Chicklish

REVIEW: Henderson’s Boys: Eagle Day by Robert Muchamore

Review by Aileen

I found this book really hard to review, mainly because there’s so much going on and I don’t want to spoil it by revealing too much of the plot. 

It starts where The Escape left off (***IGNORE THIS BIT IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST BOOK***) with the  sinking of the Cardiff Bay, the boat Rosie and Paul were supposed to take to England. Meanwhile, Marc and Henderson make their way to the British consulate to try and get a passport for Marc and meet Maxine, one of the employees, while Rosie gets to know the mysterious PT (there is a whole chapter about PT  and his past which is actually very interesting and really realistic!) Maxine and PT both end up joining the little gang and they have some interesting adventures (I’m trying not to reveal more than I can help - it’s REALLY hard!) before getting to the main part of the story:
Hitler has planned to invade Britain by boat and Henderson and his companions must attempt to foil it by getting as much information as possible and guiding British bombers to the German’s equipment.

I thought Robert Muchamore managed to strike a really good balance between serious and everyday things (e.g. Paul and his drawings and Rosie and Paul’s radio skills). He also managed to make it so realistic somehow. It’s another one of those books  you just can’t put down and can really get lost in. I felt like I was surfacing from a totally different world when I finished it! If you like history, WW2, spy novels (e.g. Young Bond - they’re also great) or just a good adventure story, you’ll love this book. Even if you don’t, you should still try it!

Review by Aileen

REVIEW: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Review by Sasha, adapted with permission from her post on The Sweet Bonjour.

In Ethan Wate’s hometown there lies the darkest of secrets. There is a girl. Slowly, she pulls the hood from her head. Green eyes, black hair. Lena Duchannes. There is a curse. On the Sixteenth Moon, the Sixteenth Year, the Book will take what it’s been promised. And no one can stop it. In the end, there is a grave. Lena and Ethan become bound together by a deep, powerful love. But Lena is cursed and on her sixteenth birthday, her fate will be decided. Ethan never even saw it coming.

Undoubtedly one of the best books I've read all year. The hype surrounding this book was incredible and, after reading it, I can see why. It is pure, magical essence captured and enclosed in a book that comes alive as you turn each page.

From the first page, it was extremely easy to get into this book. It began by describing Gatlin and the narrator of the story, Ethan, until you could picture yourself in the same surroundings, smelling the same things, seeing everything as clearly as he does. Once you read past the first few chapters, the story manged to take and transport you away.

These ingenious authors have managed to create a group of remarkably lovable characters. Even the nasty, arrogant characters in the book were ones you loved to hate. They built up the atmosphere of the book as well creating masterful suspense and tragedy that kept you at the edge of your seat.

As well as being a magnificently crafted novel, Beautiful Creatures also holds many moral meanings. For example, it teaches you of the problems that could come out of holding family secrets, although I don't think that many of the families in my area are cursed. It also teaches of the importance of choosing between good and evil and always staying true to yourself.

Review by Sasha. See The Sweet Bonjour for the full review.

OVERVIEW REVIEW: Mates, Dates series by Cathy Hopkins

Aileen writes an overview of the Mates, Dates series by Cathy Hopkins, with reviews of a few of the books...

Cathy Hopkins’ Mates, Dates Series is about four friends - Lucy, Izzie, Nesta and TJ - and their (mostly boy-related) dilemmas.

The group started out with just Lucy and Izzie, who knew each other since primary school, until Nesta moved to their school. And TJ - who was in their class already - ‘joined’ when her best friend Hannah moved to Africa.

Lucy Lovering is small, blonde, wants to be a fashion designer and has a weird (but hilarious) sense of humour. According to the others, she has had too many vitamins from her dad’s health shop. She has an on-off relationship with Nesta’s brother, Tony.

Izzie Foster (short  for Isobel) has dark hair, green eyes and pale skin - a ‘typical Irish colleen’ according to Lucy - and likes ‘New Age’ stuff like astronomy, crystals and Aromatherapy.

Nesta Williams is considered to be the prettiest in their little gang due to her ‘exotic’ good looks (her mother is Jamaican and her father is Italian). Her dad is a director and she loves drama and wants to be an actress.

TJ (Theresa) Watts is the newest member of the group. Both her parents are doctors and she is the brainy one of the friends. She also has dark hair and she is going out with Lucy’s big brother Steve. She hopes to be  a singer-songwriter and plays in a band.

Review of Pulling Power (Book 7), Great Escapes (Book 9) and The Secret Story (a special extra):

Book 7: Mates, Dates & Pulling Power

Nesta is upset when she thinks her friends consider her to be a bit of an airhead who thinks about her looks too much. But when she can’t bear the idea of having braces, she wonders if maybe they’re right! Luckily her decision to spend the next year or so of her life under her duvet doesn’t last long and when, at Izzie’s suggestion, she tries acting classes and meets the gorgeous Luke, she realises that loads of people have braces and no one really cares whether she has braces or not!

The first time I read this book, I thought it was - not boring exactly but not too interesting. But now I’ve found out I’m getting a brace, I’m looking at it totally differently! I’m sure tons of people who have or have had braces will be able to relate to this book and, even though I know it’s fiction, I find it strangely comforting. Obviously it’s not JUST about braces - there’s a sort of family mystery element too, but I won’t spoil it!

Not a gripping, page-turner type book, but then again I don't think it's meant to be. It would be a great book to take on holiday (or read at the dentist ! - sorry =])

Book 9: Mates, Dates & Great Escapes

This book is from Lucy’s point of view, which I think is great because I love her wacky sense of humour.

After breaking up with Tony because she doesn’t want to take things further, Lucy decides to take a break from boys. So when, thanks to a mad old lady and her cat, she gets the opportunity to go on the school trip to Florence, she is delighted. The trip might not be as good as she anticipated, though, because guess who’s staying at the same hotel? An all-boys school from London! Thank goodness for Teddy, the nice American whose limo she tries to hijack at the airport!

Mates Dates: The Secret Story

Fans of the series will know about the on-off relationship of Lucy and Tony and most of the events in it, but this book is supposed to give readers an inside glimpse into their minds as it is written in a sort of diary format and alternates between Tony and Lucy.

When Lucy first sees Tony, she doesn’t have a clue who he is but she’s instantly smitten so she is dismayed when she sees the boy with the gorgeous Nesta - the new girl in her year who her best friend Izzie seems more than keen to be friends with, a fact Lucy is not exactly happy about. Little does she realize he is Nesta’s brother!

Tony is keen to see Nesta making new friends so when she brings Lucy and Izzie round he is delighted and more than happy to try and help Lucy find her 'mystery contestant', especially as the boy in question goes to his school!

Lucy feels she can never tell anyone about Tony now, but fate obviously has other ideas!

I don’t think this book is as funny as others in the series and it seems to be set over a long period of time so it glosses over some of the events from other books, which I found a bit irritating because it seems as if they are only trying to sell them to the reader.

The fact that it alternates between the two characters is interesting. I like being able to see Tony's point of view too but it is not always convincing, and sometimes it seems as if Cathy Hopkins got confused because the chapter says and starts off with Tony but then switches to Nesta for a few sentences.

I thought the first half on how they meet etc. is good but the rest isn’t as good. But it is still a nice book for fans of the series and basically quite a sweet story.

Reviews and Overview by Aileen

Full list of Mates, Dates books below.

NEWS: Meet Maria V. Snyder in London, 18th January

Trisha from Murder One has written to us with the following information. Over to Trisha...

Ring in the New Year with Murder One Film Club and the first great fantasy-romance film night of 2010!

Murder One presents an evening with Maria V. Snyder on Monday, 18th January 2010. The bestselling author of the fabulous Study series will be signing the UK edition of her latest book Sea Glass (the second installment in her Glass series), followed by a Q&A and screening of her film pick Hero (starring Jet Li).

 Signing starts at 6:30pm (doors open at 6pm: refreshments and snacks available); film starts at approx. 7:45pm at our new venue (a REAL cinema this time!):

Shortwave Cinema
10 Bermondsey Square, London, SE1 3UN
Tel. 0207 357 6845
(Located just over Tower Bridge in South London, not far from London Bridge [Northern line] or Bermondsey [Jubilee line: this is the closest] underground stations.

Ticket price is the copy of the book (available in the UK on January 8th), or if you already have the previously published US edition of Sea Glass, any book of your choice of equivalent cost. Please email trisha @ murderone.co.uk for more information.

Hope to see you there!
Trisha
Murder One

REVIEW: Cathy's Ring by Jordan Weisman and Sean Stewart

Review by Tamika

**Warning: May contain spoilers for Cathy's Book and Cathy's Key by the same authors**

Cathy's life is not the same as the average teenage girl's. For one, her boyfriend Victor is immortal - he cannot die or be wounded. One may think this is helpful to protect her, but unfortunately Victor cannot do much since the person he needs to protect her from is also immortal, and very powerful. Ancestor Lu wants Cathy dead, and isn't very happy that they managed to kill the evil Tsao (Victor's father) who was in love with Cathy... So Cathy, along with the help of Denny (her other potential boyfriend), and Emma (her best friend), Pete (Emma's boyfriend), Jun (Ancestor Lu's immortal daughter) and, of course, Victor have to try and save Jewel, who is Denny's twin, from the evil corporation who are trying to kill Cathy.

But leaving behind the people she loves is harder than trying to cope with the "blossoming romance" between Victor and Jun - or is it all it seems?

I absolutely loved this book! It is filled with action from cover to cover. I especially loved the pictures and doodles filled through Cathy's diary, as they link to the story. The storyline is really interesting, and at times Cathy has to  make really hard decisions. The author makes it so hard not to feel sorry for her. Even the tiny little things in the beginning of the story add up to something really big at the end.

I give this book 4.5/5, because I think I prefer longer stories which get even MORE interesting. It was a great book though!

Review by Tamika, aged 12

NEWS: Cybernation by Erica Blaney, Another Faust by Daniel and Dina Nayeri

Alexandra highlights a couple of recent reads:

Cybernation by Erica Blaney, Solarnation by Erica Blaney

If you enjoy science fiction novels you can try Erica Blaney’s series.  It begins with Cybernation and the second, concluding book is Solarnation. 

This series covers the adventures of Solly and Lalune on the planet Clandoi – which is a cold and uninviting place to live – one that can bring up many different problems for its inhabitants!

For more information on this series you can check out Erica’s website.

Another Faust: The First of Another Series by Daniel and Dina Nayeri

Something for older teens: If you like dark mysteries you can try this novel. It’s the tale of five children who disappear and reappear some years later with unusual talents for cheating, stealing, hiding and lying. You can read more about it and the authors (who are brother and sister) on their website.

by Alexandra

OVERVIEW REVIEW: The Cherub series by Robert Muchamore

Aileen writes an overview of The Cherub series by Robert Muchamore:

I've liked the Cherub books for some time now. They're exciting, interesting and up to date and they really make you think. They cover current issues such as drugs, terrorism, the middle east, human trafficking and animal experiments and they're really well written. Most of them are REALLY good, except maybe The Killing, The General and The Sleepwalker which I didn’t like so much.

Cherub is a fictional organisation which trains orphaned kids as spies because no adult would ever suspect them. This sounds really far-fetched but it’s actually very convincing and much more realistic than H.I.V.E and similar books.

I also love the gadgets and how you get to see what the campus is like as well as missions and how the point of view sometimes switches between James and the other characters.

The start of a story is often told from an important person's point of view e.g. by someone who is affected by the crime or someone involved who has no idea they are being spied on.

Cherub books always show the agents’ mission briefings or 'mission backgrounds' which make everything seem even more realistic as they are so well-researched and there is always an epilogue explaining what happened to everyone involved, especially the criminal(s). I also like how sometimes events or people mentioned in the books appear later in the series - e.g. in book 3 a character is mentioned who co-founded the Brigands Motorcycle Club, which is what the latest Cherub book is called.

James Adams is the main character and he and his younger sister have been at Cherub since their mum died (Book 1: The Recruit). Other central characters are (some of) James and Lauren's friends- Bethany, Bruce, Kyle, Gabrielle and Kerry - and their teachers and  mission controllers, as well as the people they meet on their missions.

If you like exciting and down-to-earth adventure stories or if you're just bored and looking for something different and unusual to read I would definitely recommend Cherub. And if you've read and liked Cherub you might also want to find out how it all began in Robert Muchamore's new series, Henderson’s Boys.

by Aileen

List of Cherub books

Cherub website

Five Books to Give/Receive 2009 - Summer

Summer's Recommendations for the Gift-Giving Season 2009… Books for Friends, or Yourself!

Summer writes: These are all great books for people who love reading historical novels or novels with unexpected twists.

The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson – another brilliant historical novel by Eva Ibbotson. This follows the story of Ruth, who lives in Vienna with her academic parents and is desperately in love with Heini Radik, a brilliant young pianist that she has known for many years. But soon her whole life changes; it all happens when the Nazi’s invade Vienna in the year of 1938 seeking to persecute the Jewish people and as a result Ruth’s family is forced to flee. This results in Ruth being left behind and denied a passport and becoming seemingly trapped in Vienna. But soon  a young family friend, a fellow academic, comes to visit Ruth and he offers her the only chance to escape Vienna, the city she once loved so muc. But will agreeing to this offer change Ruth’s life in more ways than one?
 
 A Company of Swans by Eva Ibbotson – A brilliant historical read by Eva Ibbotson. A Company of Swans follows the story of Harriet a girl who in 1912 is forced to live an exceptionally dull life, until one day she is spotted by a Russian Ballet master who offers her the chance of her lifetime. A chance to experience new place, a chance go to Brazil and dance with them. Will her father allow her? Or will she spend forever trapped in Cambridge with her stuffy academic father?
 
Wonderland by Joanna Nadin – I really loved reading this book and when I first started to read it, it was not at all what I had been expecting! This book is dramatic, fantastic and definitely a page turner!
 
The Remarkable Life and Times of Eliza Rose by Mary Hooper – This story was an absolutely great historical read. It starts when Eliza’s stepmother throws her out of her house and she travels to London to find her father, but things don’t go according to plan and soon Eliza’s life will never be the same. She must learn how to fend for herself in London, and as the story progress she learns a little more about herself and where she comes from.
 
Hippy Chick by Louise Harwood – A great novel by an even greater author. Hippy Chick follows the story of Honey, an Ibiza workaholic. A classically brilliant chick lit novel, which features sun, sand, romance and a very good storyline.

REVIEW: Missing Believed Crazy by Terence Blacker

Review by Alexandra

I did enjoy this. I liked the way the book is told through the points of view of all the characters. One page may be told by a parent, or teacher, and another page by one of the main characters who form an unlikely gang - of five pupils in total, from Carthcart school. The only member of this group not telling any of the story – her story, is the group’s leader, Trix.

Cathcart isn’t the sort of school where pupils devise intricate plans that they shouldn’t... But Trix is a convincing girl. She may have a rich and famous mother but nothing means more to her than finding ways to save the lives of starving African babies.

Trix comes up with a plan and gradually her gang come together around her. Each member has their own role, personality and tells the tale of what happens when Trix decides to kidnap… herself!

It’s a long book but it stays snappy and fast-paced. There’s plenty of action to follow, interesting twists in the plot, great characters.  Read it to find out if the girl who becomes known as Trixie Bell finds a way to make a lot of money to save African children.

A very well-written book that offers something for everyone.

Review by Alexandra

 

REVIEW: Maximum Security by Robert Muchamore

Review by Aileen.

Maximum Security is Book 3 in the Cherub series by Robert Muchamore.

The mission: Normally the aim of a Cherub mission is to get the bad guys behind bars which makes this mission rather unusual...

James Adams has to befriend and bust out the son of one of the most wanted weapon smugglers in America in order to help British and American security services to locate her.

James, his sister Lauren and another Cherub Agent called Dave Moss, posing as James' brother, are sent to Arizona, where the boys will pose as child criminals  and try and befriend Curtis Oxford. If all goes to plan they hope to break out and, with the help of the newly qualified Lauren, make their escape and meet the notorious Jane Oxford.

As always, this is a gripping story which is, quite frankly, impossible to put down! It's only the third book in the series so we don't know that much about the characters yet but when you read the books you’ll still feel as if you know them and as if you're right there with them and it still makes sense even if you haven’t read any of the other CHERUB books. It starts off quite slowly and can be a bit graphic sometimes but it’s not too bad.

Review by Aileen