Taken by Storm, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

A vivid, wrenching, entirely worthy conclusion to an excellent trilogy.

Take everything we've seen from Ms. Barnes before in this series and mark it up by fifty percent - the violence, the emotional impact, the shocking plot twists - then reduce the size of the book by a fourth, and you'll have this speed-reading terror of a foil-bound trilogy-closer. (I'm going to be speaking about it as though it's the end of the the series; it has a definite ring of finality to it that I hope goes undisturbed, and from what I've heard on the author's site, it will.)



If anyone's reading this and doesn't know the first two books... click on the "shapeshifters" tag and find my reviews of them. Here we have Bryn, the human girl raised by a werewolf pack after the murder of her parents... Bryn, who has by this book grown up a good deal and taken her own very unique place in her raw, wild, and dangerous world.

I'm saying very little here, to avoid spoilers. Because trust me, for this book, you don't want'm. I was on the metaphorical edge of my seat the whole time. Suffice to say that a long-held question of mine was answered, one of Evan's predictions came true that I didn't believe would, and one of my predictions did as well. Two plot points that we both expected also occurred. Not that I'm saying this book is predictable - I was eeping the whole while.

There will almost certainly be a few points at which you will beg, "Don't let it end like this!"
Almost certainly a few to the tune of, "Is there honestly a way out of this?"
Wordless exclamations are also not inappropriate at many spots.

I'm not entirely positive what I think of Callum's prescience as a plot device. It may have annoyed me... I'm honestly not sure whether it did or not. On the other hand, it annoys other characters, too.

For those of you who read Hunger Games, you'll probably come to notice that Ms. Barnes has jumped on the "surprise chapter endings" bandwagon. I'm not un-sorry. But I did have to cover a few endings with my hand because my nervous eye has a tendency to jump ahead of my reading.

(I just turned on Handel's "Messiah" again. I think I did this writing the review of the first book, too. I detect a trend here?)

Age rec: This is going to stop all of nobody, but probably fifteen and up? And up? (chuckles nervously) Just for violence and some slightly disturbing scenes related to same. Unlike the previous two books, I found some parts of this one uncomfortable. Trust me - not because of the romance, so for any of you who worried that the third book would involve flagrant indecency, lay your minds at rest. [I am about to slightly qualify that last statement with a very indefinite and small spoiler that avoids naming names: One of the characters becomes pregnant while unmarried, but the fact alone is established onstage, without any indecent content in sight.]

Bottom line: The promise held out in the first two books is amply fulfilled and then some.

Matched, by Ally Condie

How I found this book: Picked it up because I'd also just picked up Divergent by Veronica Roth, both of which being rec's from a friend of mine.

(Picture found on the author's website.)

I'm going to leave off the proper plot summary because it's really not the best part of the book - in fact, it could turn off some people who are tired of love triangles, enough so that they miss a really fine novel.

You may have heard that this book is a "rip-off of The Giver." I did certainly notice some similarities... For people who've read The Giver as their "first dystopia" just like I did, it's a little familiar. But then it's also very different. It's a teen vision, a girl's vision.

The world of Cassia's Society is almost a utopia - until one thinks about it. It's peaceful, beautiful, safe. No one has to worry about choices - or choosing wrong. Nearly all disease is gone, nearly all accidents. The food is perfectly portioned, the schedule of each person detailed, by the Officials. There's no obvious show of force or coercion. Even death is made a quiet, formal thing, when each citizen dies peacefully at precisely 80 years of age. 100 poems, 100 songs, 100 works of art are there - selected by the creators of the Society. There's no fear and no change.

Cassia's personal view of her quiet, pretty world changes twice in quick succession. First, when her "Match" - the person she's later going to be married to - turns out to be her friend Xander... but then a picture of another boy appears briefly inside the "match" information package. An Official assures her that this is merely a mistake, and that the boy whose picture she briefly saw is not even allowed to be Matched, as he is an Aberration. But he's also a boy who she's met before. Second, her grandfather turns 80 and dies painlessly as is usual in the Society - but he shows her a gift that ought not to even exist... a piece of paper with two poems that were not within the 100.

It's more than a "love triangle" when Cassia finds herself liking Ky - the Aberration - as well as Xander. It's a choice she's wavering in - between the simple childhood friend, the one she views as the Society's choice for her, and the odd boy who teaches her how to write her name and shows her the poems that he makes up. And she has allies in this "rebellion" that she chooses to make - the memory of her grandfather, and one of the poems that he gave her: Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.

(I used to not like that poem, but now I do a good deal more. Perhaps whenever I read it, I will have a little mental picture of a girl in a green dress, holding a glint of gold in her hand.)

Cassia's not a brave revolutionary. She burns poems out of fear - but she loves the words that she feels driven to destroy. But she knows in the end what choices to make - and she is brave - tremendously brave.

I like that this book honors the connection between individuals. Cassia confides in her family members, and they in her. She loved her grandfather and honors his memory. She speaks the truth to Xander about her feelings for Ky, saying before she does - "I could love him. I do love him. And because I do, I have to tell him about Ky. I do not mind stealing from the Society. But I will not steal from Xander any longer. Even if it hurts, I have to tell him. Because either way, whichever life I build, has to be built on truth."

I had to include that last quote. It's one of the best lines I've read for a long time in a YA book. And, in a way, it captures what I see as the essential inside message of Matched - that life has to be built on truth, not just fact but truth.

---

It would be a quick step from there to speaking of the Truth Himself - a step that the Ms. Condie, however, doesn't choose to take. But for a modern YA dystopia novel - this one is on par with The Hunger Games as the most relevant, truth-filled one I've read yet.

In my opinion, the most chilling scene of the whole book is near the beginning. Cassia's father works on collecting artifacts for the Officials to review. Cassia goes to his worksite at one point. They're excavating an old library.

"The workers...suck up piles of papers with the incineration tubes. My father told us that right when they thought they had gone through everything, they found steel boxes of books buried down in the basement. Almost as though someone tried to hide and preserve the books against the future. My father and the other Restoration specialists have been through the boxes...they will incinerate all of it."
"...There are few piles of books left...the workers move from one to another... It's faster to incinerate individual pages instead of books, so they slice the books open, gutting them along the spines, preparing them for the tubes."
"...The books' backs are broken; their bones, thin and delicate, fall out. The workers shove them toward the incineration tube; they step on them. The bones crackle under their boots like leaves..."

Shudder.

Ms. Condie is an English teacher, according to her bio. I know that to her as well as to me, this is a terrible image.

---

Age rec - This could almost be upper MG and up. There's no swearing, nothing more than kissing in the romance. But, as in all dystopia novels, the premise is a good bit disturbing.
For ages 14 and up - go for it!
Especially rec'd for those who aren't quite up for the violence and emotion of The Hunger Games but want to read a wisely-handled novel of this sort.

Blood Red Road, by Moira Young

How I found this book: I don't know - one too many people on the blogworld talking about it? So I stuck it on the holdlist. I'm not quite sure why, to tell you the truth! But I'm ever so glad I did.

Book, in a nutshell:
Saba is relentlessly loyal to her twin brother Lugh. So when raiders take him, for reasons unknown to her at the time, and leave her father dead behind them, she goes off after him - along with her much younger sister Emmi. Her attempts to rid herself of the inconvenient Emmi fail, and her search for Lugh goes hardly better. After she ends up in the cage-fighting ring in Hopetown, she finds information about Lugh's captors - and a band of girls who might be able to save both her and him.
But there's more than a brother at stake in this wind-swept world.

I loved this book. It's a first-person narration, in dialect, without quotation marks - could have been a deal-breaker, but no - I actually liked it. Though the um, informal narration was a bit confusing at times. (If you thought that Katniss's narration in Hunger Games was annoying at all, don't even try this one.)
I love the way Saba's going after Lugh - I have got a brother, and I know what she means with the whole business. I love the developing relationship between her and her little sister, as they grow to understand each other better. I love that the little sister is a very good character in her own right - she does at least as much growing in this story as anyone else.

Most of all, unlike so many of the dystopian and post-apocolyptic books these days, this one's got hope. The world's messed up, but there are solutions, and people are effective to find them.

There is no such word as can't for this lot. Recapture kidnapped brother? Worth a try. Find your way across the desert? Why not. Dash into a burning building to save a friend? Let's go. Fight blind clawed lizards at night in a dry lakebed? Go for it. Escape from bondage in the cage fighting? Sounds likely to me. Find a new way on the spur of the moment when everything goes wrong? Can do. Change the shape of society? Might as well.

And, though the whole "magic-stone" thing is a little blatantly obvious - just a little - I approve of the obligatory love interest. For once, I actually can figure out what the protagonist sees in him!

Age rec: Unfortunately, there is a lot of strong language. A lot. And though there's nothing actually indecent, some hints. I might as well reassure readers, though - there wasn't anything that happened that offended me, so I'll save you the worries you might have at some points. It's not as "nice" as Chime but much "nicer" than Finnikin of the Rock: I would say fourteen, fifteen and up.

Musings on the Mortal Engines series

I read the Mortal Engines series by Philip Reeve not too long ago; I can't really review them now, since there was so much to them. They're an epic; and, as in some epics, I never really liked most of the characters, but was more interested in the world they dwelt in.

Actually, the truer relationship between myself and a number of the characters was that I did not approve of them, nor of what they did most of the time.

But the series really did something like stand up in my mind and begin rearranging furniture. I do like the "steampunk" genre, and Mr. Reeve is a terrificly good writer. And the books are nothing if not action-packed and suspenseful.

Still, it was the female characters - or two of them especially - that really stood out to me even in the midst of everything else.

So when my mind is stirred, I have a tendency to write poetry. Sometimes even good poetry. I wouldn't go so far as to say that what I have below is an example of that type, but here it is, for anyone who's read the series or somesuch.




-----------

What did Tom see in Hester Shaw
but a bird with her wings broken
too convinced of her own unfitness to fly again
unless someone lifted her high?

And it was the greater tragedy than the Sixty-Minute War
that in all the shattered world, only one person would do that.

But later
three and a half books brought me to a moment that turned my head around
with that girl,
Oenone,
because
I
too
have
a
brother
and in the silence of churches I, too, remember God selflessly stricken on Calvary
but
did she ever learn about the Easter sunrise
and the One more powerful than death,
more powerful than undeath?

Because a scarred planet
and scarred girls can all be healed,
someday
when a light brighter than all stars appears -

Don't give up hope, you in your steaming engines
and roving cities:
He is not slow in keeping His promises
as some understand slowness
and He has made everything beautiful
in its time.

Reckless, by Cornelia Funke

I read the reviews; I knew I wanted it. So I had to catch it from the other library that I don't normally go to, since my usual library didn't get it for a while.

This book in a nutshell:
Jacob Reckless discovered the secret of the mirror when he was young, right after his father had disappeared. On his first trip through to the strange, magical world on the other side, he gets his hand bitten by something. It doesn't dissuade him from returning... again and again and again.
The story opens with the disasterous results of his younger brother, Will, following him to the Mirrorworld. Jacob puts years of knowledge to the test as he tries to save his brother from the curse that is turning him into a monster. And it doesn't help that Will's girlfriend has shown up from Earth, curious about the secret that has absorbed the Reckless brothers for so long . . .

Reckless is beautiful and terrible, the world as dark as the cover of the book, the writing as heart-stopping as the action. I found myself reading this one at small group one Sunday night, eating my dinner while I turned pages with the other hand, until one particular situation was resolved.

The female characters don't get short shrift in this novel: there's Clara, Will's girlfriend; Fox, the shape-shifter girl from the Mirrorworld who follows Jacob around; the Dark Fairy, who has a history with Jacob; the Princess, showing surprising character in the end...
I find Jacob and Will's relationship to be quite meaningful. Recently, I've read several books that have this arrangment: the caring, emotionally sensitive brother and the callous, ruthless one; always loyal to each other. Despite having seen it several times, I think it's worth revisiting, and I'm not tired of it yet.

There's no shortage of excitement in this one. It's tense from the first, the tempo ratcheting up like a beating drum, as the situation becomes more desperate. Probably it'll be read in one sitting, so clear your day out!
I found it almost painful to see the chances slipping away, each plan of the characters thwarted, time running out. But it makes it nearly impossible to stop reading.
At the first page of every chapter are graphite illustrations, which I felt added a good deal to the book. It's a beautiful thing, perfectly designed to carry the story it does.

Sometimes I question the middle-grade rating for this one... there's some implied stuff between Jacob and the Dark Fairy, and a lot of violence, and some of the Mirrorworld creatures are downright chilling. Think Grimms' fairy tales, but darker in many ways. If I'd read this when I was ten or eleven, I think I would have felt out of my depth. But that isn't that I wouldn't have liked it. I probably would have.

I believe there will be sequels. At least, from the ending, there had better be sequels. It's not a cliffhanger, but there are unresolved issues. Google "Cornelia Funke Reckless blog tour" and you'll find the author(s) discussing many things, including sequels.

Age rec: There's no good reason why this should be restricted as a children's book. Young adults would enjoy it as well. I would say eight or nine as my bottom limit, ten or eleven being better.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne M. Valente

How I found this book: Several reviews suggested that it might be a good thing to read - it seemed so zany, so odd, that I simply had to give it a try.

So... a girl named September is bored with her life, and a person by the name of The Green Wind comes past her house on his leopard and takes her away to Fairyland. Fairyland is both stranger and more familiar than expected, with customs-officers and a city made of cloth and countries where it's always autumn. A witch asks September to go and find her magic spoon for her, as the wicked Marquess has taken it away. September agrees... and with the allied help of "persons" as varied as a Key, a Wyverary (cross between a wyvern and a library), and a soap golem, she embarks on a grand journey which takes her far beyond the capitol city and into far greater issues than a stolen spoon.

I love this book. Its narrative style seems a little stifling in the beginning, but widens out later; either that, or I stopped minding it. It's a slow start, but speeds up in time. The locales and persons described in this book are amazing and detailed, quite beautiful. September knows the sort of thing that's supposed to happen on an adventure like this, and she's quite aware of her situation at all times, comparing her present experiences to her past experiences on Earth.

There are some very weighty issues being tossed around in this book... freedom vs. safety, normalcy vs. adventure, perseverance and hope... I expected this to be a frivolous little narrative, all fluff and fun, but it certainly isn't. Bad things happen. Worse things can happen too. Behind its cotton-candy exterior this book hides some hard stuff.

Thoughts on the ending: is this a good end or a bad end?

I disagree with a few of the sentiments expressed in this book. A) September is required to lie (among other requirements) before she's allowed into Fairyland. B) September is told, and later agrees with, a statement of a questionable philosophy regarding the necessity of clothing. I'm not offended much by either, in the context, but I'm just dropping these statements out there.

Age rec: 8 and up, though maybe with caution for the younger end.

The Underland Chronicles, books 3-5, by Suzanne Collins

This review covers the final three of Suzanne Collins's Underland Chronicles: Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, Gregor and the Marks of Secret, Gregor and the Code of Claw.

These books... must be bad for me... I read the three in a straight row, and completed the last at - it must have been 2 A. M. I picked them all out of the library because I hate waiting for a week to read the next book if I can just take all at once.

Anyone who has read the first two books in the series probably do not require a detailed plot summary. Anyone who has not ought to go read my reviews of book one or book two.
These three are the story of the war in the Underland... the ongoing war between the rats and the humans and seemingly everyone else. The Underland is a very unsettled place, as readers have likely gathered already.
Book 3, Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods, impressed me by being one of the first books that really deals with the mechanics of a kid who has "dual citizenship" in two worlds. Short version: his mom is very much against it, his dad is dubious, and his neighbor is beginning to wonder. But despite all these things Gregor and Boots (with their mom along this time) end up in the Underland once more.
And there's a new problem - a horrible plague that is infecting many creatures of the Underland - including some of Gregor's friends. Gregor and others decide their only hope is to follow another prophecy, deep into the jungle and into places they have hardly imagined...
Books 4 and 5 go on from there, describing the war that is rapidly unfolding beneath the ground, and Gregor's uncomfortably fast-growing part in it...

What do I think of these books? I can hardly say.
First, I do not know whether they are really middle-grade. Now, looking back, I say "this is horrible, they are giving this to little defenseless third-graders?" But realistically, I'm the person who's read Dragonriders of Pern at the age of nine. Kids are not terribly fragile creatures.
But these are still not for the sensitive child. They are, truly, books written by the author of The Hunger Games. This seems to be obvious, but... I had not expected Gregor to be so like Katniss by the end. {That is a spoiler, but I don't care. That is a spoiler, but it's one I think may as well be known.}

In the last book there were several places I wanted very much to cry. One, I actually became choked up. Granted, this was past midnight - but still.

Points of discussion:
"Let no good deed go unpunished." What do you think of that phrase? What does that make the deed - is it still good if bad things come of it? Did Gregor make the wrong choice regarding the Bane? Consequences - Gregor is trying to fix his "punished good deed" - but he still feels pity for the object of his vengeance.
Luxa/Gregor subplot deepens. Is this believable or healthy? I find it poignant to the point of being pitiful. Beautiful but sad.
Gregor's scars, both the physical and the mental/emotional. Adventuring is not all it's cracked up to be, the book seems to be saying. And it's true - drop an eleven-year-old in these situations and what can one expect to happen to him?

There's a particular chapter ending that breaks me up a little when I think about it. Especially when I remember Luxa's age. Lay off the twelve-year-olds, Ms. Collins!

{let me suffer for them. Let them be safe. I play with twelve-year-olds down the street, stick-swords and tag and hide-and-seek - I know them. Let them be safe. They deserve safe.}

This is a terribly rambling review, but then, I read them all late - and they do toy with one's emotions.

Some quotes:

The laundry room! While she collected detergent and stain remover from the closet, Gregor tried to think of an excuse for why he couldn't accompany her. He could hardly say, "Oh, I can't go down there because my mom is afraid a giant rat will jump out and drag me miles underground and eat me." If you thought about it, there was almost no good reason a person couldn't go to the laundry room. So he went.

(... Curse of the Warmbloods)
----

"Pic-a-nic! Pic-a-nic!" sang Boots, drumming on the back of Gregor's head with her scepter. The whole
princess costume thing had been a mistake. Next time he'd get her a coloring book.

(... Marks of Secret)
----------

Leave it to Howard to think to pack a first-aid kit. It had never even crossed Gregor's mind. Just another reason he was not doctor material.

(...Marks of Secret)
------

"Slow, deep breaths," said Ripred, and Gregor knew Lizzie must have been having another panic attack. But why hadn't she come to him? Why had she gone to Ripred? "Want to try a few more math problems?" the rat asked.
"No," said Lizzie. "Just want to sit here."
Gregor didn't know what was stranger: to see Lizzie, who jumped at her own shadow, snuggled up against a giant rat, or to see the untouchable Ripred, who seemed to loathe almost everyone, who always slept alone even when other rats were available, comforting his little sister.

(... Code of Claw)
--------

"Maybe there's still some film in the camera," he said. There was. And since it was an instant camera, they could have the pictures right away. So he held the camera in front of them and they burned through the rest of the roll. For a few minutes, the world outside the museum seemed to go away, and they were just two twelve-year-olds goofing around like they were in a photo booth, making faces, laughing. But when Gregor said "Okay, last picture," something happened.

(...Code of Claw)

-----

Watch especially out for the paragraph that begins It wasn't much of a letter. Therein lies the part that made me cry almost.

These are dark books. In simple, no-frills language and bare-bones plotting, Ms. Collins makes a wonderful tale full of pain and sorrow and confusion - and love and sometimes even joy. Read them.
I would have eaten these up as a ten-year-old. But I think the ending would have bewildered me because I was a very happy child at that point and had not yet gotten old enough to understand that sometimes people could lose hope.

I had to read from Revelation and Isaiah before I could sleep right after these books. Here behind a link is the Bible verse that always comes to mind when I finish a Suzanne Collins series. I always spell HOPE in capitals when I write it out.

As per last review's complaint: Yes, at LONG LAST someone asks about what happens when people die. Unfortunately, the answer is... unsatisfactory to the extreme.

Age rec: Okay, these are still in the MG category. I would say ten and up. But they contain biological warfare, the attempted killing of an entire race, strong predjudice, unpleasant war, much violence, great danger, great sorrow, and great loss. Admittedly all these are handled well and appropriately. Still...
Be willing to talk with children afterwards, or at the least direct them towards a mature friend who has read the books as well.

Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, by Suzanne Collins

I got this book from the library because I wanted to read more after book 1....

Skip this if you don't want who lives/who dies spoilers for the first book. Just scroll down, la la la, like I used to do with Mockingjay reviews, and read the review of the first book instead. Better yet, go read the first book itself.

In a nutshell:
Gregor, some months after his first Underland adventure, is finding out that not everything is perfect even though he and his sister and his dad are all back home. His dad is sick, and there's still not enough money. He does, however, have an improved relationship with the cockroaches in his room - and he's got a "job" with a lady downstairs who often sends him home with food for the family.
But then Boots gets carried off by Underland crawlers while Gregor's taking her to Central Park, and Gregor follows - of course.
Down below again, Gregor learns that there's another prophecy, and this one seems to be suggesting that Boots is in danger. And that there's a monster called the Bane that "the warrior" {Gregor} will have to fight....
Once again Gregor has to help his Underland friends, and the journey will take him through some very strange places and uncomfortable situations.

I liked this book very much.
There's still the ghostly feeling of overlay because face it, Suzanne Collins writes like Suzanne Collins, and that means that a bat can get eaten to a skeleton in moments by a cloud of bugs, and a sea serpent can leave poisonous sores on the protagonist's arm that do not heal conveniently in a chapter. But it also means that she knows, somehow, the right notes to play on the reader's heartstrings - or at least on this reader's. I've had that feeling before, both in these books and in Hunger Games - "I'm being emotionally manipulated here. And I don't care, it's beautiful/sad/horrid/amazing anyhow."

Some more beautiful points in this one about... mercy, justice, and acceptance. A strong message against predjudice. Gregor is willing to selflessly risk his life to save someone who is... not in favor at all - when the others refuse to do anything, he climbs over the side of the boat to attempt a rescue.

This book gets into the action a lot sooner than the first one does, probably because the introductions are already over. But... I really must point out, it doesn't exactly end on a cliffhanger, but I can safely say it ends on a hillhanger at least.
So I want the third book. NOOOOWWWWWW.

On the other hand, this is Suzanne Collins's work, and perhaps I don't really want to know what happens? Perhaps vagueness is preferable?
Get ahold of yourself, Rina. These are her MG books. She is not going to kill off a major character.
I think.

One thing I love about this book:
I have met few books recently that hold loyalty, family, and friendship in such high honor. Gregor is not a loner; he is a person with emotional connections and loved ones, and I appreciate this greatly. Especially after Chime, the book I intend to review next.

One thing I am a little annoyed about in this book:
Ms. Collins seems incredibly reluctant to discuss anything even remotely supernatural. We have prophecies, we have special abilities, we have a person who sees the future, we have monsters ... who knows what we'll get later? And yet in all this, we have not even the slightest mention of any Higher Power. On all sides and from above and below there is the threat of death, characters are dying onstage and off, and people are losing those close to them. But no one, no one offers the slightest hint of Life Hereafter, not even tentatively.
And there's this thread in Hunger Games and its sequels as well.
If anyone would be thinking about immortality of the soul or whether there's Someone to appeal to for help, the characters in the plot of a Suzanne Collins book would be.
This is probably my own feelings coloring the issue... but it is getting to me a little. I think that even non-Christians would begin to struggle with these questions in the face of such circumstances, and I wish that such issues was not stared into oblivion in these books.

Age rec: well, I would say 8 and up. Maybe a little more "up." Some violent scenes... and that bat being killed by the swarm of insects... On the other hand, it's pretty conservative in its detail.

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

How did I find this book? Well, by reading the other books Ms. Collins wrote, and just wanting more. At first I was apprehensive - I'd had a bad experience where, after reading an author's YA series, I'd gone back and read their earlier (MG) books and found them disappointing. But when I found a hardcover of this for a dollar at a book sale, I figured why not.

I don't know what I was expecting...but I liked Gregor the Overlander. It was no The Hunger Games. But then, it's for a younger audience.* And it was her first book. Reading it was like seeing ghosts, or traveling back in time... I could see her later books overlaid onto this one, and recognize characterizations or style touches.
She has always had her habit of.... making sure people don't set down the book at the end of chapters. To put it mildly.

* I don't mean to be deprecating of books for kids. I think that many of them are at least if not more substantive and well-done as YA books. I just mean that often, there are a lot of differences in books as you go up through the age ranges. And frankly, The Hunger Games is not for kids.

The book, more or less:

Gregor is a kid in an apartment in New York City, taking care of his little sister Boots and his aged grandmother. His mother works, his older sister is off at camp, and his dad is... off in parts unknown. The weather is hot and horrible. Life, at the moment, does not look very good.
Then one day he takes his laundry and his sister down to the laundry room in the apartment building's basement. Boots chases her ball behind one of the washing machines and... disappears. Into a very scary-looking dark hole full of drifting mist. Gregor follows, trying to catch her. When they reach solid ground again, it is a very different solid ground.
The two of them have reached the Underland, a dangerous and intruiging place inhabited by giant bats, huge cockroaches, oversized rats and spiders, and strange humans. And for some reason, they seem to think that Gregor is special. That he's the warrior written about in one of their prophecies.

This is a very fun book for children - though for teens it may require disbelief to be suspended a little more than usual. But it's got heart and danger and thrill and sadness and depth to it as well. There's death, there's loss, there's betrayal, there are hard decisions for Gregor and others to make.
Gregor is an average boy, but he's brave and willing to try his best in hard places, and he's terribly loyal to his sister and his friends. I have enough age difference from him to find him a little immature, but in an adorable way, not an annoying way.

It's not the best-written book, unfortunately. There are a lot of good things, but the plot is hung together a little weakly, and most of the characters are rather sparsely sketched. However, I'd say this is a definite recommendation to ages eight and up, both boys and girls. It's not an immature book at all - as Ms. Collins' fans will likely expect - I for one cannot imagine her writing fluff.

Some quotes:

The platform immediately rose, and he grabbed hold of the side rope to steady himself. Vikus stood calmly with his hands folded before him, but then Vikus wasn't holding a wriggly two-year-old, and he'd probably ridden this thing a million times.

------

"I do not believe in your science," said Henry. "The crawlers are weak, they cannot fight, they will not last. That is how nature intended it."
Gregor thought of his grandma, who was old and dependent on the kindness of stronger people now. He thought of Boots, who was little and couldn't yet open a door. And there was his friend Larry, who had to go to the hospital emergency room three times last year when his asthma flared up...
"Is that what what you think, Luxa?" said Gregor. "Do you think something deserves to die if it's not strong?"

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".... You see, I tired of constant fear, so I made a decision. Every day when I wake I tell myself that it will be my last. If you are not trying to hold on to time, you are not so afraid of losing it."
Gregor thought this was the single saddest thing anyone had ever said to him. He couldn't answer.
"And then, if you make it to bedtime, you feel the joy of cheating death out of one more day," she said. "Do you see?"

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"Fascinating as your native rituals are, do you think we might proceed in silence? Given that the entire rat nation is on the lookout for us, it might be prudent," said Ripred.

I do rather like this book. I think I would have adored it if I read it when I was younger. But even now I know that it's pretty good for those who are younger. I intend to lend it to a little friend of mine who is a bit too interested in The Hunger Games than she probably ought to be yet.