A Collection of Tiny Stories: Diminutive Tales From The Tips of My Imagination by C.K. Sobey; The School of Optimal Futures by Annie Flint

 

A Collection of Tiny Stories: Diminutive Tales From The Tips of My Imagination by C.K. Sobey; The School of Optimal Futures by Annie Flint 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

 

A Collection of Tiny Stories: Diminutive Tales from The Tips of My Imagination by C.K. Sobey

This review is a summary. The entire review can be found on Reader Views.

Sometimes writers can say much with very few words. That's what C.K. Sobey demonstrates with the anthology A Collection of Tiny Stories: Diminutive Tales from The Tips of My Imagination. Sobey presents 24 short stories no longer than one or two pages or a few paragraphs to describe a conflict, a setting, a character, or a specific moment. 

A babysitter discovers dark secrets about her neighbor. A bookworm receives a personal message from their latest book. A woman receives a newspaper with a prophetic story. A woman writes to her husband during WWI. A little girl wants a new doll for her birthday. A janitor longs for a different path in life. An abusive man encounters a witch. Workers make the most of the dockyard night life. A woman finds an abandoned teddy bear and takes it home with her.

Sobey doesn't use many words. The words that are used capture those brief flickering moments which dare readers to read, visualize, and understand a brief point in time. They are descriptive, lyrical, visceral, and skillful in depicting a single lasting image within each story.

The School for Optimal Futures by Annie Flint

This review is a summary. The entire review can be found on LitPick.

The School for Optimal Futures by Annie Flint book is a YA dystopia science fiction novel that acknowledges the conflict between the domineering authority figures and the young courageous rebels but also comments on many of our current conflicts with technology, government overreach, and education.

 Ginger is sent to The School for Optimal Futures, an elite bizarre private school. The curriculum is strange. The faculty are very secretive and students disappear. Ginger and her new friends, Zoe, Matty, and Aiden discover a conspiracy between the school’s founder and the tech company that owns the school and the nearby town. 

The School for Optimal Futures gives a pleasant exterior but is questionable internally. It has a beautiful campus, interesting curriculum, welcoming students, supportive faculty, but it's all surface.

There is something performative and uncomfortable about the whole situation, like the school is playing the part of a welcoming empathetic place for misfits and outsiders but isn't really. Things like constant surveillance and.missing students and faculty members are highly suspicious plus a giant tech company has complete control over the school.

 The book’s plot is a savage commentary on surveillance, corporate control, and the manipulation of educational standards to serve the goals of the oligarchs and the world they strive to create. The school is written as a microcosm of what is already being done on a larger scale by large corporations who focus on gain and control rather than humanity and preservation.

The School for Optimal Futures calls to attention many of the real-life world problems but also offers ways in which they can be countered, challenged, changed, and maybe defeated.

 

Goon by Glenn Erick Miller; Oath by Kate Butler; The Wise Marie Paradise Edition by Natasha Brune

 

Goon by Glenn Erick Miller; Oath by Kate Butler; The Wise Marie: Paradise Edition by Natasha Brune 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Goon by Glenn Erick Miller 

This is a summary of the review. The complete review is on LitPick.

Goon is a tense, darkly comic, but captivating novel about incarceration, self-preservation, redemption, and the true nature of guilt and innocence.

 Goon is a troubled foster kid who stole a car, then injured his younger brother before being sent to a juvenile detention center. While there Goon has to deal with the various rules and regulations, violent fellow prisoners, a hurricane, his attraction for a girl who volunteers at the prison, and his guilt and anguished concern about his brother.

He is a fully developed protagonist who is practically made of attitude and regret. He recalls his dysfunctional upbringing, parentification towards his brother, and current incarceration with detached and wry humor. He is a self-deprecating sardonic kid who uses his humor to deflect from his own pain and tragedy.

The setting of the experimental detention center nicknamed J-Rot is fleshed out as a distinct society with its own culture and rituals. Everyone is given a nickname and bullying and favoritism are frequently shown. These dehumanization procedures remind the boys that who they were outside doesn't matter. Here they are who the prison, and by association the State of Florida, decides.

 Goon has to call up his talents and skills to aid someone who was once antagonistic but has shown potential to be a friend. Goon must surpass the institutional dehumanization and enter the contradictory chaos surrounding him to save him. 

Oath by Kate Butler 

This is a summary of my review. The long version is on Reader Views. (The links takes you to the site. You must insert the book's title in the search engine to read the review.)

Kate Butler’s Oath is a charming and enchanting queer fantasy romance about the love between a lord and his knight.

Lord Aerion Valemont is the spoiled Narcissistic son of the Archbishop. He is used to having his way so when Sir Clyde of Blackholt AKA “The Hound”, a war hardened, quiet, defiant warrior is assigned to be his protector, Aerion considers it a challenge. It appears these two completely opposite characters from different worlds are attracted to one another despite Clyde's sworn oath to protect the young Lord and the scheme to get Aerion married to avoid scandal.

Oath is the type of Fantasy Romance that technically does nothing new. The characters are known archetypes and the plot and setting have been seen many times. Even the fact that it's a Queer Romance has been done. 

This book should be a disposable cliche but there is something so delightful and endearing about this particular book that makes it work despite or actually because of the cliches.

Aerian is written as the ultimate spoiled rich kid with plenty of money and daring but not a lot of empathy or sense. Clyde is a solid stoic force. 

When the Lord and the knight become emotionally and physically closer together, Clyde's softer side and Aerion’s kinder side emerge. They become lovers who accept one another's flaws and all that comes with them.

Their relationship is tested by war, separation, sacrifice, and commitment. They move beyond a spoiled lord and stoic knight to become stronger, braver, more selfless, and more devoted characters and lovers.

The Wise Marie: Paradise Edition by Natasha Brune 

This is a summary of my review. The complete review is on Readers Views. (The links takes you to the site. You must insert the book's title in the search engine to read the review.)

Natasha Brune’s The Wise Marie: Paradise Edition is a traumatic and troubling autobiographical novel about a woman's involvement with crime and drugs.

Brune’s alter ego, Marie lived in a crowded home with a troubled and volatile family. Marie retreated into drugs, abusive relationships, and criminal activity to survive it.

Brune’s writing style is a straightforward matter of fact manner and surprising detachment for writing about her own experiences. It doesn't get overly sentimental or overdramatic. Terrible things like teen pregnancy, over doses, and abuse but it's informative not emotional. It makes the events and characters the main focus instead of presenting Brune's opinion about how she felt about it. It allows the Readers to connect with the events on their own. 

One could imagine it being written years later when Brune has had enough time to detach herself from the events. As an older woman, she has the years of experience and knowledge that the angry young woman didn't have. She also has empathy and understanding for the circumstances that led her down this path but recognizes the damage that she brought on herself.

The Wise Marie also makes use of its Hawaii setting by downplaying the paradise connotation (except in the subtitle) to focus on the local resident’s reality or at least the reality that Brune experienced. She reveals the poverty of people who live in a state with beautiful year-round weather but an expensive cost of living. A place where local reality is purposely kept from the tourists and issues like drugs, crime, and violence are ignored. While many states have high levels of crime and poverty, in Hawaii’s case the sometimes ugly reality clashes with the beautiful image, an image that no one and no place can fill forever.

Addie's Eyes by Tim Landry; A Historical Fantasy About Disabilities, Dreams, and Misfits

 

Addie's Eyes by Tim Landry; A Historical Fantasy About Disabilities, Dreams, and Misfits 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Addie's Eyes by Tim Landry is a wholesome enchanting Historical Fantasy which combines early 20th century entertainment, including sideshow attractions and dream worlds. It's also a compelling story about two misfits who are united against a real world that doesn't understand them and a fantasy world of their own imagination. It is old fashioned in settings, theme, and style but that is what makes the book timeless the way many youthful fantasies like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of OZ are.

In 1884 Liverpool, Addie Alexander is a blind girl who works and lives at her father, Ezra’s, Ruby Palace Theater.  The latest entertainer is Fedor Jeftichew, AKA Jo Jo The Dog Face Boy, a sideshow performer with hypertrichosis, an abnormal amount of hair growth on his body. Rachel, Addie's teacher, is leaving for another job, so she feels lonely. She befriends Fedor who tells the blind girl that he is just an assistant who looks after the Dog Faced Boy. The two develop a close friendship that threatens the act when her father and his manager catch them. Fedor leaves for another performance, Addie follows after him, and  is knocked into a coma. While she is in her coma, she dreams of a fantasy kingdom where she can see and travel to different worlds based on hers and Fedor’s imagination.

The book has two distinct parts, the first is a more straightforward Historical Fiction. The second detailing Addie's dream is a Fantasy. These two distinct parts tell a unique story that covers both tones admirably.

The first half is genuinely touching but also has a savage bite. The bite is caused by the focus on people with disabilities and physical abnormalities, some of which are displayed for others amusement. This was an actual source of entertainment which is now seen as exploitative and dehumanizing. 

I highly recommend the book, Very Special People: The Struggles, Loves, and Triumphs of Human Oddities by Frederick Drimmer for more information on sideshows and their entertainers. In fact, Fedor/JoJo is a fictionalized version of a real life performer of the same name. This amalgam of putting a real-life sideshow entertainer in this fictional setting shows the faint line between fantasy and reality that is so prevalent throughout the book. 

The most heartfelt chapters focus on the relationship between Addie and Fedor. Fedor is raised to expose his differences to a thirsty, drawing, and often fickle crowd. He can’t hide who he is so he has to play a part. He is used to being stared at, so he turns it into an opportunity. He is highly intelligent, creative, and adaptable. He suggests different things to add to the act, like acrobatics or recitations to draw bigger crowds and provide more money for himself and his manager/guardian, Charlie.

Addie’s blindness also makes her an oddity as well. Unlike Fedor, she is trained to hide. She occasionally greets visitors but mostly she works behind the scenes at the theater, gathering props, moving the curtain, and running errands for her father and the performers. She usually has to stay in the theater with minimal contact except for Ezra, Rachel, and Patrick, a stagehand.

 It’s no wonder that she’s so distraught when Rachel announces her impending departure. She didn’t just lose a teacher, she lost a mentor, mother figure, and one of her few contacts with the outside world. It’s also understandable why Addie bonds with Fedor. He is one of the entertainers, but he actually takes the time to talk to her and treat her like a real person and not part of the faceless help.

Like Fedor, Addie too shows an imaginative and creative spirit. In her private areas backstage, she treats the abandoned props like toys and makes up stories about them. This helps facilitate Fedor’s creativity. Fedor and Addie build a true friendship through their dual imaginations. To the rest of society they are misfits and outsiders, so their bond is that of two kindred spirits united because of a world that fears or shelters them.

Fedor weaves tales about being a prince of a land called Zymia. Addie tells her own imaginary tales. As lonely children often do, they are connected through their fantastic stories. As long as they are in their imagination, they can be brave, attractive, heroic, the people that they feel they are not. They create a world where Fedor doesn’t have to pretend to be a separate person from Jojo and Addie can go outside and see the environment that she pictures in her head. The fantasy that they create becomes real for Addie after their separation and her coma. 

The fantasy aspects are similar to many of the similar stories from the 19th century. Addie comes to the world with weird characters who see her as some kind of hero and she is sent on a quest for a specific goal. In this case to find Fedor, who is their missing prince just like in his stories. It gives one the overall impression that this experience is intentionally based on those stories because they were ones that Addie told herself, that Rachel read or encouraged her to read, or that she and Fedor shared. 

Many of the lands and characters that Addie sees are products of a child’s imagination and create a charming world that one would definitely want to escape into if given the chance. She befriends a terrapin (not a turtle as he reminds us), named Brother. There is also a tall lean figure made up of various blocks called Toybox. They accompany Addie on her journey. She also sees mysterious shadowy figures that could either help or harm her. 

The different lands are made of themes like candy, toys, musical instruments, and others that please the senses. In a way, they are like those AI clips which show variations of the same idea like a bedroom in various weird styles decorated with wildlife, oceans, or Outer Space.

For  Addie who has been living in a world of darkness and had to guess through her senses and imaginations how things looked, it is a transformative experience. That’s probably part of why this dreamscape is described so bizarre and outlandish. The Readers are visualizing it through the perspective of someone who can see for the first time and is aware how beautiful, strange, and off putting the world around her can be. Also why the thought of darkness moving across the land would be so traumatic to her. It’s a dream world that relies on the reality of the dreamer. 

In fact, unlike most versions of this trope, the Reader is made aware that this is definitely a dream. While Addie is in this coma going on her imaginative journey, we are provided chapters from the points of view of Ezra and Rachel as they watch over her and Fedor as he leaves Charlie to returns to the Ruby Palace. It's an interesting and original touch to this type of story, though it somewhat drags in parts. 

Sometimes, Readers like the fantasy of escapism and want to believe that at least temporarily the protagonist is there and that this is a real experience.  We don’t always want to be reminded that it isn’t. We get the idea when we read about things that are actually composites of real world objects and characters. Or that a meaningless conversation in reality takes precedence in the dream. Or hey the dream provides a solution to a problem or a lesson to be learned.

Though, as with many of these stories there are a couple of later revelations that blur the dream world and the real world. That makes these real world views even more arbitrary and questionable. But that is a minor issue in a book that combines History and Fantasy to tell a story that any outsider or misfit can relate to or understand.

The Amazing Flight of Aaron William Hawk vol 2. Wings of Emifra by J. Bruno; Steampunk Fantasy Science Fiction About An Aviation School Takes Flight

 

The Amazing Flight of Aaron William Hawk vol 2. Wings of Emifra by J. Bruno; Steampunk Fantasy Science Fiction About An Aviation School Takes Flight 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Review

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery. 

Spoilers: J. Bruno's, The Amazing Flight of Aaron William Hawk vol. 2 Wings of Emifra is another in the trend of a Magical Boarding School but unlike Miss Mabel’s School For Girls by Katie Cross, The Fearghus Academy by I.O. Scheffer, The Peacebringer Series by Raymond W Wilkinson, or their most famous cousin Harry Potter, which teach different magical skills and talents, this one is more specialized. It is laser focused on one particular special skill, the gift of flight.

In the previous novel (unread by me), Aaron grieves the death of his father in a flying crash and is treated as an outcast in his seaside village. He discovers a pair of metal wings and a map to an island called Solistasia. His mentor tells them that there is a place where he can learn how to fly. Not with an airplane, he can build a pair of wings and fly with them.. Aaron takes the wings and map and heads straight for Solistasia.

In this volume, Aaron wakes up on the island and is welcomed to the School of the Skies. Aaron takes many classes taught by some really cool teachers, has some great friends, receives a bully/rival, and tries to fit in this strange place. The students study, train, and practice hoping for the day when they can show their academic excellence by flying a dangerous route to Mt. Emifra, which is a great distance from the school. The mountain is surrounded by unpredictable wind currents, enormous land masses that obstruct flight paths, and unidentified species that live on the mountain.

There are many standards that The Amazing Flight of Aaron William Hawk follows. It carries the usual tropes found in many school stories: the newcomer protagonist, the close friends, the potential love interest, the snobbish arrogant bully, the academic lessons that fit the theme, and the life lessons. The tropes exist and some of them don't do anything new here, but others provide some interesting twists and deviations from the normal procedures in these books.

One of the more interesting aspects to the book is the school’s central focus on flying. They revere Icarus from Greek Mythology who in this version survived his plunge to the earth and taught a younger generation the secrets of flight with wings. The School of the Skies teaches classes on how to construct wings. They learn how to use the wings properly, how to let gravity be their accomplice, how to avoid obstacles, and how to manage their speed and distance from the ground. It’s a fascinating curriculum unless you have aviophobia or acrophobia. But if you ever had dreams of flying with wings and without the assistance of aircraft it brings those fantasies to life. 

The teachers know their craft and how to share it with their students. Tarras, a young teacher whom Aaron meets on his first day in Solistasia, acts like a cool big brother mentor figure to the new recruits. Professor Thunderstruck is a thrill seeking aviation instructor who teaches students the basics of flying including the excitement and potential dangers that come with it. Professor Guildenstein not only teaches the students how to make their wings but how to incorporate their own personalities into them like increasing their speed, giving it a more airy design, or increasing elevation properties. Then there’s mysterious Professor Mangus, an export on wind charting whose Glamour AKA Shape Shifting ability seems out of place in an aviation school but proves to become a key talent later on. 

Aaron makes some friends including Eno who shows him the ropes and gives him and the reader much needed exposition before fading into the background,Trevin, his goofy roommate, and Alya, who like Aaron is an outsider invited to Solistasia and acts as the moral center but still can be one of the gang. She is the potential love interest and some of the book falls into a 

“Will-they-won’t-they” subplot. They are good loyal friends but there isn’t much that separates them from other similar characters in other similar stories. 

What is unique to this book is how the arrogant bully character is written. Drake Corvus at first appears as the typical rival challenging Aaron every chance that he gets. He mocks his background, his deceased father, and his mistakes. He appears jealous of his achievements and potential for success. He is a walking stereotype, almost too much like a stereotype. 

There are moments where Drake shows vulnerability like crying when he is alone, quietly analyzing Aaron’s movements, and showing concern for his plight, usually covering it up with a sarcastic remark. In one moment, he actually saves Aaron’s life when he is in a tight spot. It shows more depth to his character, leads to an interesting reveal about his origins, and answers questions about his arrival at the School.

There is a long section where Aaron is left on his own and explores many darker issues from his past, most of which were probably elaborated upon in the previous book so don’t make any sense if you haven’t read it. It also puts the book into another territory which started out as a school story but became a fight for survival in a fantasy landscape. 

This section has some interesting aspects to it particularly the arrival of Emberly, a witty saucy fairy who occasionally saves Aaron’s life while bantering with him making his attractions clear. There are also some interesting cliffhanger suspense like when Aaron faces an opponent who knows more about him than she should. But it all seems to belong to another type of book than the one that we were given so far. It flirts with Fantasy while the academic aspects flirt with Steampunk Science Fiction. 

Despite the complexities of the survival subplot, The Amazing Flight of Aaron William Hawk is an excellent YA novel that really takes flight. 

Time Fixers (Miles in Time Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Continues with a Timeless Volume

 Time Fixers (Miles in Time Book 2) by Lee Matthew Goldberg; Time Travel YA Continues with a Timeless Volume 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Well The Hardy Boys are at it again. No, not those Hardy Boys. Simon and Miles Hardy, the time traveling brothers from Lee Matthew Goldberg’s 2-Part YA Science Fiction Time Travel series. The first volume, Miles in Time, involved the adventurous detective Miles going back in time to prevent his scientific technogeek older brother, Simon from being murdered by unidentified assailants. He saved his brother but made a mortal enemy in Omni, the secret sinister organization that put the initial target on Simon’s back. 

The second volume, Time Fixers is a stronger, more personal, and also more focused adventure that raises the conflicts. This time Simon is able to improve his time travel device to travel beyond the previous week. Instead it can send the traveler back to 1999. For the brothers, that means one important thing. In the present, their mentally ill mother is institutionalized. They can go back to when she was in high school and resolve the family trauma that led to her years of addiction and mental illness. The brothers are not alone. Miles told his girlfriend, Maisie about the previous time traveling adventures. She comes with, hoping to resolve a family conflict of her own with her missing mother. The trio become embroiled in not only their own family histories but the origins of Omni whose members might be all too familiar to them.

In the first book, the focus was on adventure with some family drama thrown in. This one reverses that by devoting more time on the family drama and minimizing the adventure but still making it an important part.

There is deep trauma that is explored particularly with Miles and Simon's mother, Patty. When they left her, she was addicted to pills, spoke in monosyllables and non sequiturs, and committed self-harm. The years of being broken and non-functional took their toll. She is lost to her family in the present so the brothers want to change her past.

Once they see Patty's family, Simon and Miles understand their mother more. Before they pitied and cared for her. Miles in particular often nursed her when his father, Kip could not. However, as much as they missed the loving and involved woman that she briefly was when they were small, she is now a remote cypher to them. They can't break through her precarious vulnerable exterior and have given up trying to communicate with her. She is less a mother to them and more of an object of pity, concern, and frustration.

In the past, they see their mother as a feisty multifaceted emotional girl who is hurt at home and trying different means to detach herself from that hurt. The brothers focus on the causes of what made their mother turn out the way that she did rather than the effects of what it created. Patty is a person who had her life ahead of her and could have lived it openly and creatively with plenty of love, acceptance, and support but was stopped by  abusive and narcissistic parents. The boys have to rescue their mother not only from her toxic home but from herself and the woman that she turns into.

Patty isn't the only person that the boys and Maisie try to help. They try to prevent a tragedy in Kip’s young life that left him withdrawn and falling into self-isolation. Maisie also recognizes her parents' struggles and insecurities so she doesn't end up alone. The teens are given insights into their parents as people, kids like them who were uncertain, confused, awkward, idealistic, intelligent, rebellious, immature, curious, surly, argumentative, cynical, and ready to challenge the world that their kids would later inherit. They are going through the same struggles about identity, acceptance, and belonging that their children are going through in the 2020’s.

There are  other aspects of the book that shine. There are  humorous moments when Simon, Miles, and Maisie go to the past and gape at the weird fashions, old fashioned technology, and the music. There are also clever references about the time period that border on nostalgic.

The adventure also goes through some fascinating twists, climaxes, and resolutions. The trio are stalked by enemies that use a variety of means like threats, manipulation, and feigning friendship to find their technology, divide, and destroy them.

It's also interesting to see Omni in its earlier form as a small organization with few employees but nefarious goals before its 2020's incarnation as a widespread conspiracy with various members, outlets, and schemes. We also see how the agents got involved with this organization, why they joined, and why they stayed when conscience should have told them otherwise. Similar to their parents, the kids see their adversaries as people who had reasons for what they did and could have lived different lives. Instead they chose a path that led to financial gain, corruption, violence and self-destruction.

Time Fixers is a brilliant book about how choice and trauma shaped our past and created our present. It also happens to be a great thrilling adventure to spend time with. 

The Ingenious and The Colour of Life by J.Y. Sam; Intelligent and Character Driven Science Fiction About Genetically Engineered Genius Children

 The Ingenious and The Colour of Life by J.Y. Sam; Intelligent and Character Driven Science Fiction About Genetically Engineered Genius Children 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: I can never truly say that I am tired of a genre when there are books out there that are set to prove me wrong. Just as Darren Frey’s Psychonautic, Blythe Gryphon’s The Genius of Our Wiles, Ian Conner’s Cardinals, and Stacy Keenan’s Love is Eternal did with Vampire Romances so J.Y. Sam’s The Ingenious and The Colour of Life does with books about Superheroes and Children With Magical/Psychic Abilities. It shows that there is still enough life left in that genre to impress even the most bored reviewer. In fact, it is a top contender already for one of the Best Books of 2024.

Years ago, a secret project was created called Project Ingenious to create genius children through genetic engineering. Things went awry, the project ended, and the children were separated. Years later, someone is hunting down these kids. The doors of the project are forced to be reopened as three of the kids are located. They are Millicent Bythaway, a genius with a photographic and eidetic memory, Calista Matheson, a beautiful tech expert, and Tai Jones, an empath who can see auras. They are led by Professor Harald Wolff who wants them to hone their gifts, find the other missing kids, and keep safe from whoever wants to kill them.

Sam develops the protagonists through their abilities and personalities. Their origins and previous experiences are diverse and play into who they are as individuals. Millicent was raised by one of the former scientists who conditioned her to avoid using her gifts in school to avoid detection. She knows that she has these powers but mostly keeps them to herself. However, they manifest in different ways such as suddenly learning new languages just by reading them in phrase books or feeling her late mother’s spirit literally communicating with her. This remains mostly within herself until she accidentally rescues a young boy at her workplace. Since Millicent’s abilities allow her to absorb knowledge and information, she is the most intelligent of the trio and is usually the first to provide information and make strategic plans. 

Tai also has an interesting backstory. While Millicent is ordered to hide her abilities, Tai does not have that option. His second sight appears whether he wants it to or not and it ends up helping to save his life when he has to face homelessness. Unlike Millicent who was protected by loving but overprotective parents, Tai was abandoned by his mother and left to face a harsh impoverished world alone. Despite his difficult upbringing, he is the kindest character of the trio, even in the whole book. His empathic abilities are exacerbated by his kind nature, one that is displayed when he cares for a family of cats like they were his own children. He is able to feel the cats’ pain and see the colors reflecting their moods as he helps them.  

Calista is a much more extroverted character than her colleagues and her background builds on that. She hid her abilities in ignorance. Unlike Millicent who had to hide her intelligence and talents behind an average facade, Calista cultivated a beautiful public image and downplayed her intelligence almost too successfully. There is some implication that the “dumb beauty” role was foisted upon her by parents who wanted her to stay hidden and she fell into it so well that she became that role. Some of her early dimness is held up as comic relief, but the implications make it a dark comedy as she is unable to be who she really could be. It is only when she is a teen and meets her boyfriend, Jake, that she is able to free the potential that had been inside. Calista and Jake’s relationship interests her enough to study computers and to absorb the information to the point that within a short time she is able to hack into classified government information after Jake mysteriously disappears.

When Professor Wolff brings them together, one would expect them to become a superhero team, start saving innocent lives, and take on evil forces. Okay, some of that happens but it’s less to do with the characters becoming a force for good than it is about them learning about and expanding on their abilities and above all keeping safe from those who will harm them. It’s less about the greater good than it is about their personal good. They are tutored and trained by colleagues in various advanced academic subjects, self defense, and techniques to hone their powers. They are also kept isolated in Wolff’s compound and being teenagers, they get cabin fever and are ready to defy orders. These acts of defiance end up challenging and enabling them to work together as a team. Ironically, even though they weren’t intended to be a team of superheroes, that is exactly what they become especially after they locate others with special abilities and recruit them to join their team. 

The darkest part of the book is an extended flashback which fills in the blanks about Project Ingenious and what it did. Millicent, Tai, and Calista have to see through the memories of another character, one who was driven insane by the experiment and the abuse and mistreatment that they endured. There are many disturbing things revealed in this flashback notably that it begins inside the womb through the character’s mind and includes the scientists’ discussions and thought processes outside. This reveals that these characters were meant to become geniuses even as fetuses. Imagine having full awareness of your surroundings even before you are born, being able to think, plan, and reason before you understand basic concepts like love, warmth, home, and family. It would be enough to drive a person insane and that is what happens here. 

Because of what we learn in the flashback, it’s hard to see the characters in simple black and white, good and evil terms. Wolff’s true motives are highly suspect. He appears to genuinely care about the geniuses beyond being experiments but many of his goals and motives are questionable. Is he a scientist who realized that his original project was wrong and is trying to redeem himself? Is he a potential megalomaniac who has his own ambitions for what he wants to do with the young people? It’s hard to tell and this book can go either way.

The shades of gray in which the characters inhabit are particularly unveiled in one of the most puzzling chapters. Milicent, Calista, Tai and their other new friends do something questionable to counter an enemy. For spoiler’s sake, it won’t be revealed but it raises a lot of ethical concerns in whether the characters overstep their boundaries in committing this action. To be fair, they are called out on it and there are some hints that they opened up a huge problem for themselves that wouldn’t have been there if they hadn’t acted. It’s a definite open ended decision that will potentially take the next book to reveal the consequences.

With interesting characters, unique abilities, and shades of gray, Ingenious and the Colour of Life proves itself to be a cut above most in the superhero subgenre.

Lit List LitPick Book Reviews

 Lit List: LitPick Book Reviews

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

It's no secret that I have been incredibly busy this year working on other projects. When I haven't been   reading and reviewing books for the   Bookworm Reviews, I have been editing,   summarizing, and reviewing books for   other sources. I would like to highlight some of those other sources.                                                                                                            

Here is a brief summary and review for the books that I have reviewed for LitPick Book Reviews site. Because of restrictions, I cannot post the full reviews here so I am just posting brief summaries and reviews

The Cuban Gambit by Jay Perin 

The third volume in this series. It involves the powerful, wealthy, and ruthless Shepherd, Barrons, and Kingsley Families who in the wake of their defeat of archenemy, Jared Sanders find themselves embroiled in corporate takeovers, extramarital affairs, kidnapping, scandals and plenty of drama.

This wide encompassing series features a wide variety of multifaceted characters with various goals and motives. There is enough glitz and glamor to put an 80's night time soap opera to shame and enough intergenerational conflict, high stakes, and deep characterization of a Shakespearean Tragedy. It reveals the inner personal struggles of various public figures with all of their conniving schemes and on rare occasions their empathetic warmth.

The Devil's Calling by Michael Kelley

Academic couple Sean McQueen and M Edens are adjusting to a new life together with their children and their recently established all-female college. Unfortunately, a new AI program and some messages from a previous enemy reawakens old fears and grudges as M is about to go on a lecture tour.

This book is awash in both science and spirit to make a technological and metaphysical masterpiece. Sean and M take different views but are able to bridge those views into something that combines the best of both worlds.

They are aided by a brilliantly written circle of friends and family and a deep abiding love for each other. This allows them to overcome every struggle and work together when it comes to a dramatic confrontation against an old enemy

Art Imitating Life by Claire Merchant

After a devastating breakup, Paige Stewart and her friends Liam and Nathaniel (the latter of whom has a crush on Paige) find themselves in a parallel universe. In the fantasy kingdom of Avellithia, the trio must play the parts of Sage the Sorceress, Nathaniel the Rogue, and Liam the Archer to fight an approaching army. Along the way, they discover counterparts of everyone they know and get involved in various romantic engagements.

The parallel universe of Avellithia is very interesting and well written. Unfortunately, it's buried under too much Teen Romance. The love shapes among Paige, Nathaniel, and other characters takes precedence over the potential magic, fantastic elements, and conflicts among kingdoms. The results end up becoming boring and cliche. Because of the focus on Romance over Fantasy, there are some fascinating touches that are introduced but not brought to their fullest fruition.

The Music Within Your Heart by Isaac Samuel Miller 

Songwriter, Sophia looks back on her troubled life. She comes from a dysfunctional background with a mentally ill mother, a father with a secret life, and a brother who was murdered in a hate crime. She is surrounded by racism as she attends college and tries to earn a living as a singer. She also ends up being caught between Sammy, the white son of a racist and Kyle, a charismatic African-American musician.

This is a brilliant character study of Sophia looking back on her hard life to see what went wrong and right. Her journey is both heart wrenching and heartwarming. Many of the more racist elements make for suspenseful and tense moments as Sophia doubts even the seemingly good people around her. She also navigates through her romances with grit and determination as she and Sammy have their ups and downs while Kyle proves to be a charming and engaging presence before he comes to an untimely end.

Weekly Reader: Semicolon: Life Goes On From A Different Perspective: Living With Purpose by A.P. Aristeiguieta; Captivating Spiritual Journey Into Deep Emotion, Strong Friendships, and Lucid Dreams

 Weekly Reader: Semicolon: Life Goes On From A Different Perspective: Living With Purpose by A.P. Aristeiguieta; Captivating Spiritual Journey Into Deep Emotion, Strong Friendships, and Lucid Dreams

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Is it too early to pick a potential favorite book of 2023 because I found a contender?

Semicolon Life Goes On From A Different Perspective Living With Purpose by A.P. Aristeiguieta is a captivating, lyrical, and spiritual book that tells a fantastic story about loneliness, depression, and friendship. 

Semicolon is not unlike some of my other favorite books in the past like Imajica by Clive Barker, Melia in Foreverland by Thomas Milhorat, The Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, The Unseen Blossom by Zlaikha Y Samad and L'mere Younossi, The Enchanted World Series, Tales From The Hinterland by Melissa Albert, The Bookbinder's Daughter by Jessica Thorne, Kaleidoscopic Shades Within Black Eternity by David A Neuman, Merchants of Knowledge and Magic by Erika McCorkle, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass). It's a book that is thought about, felt, and lived in as much as it is read.

According to the Introduction, this is somewhat based on a true story, a semiautobiographical novel or a literary nonfiction, on incidents from Aristeiguieta's past. Aristeiguieta's author surrogate is Amy, a teenager who has been hospitalized.  One night, she sees a little boy, Tito, standing by her bed and who appears to be a friendly spirit of some sort.

Amy is released and after a while, her parents send her to a boarding school in Mexico. At the airport, she meets Alberto, a talkative teen about her age who is heading for the same destination and quickly becomes an intelligent and very odd friend to her.

Semicolon is a book that asks as many questions as it provides answers, allowing those to explore their own inner conclusions about what they experienced. It is both thought provoking and visceral at the same time.

The book's excellence starts with its protagonist. While books about troubled teens are nothing new, Aristeiguieta takes great care to capture a young brilliant but fractured mind on the verge of falling into existential loneliness and emotional numbness.

At first, there are some hints about the cause of Amy's hospitalization but we aren't told anything definite until later. She lays in the hospital bed thinking about how she got there. She was someone who felt invisible and lived inside her own head. (What depressed, lonely, imaginative kid hasn't felt that way? Heck what depressed, lonely, imaginative, adult still doesn't feel that way?) One day, she wanted to end those feelings and attempted to take her own life. 

She also reflects that even during her hospitalization, her frequently arguing parents couldn't stop blaming each other, throwing herself even further into despair. She finds no comfort in outside existence so she retreated into her own solitude but when even that failed to soothe her, she decided to kill herself instead.

 This is a very accurate description of long term depression that someone feels when their usual escapes and coping mechanisms no longer work. After all, you can read, watch TV or stream videos, or play games all day. But eventually the book will close, the credits will roll, and the game will be over, and the real world unfortunately has to be lived in.

Tito and Alberto act as sort of spirit guides towards Amy. Throughout the book, Tito leads Amy through various astral projections and lucid dreams to see different views of the world around her. She travels through moments and memories that aren't just hers but belong to other people and recognizes different parts of herself that she thought were long gone.

In the hospital, he astrally takes her out of her room to observe her family, other patients, and their concerned friends and family members. She is able to connect with others in a way that is greater than what she has felt in a long time. Tito is able to open up a warmer part of Amy's personality that still exists underneath the sadness and depression. Later, Tito takes her to a park where there are balloons and a party. This opens up the youthful childlike side of her as a counter to the cynicism that she has developed.

While Tito helps Amy, his appearance does not suddenly solve all of Amy's problems. Her parents send her to the boarding school, partly because they are concerned that she may try to attempt suicide again but also so their arguing and eventual separation does not affect her fragile state. At the school, she is just as isolated as she was at her old one. Luckily, Alberto, the boy that she met at the airport, attends the same school and instantly becomes her closest friend.

Alberto serves a different purpose for Amy than Tito. One could compare Amy's time in the hospital to her being reborn. When she meets Tito, she is like a child and children often communicate with pictures, simple words, and concepts like "love," "fun," and "happy." 

When she goes to the school, Amy re-enters her teen stage. Teenagers are full of questions, confused about the world and their identity, and struggling to understand it. Alberto helps her in that respect.

Alberto is a more human presence than the ethereal Tito. While he is an actual human (possibly), he is very intellectual and intuitive. He asks Amy provocative questions about her beliefs and experiences and shares his own views. He is someone with a deep faith in Judaism but is also open to other spiritual practices like the concepts of lucid dreams and visions and the existence of parallel dimensions. He's like a Teen Guru advising Amy intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

He guides Amy into putting her time with Tito into words and discovering what it could actually mean. 

It is very refreshing that even though Amy and Alberto become close, they do not develop a romance. Aristeiguieta was wise to avoid this because it shows that there can be great value in platonic friendship and that two people, even teenagers, can find connections that are built on mutual trust and care and not necessarily on lust. In developing her friendships with Tito and Alberto, Amy is able to understand her relationships with others like her parents and learn more about herself, maybe even love herself. 

Semicolon is a punctuation symbol that joins two independent clauses without using a coordinating conjunction like and. That's what this book is about, joining independent clauses: things that shouldn't exist at once but somehow do. Things like life and death, dreams and reality, sleep and awake, emotion and thought, dark and light, and childhood and adolescence. They're like Yin and Yang, divided they make separate halves and different sections of a story. When they join together, united, they make a whole picture and story. 

Through her dreams of Tito and her conversations with Alberto, Amy goes on a metaphysical journey by means of astral projection, parallel dimension travel, and lucid dreams to show her a deeper world of love, hope, and the power of one's mind and spirit. 

Whether this book is literally or metaphorically true, it is a powerful account of the mind, heart, soul, and spirit.

Weekly Reader: Fearghus Academy: Precarious Gems by I.O. Scheffer; Magic Users Get Some Serious Game Play

 

Weekly Reader: Fearghus Academy: Precarious Gems by I.O. Scheffer; Magic Users Get Some Serious Game Play

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: In this third installment of the Fearghus Academy Series, Artesia Addison and her friends get to know more of the rest of the world around them. They also are affected with that illness that strikes every teenager: an overabundance of hormones and deep romantic feelings for classmates and other peers.

Another school year is in the air in Domhan and this year coincides with the Magic Research and Cooperation Triennial Tournament. Good news, Fearghus Academy students are permitted to participate in the Tournament in nearby Naomh. They have to use their magical abilities of Water, Fire, Air, Earth, Ice, and others against students from other schools. So in other words, it's something like Hogwarts' Triwizard Tournament combined with a human Pokemon battle.

To top it all off, sworn enemy Alptraum Engel is still around and is ready to take her villainous act on the road to fight those meddling kids. Just as big as the athletic tournament and the ever present threat of Engel, is the romantic lives of these kids who are starting to view their classmates as more than friends. 

Because I am not fond of books or episodes where most of the action is an athletic tournament, I find Precarious Gems to be the weakest volume in the series. However, it is the weakest volume in an outstanding series so the weakness isn't very much and Fearghus Academy is still strongly recommended as a whole.

The Tournament sections are interesting especially for those who like athletic competitions or magical duels. The characters often have to use their intelligence as well as their skill sets to best their opponents. A Water Mage Vs. A Fire Mage or Ice Vs. Fire is easy enough to figure out. But what sparks could fly in a Fire Vs. Fire battle (pun not intended)? What would result in Light Vs. Earth besides a scorching summer day? What powers are those in Other and how can one compete with a rival who has powers that they don't know about? 

There are some pretty clever means that Team Fearghus uses to defend themselves like building an ice wall or creating a bright light to throw their opponent off kilter. But a little of the competition goes a long way and ends surprisingly anticlimactic when unforeseen circumstances force Fearghus to withdraw from the competition.

What is more important is the development of our lead characters. As adolescents, they are experimenting with their bodies and their emotions. Many of the characters are pairing up. Wild girl Marnie and the steadier Gretel have fallen in love. The devout Lulu and class clown Douglas have been involved since the ending of the last book. They are strange attractions of opposites, but so far seem to work well.

Deuteragonists, Artesia and Eilam get the most attention and this book explores their romantic lives as they struggle to survive in this exciting but troubling world. In the previous book, Eilam was afflicted with a parasite which caused him to have great pain hearing or seeing religious things. He was then kidnapped and subjected to torture and abuse from his birth parents. 

This volume clearly shows that those events left their mark on him physically and emotionally. He is easily subdued a few times in this book and is unsure of himself or his abilities. He makes a few new friends, some turn out to be beyond fair weather friends, and exposes his fears and vulnerabilities even more. He has many heart to heart conversations with Artesia and Telemachus.

One of the most emotional ones between Eilam and Telemachus involves Telemachus pouring out his heart to Eilam. While Telemachus is certainly gay, Eilam is asexual but this conversation suggests that Eilam may actually be demisexual, asexual except where Telemachus is concerned or at least feels an emotional romantic connection with his friend, just not a sexual one. It's nice that finally after flirtations, jokes, and loyalty in the past two books the two young men are ready to admit their true feelings towards each other and take that step into becoming a couple.

Artesia also has her own love life to sort out. She breaks up with her former boyfriend, Jun, because the long distant relationship becomes harder to keep up with. At first, she thinks that she may have feelings for Eilam but since she knows of his sexuality and recognizes their platonic friendship, she does not pursue it.

Instead her latest romance comes from another place. In my review of October Jewels, I wrote that Artesia treats both Jun and Marnie, who are infatuated with her, equally and speculated that perhaps her sexuality was something that was waiting to be explored.

Well the wait is over. While Artesia had a romance with Jun, she is now interested in someone else: Callie Rose Boutique, a model and student from a rival school. Callie and Artesia at first get into teasing conversations that border on flirting. They go on dates first in groups then single. Then finally they become physical. Artesia is captivated by this beautiful self-assured woman who is unafraid to pursue a romantic relationship with another woman despite objections from her homophobic classmates. 

Artesia herself is uncertain at first. Even though she sympathizes and understands her friends' sexualities, her own has never been explored. There is still something of the 1860's Earth girl in her that causes her to think those feelings are wrong for her. Callie gives her a chance to understand and accept those emotions within herself and realize that they are perfectly natural and normal. Artesia is bisexual and she finally acknowledges that.

Another important aspect to this volume of the series is how it explores the relationships between the adopted parents and the children in their care. After the previous volume where we met Eilam's horrible abusive birth parents and learned a painful depressing secret about Artesia's, it is demonstrated that in Domhan they are in good hands. 

Mr. Peterson shows deep affection for Eilam and his other adopted son, Cadence. He becomes the person that Eilam can confide in and respect. He gives what the young man never had before: unconditional love and acceptance.

Nichole Harvey also steps up in her parenting of Artesia. She acts like a mother tiger or bear protecting her cub. She is concerned about Artesia's relationship with Eilam because of his parentage but slowly comes around. She also shares stories of her own youth to lead by example but also to let Artesia know that nothing is off the table and they can talk about anything.

Nichole's best moment comes at the end when she has to defend her adopted daughter from Engel's latest trap. While Engel reveals a dark secret of her own, Nichole's actions show that there is no excuse for her to mistreat children, particularly her daughter. 

While the Tournament takes a lot of Precarious Gems' time, it is the romantic and familial relationships that stand out in this book.

Weekly Reader: Fearghus Academy: Crystal Shards by I.O. Scheffer; The Fight Becomes Internal and More Personal for Our Magical Friends

 Weekly Reader: Fearghus Academy: Crystal Shards by I.O. Scheffer; The Fight Becomes Internal and More Personal for Our Magical Friends

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: So now we return to that awesome school for magical students. No, not that one. The, in my opinion, better, more awesome school for magical students. Fearghus Academy from I.O. Scheffer's YA Science Fiction/Fantasy series of the same name.

In the first volume, Anna Addison is adopted by Nichole Harvey, an eccentric Earth mage, and leaves 1860's England and Earth behind and heads for the planet, Domhan. She changes her name to Artesia and begins training as a Fire mage to study at Fearghus Academy. She makes various friends such as Evelyn Smith, an overachieving Light user, and Eilam Deforest, a secretive Ice mage. Artesia and her friends are also the targets of Alptraum Engel, a magic user who wants to gather all the magic that she can, including twelve very powerful skulls. On one of their missions the students find one of those skulls but lose fellow Fearghus student, Antonia Maria, in the process.

In the first book, October Jewels, we are introduced to Domhan, Fearghus Academy, the characters, and the ongoing plots. It's a great start. This second volume, Crystal Shards raises the stakes by being stronger and more character driven. It throws the characters, particularly Artesia and Eilam into emotional turmoil that could change them forever.

The gang is sent on an assignment to discover how the nuns in a nearby convent are impregnated without having sexual intercourse. After uncovering the truth, their next conflict involves one of their own. Parvaneh, a student, disappears and is found again alive but deprived of her magic. She has to return to Earth and to Domhan, she is considered dead. We then learn the source of her kidnapping. Eilam's scientist parents were arrested for conducting unethical experiments. They have escaped and now want to continue their research on volunteers, whether they are willing or not, and they have no reservations on their age, mental status, or whether they are blood relatives.

Meanwhile Artesia and the others are trailing people who are in debt from some dark creatures. They are also told that Antonia is with this sinister group, but she is not the flashy, vibrant, friendly girl that they once knew.

Sometimes the second volume in a series can be a miss. The first sets up the world and if the third doesn't end the series, it often leads to a dramatic climax needing the next book to resolve it. If done badly, the second volume can be a lot of running around with no resolution. If done right, setting and plot give way to developing the characters and deepening our understanding of them. In this case, it is a second book done right.

One of the brightest spots in the book is the strongest character in this volume, Eilam. From their first assignment, Eilam goes through a series of changes which alter him from the kindly, trustworthy, but quiet young man that we knew. During the search in the convent, Eilam is left alone in a graphic room with dead bodies, a living baby still in his deceased mother's arms, and a demonic looking creature. 

Eilam comes through that ordeal with a newly adopted brother by his adopted father, Mr. Peterson. Worse, he ends up with a strange affliction in which he suffers tremendous headaches and blackouts, especially when he sees or hears about religious things. That's not a problem for him, since he's an agnostic but many of his friends, such as Lulu and Artesia are religious, and even the mention of "My God" as a swear is enough to put him in great pain.

Despite this affliction, he continues to help his friends with their studies and Mr. Peterson with caring for baby Cadence. He tries to be the same person as always, loyal best friends with Artesia and sort of boyfriend to Telemachus, but his illness takes its toll on him. It gets worse when his birth parents are released. He winds up back in their house and is forced to endure the sadistic tortures that they implement on him and their so-called subjects.

Eilam spends a lot of time trying to prove that he is nothing like his parents, being a good and thoughtful person even towards those who bully him. But his good intentions fall apart when he is alone with them. The Drs. Deforest study their biological son's abilities and those of other guinea pigs, including another student that Eilam led them to (instead of them going after one of his friends). 

They really are pieces of work that make Joan Crawford and Josef Fritzel look like Parents of the Year (Okay maybe not that bad, but close enough).

Eilam's father verbally and physically abuses him, at one point sticking his hand in a toaster. He also keeps him locked in with a dangerous prisoner who delights in torturing him. Eilam's mother does not come off any better. While she doesn't physically harm Eilam, she is just as manipulative. She never stands up for Eilam's mistreatment, considering her love for her husband more important than her son. She isolates Eilam from his peers by telling him dark secrets about the Domhan government and Fearghus Academy's intentions. It's unclear whether she is telling him the truth, but it certainly drives a wedge between Eilam and his friends and makes him more alone than ever. Come the next book and we will certainly see a character with massive PTSD and Stockholm Syndrome.

Eilam isn't the only character that goes through a lot of emotional turmoil. Artesia adjusts to her life in Domhan and Fearghus. What she once thought of as glamorous and exciting, she now sees a harsher darker side. When they go through the process of mourning Parvaneh, Artesia wonders how long loyalties last in this new world. Does the loyalty of her new friends and family last as long as she is considered useful? What happens to someone when they return to Earth? They are left alone without friends, family, or a purpose that no longer exists, a feeling that they were once capable of great things but now no longer can achieve them.

Artesia also has some dramatic encounters that leave her incredibly shaken. A dark creature working for Engel tracks her down and threatens her friends in Domhan and Earth. She is in fear of what could happen to them and is unable to express it because she is sworn to secrecy. 

One of her friends finds out a secret about her past and while she calls that friend out for nosing around, the revelation brings her closer to her adopted home world than she thought. 

By far, Artesia's strongest and most emotional moment occurs when she is reunited with Antonia or what remains of her. She has a hard time finding her flamboyant friend in the hardened cold blooded being before her. Artesia wrestles with the consequences of what she did and didn't do in the previous volume and how she and the other students played a part in Antonia's downfall. Artesia also sees for herself the true danger in Engel's ambitions in that she can change a once loving person into a soulless monster.

Crystal Shards puts Eilam and Artesia through an emotional wringer. It's clear that by volume three, they and the rest of Fearghus Academy will never be the same again.