Review: Two Brothers:Origin by Sofia Diana Gabel

For some kids, the first day of school is about a change of routine. For Argus and Tai, a pair of formerly homeschooled twins, the first day of school changes everything. In Two Brothers: Origin, Sofia Diana Gabel's science-fantasy novel about what it means to be human, even when you aren't, Argus and Tai face down their first encounters with the public school system, bullying, and classism. While their polite demeanor and naivety probably strike their classmates as disingenuous, and at first brush the reader as implausible, in the end, their unlikely characteristics underscore the otherness that defines their struggle to belong.

Orphaned and raised by a helicopter aunt, Argus and Tai are growing into the powers that make them different, which catches the attention of a government agency set on finding proof of extraterrestrials, and the boys find themselves the subject of investigation by an obsessive agent who is trying to use his hunch about one of the boys to salvage what is left of his broken career.

I like the premise of this story. I like that Gabel tackles the question of whether or not we are alone in this universe with a vehement no, and builds on it in the tradition of one of my favorite rainy day guilty pleasures- Ancient Aliens, suggesting that not only are we not alone in the universe, but that an alien race has been with us since the beginning. I like the way she wove the story of the Dachel brothers into the greater tapestry of human history and myth.

Though some of the powers the boys develop seem, at best, stalkerly, and a few scenes seem to be told in real time, and a lot of problems come from unusually poor decision making skills on the part of both Argus and Tai, the story moves along at a good clip, exposing some of the things that are the most blatantly wrong with schools right now.

Young readers will enjoy reading along as the Dachel twins come into their own and navigate the new world they never dreamed existed, and older readers will feel for the plight of their Aunt and the agent trying to come back from a failed marriage by achieving what no one else with a boss as obnoxious as his could hope to accomplish.

Review: The Girl with the Iron Touch, by Kady Cross

Kady Cross' much awaited sequel to The Girl in the Clockwork Collar, The Girl with the Iron Touch brings the unapologeticly steampunk feel to a London adventure that spans from Mayfair to Whitechapel, and unearths new secrets in the London Underground. As a woman with a soft spot for the London Underground (have you seen the National Geographic article?), this book certainly touched on some of my favorite themes: Aether, SCOUSes, that's Sea Creatures of Unusual Size, in case you were wondering, Automotons, and philosophy.

The Girl with the Iron Touch revisits all of the story's past dealings in one way or another, Finley even remarks on parallels between the dilemma they are faced with and one she overcame on her own in The Strange Case of Finley Jane, which remains my favorite of the tales from Cross' The Steampunk Chronicles. That said, with the character of Endeavor 312, The Gril with the Iron Touch examines one of my favorite questions in speculative fiction: what does it mean to be human?

Enjoyable, as expected by any novel coming from the pen of Kady Cross, my one reservation is that Finley, Griff, Emily and Sam seem to be spending a little too much time letting their hormones get in the way of their better judgment, and the plot. Yes, the fact that this is a Harlequin TEEN novel means that I shouldn't be surprised, but I missed the slow build of the awkward tension which typified The Girl in the Steel Corset and The Girl in the Clockwork Collar.

Now, I'm going to go find a copy of The Dark Discovery of Jack Dandy, because somehow I didn't know this existed until a moment ago, and my logic engine tells me it is imperative that I read it.

Review: Antithesis by Kacey Vanderkarr

Centering around an unlikely and reluctant heroine, Kacey Vanderkarr's science fantasy YA novel Antithesis offers a bizarre but compellingly constructed universe as a backdrop to her tale of murder, kidnapping, and a bid for pandimensional domination. While featuring the bright but off-putting, egotistical, angsty, and too attractive for his own good male lead I've nearly grown to expect, Antithesis' female lead went a step beyond the expected awkward female lead to focus a differently-abled young woman, Gavyn, who doesn't plan to let the arm that never grew keep her from doing exactly what she wants.

Although Gavyn often picks on herself for her one-armed ginger status, and the steamy scenes, sometimes literally, got a little too steamy for me, the world building driving Antithesis was altogether too delightful. In Gavyn's world, things aren't too different from the world we know, until Liam comes into her life and pulls her through to a series of alternate worlds which could only exist in dreams, each farther from the one she left behind, a world which is endangered by the machinations of a world in which another girl wears her name and her face, but shares none of what's inside.

Vanderkarr's novel demonstrates a surprising layering of the intimately familiar and mundane with advanced technologies, surreal landscapes, and the clinically macabre, in a story which has left me waking from dreams wondering for a moment if maybe I really am just glimpsing other realities, just as real as this one. Isn't that what books should do? Make us think? Antithesis has definitely given me a few things to consider.