep sending you videos about things you looked up once on a slightly-related topic. Everyone gets hooked on their videos doing well with lots of likes and comments, though that eventually slides into mean comments and cyberbullying. Even with Lina's mom. Both Carla and Finn have their own issues, too, which I'm not going to go into for the sake of spoilers. Mostly on Carla's part.

I think this book deals with a lot of important phone-related topics for both adults and kids, though I didn't like it nearly as much as Finally Seen. It was still a fun read and I'm hoping Kelly Yang continues to give us more from Lina. I like the modern world setting as much as I like the Front Desk series' older setting. 

GIRLS SURVIVE Part 12

Okay, I got REALLY behind on these. These came out back in August and I read the four graphic novels, but not the two chapter books. 

So I don't remember much about them, but I'll try to recall what I can. 

This one is set in 2011 during an earthquake. I remember liking it, but that's about it. 

 

Blah, it's the Salem witch trials. I hardly ever like this topic. I don't remember liking it here. 

And the Titanic. Not a topic I dislike but definitely on the overdone side. 

I should have taken a few minutes to reread these before typing this. Alas. 

Okay, this one I remember better, mostly because I've never read another children's historical piece on the Hindenburg. 

I liked it. 

Okay, now on to the chapter books that I just read a few days ago. 

I enjoyed this book, but Chernobyl is such a big topic and shrinking it down to fit in such a small book didn't work very well. I liked it a lot, but was definitely left thinking it could have been four times as long. 

The same applies to this one. Tiananmen Square is another topic that's just plain too big for such a short book. 

I would definitely have read longer versions of all three of these topics, including the Hindenburg. 

These are the two brand new releases for this series, having just come out on the first. 

I had never heard of the Sandy Lake removal until this book. I'm very glad it was written by an Ojibwe author! I liked it as much as one can enjoy such a sad and depressing story. The characters were good, though I wished the sisters were developed a bit more. 

This one I really enjoyed. I give this series a lot of credit for touching on topics I've never read in any other series before. Even if I'm left wanting longer versions of the stories, at least they're being told in some way. 

Penny and her older brother are passengers on the Lusitania, which was bombed by the Germans during WWI. So this has some similarities to Titanic stories but also is totally different. Like they weren't underfilling the lifeboats. They couldn't actually reach them to get into them because of the angle of the ship's sinking. Penny is one of the most likeable characters in this entire series, as is her new friend Mary. 

Always pleased for more Girls Survive!