Let's Talk About the Kids

So... I have been crazy busy. I've still found time to read, because that's one of my relaxations & escapes, but I have been getting behind on reviews. So today you get a 2 for 1 deal! That's right - I'm going to review TWO books in ONE blog entry! Do you feel special? Because you are.

The two books I'm going to write about today are:

Museum of Thieves

and Radiance

Both of these books have been written for a middle-school aged audience. Both books felt appropriate for that age group.


I will look at Lian Tanner's Museum of Thieves first.


Tanner's book is a fantasy. It primarily follows the activities of Goldie, a young girl who is always getting in trouble in the over-protective society she lives in. The adults in the community, frightened by all of the horrible things that can't really be explained but just exist (i.e., plague, children dying, etc.), have allowed their freedoms to be quashed in order to be protected.


This book did a really good job of pointing out that kids need to be kids. That it's good for them to have enough freedom to find strength and have fun. That it's bad for them to feel like their life is in peril at every turn. For while bad things do occasionally happen, the good things don't often happen, either, if you only focus on protecting yourself.

I liked the characters in this book. I liked the world that Tanner created. I liked the messages, and I had fun reading this book.

Now, on to Radiance, written by Alyson Noel. You've probably heard of Noel's Evermore. It's the first in a series of books, none of which I have read, but which have sold well.

Radiance was my first Noel novel, and it was okay. I think it would mean more to the teens who have read Evermore and are avid fans of that series, as Radiance follows the adventures of Ever's younger sister Riley after the car crash that left Ever pretty much all alone in the world.

Riley is understandably upset that her life has been cut short because she wasted the time spent on Earth hounding her sister, and now she will never have boobs. That's kind of this book in a nutshell.

Riley is learning how to be dead, which is remarkably like being alive, except that you can materialize shit and have whatever kind of awesome wardrobe you want. Really, I found this book somewhat depressing.

"Don't worry about your life getting cut short. You still get to go to SCHOOL in heaven! & you get assigned a JOB! It's pretty much all of the soul-sucking shit people hate on Earth, but it's NEVER-ENDING because you're dead now!"

Yay?

Anyway, Riley was probably a realistic tween, which means that she got on my nerves. She was impulsive, disrespectful, and somehow, amazingly good at everything, anyway.

I don't really recommend Radiance unless you're a big fan of the Evermore Immortals series and want to round out your collection. It's okay, but I much preferred reading Museum of Thieves.

Both of these books are now on sale. Have you read them? What are your thoughts?