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"For the sound of a broken heart,
Crack a joke."

-A.E. Stallings




Wednesday, January 8, 2014

In Three Words: Vivian Vande Velde

Take a peek: Vivian Vande Velde's Website

...and then, take a closer look at her book, Dragon's Bait.


Her first inclination was to hope the dragon hadn't seen the torches and that she'd have time to run under cover of the nearby trees...

Then she realized the dragon hadn't seen her, and that if she stayed still for a few moments longer, she was free. But she was soaked to the skin and cold, and she hadn't eaten anything since early morning, and she was an orphan with nowhere, absolutely nowhere, to go. And she remembered the wolves.

Her choices, as she saw them, were to die quick or to die slow.

She chose quick.

Standing, she flung a rock with all her might. "You stupid dragon!" she screamed. "Come and get me!"

 

I highly, highly--let me stress--highly recommend this book. I wont belabor on a topic that I am planning on going into more detail on later in another post, but Vande's book is well worth the read if, like me, you miss having a real plot that isn't paused intermittently for the token sex scene, or if you wish for a heroine that is more the anti-hero in a believable sense which allows a sense of poignancy to the story.

Alys and Selendrile are two characters you must get to know--the tention between them was maintained by Vande so well that it left me feeling as if I was walking across a tight-rope with a cup of hot tea in my hands the whole time. Beautifully done with an ending that leaves you cooing and yelling "no" all at the same time!

Also, for those parents who shudder over the teen novel selections these days, this book is divorced from the current popular theme of having the moral being that of girl gets boy and girl loses virginity. Even the aforementioned tension between Alys and Selendril stays adamantly at the G-rating (which, in my opinion, made it all the better). The story is really about a girl who is wrongfully accussed of something, who then seeks revenge against her accusors, and she realizes along the way that her search for revenge solved nothing.

So, in all, this is a childhood favorite that still finds its way back into my hands from time to time, and, in the end, I hope that proves true of you as well.




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