Everything about his new life is exciting.  He has a new master, the highly important and very powerful Jessica Whitwell.  He lives in an apartment of his own, located in her town house that overlooks the river Thames.  And at not quite fifteen years of age, he has an office of his own as assistant to the head of the Department for Internal Affairs.  He’s feeling cocky in his tight suit, pointy shoes and rock star hair.  He’s even tempted to put his feet up on his desk just to rub it into the eyes of the office naysayers.

But the government has a problem.  Rebels headed by Kitty, a one time acquaintance of Nathaniel’s, are creating problems all over London.  Though it’s his job to route them out, he hasn’t gotten very far.  Now it appears they have gone beyond the imaginable, destroying three shops and killing innocents.  His boss and master Miss Whitwell makes it icily clear to him that unfortunate things happen to department heads who embarass the Prime Minister.  This is the world of Magicians after all.  They don’t just stop at firing someone to get the point across.

Only a matter of life and death could force Nathaniel to summon up the biggest pain in the demon world, the proud and prickly Bartimaeus.  It will take some dealing and flawlessly worded contractual spells of course:  Bartimaeus is a tricky demon, and he has the goods on Nathaniel; but Nathaniel drives a hard bargain of his own.

Naturally there’s plenty of political intrigue, duplicity and murder to keep the plot moving.  But it is always the demon Bartimaeus that can cause the reader to miss train stops and forego lunch.  His wry wit and self-aggrandizement  in the face of his own cowardice makes for good comedy.   He makes an art out of turning his failures into virtues.   But despite his numerous failings, he also conceals a heightened sense of decency that makes his character all the more interesting and endearing.

Jonathan Stroud has a wicked sense of humor with perfect British timing.   Though written for young audiences, The Golem’s Eye has a sophistication that begs to be enjoyed by adult readers as well.  Look, we all need a good laugh these days.  This book delivers at least one on just about every other page and will keep you smiling in between those.

The Yaroos! team has given this book a 22Karat rating out of 24, and we include it among our Yaroos! Gold Standard Books.

J. Taylor
Want to read a few pages?  Click on the book cover.

If there was ever a testament to the old saw that “life is what you make of it”, it would have to be the life of Katniss Everdeen.  Sure life sucks in District 12:  It’s fenced off from all that is beautiful, the forests which surround it are abundant with food yet are off limits to the district’s starving denizens.  You see, food in post apocalyptic North America is used as a tool by the government to control its citizens.  Yet she and her best hunting buddy, the ruggedly handsome Gale, know how to work the system.  She’s not sure she could ever love him, but she’s not ruling it out.

Their’s is a life of sneaking under the electrified fences that are turned off most of the time to trap and shoot game with illegal bows and arrows.  They gather berries to trade for bread.  And a corrupt and weary military force entailed to uphold the government policies in district 12 can always be counted on to look the other way.  That is, if you know whose pot to drop a fish in.  Unlike most families in their district, theirs’ never go hungry.  Relatively speaking anyway, life is pretty good.

But the Hunger Games are approaching, and every district has to send two children off to the games where they must fight the other entrants to the death to win their district food and oil for a year.  When Katniss’ little sister Prim is chosen, she has no choice but to volunteer in her sister’s stead.  Her partner in the games is to be a quiet good looking boy who once gave her two loaves of bread from his parent’s bakery,  loaves which he kindly scorched in order to have an excuse to dispose of them.  If you sense that torn love and brooding male jealousy are in this mix, you’re encouraged to trust your gut.

Suzanne Collins cleverly draws on the world of reality television, where contestants are required to endure near death causing hardships in order to entertain a bored America.  The difference is that in the Hunger Games there’s no such thing as near death.  Death is an eventuality for all the contestants but one.  That they die only to entertain the over pampered citizens of the Capital is a source of resentment that fuels Katniss’ defiance.

This is a book as lean and athletic as its characters, accomplishing in each paragraph what some writers take pages to convey.  The action is balanced between the horrible and waiting for the horrible to happen.  The juxtaposition of life at its most poverty stricken in the districts with that of life in the overindulgent Capital add an angry undercurrent that is never overplayed in the writing.  It has rather a terrible base hum that gets its point across without drawing attention away from the story.  The trials the contestants must endure are inspired.

Do you get the idea that we recommend this book?  You bet we do and
very highly so.  It’s a fun easy read, perfect for the beach, long plane rides, or any other situation where you’re in no danger of having to put it down.  The Yaroos! Team rates this book 22Karats out of a possible 24 and includes it in our Gold Standard category.

J.Taylor

Frustrated and tired he crawls into bed.  When he finally falls asleep, he’s suddenly awakened by the knowledge of where she must have hidden it, and by the sound of someone breaking into the house.  He finds the green leather case, and one of the intruders ends up dead at the bottom of the stairs.  Will is now a fugitive and his flight leads him to a strange discovery:  There’s a disturbance in the air into which a cat disappears.  When he

follows, he discovers himself in the abandoned city of Cittagazze.  He also discovers a wildcat of a girl named Lyra who just like him is a murderer.  They soon discover their destinies are tied together.

Between them they navigate the horrors of this strange world devoid of adults whose souls have been eaten away by the Specters, while high in the Torre degli Angeli, the Tower of Angels, the cause of this world’s deathly ills awaits Will to command it:  A knife capable of cutting into parallel worlds.

Just as in “The Golden Compass” before it,  Lyra and her new friend must navigate two worlds of greedy and power hungry villains, government officials whose intentions toward them are unclear, and murderous gangs of parentless children and soul eating spirits in order to discover the roles they are to play in a war between God and his angels.

Philip Pullman gives us once again a saga full of richly written characters whose only deficiencies are that their emotional relationships might have been written a little more deeply.  Never the less the plot continues its steady heart pounding crescendo begun in the first book, as Lyra is guided by angels and guardian witches so that she may take her place in a new order between Earth and the Heavenly realms.

We love this series of books and highly recommend it to anyone from highly intelligent thirteen year-olds who need a break from tedious school work to adults who need an adventurous break from tedious lives.  This is some of the best writing in the genre.

The Yaroos team gives this book a 22 Karat rating out of a possible 24 Karats and has made it one of our Gold Standard Books.

J.Taylor

Reviewed by Laura Bird

If you’re looking for a fast paced dystopian romance, you are in luck.  ”Legend” will take you on a ride.  The two main characters tell their stories against the backdrop of war, plague, poverty, and endlessly playing Jumbo-Tron screens.  For readers seeking a “Yaroos Gold Standard” book however, you may find some aspects of this novel don’t quite measure up.

This story is set in a future America that finds our nation divided once again.  No longer a United States, but a country split in two.  The Republic, on the west coast, is at war with the Colonies, a group attacking from the east.  The novel is set in downtown LA, which has partially sunk into the ocean and is ravaged by plague.

Day and June, the two main characters, alternate chapters giving the reader a view of their lives as they head towards an inevitable collision.  Day is a fifteen year-old boy from the impoverished part of the city.  He spends his time wreaking havoc on the Republic’s military efforts, while watching over his family from afar:  A family who thinks he’s dead, and is in constant danger of exposure to the plague.

Day is extremely street smart, clever, protective, and agile.  And while his actions are those of a strong teenage boy, his narrative doesn’t always add up.  The voice he is given by the author seems a stretch, and at times his thoughts and words don’t mesh with his external actions and character.

June, a fifteen year-old girl genius and parentless prodigy, has the skill and smarts to take on any challenge that comes her way.  She has out paced all of her peers, and holds the only perfect score on her Trial, a test given to ten year-old children to determine their future positions in The Republic.  She is born of wealth and privilege, and has been given the best the Republic has to offer.  June is insightful, and it is often her keen observations that give us the best clues into how this futuristic world works.

At times the voices of Day and June feel very similar, almost as if they are the same character.  This novel could have been written in the third person perhaps, making that a non-issue.  However, the reader is helped along by a change in type style and ink color for the two characters, should confusion arise.  I found myself wondering if maybe Day and Edward from the twilight series by Stephanie Mayer were cut form the same soft fuzzy romantic cloth.

This well paced page-turner throws so much in the paths of its characters that they are challenged at every turn.  From the dark agendas of the novel’s one-dimensional villains, to the injustices of the class system, Day and June have their hands full from page one.  It’s June’s quest for justice against her brother’s killer that sparks this story into motion, and sets these characters on a dangerous collision course.  From the moment Day and June are introduced, the reader knows that an impossible love is in the stars.

It’s no surprise that this book was picked up as a film even before it was published.  Marie Lu’s background as an art director for video games is in evidence during her action sequences and visual descriptions.  I’m confident that this will make an excellent film once talented actors round out, and give dimension to these tortured characters.

I’ve heard “Legend” compared to “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, and they do share a thread in terms of the basic plot set-up.  But Suzanne Collins is a master of this genre, with the ability to create unique multidimensional characters that exist in a fully realized world.  It seems Marie Lu, while not yet a master, is beginning to find her character’s voices, and I hope with two more books to come, she will live up to the promise she displays in “Legend”.

The Yaroos team has given this book a 10 Karat rating out of a possible 24 karats.

Lyra’s Oxford is a little different than the one most of us might travel to:  For one thing, people in her world don’t have spirits the way we do.  They have daemons, animals that stay by their sides.  There’s also a kingdom of armored bears living in ice castles, and Tartars who are rumored to eat children.  And it all seems so perfectly real.

In Lyra’s Oxford, she has the ideal life:  She climbs the roofs of ancient Jordan College and explores its catacombs with her daemon Pantalaimon and her best friend Roger, a kitchen boy.  Her schooling comes only when the masters of the all male school have a little time to spare, so there’s plenty of time to have clay ball fights against the brick burner’s children and the townies, and to steal barges from the river people known as Gyptians when she fancies a trip to another town.  Lyra doesn’t have a single care.

But everything is about to change for her.  Her uncle, Lord Asriel has returned from an exploration in the north, with pictures to show the masters of the school.  Breaking the rules as usual, Lyra hides in an armoire and sees photographs of a city in another dimension, floating in the lights of the Aurora Borealis.  As if that weren’t shocking enough, Lyra is horrified when another photo shows a child whose daemon has been cut away from him.

Children are starting to disappear from all the towns, being stolen by people who the villagers call Gobblers.  To the privileged Lyra, it’s all just a game of “kids and Gobblers” until a young Gyptian boy named Billy and then her best friend Roger disappear.  Lyra becomes angry when the adults of Jordan College do nothing to help.  But its just like adults to be preoccupied with useless things.

Despite her pleas for help, the masters of the college are thinking about their young charge’s future.  Her uncle has disappeared, and the masters have determined that Lyra needs to have a more systematic education and a woman’s influence.  Lyra is high born after all and can’t be left to the unstructured life she’s been leading.

Enter the beautiful Mrs. Coulter, who fascinates Lyra with her independence and elegant manners and agrees to take on Lyra’s education and upbringing.  Early one morning before Lyra is to leave Jordan College, the master gives her a strange artifact that had belonged to her uncle.  It is an alethiometer, a golden compass that points the reader toward the truth of everything.  He warns her to hide it from Mrs. Coulter and never let the golden compass out of her sight.  Does Lyra detect misgivings about Mrs. Coulter in the old master’s words to her?

For awhile, Lyra loves her new life.  Everything about Mrs Coulter is beautiful:  her clothes; her house and the wonderful shopping trips.  But when Mrs. Coulter throws a cocktail party, Lyra learns a dark secret about her new guardian and Lyra’s own part to play in a dark plot.  She escapes to the streets of London, unprepared for the dangers before her.

Danger does strike, but she’s rescued by the colorful Gyptians who are sailing north to find their lost children.  They become awestruck with Lyra’s unfolding gift for reading the alethiometer when she accurately predicts the death of a Gyptian spy.  They include her on the dangerous journey to the desolate north.

Turkish slave hunters, Tartars who are rumored to eat children, witches who have vowed to protect Lyra, as well as an armored bear down on his luck in a tavern, and parallel universes, all figure into this harrowing tale.

This is the first book of Philip Pullman’s Dark Matter Series, and one that has become a foundation block in the young adult genre.  It is suspenseful and often harrowing, with twists in a plot that keeps the reader turning the pages.  This reader however often found himself wishing that the emotional lives of Mr. Pullman’s characters had been given the sensitive attention displayed in other well written aspects of his book.  Never the less, he has created  parallel universes to our own, mixing the similarities and the differences between them with a cleverness that plays with the reader and keeps us entertained.

This is exceptional story telling and wonderful writing.  If you love fantasy as much as we do, you’ll love this one. We have no doubt The Golden Compass will convince you to read the next two books, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.  It’s a gas of a good read!

The Yaroos team gives this book a 22 Karat rating out of 24 Karats.

J.Taylor

Life really begins at seventeen. It’s the age of great decisions: Whether we will go off to university or not, and if so which one, and if not, how will we spend our years to come? Quentin and his two nearly lifelong friends are nearing this very juncture. They are bright, slightly nerdish, and applying for all of the best schools. Quentin himself is on his way to an entrance interview for Princeton University. If a snow board could travel the air stream you’d think he’d be riding one now.

But his life is a poor second compared to the lives of the characters of his favorite books, the Fillory novels, based in a Narniaesque world. It’s a childish obsession he can’t shake, and even as he rings his interviewer’s door, he imagines that the man might be a gate keeper to that magical world.

Quentin and his friend James discover that the “gate keeper” is dead on his own library floor however. Their discovery sets off a maelstrom of events that takes Quentin from a gray Brooklyn winter into the emerald summer of another world. He stands at the foot of an expansive park, crowned by an English Tudor style mansion in upstate New York. Close by stands an unusual boy smoking a cigarette: They’ve been expecting him.

Quentin has entered the world of Brakebills College, just in time for their
entrance exams. Brakebills (which as we read on bears out a sequence of uncanny similarities to another famous school of witchcraft and wizardry) is a school for American Magicians. But unlike its doppelganger across the Atlantic which doesn’t discriminate between the dull and the bright in its admittance policy, Brakebills requires its students to be of almost unparalleled brilliance. There are no Ronald Weasleys here, no Crabs or Goyles.

This is a school of self tortured scholars. And the brilliant are always so much better at expressing their angst. This makes it possible to write deeply and sensitively. Lev Grossman has done just that. There is no
simple divide between good and evil here: Each character is imbued instead with the compelling vagaries of both. Quentin must navigate his new and complicated relationships as he tries to navigate his own complicated journey into adulthood.

This book is inventive, emotionally stirring and frequently witty. Its characters are complex and well developed. They possess deep fears that readers will recognize in themselves. It is one of the best written books in its genre and one that we at Yaroos highly recommend.  If you’d like to read a few pages, just click on the book at the bottom of this page.

The Yaroos! Team has given this book an 18 Karat Rating

J.Taylor

London as it turns out isn’t what we think it is.  Government workers and the upper classes are really all magicians, while the struggling middle and lower classes are non-magical folk in need of close monitoring and strict laws.

Within just a few pages, the reader readily understands that the behind the scenes of the ruling elite is a very ugly world indeed.
In order to commence the study of magic, the parents of a young candidate must be willing to let go of their child freely and often do so gladly.  Five year old Nathaniel’s parents are the usual sort:  ”Take the money and run” an official explains to the boy’s new master.

Nathaniel finds himself unhappily under the tutelage of old Arthur Underwood, a magician who doesn’t like children.  And worst of all for a young student, his master isn’t particularly talented.  What he is however is disdainful and arrogant.  He believes young Nathaniel to be as untalented as he is himself.

We soon come to understand however just how talented Nathaniel is. Presented one day at the age of ten to a gathering of magicians, Nathaniel is confronted by the ego maniacal Simon Lovelace, who humiliates Nathaniel before everyone. Bent on revenge, Nathaniel studies magic more diligently than ever before.

At last mastering a spell levels beyond his years, he summons an ancient demon from the underworld, a task beyond even his own master’s abilities. Arising from a great cloud of smoke and sulfurous smells is the book’s humorously caustic narrator, the five thousand year old demon Bartimaeus. He’s a blustering, prickly, bitingly witty servant bent on showing this young upstart who’s in charge.

But the bluster blows away when Nathaniel orders him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the man who once humiliated him in front of so many people. Despite all his fears, Bartimaeus can’t refuse: He’s bound by his masters spells. But Nathaniel may be in over his head with this very tricky genie.
The Amulet of Samarkand’s star character is one of the funniest creatures to narrate a tale. His blustering and cowardice, his duplicity candidly revealed in footnotes for us, and his tall sense of honor always in danger of self-serving compromise, never allow the reader to keep a straight face. A steady barrage of dangers guarantees that master and servant must frantically work the Rubric’s cube of their magical powers. These two are always one step ahead of death, or worse, eternal confinement in undersized bottles.

This book was written for young audiences, but it has a sophistication and wit that far surpasses that audience’s ability to appreciate it. It is wonderful writing. Inexplicably, some bookstores shelve The Bartimaeus Trilogy in the children’s section, a placement that seems the result of some terrible misjudgment somewhere.

Do you like your humor clever, dry and biting? Yes? Then the Amulet of Samarkand and the rest of the Bartimaeus Trilogy is for you.  If you’d like to read a few pages, just click on the book cover below.

The Yaroos! Team has given this book a 22Karat Rating out of 24.  That’s outstanding!

J.Campbell Taylor

When a knock is heard at the door of 425 Harrington Lane, it’s never at the front door and never at a decent hour.  This time it is an English gentleman bearing a box with extraordinary content:  A bowl.  Or is it a kind of nest, made from the remains of human beings?

Dr. Pellinore Warthrop and his “indispensable assistant” Will Henry are on another adventure to the mysterious island of Socotra, called by some the Isle of Blood.  They’re looking for the Holy of Holies for a Monstrumologist, a creature that has never been seen by anyone, and devours human beings while in flight, letting fall a rain of flesh and blood on all who stand below its path of flight.  And woe to anyone touched by this gruesome rain:  These poor unfortunates become infected with a virus that causes the victim to eat themselves from the inside out .

But it seems that Pellinore hasn’t learned just how indispensable Will Henry is to him, until he finds himself double crossed by a flattering Monstrumologist, without Will Henry at his side.  The doctor soon discovers however that he can be sure of one thing.  It will always be his thirteen year old assistant who will come to his rescue, even if the boy has to cross an ocean to do it!

And he’s going to need Will Henry more than ever on this hunt.  As they go in search of their latest monster, they’re up against the governments of Great Britain and Russia, who’ve sent their best to see to it that the team of Warthrop and Henry never get to Socotra, or more to the point, never get back.  But the doctor has friends all over the earth, as strange and interesting as he is who make sure the two succeed.

After each book in this series, the reader would be justified in fearing that Rick Yancey can’t possibly write a follow up as good as the book they’ve just read.  The good news is that ‘as good as’ doesn’t seem to be good enough for this mega talented writer.

In our opinion, The Isle of Blood is Yancey’s best book yet, as it follows the two on their hunt for the ultimate prize, but follows the deepening
relationship between Will and Dr. Warthrop, and especially Wills growth as a true Monstrumologist himself.  The relationship between the two is deeply and sensitively written, especially when it concerns Wills discovery of his own dark side.

Mr. Yancey’s writing is at its richest and darkest ever, with descriptions of far away lands, and the intricacies of Will Henry’s darker thoughts, served to us like courses of a great French dinner. But here is a stern warning from our team:  The reader is in danger of consuming this great meal too quickly.  And it will prove very difficult to pace yourself as your reading The Isle of Blood.

This book will make you gluttonous for the next page.  But for your own good, discipline yourself:  There is only disappointment ahead when you read the last word and close the cover on the world of Dr Warthrop and Will Henry.  As crazy as it might sound, this reader intends to pick it up again as soon as he finishes this review!

The Yaroos! Team has given this book a 24 Karat Rating, the highest rating we give and has included it in our Gold Standard category.

J.Campbell Taylor

THE CURSE OF THE WENDIGO, Rick Yancey, 424 pages $9.99paperback
It has been two difficult years since Will Henry was taken in by the “self absorbed lunatic”, Dr. Pellinore Warthrop.  Two years to observe this “genius enslaved to his own despotic thought…driven by demons as formidable as the physical monstrosities he pursued.”  Poor Will Henry.  He is now thirteen years old and serves as the obsessed doctor’s research assistant, cook, maid, manservant, laundryman, and errand boy, as well as his secretary and comforter-in-chief during Pellinore’s gloomier moments.  And the doctor is in one of his gloomiest moods ever.

Despite Will Henry’s attempts to comfort his master and guardian with raspberry scones, and local gossip from the newspaper, Pellinore can’t be coaxed from his melancholy.  He is a Philosopher of Aberrant Natural History after all, a Monstrumologist held in the highest esteem by his peers in the Monstrumologist Society.  The torpid life he has settled into may kill him before a monster does.

But the stale air of boredom is cleared out when someone whom Pellinore had hoped to never see again knocks on the front door.  She is Mrs. John Chanler, a woman of such incomparable beauty that she strikes Will Henry nearly dumb with her grace.  She has come to the doctor for help.  Her husband and onetime best friend to the doctor himself has disappeared into the snowy wilds of Canada’s boreal forest , looking for a creature that is thought by many and by Pellinore especially, to be only a myth.  It is a demon that gets hungrier the more it eats.  And it chooses human flesh and blood to sate its exponential appetite.

In this follow up to the Monstrumologist, Will Henry’s relationship with his guardian begins to open as he discovers small secrets of the man’s past.  Dr. Warthrop, a man of stone and ice had once hoped to be a poet and yes, that poetry had been inspired by the loveliest of muses.  One who has reappeared after many years.  And Will Henry, now two years an orphan, begins to see that there is someone who cares for him after all.

This is a book filled with witty observation, clever dialog, and a lustrous
vocabulary that turns its many horrors into gemstones and displays them in dark eerie cushions of poetry.  Rick Yancey has created yet another book that is frightening and funny all at once.  He brings his characters to life by branding them into the reader’s heart.

The language in this book is richer than the language used in The Monstrumologist.  Readers will want to savor every sentence, especially if they are writers themselves.  But whether you are a writer or not, this book is another page turner that may cause you to miss your bus stop or skip dinner.  With a read like this though, who needs food?

The Yaroos! Team has given this book a 24 Karat Rating, our highest rating.  This book has been included in our Gold Standard category.

J.Campbell Taylor
Want to read a few pages?  Just click on the book cover.

It is 1888 and William James Henry has lost his parents in a house fire.  He has been taken in by his father’s employer, a tall gaunt man who rarely allows sleep or meals to get in the way of his obsession.  He is a Monstrumologist, a scientist who studies monsters.  He has just awakened his young assitant in the first hour of morning with the urgent call to “wake up Will Henry and be quick about it!”  The boy rarely gets his full eight hours.

They have a caller at the back door.  Erasmus Gray is a grave robber who has made a strange and gruesome discovery while plying his trade.  If the rumors are true, the shaken old man reasons, there’s only one man in New Jerusualem Massachusetts who can be trusted with his discovery– that is Dr. Pellinore Warthrop.  The old man has found something in a grave he’s robbed.  It’s dead.  Just as dead as the corpse it was in the act of eating.

The life of Will Henry isn’t an easy one.  His is a life of long hours that often creep into days of no sleep, of a stomach low on food and filled instead with the business of fleeing creatures who have just devoured the adult standing by him only a moment before.  Afterward there’s the dried blood and skull fragments he sometimes washes from his face, as well as the stench of rotting corpses that burns his eyes and throat throughout his adventures.

And there’s Dr. Pellinore Warthrop himself,  ”Snap to Will Henry, snap to!”  There’s never a moment to rest in the house of a doctor who never sleeps. He is a man that is nearly impossible to work for, a perfectionist who is rarely pleased, an egomaniac and a narcissist given to bouts of bed ridden melancholia.  There are times when Will Henry thinks of running away,  but something more than a roof over his head keeps him from leaving the House on Harrington Lane.

Rick Yancey has created an unnerving Victorian world of moonless nights and shadowy halls, half lit by fiery torches and gas jets.  His characters are deeply wrinkled and rheumy, pompous and parsimonious.  They are sometimes discovered near the end of their tortured lives, about to succumb to stomach turning horrors.   Yancey has created a partnership between this master and his young assistant that is one of the best since Doyle introduced civilized society to Holmes and Watson.

The Monstrumologist is a thrilling read, both frightening and humorous with characters you can’t forget.  You may wish to call in sick to finish this one.  I recommend perfecting that cough and rasping voice in anticipation of the event.  Believe me, this book is really that good.  If you’d like to read a few pages, just click on the book cover below.

The Yaroos! Team has given this book a 24 Karat Rating, the highest rating we give.  It’s also included in our Gold Standard category.

J.Campbell Taylor