The 30 page short story The Wizards of Perfil is from the anthology Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link.

Short Synopsis

A mad king has declared war on everyone leaving families broken and fear in his wake. An orphan named Onion, in the care of his aunt, is nearly sold into slavery, but at the last moment, the stranger from Perfil decides to take Onion’s ill-tempered cousin Halsa. Onion and Halsa are both special, they share the same gift, so while Halsa rides off to serve the Wizards of Perfil, it’s as though Onion is right there with her. In time, Halsa, after much hard labor, and Onion learn that the Wizards are nothing like they’d expected.

My Thoughts on The Wizards of Perfil

I’m not sure what I feel right now. I’m a bit unsettled.

The prose was smooth and I glided through pages with ease. The story unfolded like a half-remembered-dream where nothing could quite be nailed down (like ages or dates or locations) which worked in its favor and the story was unique and the characters were memorable, but I can’t shake this feeling that this would have been a better story had it been longer or, at least, more fleshed out. And the end, which I sort of saw coming, fizzled when I expected an explosion (or maybe a firecracker).

The reason for my ambivalence, though, is because I enjoyed reading it. Link is certainly a skilled wordsmith and she has a way of crafting genuine characters. (One small quirk was Halsa’s abrupt and quite jarring personality shift and Onion’s willingness to accept it at face value, but that was minor.) Plus, I like the thoughtful elements of the story; it was almost like a parable causing you to question the costs of war and faith.

But, the fact remains that I’m squarely on the fence and in my mind this story fell just short of excellence.

Final rating: C+

The 23 page short story The Wrong Grave is from the anthology Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link.

Short Synopsis

A boy regretting his decision to bury some of his poetry with his deceased girlfriend decides to dig her up and get them back, but receives a shocking surprise when he does.

My Thoughts on The Wrong Grave

I didn’t know what to expect from Kelly Link’s writing, but having read this story I can say it was a pleasant experience. This story was so many things—comical, dark, and poignant—and her writing style and subject matter aligned well with my own morbidity. (Dealing with Death has a way of skewing one’s personality; what one, who has not dealt with Death, might find disturbingly dark another may find amusingly dark.)

Each of the characters’ personalities were delineated, naturally flawed, and none of them seemed stock. I even found myself wanting to know more about the story’s anonymous narrator who had me chuckling every few pages.

As far as a plot or point to the story, there really wasn’t one that I could discern, but that was OK. It was just a charming sliver of another, longer story that I won’t ever know—unless, of course, Link ever decided to write it, at which time I would eagerly read it. Instead, I’m left to wonder and speculate and dwell on what happened to Miles and that girl he dug up.

Final rating: B+

Thanks to Jill at Breaking the Spine, I present another edition of Waiting on Wednesday…

After reading Morpheus Road: The Light by D. J. MacHale (links to my review) last year I’ve been impatiently waiting for the next book in the series. It looks like my wait is just about over because it’s scheduled for release April 2011 and it’s called Morpheus Road: The Black.

Cooper Foley always had a knack for finding trouble, but nothing he’s ever experienced could have prepared him for his latest adventure:  He has landed square in the middle of a border war between the worlds of the living and the dead.

At the end of The Light, Book One of the Morpheus Road trilogy, Marshall Seaver learned the truth about what happened to his missing best friend, Cooper.  Now, the mystery continues to unfold, only this time through Cooper’s eyes.

What did Marshall’s terrifying encounters with Gravedigger have to do with spirits from another existence?  Who is Damon, and what role did he play in Cooper’s dilemma?  Most importantly, what is the mysterious Morpheus Road?

I’ve already reserved my copy at Amazon, but I don’t know if I can stand to wait three more months. I still can’t get over that one sentence in The Light that made me nearly swallow my tongue. I simply must find out what became of Marshall.

Happy Tuesday! It’s time again for another edition of Teaser Tuesdays…

Here are the rules:

• Grab your current read
• Let the book fall open to a random page
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• You also need to share the title of the book where you get your teaser from…that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given
• Please avoid spoilers

This week’s teaser:

"That was the beginning of the Sullivan family fortune–a fortune built on lies and vice. Evil, if you will." pg. 143 Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters by Natalie Standiford

My sister read it and enjoyed it immensely and I trust her judgment. Plus, the synopsis sounds intriguing enough, so I’m hoping this is one of those nice, light reads that everyone needs once in a while because I do need one of them right about now.

Title: Trapped
Author: Michael Northrop
ISBN: 978-054521-0126
Story Length: 240 pages
Genre: Young Adult/Psychological Thriller

Back Cover of Trapped

The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week. That for those in its path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm, but of staying alive.

Scotty and his friends Pete and Jason are among the last seven kids at their high school waiting to get picked up that day, and they soon realize that no one is coming for them. Still, it doesn’t seem so bad to spend the night at school, especially when distractingly hot Krista and Julie are sleeping just down the hall. But the power goes out, and the heat. The pipes freeze, and the roof shudders. As the day adds up, the snow piles higher, and the empty halls grow colder and darker, the mounting pressure forces a devastating decision…

Three Quick Points About Trapped

• Point 1: A smooth read. There was nothing difficult in the reading. One word flowed into the next, one sentence into the next, and one paragraph into the next.
• Point 2: Underwhelming characters. Each character seemed like a slightly varied stock template, from the bully who wasn’t so bad after all to the hormonally challenged teenage boy to the super hot blond.
• Point 3: A pressure cooker with too little pressure. The students’ situation was dire, no doubt about it, but there wasn’t enough character variation to spark true conflict.

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