New Release Spotlight: City of Glass

City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

The final installment of Cassandra Clare’s breakout Mortal Instruments series goes above and beyond the normal plot twists of other young adult urban fantasies. In the first two books of the series, City of Bones and City of Ashes, Clare put a new spin to life in New York and all the things that go bump in the night—specifically with the world of Shadowhunters, humans gifted by angels to protect the world from the demons who threaten to destroy it. But what if that threat is another Shadowhunter, one believed to be long dead?

Clary Fray, a sixteen-year-old girl who has just discovered her strange ties to the world of Shadowhunting, must travel to Idris in order to save the life of her mother from Valentine, a warrior who years before had led the darkest revolt ever experienced against the government of Shadowhunters, the Clave. A Shadowhunter who let his hate turn him into something dark and unbending. A man who is also her father. In her journey, Clary uncovers the dark secrets of her family, learns of another plot against the Clave, and struggles with her forbidden love for Jace. Jace, the blond warrior who first drew her into this world, the boy she would do anything for, her brother. But Clary’s life is about to get even more complicated as she gravitates toward the mysterious Sebastian, another Shadowhunter who always seems to have the information Clary needs and whose dark eyes hold untold secrets that will forever shape Clary’s world.

While the many ups and downs of Clary’s bizarre family relationships makes a reader wonder how this girl isn’t in therapy, Clare is able to keep the turmoil heartbreakingly easy to relate to. At this point, Clary has gone through every emotion imaginable since realizing that Jace is her brother, an idea that would be so simple for the reader to be turned off about. But Clare has built up these complex characters in such a way that it is difficult not to sympathize with them and hope for a good outcome. Each character is utterly unique and has a distinctive subplot which fleshes out the otherwise strange reality Clare has thrust her characters into.

One of the many aspects in this work that sets it apart from other urban fantasies, besides the creative plot and engaging characters, is the unique quality of the dialogue. Clare is able to perfectly balance emotional upheaval with witty sarcasm in a way that makes it difficult not to read this book without a smile, or even a smirk: “You’re not happy to see me, then?” Jace said. “I have to say, I’m surprised. I’ve always been told my presence brightened up any room. One might think that went doubly for dank underground cells.”

While an excellent ending to an amazing series, Clare leaves enough mystery in the end to allow not only for the reader’s imagination, but for the possibility of her continuing the work at a later time. Unfortunately, the wait might be a long one; Clare is currently working on another series, one that takes place in the same world of the Shadowhunters, but centuries prior to the Mortal Instruments series.

Review by Kim Greenberg, Indigo Editing & Publications

City of Glass
Publisher: McElderry Books
ISBN: 978-1-4169-1430-3
Hardcover: $17.99

New Release Spotlight: Wolves of the Crescent Moon

Wolves of the Crescent Moon, by Yousef Al-Mohaimeed

It’s hard not to talk about the Middle East at this time, the fifth anniversary of the war. That’s not true, of course. It’s quite easy to speak instead of bills and chores, upcoming vacations, what we saw on television last night, our own private and community battles. Life appears still to be life, for most of us.

Yousef Al-Mohaimeed’s novel Wolves of the Crescent Moon is an important book, especially at this time. It’s not about the war, it’s not even set in Iraq or Afghanistan—this story takes place in Saudi Arabia—but it focuses readers on that closely interwoven region and on the individuals there. It’s one thing to encourage a Western audience to relate to a Middle Eastern version of well-done chick lit; it’s quite another with what Al-Mohaimeed does.

Turad is a Bedouin who used to be a thief, until he and his partner were caught. Their intended victims buried them up to their necks and left them. Turad had a special relationship with animals, so when a wolf sniffed them out, the wolf ate Turad’s partner and then curled up asleep under Turad’s chin. Overcome with sadness and relief, Turad cannot contain “the decisive and terrible moment” when a tear “moved slowly down the side of his nose, slid over his dry cheek, and trickled around the edge of his mustache before it dripped suddenly, tantalizingly, onto the wolf’s face.” The animal leaps up and rips off Turad’s left ear, leaving him to a life of unique misery.

Amm Tawfiq served tea and coffee with Turad at the Saudi ministry. He responds to Turad with, “You’ve lost your ear, man, but the real problem is when someone loses his life and his future, his happiness and his stability”—Tawfiq was taken by slave traders, after staying on the run in the jungle and in the urban slum for more than a month, and turned into a eunuch. And finally Turad learns of an orphan, abandoned outside a mosque and suffering injury and disease. He and his mother are named by officials consulting “the list of official names for newborn males and the list for Mothers.”

“Imagine that your father and grandfather and mother all had made-up names, that you were given a made-up life, like a hero in a film or novel,” Turad narrates. “The name is nothing like people’s real names in this infernal city. It stretches out like a wild endless track, like a dark corridor in which you can’t see anything, not even your hand. There’s no goddamn definite article at the end…How can you be made definite…if you are indefinite?”

This is a novel of much sadness, but it’s not depressive, and the stories are so unique—beyond merely dating experiences that differ from Western custom or coming-of-age in a different kind of mall—yet the emotion so universally human that it’s a page-turner.

Review by Kristin Thiel, Indigo Editing, LLC

ISBN: 978-0-14-311321-8
Publisher: Penguin
Pub Date: December 2007
Paperback: $14.00

New Release Spotlight: House Rules

House Rules, by Rachel Sontag

“The things we loved about Dad were the things we could predict.” In one simple sentence, Rachel Sontag captures the root of House Rules, a striking memoir about living in family dysfunction.

Family dysfunction is a black cloud that always threatens a torrential storm. It’s hard to live with, it’s hard to read about, and it’s hard to write about. Yet, Rachel Sontag writes about the dark topic in a way that entices readers to take House Rules along for a Sunday afternoon in the park.

On the surface, Rachel’s family seems normal—Mom, Dad, two kids, nice house, sunny family vacations. But Rachel’s father makes their family far from normal. He’s controlling, obsessively. Curfew must be met, no matter if it’s by bussing, walking, or hitchhiking. He’s paranoid, believing his dying mother is upset because Rachel slandered him to her and that his wife wants to divorce him because Rachel brainwashed her. To keep his wife from believing their presumably evil daughter, he puts her on so much Lithium she moves through the world as if a zombie.

As Rachel attempts to cope, she finds herself hating her mother’s lack of control more than her father’s obsession with it. “Mom’s disinterest in questioning uncomfortable territory was the single most frightening quality I could see in a woman.” Rachel becomes rebellious, challenging the arbitrary rules that bind her and searching for attention, any kind of attention, that will give her an escape.

Peppered with profound statements of emotional clarity, House Rules articulates what few people can say but most feel. “It’s never loneliness that nibbles away at a person’s insides,” she says, “but not having room inside themselves to be comfortably alone.” Readers are caught in downpours of the desire to be loved and the desperation to get away, until Rachel breaks free at last. “At some point something shifts and you stop wanting what’s missing and start wanting the things you create for yourself.”

House Rules addresses family dysfunction without the bullets points and worksheets of a self-help book. It tells a story. For readers who can relate personally, the knowledge that others experience the same challenges and are able to surpass them is comforting. And readers whose lives are in no way like Rachel’s see a harsh but genuine description of life—painful, joyful, and often impossible to explain. House Rules is a moment of clear sky in the midst of our personal storms.

Review by Ali McCart, Indigo Editing, LLC

ISBN-13: 978-0-06-134122-9
Publisher: Ecco
Pub Date: April 2008
Hardcover: $24.95

New Release Spotlight: Gods Behaving Badly

Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips

It’s a tough thing, to pull off something as silly as the down-on-their-luck gods of Olympus bickering and shagging in a fraternity-like house in present-day London, as slapstick as Aphrodite working as a phone-sex operator and Artemis as a dog walker. Even if it hasn’t been done before, it feels like it has—surely that was a Saturday Night Live or Monty Python sketch, right? But in her first novel, based on those details, Marie Phillips has created a satisfying popcorn read, one that’s more fun-smart than fun-foolish.

Driven from their lives of splendor, fortune, and power because no one believes in them anymore, the Greek gods are strapped with mortal concerns—rent, housecleaning, unglamorous jobs—and new godly ones, such as, every time they use their powers, their strength diminishes with no chance of replenishment. But since they are still gods, they’re relatively immortal, so living forever in that kind of life equals torturous boredom.

One of the opening scenes, in which Apollo and Aphrodite are having sex in the bathroom—while discussing redecorating and Ares, who’s demanding to come in to shave before work—is perfect in detailing the boredom everyone feels, the routines they’ve ground themselves into. In fact, that’s the main reason this book succeeds as something more: Phillips doesn’t just leave the characters at one level. Artemis meets with a real estate agent and tries to find the good in the tenement he shows her; she also dreams of death and what that would be like for a god. Alice, the mortal and mousy cleaner who winds up keeping house for the gods, forgets for a little bit her favorite hobby, Scrabble, and her crush, Neil, to fall for Apollo’s seduction.

Considering the end of the book is full of big action, including the changing of the beliefs of the entire human race, everything falls into place unbelievably quickly. But if what started as a good comedy turns into wild action, well, that’s okay—it may be popcorn, but it’s still gourmet popcorn.

Review by Kristin Thiel, Indigo Editing, LLC

ISBN-13: 978-0-316-06762
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Pub date: December 2007
Hardcover: $23.99