Teen Review: Nimona

Nimona

By Noelle Stevenson

Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Plot: 5/5

Characters: 4/5

Story: 5/5

Every villain needs a sidekick. And that is what Nimona says she is, when she appears suddenly in Lord Ballister Blackheart's dungeon hideout. But she is more than she says she is and the science-obsessed bad guy must discover the truth while fighting his nemesis, Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin. 

I loved this graphic novel. The artwork is fun and funky but still deeply important to the character development and WOW is there character development. The ending sort of indicates a closing to the story, which breaks my heart because I want to spend volumes following Nimona and Ballister around. They are absolutely perfect.

One thing I really love about Nimona is that she doesn't look like a typical female heroine. She isn't tall. She isn't blonde. She isn't skinny and perfect. She's short and realistically shaped, funky and punky and in your face. She doesn't act like a good little sidekick, either, in spite of what she tells Ballister at the beginning. She does what she wants, when she wants, and however she feels like doing it. Her truth is THE truth, regardless of what anyone thinks of her. And I love her for that.

Children's Review: The Intergalactic Adventures of Queen Bea

Based on a promotional eBook received from NetGalley in exchange for a review.



The Intergalactic Adventures of Queen Bea
Written by Jeanne Gransee Barker

Overall Rating: 3/5
Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing:  3/5

This coming-of-age story is set against the backdrop of winter in a small town as Bea Parker tries to understand why she's the last girl in her class to reach puberty, why her world seems so small, and who her real parents are after she discovers paperwork in her "aunt's" closet which indicate that Bea was left there as a baby by someone not actually related to them. The sudden and unexpected delivery of a high tech device in her bedroom only further complicates her life, throwing her together with the class jerk/nerd as they try to figure out what this object is and what it has to do with Bea. Interspersed in this narrative is the story of the alien man who was charged with protecting Bayatrice as a baby and had to leave her behind when he was discovered by the opposition. 

Bea interests me, but she didn't start to interest me until two-thirds of the way through the book. Before that point, she is a stubborn teenager with little interest in actually making friends with Calvin, the geek who is mean because people pick on him and he's had enough of it (I identify strongly with Calvin, personally). She only wants to be around him because he might help her figure out the alien technology and he only agrees to look at it with her because it's nothing like anything he's ever seen before. 

This novel was horribly slow to get started and the interesting parts didn't start to really pop until late in the story. Character development felt clumsy and forced (suddenly, Bea is a good person! and there's romance! and things are going to be okay!) and while Bea has greatness thrust upon her, her sudden outpouring of grace under pressure really has very little to do with anything she might have learned earlier in the novel. I'm hoping for more books in the series where we might get to explore the character of Bea and Calvin, especially now that we no longer have the overarching "spoiler" that Bea is really a queen. 

Tip for authors: don't make your main plot point part of the title. It kind of kills the suspense. Also? She barely leaves the planet for most of the book. She has one off-world adventure. This would have been a better title for a series rather than a single book.

Adult Review: Saga vol 4

Saga, volume 4
by Brian K. Vaughan

Overall Rating: 4.5/5
Plot: 4/5
Characters: 5/5
Writing: 4/5
Artwork: 5/5

The next installment of the comic collection which follows the lives of a pair of renegade lovers from opposite sides of a planetary civil war. Easily on par with the rest of the series and I've been rabidly checking our catalog for it since I heard it had been released.

I adore this series. Definitely not for children and even parents of young adults should be wary due to language and the sexual nature of some of the imagery. But the story of these vital characters fascinates me and I want to know where they're going. I want to know how their daughter grows up and what will happen next. I'm breathless with anticipation at every turn of the page and the artwork is absolutely stunning. The characters are complex and powerful on many levels. And I totally want a Lying Cat of my own.

Adult Review: Omari and the People

Based on a promotional eBook received from NetGalley in exchange for a review.



Omari and the People
Written by Stephen Whitfield

Overall Rating: 3/5
Plot: 4
Characters: 3
Writing: 2

Omari and the People is a sweeping, epic quest story of a thief so successful that he becomes bored with his life. In a whirlwind decision, he burns his city to the ground, stranding thousands of people of varying classes without homes in the desert. With the backing of an elderly drifter who appears to have semi-magical powers, he becomes the leader of the city's middle and lower classes and takes them on a journey through the desert to seek a new home.

I felt like I was missing something profound in this story. It has excellent reviews on GoodReads and it feels to me that I was reading an entirely different book from those other reviewers. I wonder if there is a cultural framework that I'm missing. While the story is compelling, the characters interesting and the world immersive, the writing does not appeal to me. It has a storytelling quality which works for short stories or children's books, but doesn't seem to work for longer fiction. In particular, the narrator frequently explains the feelings of a character and then the character speaks about those feelings, giving a sense of redundancy to the exposition. Also, there are several places where the author says via narration that a character has a feeling, in spite of something that will happen later but hasn't happened yet. It works for face-to-face storytelling especially in groups where the story is a well-known folk tale or part of local mythology, but falls flat in new text.

I enjoyed the relationships between Omari and the various women in his life, as well as the development of trust among the men. Unfortunately, I don't find the characters to be well-developed. While Omari has a personal emotional journey, the rest of the cast of characters are only cardboard cut-outs in support of that journey. This greatly reduces the importance of the women, who had potential to be strong, vibrant female figures and are instead reduced to the love interest, the witch, and the lost mother-figure.

While the material is decent, I suspect it was not written for me. This distance from the target audience made the story hard for me to relate to and in the end, I didn't enjoy it very much. I wanted to know more about the world and the culture, but feel that the author expected me to already have that information instead of providing it in an accessible way.