Val Muller

This fantasy novel follows a character named Hellsfire who (as you can guess by the name) was born with the power of fire. As a young adult, he discovers his power—and how dangerous it is. Still, he used it to save the princess, a girl he almost immediately develops feelings for. Confronting his mother, Hellsfire learns that she (sort of) knew about his power, and that he is supposed to go out into the world and seek help and answers.

He does, and finds a wizard who decides to train him. Partway into his training, though, Hellsfire feels that the princess is in trouble, and he decides to leave his training before becoming a full-fledged wizard. He travels back to the kingdom and finds that the Premier has been using his power for sinister purposes. In a coming-of-age tale, Hellsfire must help save the day.

I’m picky about fantasy tales. I absolutely love The Lord of the Rings, but I can’t help

comparing many other fantasy works to Tolkien’s, especially when wizards, elves, dwarves, and humans are involved. That said, the strength of this novel is its plot. It picks up by the halfway point, and you’ll find yourself wanting to finish to see what happens. The weakness is the telling of the story. It’s told through first person point of view, and at times,

especially in the first half of the tale, it drags because there is sometimes too much detail included. The main character narrates in a process-oriented way, often listing the step-by-step process he uses to accomplish things. There were parts of the process that could have been skipped. The first person perspective also limits the author’s ability to seamlessly weave description into the tale, so I often found myself craving details (imagery) about the world. The benefit of the first person perspective was that Hellsfire became a likeable character for me.

It’s a decent read for those who love fantasy. I would have loved this book in high school when I was going through my fantasy phrase. The adult in me craved a bit more description and depth.

This is a historical novel following Attilius, an engineer who is new to his position and must discover why the waters have stopped flowing to Roman cities near Mount Vesuvius. As he investigates and attempts to repair the problem, he realizes that while nature is conspiring against humanity (with the pending eruption), there are a series of corrupt deals that have led Rome to be blind to the signs of the impending destruction.

I enjoyed the historical details—so many references to wealthy Romans lounging in luxury while their slaves tend everything; references to the strange practices of the time; references to Pliny’s last days (Pliny is a character in the novel), and political intrigue not dissimilar to some of what we experience today. Just like today, there are few honest men. Attilius is one of them, and in a culture run by money, corruption, and political connections, his honesty is a liability. The details—at once foreign and familiar—made the story for me.

The plot picked up as the volcano got closer to erupting (and then continued to do so), though I found the story could have moved faster at times. I also would have liked just a bit more imagery and details from the time period. I was relying on television shows and visits to museums to fuel my mental imagery. Still, it’s a great read for those interested in the history of Rome and ancient Roman culture.

This book follows the tale of a boy whose drunken father wants him to “man up,” forcing him to spend a night in the creepy basement of the apartment complex as a rite of passage, killing all the giant rats rumored to live there. The book begins in a rather pleasant way, with the terror end-loaded into the last 40 percent. The strength of this book is the situation. Robbie is a sympathetic character, and his dad (and some other characters) are bullies enough to make us root for Robbie. There are also some characters that join Robbie, making us like him further.

The weakness of this book is the telling of the story. It’s told in third person omniscient, so there’s a lot of “head hopping” from what one character is thinking to what another is thinking—sometimes even within paragraphs of each other. As a result, I never felt like I got to know any of the characters well enough—I wasn’t shown much through their perspectives. Rather, there were lots of scenes comprised only of “telling” me what a character was like, stating an adjective and then following up with an example. As a reader, I much prefer being shown. For such a short novel, I also found a lot of repetition of words and sentence structure that sometimes served to slow down the plot in places where I wanted to be tearing through the pages to see what happens to the characters.

Still, the situation presented in the tale is creepy, at times even terrifying—and at the end (in the basement), it will have you burning through the pages to see if your worst suspicion is correct.

I would recommend the book to a younger readership, provided they like scary stories. I can see this story as a “gateway drug” to harder horror.

This is a nostalgic book that follows the coming of age of Jason Lee, a white boy in the South during the 1980s. Lee befriends a black boy, Samson, much to the disgust of the racist town. At the same time, Jason Lee is also trying to uncover the truth about his father, JL, who served (and died) in Vietnam and was a fighter for equal rights prior to that. Jason also experiences his mother’s nervous breakdown and learns to help his Uncle Mooks, who has been wounded—physically and mentally/emotionally—by serving in Vietnam.

The book reminds me of the classics about the South—To Kill a Mockingbird, for example. It has the whole-heartedness of a book that can be used in school classrooms, and it confronts important issues and themes. The voice of Jason Lee, who narrates the book, is simple and genuine, making it an easy read despite the subject matter. For me, the one shortcoming was the conflict. While most books are heavily plot driven, and I’m complaining about the language, this book was the opposite. The language was rich, but the conflict didn’t take hold right away—aside from the racism that was prevalent from the beginning, the conflict(s) didn’t emerge until later. Still, when the conflict does take hold, you’ll want to keep reading until you finish.

Overall, I recommend this read. It’s an award-winning book. It was not a waste of time, and the characters and personality of the setting were poignant at times, with a wholesome plot and setting to support a coming-of-age tale.