Tag Archives: YA

Review | The Dragon Turn, Shane Peacock

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The Dragon Turn is the fifth book in Shane Peacock’s Boy Sherlock Holmes series, and the first one I’ve read. I’m a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, so reading a book about a teenage version of him will either be an absolute delight or an absolute disaster, depending on how Peacock chooses to portray him. I was also worried I might’ve outgrown YA adaptations of older characters. For example, I used to devour The Nancy Drew Notebooks, the Starfleet Academy series, even the Young Jedi Knights series. Now, while I still like YA, I’ve felt no desire to go back to those books.

I really liked Dragon Turn. Its mystery is more mystical (it involves a dragon) than I expected a Sherlock Holmes story to be, but, like all Holmes stories, presents a logical solution. A magician called the Wizard of Nottingham is killed. All that’s left of him are his blood and spectacles in the office of his professional and romantic rival Hemsworth. The climax of Hemsworth’s act involves a dragon, which offers a possible, gruesome explanation to the disappearance of the Wizard’s corpse.

Peacock’s Sherlock is a highly intelligent, logical fifteen year old, who already has plans of becoming a detective when he gets older but who, in the meantime, just wants to keep a low profile. He’s half-Jewish, and so faces discrimination, which may explain part of his desire to remain below the radar. So, rather than take credit for mystery solving, Sherlock feeds information to Lestrade, a young police officer intent on impressing his Inspector father. I love this characterization of Sherlock and young Lestrade. The adult Holmes is such a confident, almost arrogant man, and I love seeing this younger version of him as more vulnerable, insecure and self-conscious. He’s sympathetic in a much different way from the adult Holmes, yet he maintains the intelligence and logic that so characterize Holmes as a detective.

I also enjoyed seeing Lestrade as a young man longing for approval. I was expecting either a bumbling, incompetent Lestrade or an absolute bully, so I was pleasantly surprised to see him so sympathetic. He’s still incompetent as a detective, but his desire to impress his father casts a whole new light on his approach towards detecting.

Peacock even gives Sherlock a love life, which I don’t usually enjoy in mysteries, but which I liked here. Romance also prompts a reluctant Sherlock to get involved in the Wizard’s case. Sherlock’s girlfriend Irene Doyle (who, I presume, will grow up to marry a Mr. Adler and later become The Woman in Holmes’ life) was promised a boost in her stage career by Hemsworth, so she convinces Sherlock to help prove Hemsworth’s innocence. It’s a complicated case, and soon even Sherlock isn’t sure about what really happened to the Wizard. I did figure out the answer before the big reveal, but then the book is aimed at readers much younger than I am (never mind how much younger), so that’s really nothing to brag about. (I’m still bragging, though. I almost never guess the answer before the big reveal!) Still, Peacock pieces together the puzzle well, and I loved seeing Sherlock before he became the infallible detective we all know.

Dragon Turn is a wonderful book. I think its target audience (ages 10 – 14) will love it for its adventure, mystery and characters, and, as an older reader, I enjoyed it for the way Peacock wrote Sherlock Holmes. On a minor note, I much prefer Beatrice Leckie to the more worldly and manipulative Irene Doyle. As far as I know, Beatrice is a wholly Peacock-created character, and she’s just a lovely Betty Cooper-type character, and I’m crossing my fingers that Sherlock will eventually end up with her, if only in Boy Sherlock Holmes.

Review: Blood Red Road, Moira Young

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I’d heard that Moira Young’s Blood Red Road was very similar to The Hunger Games, so as a Hunger Games fan, I was eager to check it out. There are certainly similarities: Blood Red Road also takes place in a dystopian future, the heroine Saba is an archer like Katniss, and Saba has to compete in a gladiator style Cage Match to the death like Katniss has to survive in the Hunger Games. Overall, however, I don’t think Blood Red Road quite matches up, at the very least in terms of the breadth of social commentary in Hunger Games. While Hunger Games delivers a scathing portrayal of contemporary society’s obsession with consumerism and voyeurism, Blood Red Road reads more like a straightforward action-adventure story, with its social commentary focused on the dangers of drug addiction.

That being said, Blood Red Road is still a very good book. It has a heroine much fiercer than Katniss, UFC-style fight scenes, language that reminded me of the dialogue in The Grapes of Wrath and a landscape and drug culture that reminded me of Dune. Saba’s twin brother Lugh (the “light” to Saba’s “shadow”) is kidnapped and Saba sets off to rescue him. Along the way, she is captured and forced to compete in no-holds-barred cage fighting, where she earns the nickname Angel of Death: when she fights, the “red hot” takes over and she can’t lose. People are addicted to chaal, a drug controlled by a King, and this addiction makes them either suppliant or, after a certain point, filled with bloodlust (hence the need for deathly cage fights). Saba also encounters a group of young female warrior rebels and a handsome young thief called Jack.

Young writes well. This type of writing (filled with intentional misspellings and grammatical errors) usually grates on me, but, as with Patrick Ness’ Chaos Walking trilogy, I thought it worked here. Blood Red Road is a fast-paced, action-packed, exciting read. It’s already been optioned for a motion picture by Ridley Scott, and I can certainly imagine some of the scenes playing out on screen. The secondary characters are well developed and likable. I especially liked Jack, who is charming, funny and sweet. Saba’s younger sister Emmi is usually the kind of character I’d hate in books and movies, the kid who always gets involved in things and so has to be rescued several times. But I really felt for Emmi in this book, and I think it has a lot to do with my major problem with the book: Saba.

I liked Saba as a narrator, but I don’t really like her as a person. I do like that her survival instinct is so strong that she dominates the cage fights. I also like that she is so devoted to her brother, even though it’s clear (Jack even tells her so) that she puts him on too high a pedestal. We do see her vulnerability at times, and also her protective instinct toward Emmi.

Thing is, as one character says, Saba is “prickly.” Beyond that, she can be downright mean, especially to Emmi. A lot of the time, other characters were offering Saba help and friendship and she kept turning them away, preferring to be a lone wolf even when it wasn’t practical. She has to be forced to accept help, and for me, at least, she hadn’t shown enough of her vulnerability to make this anything but annoying.

I was most annoyed by Saba’s relationship with Jack. It followed a standard “I hate you (but secretly I love you)” type love story. But after a while, Saba’s insistence that she really, really hates Jack just felt forced, like the author just wanted to stretch it out just a bit longer. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t really see why Saba was so defensive, unlike in Hunger Games, for example, where I could really understand how Katniss’ society had made her so defensive and afraid to trust anyone.

Overall, however, Blood Red Road is a really good book. Definitely worth checking out for fans of The Hunger Games or Divergent or kick-ass heroines and dystopian fiction in general.

Interview with Switch author Tish Cohen

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Hey all! Last month, I got to participate in Harper Collins Canada’s blog tour for Switch, Tish Cohen‘s contemporary take on the classic Freaky Friday tale. What if you could live someone else’s life? Whose would it be? As I said in my review, I love the book, and I was impressed by how real it felt, despite the fantastical premise.

Thanks to Shannon at Harper Collins Canada, I even got a chance to ask Tish some questions! Lots of interesting answers, and best of all, good news for any readers like me, who wanted Joules to get more page time (Check out Question 6!). Enjoy!

1.      Why did you decide to stick to Andrea’s POV instead of switching between her and Joules?

I found Andrea’s point of view to be the most interesting. Her situation at home-being the only natural children of foster parents-intrigued me.

2.      I love the character of Gran. Did you base her on anyone in your own life?

I based Gran on my mother.

3.      I love that Gran gives unusual, one-of-a-kind gifts, like gloves from a fortune teller on a road in Africa. What was the most unusual gift you’ve received?

The sparkly feathered magic gloves from the book.  They were actually given to me by my mother for Christmas two years ago.

4.      In Switch, you deal a lot with the difficulties of growing up in a foster family. What interested you about foster parenting? And what in particular interested you about the only non-foster child in a foster family?

I am fascinated by the generosity of people who take in foster children. I am also fascinated by what it would be like to have your brothers and sisters constantly coming and going from your life.

5.      If you could have any famous rock star to be your father, who would it be and why?

David Bowie. He could sing Cat People to me as a lullaby.

6.      I found Joules such a compelling character, and I think she ends up having to go through even more drastic changes than Andrea does by the end of the book. Do you have any plans for a sequel, this time from Joules’ perspective?

Yes I do.