Reviewed by Hanna

“That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. She meant to bestow a gift. When I cried inconsolably through my first hour of life, my tears were her inspiration. Shaking her head sympathetically at Mother, the fairy touched my nose. ‘My gift is obedience. Ella will always be obedient. Now stop crying, child.’ I stopped. So begins this richly entertaining story of Ella of Frell, who wants nothing more than to be free of Lucinda’s gift and feel that she belongs to herself. For how can she truly belong to herself if she knows that at any time, anyone can order her to hop on one foot, cut off her hand, or betray her kingdom-and she’ll have to obey? Against a bold tapestry of princes, ogres, giants, wicked stepsisters, and fairy godmothers, Ella’s spirited account of her quest to break the curse is a funny, poignant, and enchanting tale about an unforgettable heroine who is determined to be herself.”

I first picked up Gail Carson Levine’s Newbery Honor book, Ella Enchanted when I was thirteen. Since that first spellbound encounter, I have probably re-read the book fifteen times.

I still reach for this little masterpiece when I am feeling down, when I am unaccountably happy, when I am nostalgic, and when I find that another book is simply not doing it for me. Why? Because it changed my life. And continues to do so every time I read it.

Ella Enchanted is the story of Cinderella turned topsy-turvey and upside-down. It is a clever reworking of a classic tale that makes the original seem dull. And if you read it, it will teach you everything you need to know about life.

Here are the top ten things I learned from Ella Enchanted:

10.) Obedience can be a major curse.
9.) You should never trifle with mushrooms. They’ll make you act very strangely.
8.) The real Prince Charmings are the ones who write you beautiful letters while they are away in foreign countries.
7.) If you know someone who is a magically good cook, investigate. They might be your fairy godmother.
6.) If you are sent away to finishing school, and the boy you like indignantly demands to know why-”since there was nothing wrong with you to start with”-you can pretty much be assured that he’s a winner.
5.) When life hands you ogres, learn to speak Ogrese.
4.) Never trust a girl who chatters like a monkey and eats like an elephant.
3.) If you are going on a journey, you only need to bring five things: a book, a shawl, Tonic, a language dictionary-and a stolen wig to sell for food.
2.) You can never just watch your true love; you’ll always end up talking to him in the end.
1.) With enough determination, strength, love, and willpower, you can do anything; even break a curse.

But really. Ella Enchanted is an astonishing story of self-actualization, written in succinct, image-rich language, containing a wealth of knowledge about friendship, love, struggle, and inner-strength. It is a work of great imagination-truly enchanting from cover to cover. And every single one of us who writes or reads YA can learn a few things from Levine’s masterfully concise prose.

This book isn’t just for young girls-it’s for everyone. Although, guys: if you lack reckless confidence, you might consider reading it with something over the front cover.

HarperCollins Children’s Books has bought a new young adult series about an exiled angel. World rights to the series, by Rebecca Lim, were bought by Lisa Berryman, publisher at HC Australia and Rachel Denwood, publishing director at HC UK, for an undisclosed sum.

The first book in the series, Mercy, will be published simultanously in the UK and Australia in November. The publisher described the book as being about an exiled angel called Mercy, who is cast out of heaven after “taking Lucifer’s side in the great celestial battle”. The publisher said: “In each book she will assume a new human persona and be tasked with solving a series of earthly mysteries as she seeks to atone and win back her place in the
heavens.”

Berryman said: “The electric combination of angels and mystery makes Mercy one of the most exciting and compelling books I have read in a long time.” Denwood added: “Mercy is a superb addition to our strong young adult portfolio. Winningly high-concept, stylishly written, and with an utterly enthralling girl character at its heart, it will strike a chord with lovers of supernatural fiction and those teens who enjoy a really good mystery. “We’re delighted this lost angel has found a home at HarperCollins!”

Taken from the Bookseller.

This sounds like an incredibly intriguing series, don’t you think? It’s out on 28th October and here’s the full synopsis:

There’s something very wrong with me. I can’t remember who I am or how old I am, or even how I got here. All I know is that when I wake up, I could be any one. It is always this way. There’s nothing I can keep with me that will stay. It’s made me adaptable. I must always re-establish ties. I must tread carefully or give myself away. I must survive. Mercy doesn’t realise it yet, but as she journeys into the darkest places of the human soul, she discovers that she is one of the celestial host exiled with fallen angel, Lucifer. Now she must atone for taking his side. To find her own way back to heaven, Mercy must help a series of humans in crisis and keep the unwary from getting caught up in the games that angels play. Ultimately she must choose between her immortal companion, Lucifer, and a human boy who risks everything for her love.

Reviewed by Hanna

I recently finished reading Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron, a YA fantasy flavored with darkness, dystopia, and a touch of Steampunk. As Mary Quattlebaum of the Washington Post says, “…nothing, including the final scene, is as it seems in this eerie, elegant fantasy…Intricately plotted and richly imagined, this novel holds the attention as inexorably as Incarceron holds its prisoners.”

As you may have deduced, Incarceron-for which the book is titled-is a prison. And it is alive. Finn is a prisoner within it, and as he struggles to find a way to escape, he also wrestles with his conviction that, unlike most everyone else inside the hellish and endless Incarceron, he is from Outside. And when he finds a crystal key which doubles as a highly technical communication device, he begins to uncover the truth-and it is stranger than he ever imagined.

Claudia Arlexa is the daughter of the cold and calculating Warden of Incarceron. Outside, bound by a society intentionally stuck in a world without any progress-imprisoned by what the rulers call Protocol-she is desperate to escape her own prison: a life of manipulation (and marriage) at court. And when she steals her father’s crystal key, a copy of Finn’s inside the prison, she begins to uncover a web of lies and deceit that lead her to shocking truths… about everything she has ever considered certain.

Not only is the book fresh and dazzlingly original, it is stacked with layers of depth. While the plights of Claudia and Finn arrest the reader to the point of making the book almost unputdownable, Fisher builds up her fantasy world with a masterful hand, and sows in subtle hints of philosophy; questioning freedom, faith, self-understanding, and the presence of good an evil within each individual. While archetypal figures are sprinkled in as secondaries (ie., the Sorceress Queen, the obsession-driven Mentor, the foolish Prince, and the kind Scholar), Finn and Claudia are new types altogether, and raw enough to be quite real. Finn, for example, is a compulsive liar with a good heart; while Claudia is cunning and several times described as “haughty”. Neither one is portrayed as entirely good, and yet they are presented as the protagonists with which the reader should identify.

By both defying and embracing archetypes, Fisher creates a story that is surprising even without plot twists. (And be assured: there are still plenty of those.) The prose is sinuous, glittering, even breathtaking at times, making each sentence a pleasure to read. The book ends with a clear path pointing toward a sequel, but it still stands alone well enough. For those readers with darker tastes, this book is a wonderful choice. It hints vaguely at a Hunger Games-type feel, with its mix of old-fashioned atmosphere and high-technology, and should therefore appeal also to Steampunk and dystopian junkies. (Comparable authors include Garth Nix, Suzanne Collins, Nancy Farmer, and Scott Westerfeld.)

Though the United States only published the book this past January, Incarceron has been a worldwide, award-winning success since 2007; and its sequel, Sapphique, since 2008. Sapphique will be published in the U.S. by Dial Books this coming December.

A lot of classic books are currently getting fangs and things and another classic to be relaunched with vampires is Louisa May Alcott’s classic Little Women. Now titled Little Vampire Women and written by Lynn Messina this book is out now in the USA and releases in the UK on 5th August. I haven’t read the original and although I don’t know if I totally agree with making the vampirish, it is every so slightly original. What do you think? Yay or Nay to classics being revamped?

The classic novel of love and family in the nineteenth century has grown some fangs! An uproarious retelling of Little Women that will leave readers craving the bloodthirsty drama on every page. Readers will be agog and aghast at the hilarity of the March sisters’ vampire transformation - especially now that Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy have (much) longer lives and (much) more ravenous appetites. When a classic is perfect, there is only one thing that can make it better: folding in a breed of monsters! With vampires thrown in the mix, readers will love the darkly hilarious twist on the beloved story of the March girls.

Hodder bites into three Vampire Diaries prequels Hodder Children’s Books is to publish three new titles in L J Smith’s Vampire Diaries series, which is currently being televised on ITV2 in the UK.

The new books by L J Smith will be prequels to the original books and will be called Vampire Diaries: ­Stefan’s Diaries. Hodder has seen a dramatic rise in L J Smith’s sales across a number of her series, with her sales topping £3.2m in 2009 and reaching £1.2m so far this year.

The demand for gothic romance YA fiction led Hodder to republish a number of L J Smith’s titles from its backlist. These included the first four Vampire Diaries titles, which it published in 2001. Hodder also first published L J Smith’s Nightworld series in 1997 and the Secret Circle titles in 2002, relaunching both series in 2009 and 2010.

Vampire Diary fans, what do you think?? The first in the series is due out in November this year with the second due out in January 2011. There’s no release date for the third yet. It also appears that the third book in Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight has been delayed until November 2011 which is rather odd and unfortunate.

Fortune by Megan Cole appears as if it’s going to be a BIG summer hit with teens everywhere. It’s being billed as a “snog-buster” and I am so pre-ordering it before it’s July 8th release. It has a fab cover and really sounds like a must read. Here’s it’s synopsis:

Step into the world of the mega-rich! and the mega-bitches. For anyone who loves watching The Hills or reading Katie Price, here’s the book that takes the blockbusting beach read and upgrades it to first class. Brad Masters is rich. Very, very rich. CEO of the Perfect Cut record label, he owns properties in the Med, the Florida Keys, New York and London. He flies a private jet, drives a collection of supercars and walks nowhere, if he can help it. But there’s one thing missing: although he has a string of girlfriends, he doesn’t have an heir. And with his sixties rapidly approaching, Brad can no longer convince himself he’s immortal! What Brad does have is a past full of indiscretions — and that includes the three women, in three different countries, who gave birth to his three illegitimate daughters. None of them have any claim on him, of course. He paid them off years ago. But that was then, and this is now. As his sixtieth birthday looms, Brad sends off three very special invitations to his party. The question is — which daughter will he choose?

Reviewed by Leah.

Claire and her mum don’t have the best of relationships and the only way in which they actually appear to communicate with each other is via the medium of the refrigerator door in the form of notes. The fact is Claire is far too busy being a teenager - out with friends, having a boyfriend and generally just having a life - whereas her mother is far too busy working to provide for herself and her daughter. Which means that their only method of communication is indeed on their refrigerator door. But one day, one note is going to turn Claire and her mums world completely upside down…

These days most of my book recommendations come from Amazon and Life on the Refrigerator Door is no exception. I’ve got no idea what I was looking at at the time but Life on the Refrigerator Door popped up as I was scrolling through books Amazon recommend and I fell in love with the hot pink cover. I also thought it sounded like a fab read partcularly since the last book I read to be written in a similar style was Cecelia Ahern’s book Where Rainbows End which I really enjoyed. I then helped a friend with her site and I picked this with the money I got figuring that the worst that could happen that I wouldn’t like it.

I must admit that I do feel a little cheated by the book. It’s 226 pages long but it’s absolutely not 226 pages full of writing. Because the book is told in notes there’s only one note per page and some of the notes are only a few lines long so I managed to finish the book in under an hour. It is a unique way of trying to tell a story but to be honest, after finishing it, I’m still not totally convinced it worked. I mean the quotes from the magazines say it’s “heartbreaking” and “guaranteed to make me cry” but I never felt either of those emotions whilst reading the book.

The idea of a mother and daughter being so far apart that they only communicate via notes is actually pretty sad. What mother or daughter cannot find the time to talk to each other for at least an hour a day? And, to be honest, the notes don’t even really have a ring of truth to them. They seem forced - despite the fact Claire doodles all over her drawings which is obviously an attempt from the author to get us to be able to know Claire a bit better and to make her more real to us. But for me it didn’t really work. I mean I’ve seen all the reviews everywhere saying the book is fab but I just didn’t get what was supposed to be so good about the book apart from the fact I managed to read it in an hour.

I have to say that even the life-changing note wasn’t really enough to make the book as good as I’d have liked. It again seemed rather forced and it was as if it was thrown in there to make the book more dramatic than it actually was. Also the lack of talking between Claire and her mum about the life-changing thing was shocking. They barely mentioned it and when it did come up, they avoided the subject like the plague. It really just seemed so unreal and there was no depth to the plot or to the characters. It could have been so much better had the author decided to put in some actual pages of words along with the notes rather than just a book full of notes. Unique it may have been but enjoyable it certainly wasn’t.

I have to admit that I’ve never read any of Louise Rennison’s books. There. I said it. I have, however, heard lots of fantastic things about her. So when I heard about her new series I decided to buy the first book when it’s released. Withering Tights (I LOVE the title) is due out on July 8th and I actually can’t wait so I can get my first taste of Louise’s brilliance. Here’s what it’s about:

The misadventures of Tallulah Casey! Hilarious new series from Queen of Teen — laugh your tights off at the (VERY) amateur dramatic antics of Talullah and her bonkers mates. Boys, snogging and bad acting guaranteed! Picture the scene: Dother Hall performing arts college somewhere Up North, surrounded by rolling dales, bearded cheesemaking villagers (male and female) and wildlife of the squirrely-type. On the whole, it’s not quite the showbiz experience Tallulah was expecting! but once her mates turn up and they start their ‘FAME! I’m gonna liiiiive foreeeeeever, I’m gonna fill my tiiiiights’ summer course things are bound to perk up. Especially when the boys arrive. (When DO the boys arrive?) Six weeks of parent-free freedom. BOY freedom. Freedom of expression! cos it’s the THEATRE dahling, theatre!!

Luisa Plaja’s third book Swapped By A Kiss came out early last week - I’m expecting my copy to arrive any day now - and I thought it was definitely the type of book to kick off the site! It’s a sorta-sequel to the fab Split By A Kiss (review coming soon) and I just can’t wait to read it! Here’s what it’s about:

Rachel hates her life and everyone in it - she even has suspicions that her on/off boyfriend David might not be entirely trustworthy. However, when David invites her to a music festival in England featuring their friend’s band, she jumps at the chance for an overseas adventure. Hoping to surprise David, Rachel arrives at the festival early, where she runs into a nasty surprise of her own - she sees David kissing their friend Jo. Distraught, Rachel runs off, wishing she could leave her life behind…the next thing she knows, she’s back with David. But not as herself…She’s now in Jo’s body! Can she keep the swap a secret from David until she can work out exactly what’s going on and get her revenge? Over the course of a very weird weekend, Rachel puts herself in someone else’s shoes and finds that her own maybe weren’t as uncomfortable as she’d always thought. But can she ever be herself again?

Welcome to the official launch of Pretty Little Young Adult Books! I’ve been working on the site for two weeks solid gathering contributors and reviews and things and although we’re not totally there, we have enough to be able to launch the site! Much like my Chick Lit Review site I want Pretty Little YA Books to be the YA equivalent with news, reviews, interviews and maybe even competitions at some point.

Our team currently consists of a mixture of teenagers and adults who all love YA fiction and we are: Leah (me), Katie, Nicole, Kate, Hanna, Heather and Amber. We’re based in the UK, USA & Europe and will hopefully cater to all book tastes! We are still looking for more contributors so if you’re interested email us at: [email protected].

So… Hello from us all and we hope you enjoy the site!