The Magician - Michael Scott

This second installment of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel picks up right where the first one ended; the twins, Nicholas Flamel, and Scathach are in Paris, where the famous Niccolo Machiavelli is yet another agent of the Dark Elders.
There's plenty of nonstop action, magic, mythological references, you know the drill.
Also, LOOK, IT'S AN AMAZING COVER! With great symbolism, and foreshadowing of the story-arc and stuff!
Now, about the story itself: to be fair, it's a perfectly adequate novel - but I can't help but get annoyed at the obviousness of the identities of the "good"/"bad" guys. Seriously, in this book series every character's use of magic projects their smelly auras everywhere - and by "smelly" I mean that characters can literally smell which characters are supposed to be evil (yum, sulfur! Snakes! Delicious smells, I'm told.), and which are on the "good" side (peppermint, vanilla, oranges, and lavender? Seriously, it's like a fancy organic soap shop, in there!). Although this technique is convenient if you want to expose the content of the character of these characters, it does rob the novel of possible nuances about morality and things; it just pushes them all into definite and sharply defined moral categories, with very little room for subtlety.
Oh well, it's just a YA novel, I'm told; and this review-type of thing is just a half-assed string of words.

Zombies vs Unicorns - edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier

This anthology is composed of short stories that are either about zombies (braaaaaiiins!), or unicorns (aka horses with horns that, in one story in particular, have farts that smell like flowers), and sometimes even both (these stories are usually filed under the "unicorn" stories, though, because let's face it, zombies are already awesome on their own - they don't need extra supernatural help). All written by a bunch of great writers, including Cassandra Clare and Scott Westerfeld, whose novels I enjoy very much and who were both members of Team Zombie. Yeah, zombie stories in general are just better than unicorn stories, with their dystopian elements and whatnot.

I must admit, though, that some unicorn stories were better than I expected - The Care and Feeding of Your Baby Killer Unicorn by Diana Peterfreund was probably my favorite unicorn story, probably because its unicorns were deadly predators rather than fawning pictures of perfection. An honourable mention goes out to Kathleen Duey, whose story was a first-person narration by a very creepy unicorn. It  really creeped me out.

My all-around favorite story of the bunch (and favorite zombie story to boot) was definitely Love Will Tear Us Apart by Alaya Dawn Johnson, though; it featured a partial zombification caused by a prion (yay, science!), characters that don't necessarily fit typical, expected paradigms (yay, non-heteronormativity!), and tons of references to some of my favorite music (yay, Arctic Monkeys!).

So yeah, I enjoyed this anthology. And for future reference, here are all the authors included in the anthology (why should I write their names down when I can just type them up, leave them here and check back later when I'll want to read new stuff/when I won't be swamped in projects and lab reports?):

Team Zombie (aka TEAM AWESOME):

• Alaya Dawn Johnson
• Carrie Ryan
• Maureen Johnson
• Scott Westerfeld
• Cassandra Clare
• Libba Bray

Team Unicorn:

• Garth Nix
• Naomi Novik
• Margo Lanagan
• Diana Peterfreund
• Meg Cabot
• Kathleen Duey

Hey, look, there's a short promo film here! It features the - pretty epic, I must admit - cover art that's under the black cover for the cover (I'm thinking about the hardcover version, here. Wait, did I even make sense?). Anyways, the cover art's great!

City of Glass - Cassandra Clare

In this third installment of The Mortal Instruments trilogy-thing-that's-over-three-books-now-and-will-probably-be-six-books-I-think?, we get the Epic Battle that we'd all been waiting for ever since we learned that Valentine (Clary's and Jace's father, who is plotting against the good guys) was still alive, back in the first book. In this novel, however, our protagonists spend very little time in New York City; rather, the bulk of the action takes place in Alicante, the (magical?) capital of Idris, the Shadowhunter country.
Also, we learn new things about Clary's past and relatives (some of which were hinted at in the previous books, and some of which WOAH THAT WAS UNEXPECTED. Not unwelcome, but very unexpected.), and we finally learn about the third Mortal Instrument (remember, the first book was about the Mortal Cup? And the second one involved the Mortal Sword? Well, astute readers will finally have their suspicions confirmed/blasted to pieces about the mirror. Wait, that should have been the Mirror - you can't forget the capitalization.).
As for who is gracing the cover art - I'll let you figure it out. And no, it's neither Simon nor Alec (yep, it's a new character - and I won't say anything more because SPOILERS!)
So yeah, I really liked this book, as well as the overall series; it's a fun, easy, action-packed and emotionally rollercoaster-ish read.

Intrigues - Mercedes Lackey

In this second installment of The Collegium Chronicles (which I believe will be a trilogy? I'm not sure.), our protagonist (Mags) is angsty, feels out-of-place, and learns more about his tragic past (by which I mean he finally finds out something about who his parents were. Did I mention he's an orphan who grew up in horrific conditions in a child-labour mine?).
Yeah, parts of it reminded me very much of the DRAMA! of being a young teenager (I'm talking about bieng a 13-15 year old, when having a fight with your best friends meant that everyone got really harsh with each other, and you wanted to run away/die afterwards).
Honestly, I thought this book was just okay; although I guess that if I were still in my I-love-every-novel-and-anthology-there-exists-about-Valdemar! phase, I'd have enjoyed it a lot more.
So yeah, even though it isn't marketed as a YA novel, in my opinion it definitely should be.

The Red Pyramid - Rick Riordan

This Rick Riordan novel isn't about Percy Jackson or Greek mythology - surprising, right? And it's also a pretty hefty book, with a 514-page long hardcover version - shocking!
It's very good, though; it's all about Carter and Sadie, two first-person narrators and young teenaged siblings whose parents were excellent magicians who followed the Egyptian mythological traditions. And yes, Egyptian mythology and deities are involved - fun!
Everything takes place in the same world as the Percy Jackson series (you can tell by the passing references to the Greek gods), but in different locations. For example, a big chunk of the action takes place in New York City, but in Brooklyn rather than Manhattan, since Manhattan's under the control (or is it jurisdiction? I'm not sure) of gods other than the Egyptian ones. And if that wasn't a reference to Mount Olympus over the Empire State Building, I'm a lemur.
Oh, and I'm thinking that that world is in grave peril a lot of the time. Seriously, it's endangered by Hellenic pandemonium one week, and by Egyptian chaos the next - should I expect some Norse trouble in the near future? (I'd read that.)
In any case, I'll keep an eye out for the next installment of The Kane Chronicles.

The Last Olympian - Rick Riordan

In this fifth and final book of the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series, the war pitting the Olympian gods against Kronos and his allies is in full swing. The legendary (and legendarily powerful) monster Typhon has escaped and is wrecking havoc all across America; Percy finally reads the full Great Prophecy that's been hanging over his head since the first book; and eventually everyone - allies and enemies and everyone in between - converges to Manhattan for the Epic Final Battle.
Of course, since this is a final installment and there's an Epic Final Battle, deaths are a-plenty (which is only to be expected, really).
It was very good; as with the previous installments of this series, I found it hard to put down the book once I'd started it. So yes, I do recommend it; in fact, I'd even recommend reading the entire series. Come on, there's Greek mythology involved!

Delusions of Gender - Cordelia Fine

How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference

As might be inferred from the second title-thing of this book, the entire premise of this very interesting 239-page-long read is that

• seriously peeps, gender essentialism is sexism; menfolk and womenfolk are not monoliths;
• the differences between "male" and "female" brains are really pretty tiny, and mostly exaggerated by people who report them (which, btw, includes not only The Media but also the scientists who publish the results in the first place),
• and in any case, most of these differences (such as different neurotransmitter secretion levels) can be explained due to brain overall size, which makes neurons act slightly differently so that the end result'll be the same;
• the slight differences between female and male cognitive performance (which are, let me stress this, SLIGHT) can mostly be explained by psychological phenomena and "subject priming", and NOT by any innate biological eternal truth;
• wow, as a society we put SO MUCH emphasis on gender and sex (as in genital organs, not activities), it's a bit impressive, honestly. But not in a good way.
• Also, we do not live and grow in a vacuum; we're exposed to messages from the media, explicitly from what people say, and implicitly from how people act and react all the time - it's bound to have an effect on our self-perception and on our own (and children's own growing) psyches.

Or, in my own words:

Men aren't from Mars, women aren't from Venus, all of humanity is from Earth (you buffoons). And people who persist in trying to justify their sexist beliefs with pseudoscientific, neurosexist crap are total assfaces.

Seriously, this book combines neuroscience, psychology and anti-sexism (it is both anti-misogyny and anti-misandry) in a way that's interesting, thought-provoking and funny all at the same time. You really should read it.

Oh, and it's decimal classification number is 612.82, so it's about Applied Science - Medical Science - Human physiology? Or at least, so it is according to my public library.

Out of Our Heads - Alva Noë

Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness

In this slim book, philosophy meets neuroscience and it is argued that the mind does not reside in the brain, but rather in the interactions between brain, body and world.
It was interesting.
And the cover art's pretty awesome.

The Alchemyst - Michael Scott

This first book of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series is pretty good.
It depicts an interesting world that takes place right now, in the beginning of the twenty-first century (cell phones! Laptop computers! iPods!), and that mixes mythologies of various traditions (Egyptian goddesses, Celtic legends, the ever-popular Atlantis trope and the Norse world-tree of Yggdrasill all make an appearance) with the usual YA fantasy novel landmarks: our protagonists, Josh and Sophie, are two fifteen-year-olds twins, they are the Chosen Ones (okay, the prophesied ones), and they have out-of-this-world amazing magical potential. Also, their mentor is Nicholas Flamel, you know, that super-famous French alchemist who also had a mention in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Or Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, if you're American.
I liked it; I think this series has a lot of potential for character growth and complexity, and come on, there's mythology involved! Plus, the cover art's pretty cool. It even looks good on my battered softcover public library's copy!

Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

Again, this final installment of the Hunger Games trilogy was a true rollercoaster of emotions; I feel drained out. Which is great praise indeed for a novel!
It's only while reading this book that I truly understood that everything takes place in the future, and I thought that Panem's society was very television-centric indeed (seriously, someone could probably build a Master's thesis on the role of media in science-fiction aimed at teenagers, and this series would be a big chunk of that thesis. Along with Westerfeld's Uglies/Pretties/Specials/Extras series. Hey, maybe I should write that thesis? Nah, I like science too much to change fields.).
Anyways, the war that pits the rebelling districts against the Capitol (and more to the point, its creepy president Snow) is well under way, and I think I'll leave at that because I could be so SPOILER-RIFFIC right now it's not even funny.
Oh, and I also love how Katniss (our ass-kicking protagonist) is a more than excellent lead character: she is strong, she is three-dimensional, she undertakes character growth, she has her flaws and weaknesses, and still in the end you can't help but  root for her. Even when she makes what you just KNOW is the wrong decision.
Ok, enough rambling: this book is excellent, a great cap to an amazing series, and I absolutely will re-read this trilogy several times in the future. It's just that awesome.

Skinny Bitch - Rory Freedman & Kim Barnouin

A shiteous book.

What, do you want my reasoning behind my three-word verdict? Ok, here goes:

• It's based on a flawed premise, right on the first page of the first chapter: "Healthy = skinny. Unhealthy = fat." No, these things aren't equal; if this were an equation, I'd say they've tried to divide by zero somewhere, and only Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
• "There is nothing in soda that should be put into your body." FALSE. Water's good, and you need sugars because hey, that's your body's energy source. Sure, it doesn't make you skinny, but who - oh, right, the whole point of this book is that skinnyness is what you're reaching for.
• Also, just BY THE WAY: you don't need to drink eight actual glasses of water a day, you get a huge part of your water through your food anyway. So yes, water drunk in carbonated sugared beverages still counts as water. Proof.
• Tons of paragraphs are lifted from PeTA propaganda. No kidding here.
• I don't take issue with profanity (I love it!), but I do take issue with how this text keeps insulting, degrading and verbally bullying its readers. I did not appreciate being called a "lazy shit", a "fat pig", being told that "[I]'ll be fat forever" if I didn't stop drinking coffee or eating acid foods (Dude, I love pickles, sod off), being told to "suck it up" and not take painkillers for my menstrual cramps, or even being told to "drag [my] cankles" to a health food store. All in the first chapter.
• I really hate the world "cankles". It's like "moist"; it's very creepy.
• On a sidenote, Blogger's spellcheck doesn't recognize "cankles" as a real word. Hah!
• Out of the ten chapters that I read (seriously, I just couldn't take any more of it), I got a distinct pro-eating disorder feel from this book, especially pro-anorexia attitudes. 
• They recommend "periodic repeated fasts", and "the longer the better" (see p. 132)
• I was especially creeped out when they describe the point where you're so hungry you don't feel your hunger anymore, and they call it feeling "light, clean, pure, and divine." (p. 133)
• On top of that, they give the reader some bullshit about how during fasting "the aging process is actually being reversed" (p.135). Last time I checked, you didn't turn into Benjamin Button by depriving yourself of sustenance, so FAIL.

It's a loathsome pile of fetidness indeed.

Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins

I started this second installment of the Hunger Games trilogy five hours ago - and I've been (figuratively) glued to its pages ever since.
IT IS SO FREAKING AWESOME
YOU HAVE NO IDEA
UNLESS YOU'VE READ IT, in which case you would have an idea. It's amazing, isn't it?
Intrigue, action, violence, a rebellion against the Capitol, personal drama, character growth, present-tense narration, and ALL-AROUND AWESOMENESS; this book has it all. And sprinkles of more.
asdkljfaksofkf; I'm incoherent in my excitement.

I really wish I could be more articulate about every single detail that made me love this book SO FREAKING MUCH, but that would be rather spoilery. And really, you should read the book yourself; you really, really should.

The Ring of Solomon - Jonathan Stroud

This Bartimaeus Novel (as is clearly written on the top of the cover - come on people, open your eyes! And seeeeee!) has two main protagonists. One is Asmira, one of the best guards of the Queen of Sheba (and by the way, did you know that all of her personal guards are (1) born into the role and (2) women? But hey, that's slavery and a matrilineal society for you!); she has a two-week deadline to travel all across the Arabian peninsula to Jerusalem, where she must kill the king Solomon and take his ring of legendary magical power. All under the orders of her queen, and kicking ass and taking names all quest long.

I'll let you guess who our second protagonist is. Come on, don't be shy, I'll give you some hints: he's just the most conceited, cheekiest and wittiest djinn whose first-person narration I've had the pleasure of reading this past year.

In any case, this novel takes place far to the southeast and far before the events of Bartimaeus's Trilogy; in fact, it takes place before Bartimaeus even met Ptolemy. So that was a long time ago indeed.

As far as the prose goes, it's a bit more stately paced and not quite as crackling as the narration of the Trilogy went; but that actually really helps to remind the reader that the events took place a LONG time ago. Because old literature is always at a glacial pace and full of descriptions, you know? This novel at least doesn't take it to the same level as that, though, and it's a very fun read indeed.

Oh, and guys? I lifted the cover picture from this, which is a much better review of this book. It even uses a "something on/out of something else" rating system, which is slightly more straightforward than my system of "enjoyable, boring, annoying, okay, twist, unfinished and wtf", no?

Annabel - Kathleen Winter

This novel is truly a thing of beauty.
It follows the birth and life of Wayne/Annabel, who was born a true hermaphrodite; he was however raised as a boy (because that's what his father wanted, mostly), thanks to surgeries and hormone treatments. Wayne was never entirely comfortable as a boy, though, and when he finally learned that he was born both a boy and a girl, character development and personal drama/evolution (dravolution?) ensues.
The prose to describe it all is downright beautiful, with its vivid depictions of the Labrador backdrop of Wayne/Annabel's youth; it also gives some crystalline insights into several characters' thoughts and motivations in frozen droplets of time. It also makes me write somewhat poetically, but my writing's far more mediocre.
Anyways, I enjoyed this novel very much.

City of Ashes - Cassandra Clare

This second installment of the Mortal Instruments series (there's going to be six books, apparently? Yay!) picks up right where City of Bones left off.
(And now, spoilers for CoB:)
Clary (the red-headed girl on the cover) is still very much attracted to Jace, and Jace to her - but now that they've found out that they're siblings (and that their father's the evil antagonist Valentine), things get awkward. Personally, I like that the author's dealing with that can of worms, instead of making her characters magically not attracted to each other anymore once they learn that they're related (I'm looking at you, Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory.).
Also, Clary and Simon's relationship goes to the next level (Level 1 was "they're friends", level 2 was "they're the best friends" (see City of Bones), and Level 3 is "kissing time!"). Also, Simon gets an upgrade - I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say that there's plenty of foreshadowing.
Plus, Clary's mother is in the same condition as she was when City of Bones ended.
Oh, and the war that pits our antagonist Valentine against, well, everyone is going swimmingly. It looms ever closer, and to be honest I'm really looking forward to reading the third installment of this series - if the next book's climax/final battle/chaosfest is to top this one, it should be pretty epic.

Kraken - China Miéville

This is a

• horror
• fantasy
• mystery
• science-fiction
• dystopian
• "let's mess with time!"
• cult (about)
• apocalyptic
• London
• quirky
• very well written
• weird
• full of Lovecraftian allusions
• and also of more mainstream references

novel.

Seriously, I liked it. 

Legacies - Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill

Look, a new teen series by Mercedes Lackey! And Rosemary Edghill, too.
With a kind of weird cover that I'm not a fan of, but I didn't really contemplate the cover, I just read the book.
Essentially, this novel is what you get if you combine Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar series, minus the Companions, plus some Harry Potter-esque elements and make everything happen to Tragic Orphans.
I enjoyed it, honestly - it's a fun plunge into fantasy teen fiction, filled with angst and magic and mysteries that will presumably be solved in the next installments of this Shadow Grail series. So yeah, I'll keep an eye out for the next installments but I probably won't buy them all.

The Battle of the Labyrinth - Rick Riordan

Book four of the Percy Jackson series!
In this novel, Percy and his friends must continue their quest against the evil Titan Kronos - whose army is ready for the war against Olympus, and whose earthly form is practically fully formed. Also, the Titan's forces are ready to march on Camp Half-Blood and destroy it, but all they're missing is one little thing, a way to navigate the Labyrinth. Yes, Daedalus's Labyrinth still exists (or rather, lives), and like everything else associated with Hellenic gods it has moved to the U.S., where it's become a handy (if confusing and often lethally dangerous) way of moving about quickly.
Daedalus, his son Icarus, the (somewhat evil) king Minos, and their story are all involved in this story; and as the next war between the gods and the Titans approaches, our main characters (Percy, Annabeth, Grover, Tyson, etc.) keep growing, gain allies, and lose friends. Plus, is that the lost god of the wild, Pan, that the satyrs (including Grover) have been searching for for two thousand years? (Warning: this particular quest will feature a famous Thus Spake Zarathustra line.)
As with all the other novels in this excellent series, the tone and pace of this story makes it a joy to read, and the way the author plays with themes and elements of Greek mythology makes my inner mythology geek very happy indeed. Seriously, I'll start gushing about the sheer awesomeness of this series if I don't end this post now.

The World in Six Songs - Daniel J. Levitin

This book was written by Daniel J. Levitin, the author of This is Your Brain on Music and the dude who runs the Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University (that's in Canada!). Impressed yet?
Anyways, this book is all about the whys of songs. It explores the six major "types" of songs that exist (Friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love songs), with plenty of examples and explanations of their significance.

There's a bit of a name-dropping feel at times - Sting's name pops up everywhere, and at one point the phrase "While I was dining with Joni Mitchell at an outdoor restaurant once," shows up, I shit you not (see page 132) (There's also a very handy index at the back, to track all the famous names peppered through the 289 pages of this book). Also, there's plenty of anecdotes about the author's life experiences that relate to the content of the book, which made for an even more interesting read. 

I also spotted quite a few references to Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, most notably in the Religion Songs chapter, where Levitin writes "that religion is more than a meme [...] and may have an evolutionary basis."

All and all, a good book, a 781 on the Dewey system, which means that it's a book about Arts, more specifically Music's General Principles and musical forms. Um, I'm not sure it's been labeled quite right?

Pourquoi rêvons-nous? Pourquoi dormons-nous? - Michel Jouvet

This slim (only 120 pages long!) book answers all the basic questions of sleep, the Where? When? and How? of all the kinds of sleep that exist (deep sleep! Rapid Eye Movement sleep - or "sommeil paradoxal", as they say in French!) and related phenomena (circadian cycles!). It also points out some interesting hypotheses about the Why? of sleep - but, as it states repeatedly, nothing's proven yet.
Honestly, it was an interesting book about the physiology of sleep (physiology! neuroscience!), and it was a very accessible read; it follows a kind of question-and-answer format, where the questions were asked by a teenager and the answers were tailored in accordance.
Also, it's pretty obvious that it was written by a physiologist: there's numerous references to physiology as "the queen of all sciences", and the author doesn't shy away from being highly skeptical about the importance of genetic research. Intra-biological sciences rivalries: love it!
Yay, sleep!
Oh, and for those who care about such things: the Dewey numbah is 612, so it's a book about Technology, more specifically the Medical Sciences, or to be even more precise, about Human physiology. Yay, physiology!