The Naming - Alison Croggon

Genres: Fantasy
Recommended Ages: 12+
DRP: n/a

Tired of gloomy, realistic teen-fiction full of suicide, dead parents and sexual assaults? Well maybe what you need is a good ol’ fantasy book that will take you away from the “reality” portrayed in so many of today’s young adult books. If that is the case then I would recommend The Naming by Alison Croggon, the first book of the Pellinor series.

Maerad is a sixteen year-old slave girl living a rather horrible life. She has no family, no friends – really the only thing she has is her lyre, and her ability playing it is the only thing that has protected her from the beatings her master frequently doles out. Life for Maerad is just a dreary routine with no end in sight. Until the evening a stranger wanders into her village. The stranger, a man named Cadvan, tells Maerad that she is a bard, a person with magical powers. Cadvan tells Maerad that she must come with him – a slave’s life is no life for a bard. Despite her fears, Maerad leaves with Cadvan. Thus begins the great adventure detailed in The Naming.

I really enjoyed this book. If you liked Eragon or The Lord of the Rings trilogy then you will enjoy this book. Croggon has done a great job of creating the land of Edil-Amarand, a land with its own history, folklore and language. If you like epic fantasies then you must read this book. I know I can’t wait to get my hands on The Riddle, the second book of Pellinor.

The Good Man - Edward Jae-Suk Lee

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Older teens

Have you ever read a book that, for some reason, just didn’t hook you, yet you couldn’t give up reading it? Well, that is what happened with me and The Good Man by Edward Jae-Suk Lee. The book is only 248 pages but it took me three weeks to read (to put this in perspective, I read all 652 pages of the latest Harry Potter book in three days). That doesn’t mean that it was a bad book, I just wasn’t able to get into it.

The main character of this book is a man named Gabriel, a Korean War veteran that has hit hard times. He is suffering from some sort of brain damage-induced amnesia and has been wondering around living the life of a drifter for some time, that is until he drifts into a place familiar to him, a valley in Montana. Some memories return to him and he realizes he is near his old home, the place he onced lived with his wife. When he finally makes it to his old house he finds that his wife has died, but there is still somebody from his past living there. Thus begins the story.

Unfortunately I do not have much to say about this book. It wasn’t a terrible book, but I didn’t really like it. Part of that may be because it took me so long to read it and I started to forget details from the story. I would recommend this book to older, patient readers interested in war stories or stories about relationships. Even though I didn’t really like the book please don’t let that stop you from reading it and forming your own opinion.