Review: "The Girls of No Return" by Erin Saldin

Lida has nothing in common with the other girls at the Alice Marshall School for Girls, the camp where troubled teens are sent to resolve their problems with spirit-enhancing nature hikes. Their wounds are superficial and their stories of woe too rehearsed, too tidy, to be genuine. She won't tell them so, of course. Lida won't say anything at all. 

Her infatuation with an elegant new girl draws her out of her silence, and puts her in the line of fire. The camp's resident hooligan, Boone, is as offended by Gia's prideful grace as Lida is enchanted by it. Rumors fly about Boone's murderous temper. As Boone and Gia's rivalry builds to violence, though, Boone offers Lida her friendship--a dangerous gift that Lida is afraid to reject.

The Girls of No Return by Erin Saldin (2012)

4.5 out of 5 stars 

Complexity of Writing: 3/5
Quality of Writing: 4/5
Strength of Characterization: 5/5
Logic of Plot Development: 5/5
Evocation of Setting: 5/5
Effectiveness of Pacing: 5/5
Resolution of Conflict: 5/5
Emotional Engagement: 5/5
Mental Engagement: 3/5
Memorability: 4/5
Bechdel Test: pass
Diverse Cast: pass
Content Warning: violence, description of self-injury

Overall Response: Brrrrrrrr.

***

More Thoughts (But First, An Aside): 

My friend Della just launched her own book blog, The Gorgonist, which you should visit at once. In one of her inaugural posts, she produced a book rec for every one of Taylor Swift's recent hits. I promptly put a half-dozen of them on hold, because Della likes fun books. (On the other hand, Della is also responsible for me reading Code Name Verity, and for that I may never forgive her.)

The book which Della associated with the song "Bad Blood" settled right down into that carved-out hollow within my heart where wilderness adventure stories live. Erin Saldin's The Girls of No Return, picks up the torch dropped by Hatchet, Downriver and My Side Of The Mountain. Then it tosses that torch into the puddle of gasoline that is mental health and queer issues. It's everything that The Miseducation of Cameron Post failed to be. Reading The Girls of No Return was like having a nightmare, but waking refreshed and ready to face the day.

Review: "The Patron Saint of Ugly" by Marie Manilla

When stories come pouring out of the tiny town of Sweetwater, West Virginia, about the miraculous healing powers of Garnet Ferrari, the Vatican dispatches an investigator to determine the truth of the so-called saint.

Garnet herself denies all claim to sainthood or miracles, but she cannot deny that something strange has been happening all her life. From the day she was born with a birthmark of the world covering her entire body, she has been set apart, marveled over by superstitious grandmothers and reviled by her peers. Only her mother, a blue-blooded runaway from Virginia's highest society circles, is determined to adore her map-stained daughter.

The Vatican's investigation follows Garnet back through time to the miracles she performed and the ones she failed. Was there ever really a Santa Garnet del Vulcano before her, or is Garnet truly the rebirth of a long-lost Sicilian saint? It's a legend the world has never heard before, but one which in Garnet's memory has been told a hundred times and more. 

*** 

4.5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Goblin Emperor" by Katherine Addison

When the emperor and his chosen heirs are killed in a fatal airship accident, the elven crown falls to the last person anyone considered: his youngest, least-favored son, raised in exile and all but forgotten by the court.

In the blink of an eye, half-goblin Maia becomes the Emperor Edrehasivar VII. He would be the first to agree that he has no allies, no proper training, and a rather short life expectancy.

But when there are only two paths open to him--to be emperor, or to be dead--Maia chooses to repair the devastation of his father's legacy, and to leave his own.

And for all his lack of polish, Maia is no fool--and no stranger to living in a den of vipers. Those who expect Maia to be a simple puppet to be manipulated and replaced have a nasty surprise in store.

*** 

  4.9 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" by Emily M. Danforth

The day that Cameron Post kisses a girl for the first time, her parents die in a car accident.

While every one of her peers in tiny Miles City, Montana struggles with romance, rebellion, and boredom, her orphan status--and her infatuation with her female friends--sets Cameron apart. She is convinced that God took her parents away to punish her for her sinful ways, but she can't stop thinking about beautiful, graceful Coley.

It's only a matter of time until someone realizes that the heart Cameron wears on her sleeve is rainbow-hued--and when they do, they will set out to fix her.

*** 

  2 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein

"I am a coward," the wireless operator writes on the first page of her confession. In exchange for gentler treatment and a delay of her execution, she has agreed to tell her Nazi jailers everything she knows.

But the pages she fills with words have very little to do with the locations of British airfields, or the types of planes they are sending into the war. Instead, she writes about her dearest friend, Maddie Brodatt--clever Maddie who never gets lost; courageous Maddie who became a licensed pilot just before the war broke out; faithful Maddie who flew the the wireless operator to occupied France, where she was captured.

For page after page she draws out Maddie's story (punctuated with just enough details of airfields and planes to keep her captors interested.) She masks her treason inside memories of their friendship. As time runs short, the prisoner's scheme takes shape: to reach Maddie, if she is still alive, to fulfill their duty, and to take their revenge on the cruel regime that has darkened all of Europe.

*** 

  5 out of 5 stars

(grump + breakdown below the cut)

***

Review: "The Innkeeper's Song" by Peter S. Beagle

"There came three ladies at sundown," as the old song goes, searching for the wizard to whom each owes her life. Dashing Lal fears nothing and needs no one, but her oldest and only friend has summoned her with visions begging her help. Nyateneri arrives with a soldier’s stride and a trio of assassins on her own trail, but she too has heard the call and come to rescue him. As for Lukassa, well--she was dead a very short while ago, and remembers nothing but the wizard’s spell that raised her, like a turnip from a garden.

In a barren country far from home, the three race to rescue their master from his own renegade apprentice. But the secrets they keep from one another could break their fragile alliance. It adds up to a whirlwind of magic and secrecy, and a world of trouble for Karsh the innkeeper, who rues the day they ever darkened his door.


***   3.5 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut)

***

Review: "Shine" by Lauren Myracle

For three years, Cat Robinson has kept the world at arm's length. At sixteen years old, she is haunted by the hard truths that people you've known all your life can hurt you—and that the ones who claim to love you best won’t come to rescue you.

The walls of Cat’s self-imposed prison crack when her onetime best friend is found in a coma, badly beaten and scrawled with hateful slurs. She is determined not to fail Patrick the same way her family failed her. But Cat’s search for the culprit hits a roadblock at every turn.

The small community of Black Creek, North Carolina is rocked by the attack on one of their own. Some believe that Patrick brought the attack upon himself; others pray for his salvation and swift recovery. What no one wants to believe is that someone in their midst is capable of such violence. It is so much easier to blame faceless out-of-town thugs than to accuse a neighbor or a relative; that friend, that fishing buddy, the mayor’s son.

Don’t look, don’t ask, don’t talk about it—that is the command Cat is given at every turn. For Patrick’s sake and for her own, though, she must press on. Her solo quest for justice stirs up family secrets, drug deals, and her own buried memories... everything but the answer she needs.

*** 4 out of 5 stars (grump below the cut) ***