The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill

I recently finished Kelly Barnhill's (award-winning) YA novel The Girl Who Drank the Moon, as it is one of our 2020 Battle of the Books selections. This is your typical Fantasy, filled with Dragons, Witches, Wizards, Monsters, Heroes, Villains, Castles, Towers, Magic, Danger, Adventure, and One Very Special Girl. All the standard fantasy tropes have found a home within the pages of this one. It was cute... And well-written... But I didn't think there was anything particularly special about it.

Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for a juvenile fantasy.

Anyway... without being too Spoilery: 

Five hundred years ago (give or take), a terrible volcano erupted, devastating the Protectorate and the surrounding forest. There was a dragon involved. And a wizard. And a witch. It's unclear what exactly went down that fateful day. Not many are still alive who witnessed the events. And history always gets changed and reshaped to fit the ideals and views of Those In Charge. Long story short: People blame the Witch in the Woods (isn't there always a witch in the woods?), and every year on Sacrifice Day the village Elders leave a baby in the woods to appease her. I suppose so she doesn't unleash her wrath upon them again. Or there could be a more corrupt reason behind the tradition. Either way, the witch isn't who people think she is. And this year's baby is very special indeed. 

These elements combined....the Smack, predictably, is about to go Down!

What happens next?

You'll just have to read to find out. 

--AJB

Call Down the Hawk, by Maggie Stiefvater

I've been a fan of Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Cycle series since the first book came out back in the early 2010's. This was a world that was mysterious and magical and, quite literally, the stuff of dreams...but without being exaggerated and over-the-top like, say, Harry Potter (which I also love, but sometimes it's all just too much). So I was absolutely thrilled when a spinoff trilogy was announced.

Call Down the Hawk is the first book in the Dreamer Trilogy and focuses on Raven Boy Ronan Lynch, a character who can take objects from his dreams and bring them into the waking world (awesome superpower, by the way). And I'm happy to announce that this new series is shaping up to be just as good, if not better than, the one from which it spawned. 

In Hawk, the reader learns that there has been a dire prophecy: A Dreamer, the technical term for what Ronan is, will somehow manifest the End of the World. As in Actual End. As in Apocalypse of Flames. The agency that learned of this prophecy has no specifics on who and when, so they've been dispatching bounty hunters to locate and dispose of the world's Dreamers (Surprise! Ronan is not the only one). Ronan must team up with rogue dreamer Hennessy and the mysterious Bryde if he is to stop whatever dream entity is waiting to escape and make the prophecy come true.

In Hawk, the reader gets to know Ronan and the Brothers Lynch better (the Raven Cycle focused more on other characters). We're also introduced to Dreamer Hennessy, who is living with a death sentence of a recurring dream that will eventually kill her... To Jordan, a literal dream girl that wants nothing more than to break away from her Dreamer and become an independent, living and breathing person... To Carmen, a bounty hunter who is starting to question the motives of the agency that hired her.

The characters, the plot, the world building, and, of course, a killer cliffhanger come together to make Call Down the Hawk a book you won't be able to put down. The only drawback will be waiting a year (or more) for the next installment.

--AJB

Abominable

I was so excited to see Dreamworks' latest film, Abominable. So when I finally had the opportunity over the weekend, I was thrilled. 

Abominable is a cute story of a baby Yeti who escapes his captors and recruits three kids to help him get back to his home at the peak of Mount Everest. They are led on a dangerous trek across China, evading SWAT teams, diabolical scientists, and conniving rare animal collectors before finally reaching their goal. The good guys win and the bad guys get dropped off the edge of a cliff, presumably to meet their untimely demise. Happy ending. YAY!! 

Plus there was the film's undeniably stellar animation (I mean, Dreamworks is probably my favorite animation studio, producing such gems as Shrek and Kung Fu Panda). 

I should have loved this film. But despite all that Abominable had going for it, the viewing left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied. 

Nothing about this film felt finished to me: The main characters were one-dimensional, despite all their personal dramas. I felt that I should feel something for their plights, but I didn't. Even the villains were uninspired with no true motivations for why they were so evil. Worse, the storyline has been done before (and done better) in other movies (probably Disney). Even the attempts at humor fell flat. Everything about this movie lacked creativity. It seemed like the entire project was rushed. The end result is a movie that seems like it will be cute and heartwarming but, in reality, is totally forgettable.

If I can say anything good about Abominable is this: At least it was better than CATS.

--AJB