PANDORA 5

 
Like the second book, this one is almost non-stop action. This might be my favorite one, though I do love the Egyptian setting for #2. 

Iole, Homer and Pandy are struggling through the Arabian Desert trying to get to Baghdad. They meet up with a caravan, which contains Mahfouza, one of the dancing girls from Wang Chun Lo's carnival. The point of the caravan is to take a famous physician and his son to Baghdad, where the physician's execution will take place. This is a story from the Arabian Nights, where the physician is executed, but he gives the prince a book with poisoned pages, so he dies as well. Pandy and Iole trap some lesser evils that were stuck inside the prince. 

Meanwhile in the underworld, Alcie is being shown around by Persephone, who is decidedly goofy but also loveable. I like their version of Hades, who isn't really scary at all. At least they did well by him, despite falling into the trope of making Hera the big bad. Hades goes to Lachesis, one of the fates, and she brings Alcie her life thread. Because Hera's actions went against what the fates had planned, they did cut the thread but had not yet cast it into the final flames, so they were able to attach a new thread to it. Alcie is now the only person in Greece who has control over her own life. (There was a heavy belief that everything was fated.) Thanks to one of Hades' devices, Alcie is able to talk to Pandy not once but twice. Hades sends her to Earth, but she's stuck in a tree in the hidden garden of the djinn, so it's up to the others to go find her. 

The garden adventure is really good. I feel like this was also in Arabian Nights. I need to read that. They go one by one through a pitch black room surrounded by snakes, then into three successive rooms, each filled with either copper, silver or gold. Voices tempt them to pick up the coins or try to frighten them. As soon as a coin is touched, the person becomes a black rock on the floor. Pandy, Iole and Douban (the decapitated physician's son and Pandy's love interest) each try and fail. It's Homer with his love for Alcie who's able to resist and get through the rooms to her in the garden. He gets her down from the tree, though she does have a small branch growing through her shoulder. Then the two of them discover that the black stones are transformed people and using oil from the djinn of the garden's lamp, they restore them all. All the djinn who created the garden are grateful and give them jeweled fruit from the trees, then move the garden so no human can find it again. 

Next, they're off to Mahfouza's house. The point of the Baghdad adventure is to capture wrath/rage and they discover it's in the djinn who was trapped in the garden but learned how to escape. Mahfouza's youngest sister was poisoned by three lesser evils and her actions led to the family peri being killed. The garden djinn loved that peri, so he's filled with rage and cursing the family members. Mahfouza's parents were killed, but her brothers and sisters all have had horrible, body-mangling punishments. When she returns home, while the others are in the garden, Mahfouza gets taken apart and put back together incorrectly, so she's a mess of mixed up body parts.

The others realize that the fix is in the jeweled fruit, so they slowly figure out which fruit is which person, feed it to them and they return to normal. Each is a small riddle. Mahfouza had her pieces mixed and the only fruit that can be in segments is the orange. Another person is being pitted like a peach, another was split into halves (a pair/a pear), another is being cored like an apple. This is definitely the most gruesome part in the series so far. I love that it doesn't shy away from being more realistic in that way. It's not light and fluffy, no way. 

Pandy is able to defeat the garden djinn using the old "I don't believe you fit in that tiny lamp" trick. Ah, they always fall for that. Then they save everyone in the house, box up the lesser evils that had possessed the youngest sister, and...then Hera shows up. The sidestory with Hera in this book was so annoying. I hated it. Like every bit of it. Enough crazy crap happened that they could have skipped her part entirely and it still would have been well dramatic enough. Hera's taken care of with some help from the tiny rocs (which control djinn and magical powers in the land), then they're off to Rome to capture greed. 

Despite the boring, annoying Hera bit, I think this is my favorite so far. Lots of good characterization, characters and details. 

PANDORA 4

Pandora #4 is pretty much nonstop craziness. 

First, the gang knows they have to go to Mount Pelion to find Lust. The problem is...Lust is 1300 years back in time. 

The gods help out more in this book than any of the 3 previous. Hermes takes them to the mountain and then sends them back in time, where they find themselves working as temp serving help for the wedding. 

What wedding? 

I'd say the most famous wedding in Greek myth: Thetis and Peleus. 

AKA: The one with the For the Fairest golden apple that sparks the Trojan War. 

I loved the time at the wedding itself. It was handled really well, including a conversation between Pandy and her father, who at that point is of course not married and not a father. 

Eris shows up, the apple is delivered and chaos ensues. The challenge is issued and Hermes will take Aphrodite, Athena and Hera to Mount Ida the next day where Paris will make his judgment. 

Pandy received a coin from Zeus and she and Alcie both got them from Hermes. They can be exchanged for godly assistance in travel, but it costs them two weeks of their allotted time. 

They give one to Hermes and he gets them to Mount Ida, then turns the girls into dogs so Homer can pretend he's got 3 dogs with him, instead of 4 kids randomly appearing on Paris's mountain. 

Then just as at the wedding, everyone kinda stands around and watches the myth play out. Dog Pandy finally goes after the apple when Paris tosses it to Aphrodite, but Aphrodite systematically injures Pandy, Alcie and Iole as she stops their dog forms from taking her precious apple. 

Hermes helps them get back to the present, where Pandora's broken arm is now badly healed and whatever happened to Iole is also badly healed, but Alcie remains blinded. Hermes can't fix curses done by other gods, so they're stuck that way. 

The gang plans to use another coin to get to Aphrodisias, where a temple to Aphrodite is being built. They're going to ask present day Aphrodite for the apple. 

However, Hera's been working behind the scenes to get back at Pandy for a ridiculous slight from years ago. She tortures Hermes to get information, then traps both him and Aphrodite while Hera herself impersonates Aphrodite. Hera/Aphrodite agrees to give Pandy the apple in exchange for one thing: one of their lives. 

There's a horrible scene where they fight over who gets killed and Alcie finally insists it has to be her. She's bitten by a snake and dies. Then Hermes and the real Aphrodite arrive as Hera reveals her ruse. Pandy (with Aphrodite's permission) slaps Hera and then sets her on fire. Zeus arrives as this is dying down and the others lie to cover up Hera's deceit and all the assistance they've given Pandy. Zeus gets Hera out of there and returns Dido to Pandy. Aphrodite heals Iole and Pandy's injuries, but she cannot bring Alcie back. She does give them the apple though, so that's four down, three to go. 

Next up, it's off to Baghdad for Wrath (Rage in the book). 

And down in the underworld, Alcie is causing a ruckus. Go, Alcie!

PANDORA 3

For Pandora's third adventure, they find themselves headed to Jbel Toubkal, which is the highest mountain in the Atlas range. 

Pandy is separated from everyone else, gets some help from Dionysus and his team of crazy squirrels, and meets two young boys who accompany her for most of the rest of the book. 

Alcie, Iole and Homer end up being taken captive and find themselves on a ship newly-captained by the same guy that was the captain of the ship to Egypt. He recognizes them and puts them in his care. While onboard, Homer works for the captain while the girls mostly cry about Pandy, thinking she's dead. They then have a run-in with one of the lesser evils: Misery. 

Nearer the end, once everyone is reunited on Jbel Toubkal, Pandora has to get Laziness, which exists in the form of an ugly nose hair on her uncle Atlas. Homer is one of the men baked waist-down into a column so he can help support the heavens because Atlas is now too lazy to do so. Pandora's father Prometheus is there in disguise along with Hermes, who's helping him out as much as he can. Prometheus sees Pandora in action and realizes what his daughter is capable of. 

The book ends with our foursome getting on a ship again, bound for Thessaly where they're after Lust next. 

I found this one not quite as strong as the second. The first is slow going because it has to set the story, but the second was non-stop new characters and action and of course I also favor Egypt. This third book is good, but it dragged on in a few places. I still love all the characters and the storylines though. 

I AM AMERICA Part 2

 

I Am America is back with two new books. 

The first is about the earthquake and fire in 1906 San Francisco. Like Lily's book from the Girls Survive series, this is told from the Chinese-American perspective. It digs a little deeper than Lily's though as Han struggles with his identity as both Chinese and American. And the action and drama are far more than in Lily's book. I definitely liked this a lot better. 

The book is written in a regular format. No letters or diaries or anything like that. 

Now this is something new. We've read plenty about prejudice and racism in the US during periods of war, but never has the perspective come from an Indian immigrant. I was really excited about this one, but it didn't turn out quite as I'd hoped. 

Margaret has an Indian (Sikh) father and a white mother. She struggles with being mixed race and with the fallout of her father having some involvement with a party trying to fight for India's independence from Britain. I wish the author had gone all out and just made her Indian. I'm guessing she wanted the mixed race aspect to stick her in a white school so she could have a white German friend who also struggled with prejudice? I'm not sure. 

The book covers a long time span and suffers for it. It's actually unfortunately boring. I hate to say that, but it needed to be at least twice as long and get into Margaret's head a lot better than it did. There are good bones here, but it needed a lot of fleshing out that never happened.

GIRLS SURVIVE Series: Part 4

My post for part 3 of this series got stuck back in January, even though I didn't finish it until much later:
http://redblackandwhitebookreviews.blogspot.com/2020/01/girls-survive-series-part-3.html

I also started writing this in July and got sidetracked. Again. I need to stop doing this.

These newest four Girls Survive just released. I think they were supposed to be August 1st, so once again, they came out early.

Amazon's shipping has been terrible. They've switched to UPS Mail Innovations for certain packages and they take eons to arrive. I get it, pandemic, yeah, but I'm a Prime member and that's not cheap, so I miss the method of shipment I'm used to my money paying for.

Long story short, I only have two of the four books so far. The other two are poking along verrrrrrrry slowly. So for the first time, my review is going out of chronological order.

We begin with Rebecca, whose story was based on the women who helped the Revolutionary War by being heroic messengers. This one was simple, but it was also enjoyable. I liked it a lot.

Maribel's book takes place during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Maribel is a Hispanic girl with ADD. Back in those days, things like that weren't diagnosed, so it's not discussed in the book in plain language, but the signs are there, and the author addresses it at the end.

Maribel and her family are evacuated from their home and live with friends for three weeks, mostly not believing there's any danger from the volcano. Tired of her family being upset, Maribel decides to sneak back to her home and retrieve some possessions she thinks will help. Naturally, the volcano erupts while she's there and she has to fight her way to safety.

I really liked this one, because this is something I didn't know much about. It went by quickly, as this series tends to do, but it was well-written.

If you've never heard of the Great Molasses Flood, it's about exactly what it sounds like. In Boston in 1919, a giant tank of molasses exploded and the ensuing wave killed 21 people and injured many others. It sounds silly, but it was real and would have been pretty terrifying. 

The events of the book happen very fast. Leah is an orphan who lives with her uncle, who works for the company that owns the tank. Her dream is to go west. She goes to school, having a couple run-ins with a female classmate named Francesca, who's sort of a rival. Throughout the day, the girls become slightly friendlier, but they're outside when the tank explodes and that throws them into a life and death situation together. First they're in the wave itself, then they're trapped in a crawlspace with the level of molasses slowly rising. Both sustain injuries and struggle to find a way out. They end up being rescued and taken for medical assistance. The girls end up fine, but Leah learns later that her uncle was killed in the flood. When she goes home, she discovers that the can she thought held their vacation fund was money he had been saving for her future, so she can actually go west and live her dream. Francesca comes to find her and offers her a place to stay with her family until school ends and Leah can buy a train ticket west. 

This book originally had a different cover. This one here on the right. Leah had longer hair and the title was different. I guess they must have decided "Braves the Wave" sounded a little stupid. 

I liked this one, but the super fast pace made it less interesting than others. It was okay, but I felt like I didn't have time to get invested in the characters much, though I did like both girls. 

Oh, man. This one hit me hard. 

Tara and her mother are vacationing in Thailand, because her mother's parents were Thai immigrants. They're there on their third day when the tsunami hits. 

I'm not sure if the story was hard because Tara and her mother are close, just like I am with my mom, and they're separated. You spend a lot of the story wondering if her mom's okay. (She is. Whew.) It also might have been hard because we survived a hurricane together. Nothing as powerfully devastating as this tsunami, but it was terrifying regardless. Some of the incidents in the book brought things back. It ends on a bittersweet note, because Tara and her mom are safe and return home, but you never learn the fates of other characters in the book. Still, I think it's one of the strongest of this entire series. Very powerful. 

DRESS CODED

 
Man, I honestly can't believe I pulled this off, but I completed all 3 YA books in one day. It's been nice just reading and not worrying about anything else. 

I have liked all three of the ones I read today, but I've got to say Dress Coded was my favorite. It's got a more unusual format, which includes texting, podcast transcripts, lists and letters mixed between the chapters. It feels more realistic in its chaos. 

It's got an obvious theme: girls are being unfairly dress-coded at their middle school and one of them starts a podcast to tell their stories. 

There are a lot of disturbing elements here, but each one feels like it could be absolutely true. There's a girl who hides her period-stained pants with her sweatshirt around her waist and is in the hallway in a tank top to get her phone from her locker to call someone to bring her fresh pants. She gets in trouble with the principal and a completely sexist male teacher and even gets the class trip cancelled. This is utterly unreasonable, but definitely sounds like it could be real. There's a black girl with natural hair who gets detention for retaliating after a boy in her class pushes her hair down to get it "out of his way." Not exactly fitting with the dress code, but also definitely believable. And there are loads of other stories. 

Also wound through the book is the main character's bad relationship with her vape-addicted older brother and the trouble he brings their family, plus other friend drama. 

It's quite well-done and I recommend it. I do recommend all three I read today.

THE PRETTIEST

Next up in our YA lineup for the day is The Prettiest. 

This one has a pretty simple premise. Someone wrote a list ranking the Top 50 prettiest girls in the 8th grade and the book follows the fallout. 

Shy, book-obsessed poet Eve is shocked to find herself at #1, while most popular girl Sophie is equally shocked to find herself at #2. 

Eve endures attention she doesn't want from being hit on and pursued to nasty comments saying she wrote the list herself. She's painfully shy and awkward, so she has no idea how to handle any of this, especially in the wake of her having had some body developments over the summer. 

Sophie is obsessed with her looks. She comes from a lower-income, single-parent family and hides where she lives from her friends. She's afraid being second will topple her place at the top of the popularity food chain. 

Nessa is Eve's best friend, a theater star. Being plus-sized, she's not surprised she's not on the list at all, but she handles everything with more realism and self-confidence than the other two main characters. 

The girls end up teaming up to try to out the list writer, who they think is popular boy Brody. They try to exploit his current interest in Eve, but that backfires spectacularly. As more and more comes out and things change, the team grows to include more girls and one of Brody's former male friends. 

There's a lot going on in this book aside from just body positivity issues. There's a bit of anti-Semitism (Eve is Jewish) and racism (Nessa has a quick couple lines about prejudice her family has faced because her mother speaks Spanish) that's brushed aside maybe a little too quickly. There's the girls dealing with being the target of a popular boy after he feels rejected by them. He tried to pressure Sophie into kissing him and she refused, which led to fallout there. There's distance between family members for different reasons. Parents and siblings reacting to the list in different ways. Definitely a hell of a lot of sexual harassment in various forms. 

One of the main themes between all the characters is how we handle the wrong things we see. Eve is actually hard to like for a while, because she's such a mouse that she never speaks up to defend a friend or herself against abuse until she's pushed to extremes. Nessa isn't accepting of Eve's behavior in various ways and their eventual making up feels too easy. There's a lot more to this, but I'm keeping quiet to avoid spoilers. 

I enjoyed the book, but I felt like it could have been expanded in many places and been better for it.