Potter Redux: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, or why you shouldn't mess with Hermione Granger

This post is part of my Harry Potter Re-read 2013. (Book One) (Book Two) (Book Three)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

J. K. Rowling

Bloomsbury, 2000

Goodreads

Previous reads
This was the first hardback HP book that my brother and I had, because it was the first one we bought when  it was first released. By this point we were both big HP fans, but because they were his books I had to wait for him to finish Goblet of Fire before I could read it. I always liked this one a lot, although I never much liked the initial Quidditch World Cup section, and was always eager to get past that part and back to Hogwarts. For some reason, I have never been wild about the Mad-Eye Moody storyline, either (although I do like him as a character).

Re-read:
Re-reading GoF, I was reminded both of the things that make it one of my favourite HP books, and all those other niggly things that really irritate me about it at the same time. The Quidditch World Cup part was actually shorter than I remembered, and I didn't mind it so much this time. I am still not a fan of the SPEW subplot - I don't think Hermione comes off particularly well, and it wasn't much fun to read about. I think when I first read it, I was just annoyed at Hermione, but these days I am more annoyed that she comes across as a bit shrill and aggravating because she believes in a particular cause. Then again, she has plenty of excellent moments - including putting Ron in his place when he invites her to the dance as an afterthought, and finally getting her own back on Rita Skeeter.

I think the tension between Harry and Ron is done really well in this book - when Ron turns his back on Harry and goes to sit with Dean and Seamus instead, it managed to sum up all those school-age feelings of falling out with your friends and feeling totally despondent about it. It felt very realistic, and I like that some of those underlying feelings of jealousy and inadequacy were addressed, building on Ron's horror at his hideous second-hand dress robes. That's not to say I didn't want to bash Ron and Harry's heads together at times for being so idiotic and not just talking to each other (although given that they are 14 year old boys here, it's perhaps more believable that that didn't happen).

The Triwizard Tournament task chapters are actually a lot shorter than I remembered, too - but seriously, Harry. Put the egg in the bath already.

Pick a quote:

"Longbottom, kindly do not reveal that you can't even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!" Professor McGonagall barked at the end of one particularly difficult lesson, during which Neville had accidentally transplanted his own ears onto a cactus.

Potter Redux: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, or why that blob in your teacup could be the beginning of the end

This post is part of my Harry Potter Re-read 2013.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J. K. Rowling

Bloomsbury, 2000

Goodreads

Previous reads:
I think I was quite late to the Prisoner of Azkaban Appreciation Party. A lot of my friends always claimed this as their favourite, and I was always confused - but over time, I have come to appreciate it a lot more. (And it does baffle me that at first I preferred Chamber of Secrets!) Again, I would estimate I have probably read this book four or five times before now.

Re-read:
There is a definite turn towards the darker side of the Harry Potter universe in this book, with the Dementors invading the Hogwarts Express at the beginning, and Harry running away from the Dursleys' home. (I love the scene when Harry finally snaps at Aunt Marge, though, and in particular her characterisation, which seemed very Dahl-esque.) I don't think anyone will ever usurp McGonagall as my favourite member of teaching staff at Hogwarts, but Lupin is certainly up there.

It was nice to see more of Hermione in this book, and I liked her shady timetable dealings and the fact that she figured out Lupin's secret. I enjoyed reading the scenes with the Time Turner again, although I think watching the film more recently has warped my memory of them somewhat, even though they are mostly faithful.

I always forget how little time Harry and Sirius actually get together, and reading this book knowing what comes later is always a little bit bittersweet.

Harry's increasing exasperation at his death being predicted at every turn by Professor Trelawney made me laugh, as did McGonagall's dismissal of his looming death, which is why I have picked the following as my chosen quote (although Ron attempting to use the telephone was a close third).

Pick a quote:

“Ah, of course,” said Professor McGonagall, suddenly frowning. “There is no need to say any more, Miss Granger. Tell me, which of you will be dying this year?” 

Everyone stared at her. 

“Me,” said Harry, finally.

Potter Redux: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, or why a summer at the Burrow sounds like the best thing ever

This post is part of my Harry Potter Re-read 2013.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

J. K. Rowling

Bloomsbury, 1998

Goodreads

Previous reads:
I seem to remember claiming for a while, after reading the first three or four books, that this one was my favourite, but on subsequent re-reads it's fallen further and further down the list. Of all the monsters lurking in Harry Potter, I don't think you can beat the Basilisk - certainly not as someone who is terrified of snakes, anyway. I imagine that as with the first book, I have read this four or five times before, at least.

Re-read: 
Arrrrrgh Dobby. He aggravates me in this book (and I always will him not to drop that bloody trifle at the beginning...). I like the fact that we get a glimpse of The Burrow at the beginning, and all the Weasleys together. The trip to Diagon Alley was most memorable for Gilderoy Lockhart, who I always think is a good addition to this story, useless as he is. His apparent obliviousness is pretty funny.

There are glimmers of the future Ron/Hermione storyline here, if only on Ron's part, as he is much more interested than Harry in Hermione's crush on Lockhart. I never really saw the Ron/Hermione pairing coming when I first read the series, but it does have some roots here.

Speaking of Hermione, it's a shame she is confined to the hospital wing for a good portion of this book - it was much more Ron and Harry as a duo, and I missed Hermione's input and her scathing comments, even if she did still solve the mystery.

Again, like book 1, the final battle between Harry and Tom seemed quite short this time around, and quite easily rectified. I like that Harry finally addresses his concerns over where the Sorting Hat put him, and his discussion with Dumbledore is one of the stand out moments in the book: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Pick a quote:
"However," said Dumbledore, speaking very slowly and clearly, so that none of them could miss a word, "you will find that I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me. You will also find that help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."

Potter Redux: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, or why Dumbledore is awesome

This post is part of my Harry Potter Re-read 2013.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Harry Potter #1)

J. K. Rowling

Bloomsbury, 1997

Goodreads

My version of the book has the same cover, but it's only won the Smarties Gold Award once on mine - it seems so low key now! I don't think I ever imagined Harry looking quite like this, but nowadays I do tend to see the film actors when I read the books.

Previous reads: 

I started reading the Harry Potter series in about 2001, when I was about 16 and starting college. I made friends with a girl who recommended them to me and, as my brother was reading them around the same time, borrowed the first three and sped through them. I remember we had them in paperback until Goblet of Fire, which we bought in hardback on its release.

I have read HP&TPS around five or six times now, I imagine. Visiting the Harry Potter Studio Tour a few weeks ago, I was discussing HP with the group of friends I went with, and declared that one of my favourite parts of the whole series is when Harry finds out he's a wizard for the first time, and the way in which Hogwarts quickly becomes his home. A lot of the magic in book one isn't to do with spells and wands, but just in the building up of the world that Rowling creates, and the way Harry comes to life on the page.

Re-read: 

Once again I really enjoyed reading about Harry's life with the Dursleys and the incident with the snake, before he realises he's destined to go to Hogwarts. The first glimpse of Diagon Alley and the school itself was as fun as it always was!

One of my favourite things about the book this time around was Dumbledore - his penchant for sherbet lemons, his calm, worldly vibes, his claim that he sees himself with a pair of woolly socks in the Mirror of Erised, to name a few of my favourite moments. I had forgotten how involved Neville is as the fourth member of their gang, and although I always liked the line about the bravery needed to stand up to your friends (which sees Neville awarded those crucial 10 house points at the end), it always seemed a little too convenient that Harry got 60 points, rather than the 50 awarded to everyone else.

The final battle comes surprisingly late, with most of the book given over to Harry's experiences at his new school, giving time for his relationships with Ron and Hermione to build up, which I liked. HP&TPS could almost stand alone in some ways, and I don't think there are so many hints in this one about what is to come, apart from the prophecies of the centaurs in the Forbidden Forest, but it's interesting to see that even in this book, there are threads that will recur in later books as the series becomes more sophisticated and complex.

Although the world and the events only continue to layer up and create a more complex and (often) more frightening series, this first foray into Hogwarts will always be one of my favourite parts of the series, simply because as a piece of writing for children, capturing their imagination, I think it's pretty, magically awesome.

Pick a quote:

[Dumbledore] "Would you care for a sherbet lemon?"
"A what?"
"A sherbet lemon. They're a kind of Muggle sweet I'm rather fond of."
"No, thank you," said Professor McGonagall coldly, as though she didn't think this was the moment for sherbet lemons.

Review: Twerp, Mark Goldblatt

Twerp

Mark Goldblatt

Random House Books for Young Readers

[New release: May 28th, 2013]

Goodreads

Julian Twerski isn't a bully. He's just made a big mistake. So when he returns to school after a weeklong suspension, his English teacher offers him a deal: if he keeps a journal and writes about the incident that got him and his friends suspended, he can get out of writing a report on Shakespeare. Julian jumps at the chance. And so begins his account of life in sixth grade--blowing up homemade fireworks, writing a love letter for his best friend (with disastrous results), and worrying whether he's still the fastest kid in school. Lurking in the background, though, is the one story he can't bring himself to tell, the one story his teacher most wants to hear.

Twerp is Mark Goldblatt's first book for younger readers, and is written as the journal of Julian Twerski - a journal he is forced to write by his English teacher after he is accused of bullying another boy (Danley Dimmel) and is suspended from school. The only good thing about writing the journal, it seems, is getting out of a project on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

If Holden Caulfield wasn't a disaffected adolescent, and was instead a sixth grader in New York at the end of the 1960s, he might sound a little bit like this. Julian's narrative voice recalls that same desire to explain himself and to try and unravel a world that doesn't always make sense to him. He lives with his parents and his sister, but spends most of his time with his group of friends, including his rather overbearing best friend Lonnie. Julian is known for being the fastest runner in his school - something he takes great pride in - and when his title is threatened by new kid Eduardo, Julian is worried about what this means for him. The possibility of being the second fastest runner at school opens Julian's mind to the fact that his significance as a human is limited.

His philosophical ponderings aside, most of Julian's journal concerns the bigger events of his sixth grade life. The one event his English teacher wants him to talk about - what happened to Danley Dimmel, and what did Julian have to do with it - is avoided, as Julian talks instead about meeting Eduardo, accidentally killing a pigeon, writing a love letter to a girl, and running an important race at school. Only after he's written about all these other things, in which he realises how naive he can be, and how unfair life can be, does he get round to talking about the bullying incident.

Goldblatt really captures the voice of a young boy, and the frustrations, disappointments and triumphs that Julian goes through felt very genuine and authentic. Julian isn't a bad kid, but enough people have thought of him badly, or accused him of things he didn't do (although maybe he kind of did) to make him realise that wanting to do the right thing, and doing the right thing, aren't always the same thing. There are lots of comic (or comi-tragic) moments, and the journal format worked really well. Twerp is most suited to pre-teen readers, but it's smart and touching and wouldn't be out of place in young adult, either.

Overall rating: 7/10

Book source: Received an ebook ARC from publisher.

Review: Grimm's Fairy Stories, Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm

Grimm's Fairy Stories

Jacob & Wilhelm Grimm

Kindle edition (public domain), originally published 1812

Goodreads

Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel: these stories, plus numerous less well-known ones, make up this compendium of fairytales, collated originally by the German brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Like numerous new Kindle owners, I downloaded this for free to try out my ereader and to revisit a lingering fascination with these old fairytales, stripped of their Disney gloss and trendy YA makeovers.

The stories themselves are a bit hit and miss - short, with little extraneous detail, some are funny, most moralising, and a fair number are out and out strange. Benevolent kings, wicked stepmothers and greedy sons abound, creeping around in forests and coveting gold and silver, not to mention ignoring that ugly old woman in the cottage at their peril. On the other hand, young, beautiful women are there to be fallen in love with (often at first glance) and kidnapped 'rescued' - a far cry from their modern-day counterparts of Cinder and Scarlet and the raft of other fairytale-inspired novels that have emerged more recently.

But as storytelling goes, in its most simple, straightforward way, with a message and a purpose (even if that message does come via a talking, albeit beheaded, horse), this is a collection worth a read, if only to see the roots of a large chunk of literature, and to marvel at a time when getting a girl to marry you was as easy as carrying her off on a horse...

Overall rating: 6/10

Book source: Free Kindle download.

Review: Girl, Missing, Sophie McKenzie

Girl, Missing


Sophie McKenzie

Simon & Schuster, 2006

Lauren has always known she was adopted but when a little research turns up the possibility that she was snatched from an American family as a baby, suddenly Lauren's life seems like a sham. How can she find her biological parents? And are her adoptive parents really responsible for kidnapping her? She manages to wangle a trip across the Atlantic where she runs away to try and find the truth. But the circumstances of her disappearance are murky and Lauren's kidnappers are still at large and willing to do anything to keep her silent…

Lauren is a typical teenager, juggling homework, an annoying little brother, and a fractious relationship with her parents. Lauren is also adopted, and desperate to find out more information about her past and where she comes from. A school project leads her to question her roots, until an image on a missing children website sparks a transatlantic adventure that threatens to go horribly wrong.

I wasn't convinced to begin with. Lauren leaps to fantastical conclusions that, while they bear out, lack the conviction I would normally want to bring me along for the ride. In order to get the story where it needs to be, there are a few improbable leaps of logic that irked me. Once I got over this, though, it was a fast-paced read with a lot of twists and turns.

Lauren goes from a reasonably mundane life in London to a whirlwind of kidnapping, breaking and entering, near-death experiences, prison, attempted murder and, you know, kissing a boy. The friendship between Lauren and Jam was sweet, and I liked that it was realistic. I dislike the improbably romantic couplings that YA sometimes throws up, but I felt like I could believe in Lauren and Jam. They were - or seemed - a little bit younger than characters I would normally read (14 and 15), but much more like the teenagers I knew at that age, rather than some of the ones I read about now.

I warmed to Lauren considerably as the book went on, and in the final few chapters it was interesting to see her in a more mature state, particularly with regard to Madison. The other characters were largely peripheral and painted rather broadly, and I would have liked to have seen more development of some of them. The book privileges fast-paced adventure and short, cliffhanger chapters over deep characterisation, which I think might appeal more to a younger audience.

Although most of the action takes place in the US, it was nice to read a young adult book by a British author, which I haven't done for a while. (Sometimes British boys are just British boys. They aren't all devastatingly handsome.) While Girl, Missing sometimes moved too fast for my liking, and there were a few of those "no, really?" coincidences I'd rather avoid, Lauren's quest to find herself, and the complications of this desire, were nicely played out by the end.

Overall rating: 5/10


Book source: Bought secondhand from (the highly recommended) Awesome Books.

Weekly roundup: Showcase Sunday #5

Showcase Sunday is a weekly meme hosted by Vicky at Books, Biscuits and Tea, allowing bloggers to share any books they've received recently.

It was my birthday this week. I have reached a certain age. That certain age is the unfortunate-rockstar age. (No, I am not the same age as Mick Jagger.) I also received some books for my birthday, as well as one that I ordered a while ago and that finally arrived!

Received as gifts:

Riding The Magic Carpet: A Surfer's Odyssey to Find the Perfect Wave by Tom Anderson

I don't surf, but I've always had a fascination with it from being a kid. Blame all those Beach Boys records my dad gave me. Even if the only Beach Boy who actually surfed was Dennis Wilson. But I'm getting off track.

Oh hi guys.

Anyway. I've actually started reading this book, and so far it's great. Anderson has written another book called Chasing Dean, which seems to be a kind of surfing/travelogue around the US, which I'll definitely be picking up if this book continues to be as good.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

This has had some great reviews, and was blurbed by Jonathan Franzen, whose novels I really like. It's set in a US college, and revolves around the baseball season and the lives of a handful of characters. This sounds exactly like the kind of book I love, so I'm excited to get started with this!

Touching The Void by Joe Simpson

I have a strange fascination with mountaineering books, even though (like surfing) it's not something I actually partake in. I am a huge fan of Jon Krakauer's books, and while he now writes on varied subjects as an investigative journalist-type writer, he used to be a mountain climber and wrote a couple of books about mountaineering, including one on the Everest disaster of 1996 (Into Thin Air). Simpson's book is meant to be one of the classics.

Bought:


Girl, Missing by Sophie McKenzie

This is a young adult book about a girl who is adopted, and who finds out that she might not be who she thinks she is. I am a few chapters into this at the moment. McKenzie is a British author and it's a novelty to have some familiar slang in there!

Reviews posted this week:

A Feast For Crows by George R. R. Martin (7/10)
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (6.5/10)

This week on the blog:

I am off to the Isle of Wight Festival to see Pearl Jam (!!), Bruce Springsteen (!!) and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, as well as Feeder, Ash, Madness, Joan Armatrading, and a whole host of terrible pop acts who I will be avoiding. This is my fourth time seeing Pearl Jam (the last time was twice in the summer of 2010), but my first ever time seeing The Boss. EXCITED. As a result, posting will probably be sparse, but I'm hoping to get up my review of Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent before I go.

Let me know what you picked up this week! Happy reading. :)

Top Ten Tuesday: Rewind!

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week, TTT is on a rewind, meaning we can choose any past topic that takes our fancy!

I haven't been taking part in Top Ten Tuesday for very long, relatively speaking, so going back through all the old topics, I saw quite a few that I thought I'd enjoy doing. In the end, however, I chose to relive a chunk of my childhood and go with the relatively simple: Top Ten Childhood Favourites. If nothing else, it gives me an opportunity to google some tragic book covers from the late 80s/early 90s. (And, let's face it, the early 80s, because my local library growing up was hardly ahead of the times, or even anywhere near them.)

These are all books that I was reading, roughly, as a pre-teen and young teenager. I read a lot of series whilst growing up, so here are just a few choice samples:

1. The Babysitters' Club (series) by Ann. M. Martin

Kristy and Shannon swoon over the impeccable rhyming of "blue" with "you".

Oh, the BSC. How I adored these books as a kid. Fifteen chapters of babysitting adventures and mild teenage issues, all wrapped up nearly by the end of the book. Not forgetting, of course, the requisite introductory chapter, where we learned, over and over and over, that Stacey had a blond perm and was from New York, Kristy liked sports and wore a visor, Claudia liked junk food and Nancy Drew, and no one cared that Jessi was black. So much so that they kind of forgot to add in anything in the way of personality for poor Ms. Ramsey.

My first BSC book, and the one I remember the most, was Kristy's Mystery Admirer, as shown above.

2. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

A book that baffled me for years, given all that talk of belts instead of sanitary towels, but one that I loved anyway. I used to borrow the audiobook from the library, and listen to it on my Boots cassette player.

3. Malory Towers (series) by Enid Blyton

I was a massive Enid Blyton fan - everything from The Famous Five to The Secret Seven and the Five Find-Outers, to St. Clares and the Faraway Tree. But Malory Towers, with its tempestuous protagonist Darrell and a cast of broadly sketched but compelling characters, both pupils and teachers, made me desperate for midnight feasts and lacrosse, whatever that might have been. (My brother and I tried, by chucking a tennis ball between two fishing nets, but it's not quite the same.)

4. Sweet Dreams series (various authors)

If only she knew that glasses were for NERDS.

80s throwback time. My library had a potted selection of these books, all of which I borrowed at one time or another. I can only remember two stories now: one about a girl who went to live with her grandmother for the summer, by the beach, and spent all her time diving for sand dollars (I had no idea what these were), and one about a girl assigned to a science project with a (gasp) "bad boy". She liked meteorology, he liked being popular, except he fell in love with her and proved it by taking off her glasses and remarking on how beautiful she was. ("Guys don't make passes...", and all that. Doh.)

5. No. 1 (unknown author, part of the Point series)

Okay, so I remember this book vividly: it was huge, for a YA novel, and bright purple on the front. It concerned a gypsy boy called Terry, who wrote songs and was bullied at school, the bullies themselves, who (I think) end up forming a boy band, and the fight to be number one in the music industry and in the charts. I don't remember who wrote it, but it was a standalone in the "Point" series (who also did Point Horror and Point Romance). If anyone does remember, please enlighten me!

6. Making Out (series) by Katherine Applegate

Also contained a doctor's lecture to Nina and her blind boyfriend on how to use a condom. Fact.

I think they renamed this series a few years ago, but when I was reading it, it was the VERY SCANDALOUS "Making Out", so scandalous it was difficult to ask for them as birthday presents. A group of teens live on a tiny island off the coast of Maine, all stealing each others' boyfriends and girlfriends and scrawling out journal entries while looking cool in a massive jumper (necessary when living on aforementioned tiny island). I wanted to live on an island, and I wanted to be like wise-cracking Nina, who smoked (except she didn't) and always said funny things in threes.

7. Sweet Valley High (series) by Francine Pascal

The scandal of Suzanne, who tried to seduce Robert Redford. I mean, Mr. Collins.

I started by reading the Sweet Valley Twins books, the only one I owned being one where (12 year old) Jessica dates one of her brother's friends by pretending to be older, and ends up on a double date with, erm, her brother. That old chestnut. I then graduated onto SVH, where I spent many a happy hour reading about Jessica's latest hare-brained scheme, and Elizabeth's plan to get her sister out of trouble. Memorable favourites include: The New Jessica and Too Good To Be True from the regular series, the Secret Diaries they published from each twin's point of view, and some trilogy late in the series, where the twins go off to be counsellors at a summer camp. (If you too are an SVH survivor, I highly recommend Shannon's Sweet Valley High blog, as well as the Dairi Burger, which is on hiatus but has an impressive archive.)

8. Anastasia Krupnik (series) by Lois Lowry

The literary character I most resemble.

I almost feel like I would still enjoy this series now, which is more than I can say for some of the above tragedies. ;) Anastasia lives with her parents and her little brother Sam, first in New York and then in the suburbs. My favourite, and the one I read over and over, was Anastasia Again!, in which they make the move to the suburbs, and a hostile Anastasia gradually learns to love her new home.

9. Point Horror series (various authors)

Ghosts! Hangings! Dead girls! Woo!

We used to pass these around school in a borderline-illicit fashion. I recall almost nothing about individual books now, other than the tried and tested formula, which was that the killer was always the one who the narrator never suspected - usually the best friend. I do remember laughing at some for being absurd, yet being genuinely terrified of others: namely, Caroline B. Cooney's Twins, which was so frightening to me at the time that I never finished it, and hid the "scary cover" at the back of the wardrobe.

10. Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

Maybe my favourite book ever as a kid. I thought being a spy was the greatest thing ever. I wished for stealth and a big yellow raincoat. I had to stand for just writing down lots of pointless things in a notebook.

I also noticed that, in recounting these books, I can remember the series' numbers but not the titles themselves. I knew that SVH #11 and SVH #32 were two of my favourites, but I had to google the titles.

I hope you enjoyed that very retro Top Ten Tuesday - leave me your links!

Review: Twin Spirit (Domino Galaxy #1), Matthew Thompson

Twin Spirit (Domino Galaxy #1)


Matthew Thompson

Domino Galaxy, 2011

Lily is a primitive spirit trapped on Earth, and has been from the day she was born, nine years ago and counting. She can't smell, taste, touch or be heard. Lily wants to experience such sensations. But most of all, she wants her human sister - dead.


Rose discovers her twin sibling in a forest, bathed in moonlight. She and Lily are transported to the afterlife, three billion light years away, within a galaxy called Domino.


On the planet Kiian, the twins go in search of their mother, the key to transforming Lily into a fully formed spirit. However, humans and primitives are not welcome in Domino. Fearless creatures called the Govern seek out the twins to remove them from the afterlife and, in turn, from each other.

By far, my favourite thing about Twin Spirit is the world that it takes place in. As a kid, the books I loved the most were those that made me want to crawl right inside them and experience these weird and wonderful places for myself. This book goes a long way to creating that kind of feeling. The different "sectors" that populate Kiian range from ones based on the Tuscan countryside and a past version of New York, to a sinister rainforest setting, to the Chocolate Kingdom, which was mentioned in passing and I have to say intrigued me greatly!

Against this rich world of the afterlife, twins Rose and Lily are on a mission to find their mother. If Rose is the sensible, slightly wary twin, Lily is all id, impatient and daring and getting all the best lines. As the story progresses, the twins balance each other out, utilising each other's strengths and weaknesses as their adventure becomes increasingly perilous. The supporting characters are equally well drawn: the slightly batty professor, the dangerous bounty hunter brothers, and the "bandits", who, without giving too much away, may have been my favourite of all.

The action is constant, broken up by glimpses into the "living" pasts of some of the characters, which gave some added depth to the story. The majority of the book, though, concentrates on the twins' adventures aboard a steampunk-inspired vessel, attempting to escape their pursuers. The Govern (and the other bad guys) are well-imagined (and pretty creepy), and though there are lots of near misses and skin-of-their-teeth escapes, there are some genuinely dark moments, too.

For me, the final battle felt quite short given the build up, and occasionally I wanted more information of the workings of the afterlife and the wider galaxy, but I suspect that is what comes of being an adult reader of a book aimed at children. There were a couple of instances of jarring words or spelling errors, but these are minor quibbles against a kids' book that has a lot of potential.

Overall rating: 7.5/10


Book source: Bought from Amazon UK


DISCLAIMER: I know the author of Twin Spirit. However, this review was not solicited, and I bought the book myself. This did not affect my review in any way.