Supergifted by Gordon Korman, 2018

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Donovan Curtis has never been what anyone would call “gifted.” But his genius friend Noah Youkilis is actually supergifted, with one of the highest IQs around. After years at the Academy for Scholastic Distinction, all Noah dreams of is the opportunity to fail if he wants to. And he’s landed in the perfect place to do it—Donovan’s school.

Almost immediately, Noah finds himself on the wrong side of cheerleading captain Megan Mercury and alpha jock Hash “Hashtag” Taggart. Sticking up for Noah lands Donovan in the middle of a huge feud with Hashtag. He’s told to stay away from the sports star—or else.

That should be the end of it, but when a freak incident suddenly makes Donovan a hero, he can’t tell anyone about it since Hashtag is involved. So Noah steps in and becomes “Superkid.” Now he’s gone from nerd to titan at school. And it may have gone more than a little bit to his head.

(304 pages)

Anyone who has followed this blog for long knows that I am a huge fan of Gordon Korman's. I have read most of his backlog, and I make a point of reading every one of his new books as they come out. Ungifted, the prequel to Supergifted, is one of my absolute favorites of his books.  I'm not just saying that, either: I have literally given it to my friends as birthday presents more than once, because it's a funny and engaging read that I knew they would enjoy.

That being said, I obviously came into Supergifted with a lot of enthusiasm and very high expectations.

And it largely did deliver. I have to say that it doesn't quite reach the same level of awesomeness as Ungifted–it's a little less wackily original, and it sidelines a couple of my favorite characters–but it's still a fun read in its own right. Perhaps most importantly, it feels like a genuine continuation of the first book. I always hate when the tone changes from book to book, or when characters act completely different in later books. But Donovan's and Noah's stupid decisions ring completely true and realistic within the context of Ungifted, so I took them in stride and laughed at their ridiculousness rather than being bothered by them.

As I said, I didn't enjoy the book quite as much. I found myself getting rather annoyed by the characters at certain times,  and their dynamics were kind of strange. The storyline with how underappreciated Donovan is at home, and his strained relationship with his brother-in-law, was probably my least favorite. I also didn't appreciate that Rachel was sidelined and basically replaced with Megan.

All in all, I enjoyed reading Supergifted and I'm glad I had the chance to read it.  If you have the opportunity, and you read and enjoyed Ungifted, then I recommend that you check out Supergifted.

Head Strong by Dave Asprey, 2017

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From the creator of Bulletproof Coffee and author of the bestselling The Bulletproof Diet comes a revolutionary plan to upgrade your brainpower—in two weeks or less.

For the last decade, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dave Asprey has worked with world-renowned doctors and scientists to uncover the latest, most innovative methods for making humans perform better—a process known as "biohacking." In his first book, The Bulletproof Diet, he shared his biohacking tips for taking control of your own biology. Now, in Head Strong, Asprey shows readers how to biohack their way to a sharper, smarter, faster, more resilient brain.

(256 pages)

Oh, gosh.

I thought this was going to be a book with actual, science-proven methods for improving your brain function. There would be, like, brainteaser puzzles and healthy recipes and tips for staying focused and productive during the work-day.

As soon as I read a few pages in, though, I realized that this is pretty much the opposite of that. First, Asprey spends like half the book blathering on about how great this program is, how long it took him to put together and about how you, too, can soon be smart like me! I was annoyed, sure, but I flipped forward (it's definitely a flip-through sort of book) and read some of his actual advice. Basically, his entire strategy boils down to the mitochondria. Asprey argues that mitochondria control our brain function, and that we just have to boost our mitochondria to boost our brain function. His mitochondria-helping tips range from healthy food recipes to some sort of custom coffee (that his company sells, of course) to meditation.

Um, yeah. I smelled something stinky, so I set the book down and asked my father about it. He's a microbiologist, the kind of scientist it might have been helpful for Asprey to consult when he was coming up with his plan. Dad says that mitochondria are like the battery pack of life, that they power all parts of our body including our brain. But all of the stuff Asprey does literally has zero effect on the mitochondria. The only thing we can do to help our mitochondria out is to eat. And not just healthy food: mitochondria can use literally any food substance, except fiber, to make energy.

Suffice it to say that I will not be finishing Head Strong, nor will I recommend it to anyone. I suppose this is a good lesson to me in being careful, though: next time I agree to review a book that has to do with science, I'll be sure to look up its author first!

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book in order to participate in a TLC tour.

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine, 2006

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In the kingdom of Ayortha, who is the fairest of them all? Certainly not Aza. She is thoroughly convinced that she is ugly. What she may lack in looks, though, she makes up for with a kind heart, and with something no one else has-a magical voice. Her vocal talents captivate all who hear them, and in Ontio Castle they attract the attention of a handsome prince - and a dangerous new queen. In this masterful novel filled with humour, adventure, romance, and song, Newbery Honor author Gail Carson Levine invites you to join Aza as she discovers how exquisite she truly is.

(326 pages)

When I was younger, I absolutely adored Fairest. I liked it even more than I did Ella Enchanted, its more successful older sister, and I read it several times out of sheer love of the story.

Now that I'm older, I'm sad to see that this is yet another book that doesn't captivate me the way it used to. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's still good. I love the way Aza ruminates on beauty, inside and out. The juxtaposition of Aza and Ivi (both beautiful, but in different ways) is very striking, and I still love watching Aza interact with the gnome ZhamM, who is the mentor and friend that I wish every protagonist had. But the romance with Ijori, while sweet, is kind of cloying and almost rushed to me now (I guess because they don't have as many scenes together as I would have liked).

Really, I think now that I'm older I mainly just want the entire book to be longer. I want to delve further into the intricacies of court; I want a closer look at Aza's feelings of inadequacy and hideousness; I want a more subtle, beautiful relationship between Aza and Ijori that grows up over time; I want all this, plus more time with the fascinating and kind gnomes. I could happily have spent an entire book just in their underground home, exploring the lifestyle and political system that's so different from our own.

It's still a really good book, though, and I highly recommend it to any and all. If you liked Ella Enchanted, then you need to read Fairest; if you haven't read either book, then you definitely need to read both of them as soon as possible!

Which book do you like better, Ella Enchanted or Fairest? Let me know in the comments below.

Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia, 2015

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Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern are off to Alabama to visit their grandmother Big Ma and her mother, Ma Charles. Across the way lives Ma Charles’s half sister, Miss Trotter. The two half sisters haven’t spoken in years. As Delphine hears about her family history, she uncovers the surprising truth that’s been keeping the sisters apart. But when tragedy strikes, Delphine discovers that the bonds of family run deeper than she ever knew possible.
Powerful and humorous, this companion to the award-winning One Crazy Summer and P.S. Be Eleven will be enjoyed by fans of the first two books, as well as by readers meeting these memorable sisters for the first time.

(304 pages)

I didn't actually realize until after I'd finished it that Gone Crazy in Alabama is the third book in a trilogy. This somehow seems like very important information to me now, but while I was reading it I had no idea. I definitely doesn't feel like you're missing anything if you haven't read previous books, though I'm sure you are.

It's a good book, though a little convoluted at times. There are so many relatives that they learn about that I almost wanted to draw out a family tree to keep everyone straight. So many of the stories the girls learn are heartbreaking - like the man who had two wives and a different daughter with each, and the Native American woman whose father sold her husband (an escaped slave) and their children into slavery - and it's so sad to see how there's both a connect and a disconnect between family members that's so different from today's. Delphine's family roots are traced back into her great-great grandparents, and it's considered normal to have cousins that are really just second or third cousins that you treat like first cousins. At the same time, even though there's an intimacy in the accounting of who is a member of the family there's also a disconnect; for example, there's the white sheriff in town who's technically the girls' cousin (a real first cousin), but who still treats them like riffraff when they come into town. In a family where the color line is so blurred, where the main characters have bloodlines from three very different races, some still refuse to see their relatedness to others because of the outward difference in their skins. It's terrible.

I can't say that this was my favorite book in the world, both because it was very frustrating (in a life-isn't-fair sort of way) and because after a while I got sick of reading about so many imperfect and rather unhappy people. The threads of liberty versus prejudice run deep and are interesting to analyze through Delphine's eyes as she struggles to compare her free Northern upbringing with the repressed racism that faces her in Alabama. I don't know exactly how long ago the book is set (the Jackson Five were still performing, so maybe fifty years?), but it's sad to see that it definitely wasn't as long ago as I could have wished. Sad, and uncomfortable.

If you're interested in this book, then by all means read it. I'm not going to shove it down people's throats, and I don't know that I'll ever take the time to purposefully re-read it, but Gone Crazy in Alabama was a very interesting and enlightening read for me personally. It could be for you, too.

Curio by Evangeline Denmark, 2016

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Grey Haward has always detested the Chemists, the magicians-come-scientists who rule her small western town. But she has always followed the rules, taking the potion the Chemists ration out that helps the town’s people survive. A potion that Grey suspects she—like her grandfather and father—may not actually need.
By working at her grandfather’s repair shop, sorting the small gears and dusting the curio cabinet inside, Grey has tried to stay unnoticed—or as unnoticed as a tall, strong girl can in a town of diminutive, underdeveloped citizens. Then her best friend, Whit, is caught by the Chemists’ enforcers after trying to protect Grey one night, and after seeing the extent of his punishment, suddenly taking risks seems the only decision she can make.
But with the risk comes the reality that the Chemists know her family’s secret, and the Chemists soon decide to use her for their own purposes. Panicked, Grey retreats to the only safe place she knows—her grandfather’s shop. There, however, a larger secret confronts her when her touch unlocks the old curio cabinet in the corner and reveals a world where porcelain and clockwork people are real. There, she could find the key that may save Whit’s life and also end the Chemists’ dark rule forever.

(432 pages)

I'm a long-time fan of the author Donita K. Paul. Her DragonKeeper Chronicles are amazing - literally the best Christian fantasy I have ever read - and I've gobbled up tons of her books over the years. When I got a newsletter telling me that her daughter Evangeline had a book coming out, and that it was steampunk dystopian, I was excited. Then I saw the gorgeous cover and I was completely hooked.

It was available on BookLook Bloggers, a review program I'm a part of, but the copies were snapped up so fast that when I went to request it the day it became available, they were already out of hard copies. I hate reading ebooks unless I absolutely have to, so I sent a semi-begging email to Blink. I got a lovely email back letting me know that I would be getting a copy in the mail, asking whether I would like to interview the author, and just all-around being so nice and welcoming to me that it made me feel even more warm and fuzzy about the book than I already did. That was literally the most pleasant interaction I've ever had with a publishing company! Plus, they sent me a gorgeous hard-back copy instead of an ARC or even just a regular paperback. When I pulled that beauty out of the package my heart just about stopped.

The trouble started once I actually cracked open the cover. And I'm absolutely heartbroken to say it, but . . . Curio was really bad. And the terrible thing is that I actually really love the premise - even now, having read the book and kind of hated it, I'm still excited about the premise because I feel like Denmark really had some really awesome material to go on. She came up with a fascinating scenario, with the tocks and the porcies and the entire world full of fully-animated, living dolls. The entire dystopian backstory to everything sounded really cool too, and the writing was quite good - though I kind of lost track of all the myriad side-characters running around - and, with a few rounds of judicious edits, the book could have come out really well.

I'm not talking about editing for grammar or anything like that - Denmark is a competent writer, there's really nothing lacking there, though I wouldn't have minded a few more paragraphs explaining the dystopian setting before diving into the story. But no, what I would really focus on removing are all the lust scenes. Like, seriously. In Grey's community there's some rule (that really doesn't make any sense, to be perfectly honest) that forbids males and females from standing within a few feet of each other. Literally from the first chapter - when a childhood friend picks her up to protect her from a pack of wolves - every single time she touches a man Grey starts obsessing about it. Every. Single. Time. Her heart starts racing, she starts focusing on the touch of his skin, she forgets whatever super-important thing she's in the middle of and just starts thinking about that person's eyes. And I'll be straight with you: it's not just Grey who gets carried away with her lustful instincts. Whit does too, and so does a character who comes into the story later (whom I don't want to name for fear of spoilers). People who barely know each other randomly start passionately kissing, but it's supposed to be okay because we know that the kissing obviously means that they are meant to be a good match for each other - they're soul mates or something, never mind the fact that they have no idea whether they even have anything in common other than some hormonal urges.

But honestly. I don't really like reading a book where I get the feeling that if you left the two main characters alone together in a room for more than ten minutes you'd come back to find them, ahem, getting it on. I legitimately think that the self-control in all of these characters is so low that they could not deny the urge to take it all the way and sleep together if other pressing matters didn't keep them preoccupied most of the time. And that is really not a pleasant impression to have of the protagonists of a story.

Plus, I'll just add, there's some really creepy goings-on amongst the porcies, including a lord who we're told cycles through mistresses and who actually tries to rape Grey at one point. I wasn't such a huge fan of that, either, for obvious reasons.

Basically, if all those pages of racing heartbeats and trembling kisses and creepy hands-on-skirts had been deleted from the book, it would have been a very entertaining read; as it is, though, I struggled to get past all of the troubling parts and through to the meat of the story. I almost DNF'd about halfway through, actually, but I decided I was still interested enough in the core story to see it through to the end. I can't say I'd highly recommend this book to anyone, but I am interested to see what Denmark comes out with in the future; she's definitely inherited that knack for creating fascinating worlds from her mother, and if she would just stop giving her characters so many hormones she could easily write some quality fiction.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Jinx by Sage Blackwood, 2013

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In the Urwald, you don’t step off the path. Trolls, werewolves, and butter-churn riding witches lurk amid the clawing branches, eager to swoop up the unwary. Jinx has always feared leaving the path—then he meets the wizard Simon Magus.
Jinx knows that wizards are evil. But Simon’s kitchen is cozy, and he seems cranky rather than wicked. Staying with him appears to be Jinx’s safest, and perhaps only, option. As Jinx’s curiosity about magic grows, he learns to listen to the trees as closely as he does to Simon’s unusual visitors. The more Jinx discovers, the more determined he becomes to explore beyond the security of well-trod paths. But in the Urwald, a little healthy fear is never out of place, for magic—and magicians—can be as dangerous as the forest, and soon Jinx must decide which is the greater threat.
Sage Blackwood introduces a daring new hero for an innovative new world as Jinx is joined by friends, battles enemies, and discovers life beyond—and even within—the forest is more complex than he can imagine, and that the Urwald itself needs him more than he could ever guess.

(368 pages)

Now this is a book that I so totally regret not reading sooner.

I mean, seriously. I read all those rave reviews on Goodreads when it first came out, but it just sort of slid under my radar. Yay to my new library, though, because it was sitting on a shelf right at my eye-level! I snapped it up and brought it home, and read it in a grand total of two hours - I know, I'm a hopeless speed-reader. But to be fair, this was a really awesome book and I just couldn't put it down.

It reminds me of a lot of different book series I've read, in the best possible way. I can't go into all of the similarities (both because that would take forever, and because then I'd pretty much spoil the entire book), but here are some of the series it particularly reminded me of: the Magic Thief series by Sarah Prineas, the Trelian books by Michelle Knudson, the Half Upon a Time trilogy by James Riley, and the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede. You'd think, with all this similarity to other series, that the Jinx books would have been dry and cliche - they weren't, though. Blackwood does a marvelous job of keeping everything fresh, inserting twists to the formula until the basic premise only feels comfortably familiar, rather than boring.

The wizard Simon is my favorite kind of character: he's all grumpy and mean on the surface, but then he's also kind to Jinx in ways that make you think he's actually really nice inside. He basically adopted Jinx as a six-year-old and "raised him" (if you can call it that when he had him keep house all those years). Jinx very obviously loves Simon very much, and while he never once refers to Simon as his father-figure throughout the entire trilogy, it's very clear that this is essentially how he perceives him. That's what makes Jinx struggle so much with what Simon does in Jinx, and why I honestly struggle with it as well. I can't talk about that, though, because of spoilers.

I love Jinx, too, even though he's a little bit more of a stock character in the first book. By the end of the trilogy, though, I love how he develops away from the usual underdog hero trope and, rather than turning into the charismatic heroes of many of the series I listed above, becomes very grumpy and blunt and awesome as he constantly loses his patience with people. It's hard to describe Jinx's personality development, but it's fantastic to read.

Basically, this is a really great book. I enjoyed the second and third Jinx books as well, but it's this first one that holds the true magic. Go on, check it out. If you're anything like me, you'll gobble it up in one sitting - and then immediately request both sequels.