Three weeks into the new year...

...here are some highlights of what I've read so far!

I've been going on a YA binge. Mild spoilers below:

"Give Up the Ghost" Megan Crewe. High school student Cass uses her ability to speak with the dead to terrorize the popular kids at her school - but when student council VP Tim figures out her secret and asks for her help in contacting his mother, she finds herself drawn back into the world of the living.
Awesome. Just... awesome. This might be the best high school revenge fantasy since "Carrie," - maybe even better because it ends with Cass's redemption as she comes to realize just how empty and ultimately self-punishing her choices are. The characters are real and believable, especially in the ways Cass reaches closure with each one. I love the way the book ends on an open note - not a Hollywood ending with everything resolved in a climactic confrontation, but with Cass achieving her own peace, a peace dependent on her own choices and not on the opinions of others.

"A Drowned Maiden's Hair" Laura Amy Schlitz. MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD: A spunky orphan, adopted by three mysterious sisters, is trained to perform in their staged Spiritualist seances and must choose between being loved and taking advantage of other peoples' grief.
The reason I warn in particular about spoilers is that the beauty of this book is how the auther slowly reveals her plot. Even though the twist is revealed early on in the book there is nothing in the jacket copy about seances or the Spiritualist movement of the early twentieth century. Schlitz does a fantastic job with reversing expectations, and provides an interesting look at a little known period of American history.

"Mira, Mirror"Mettie Ivie Harrison. Hundreds of years after the events of Snow White, the witch trapped inside the evil stepmother's magic mirror tries to manipulate a pair of girls into providing her the magic she needs to free herself - only to learn a Valuable Lesson about Friendship.
This one was a little disappointing. I love a good anti-hero and the last hundred pages are really quite good. Unfortunately, the novel is 300 pages long. The problem I had is that for most of the book the mirror interacts only with the two girls, neither of whom, alas, is any kind of match or challenge for our protagonist on any level. Happily on page 206 the mirror meets a person who provides an actual threat, at which point the novel kicks into gear and ends on a surprising note, but by then I was already skimming ahead just to see what happened.

Test...

I believe it is traditional at this point to say, "Hello World!"