at Warwick Books
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My young person's book group meets at Warwick Books in central Warwick
 
H.I.V.E
Shiver
Skulduggery Pleasant
| H.I.V.E by Mark Walden You might think that the children’s (now more teenage!) book group has died but in fact it is merely that Meg forgot to send in her report on HIVE last time. Briefly, that was a book that we all enjoyed and some of us enjoyed very much indeed. Meg was her usual sneery self, pointing out the illogical premise – how can you have a school for villainy in which villainy is the thing to be attained – and yet you get punished for being difficult in class? And how is it possible to have friendships? If you’re all villains, how can you also be friends? However – if one ignores all that, this is a very entertaining read, with clearly defined and interesting characters and an exciting climax – even if the finale does seem to owe rather too much to Hagrid and Nigel from ‘Harry Potter’! This is the first book in what is clearly a fairly substantial series and we were rather irritated by the very obvious hook into the next book. It was a good read – but not so good that any of us were gagging to read the next one – not like ‘The Hunger Games’. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater Much the same could be said of ‘Shiver’. We all enjoyed this. Everyone gave it 8/10 apart from skinflint Meg who could only rise to 7. There was a comment on its patchiness. The opening and the ending were especially well handled and we enjoyed the complexity of some of the characters. We felt, however, that Grace’s character was inconsistent. We could argue that she becomes a different, more confident, more sexually alive character, only when she meets Sam – but we weren’t quite convinced. The transformation from the rather geeky, reclusive and highly responsible girl seems a bit too extreme. We also had some issues in this book with the ‘What do you do with the interfering parents?’ question, always a bit of a stumbling block for children’s writers. In this book, we felt that the parents were that bit too dysfunctional to credit – but they were certainly different! We liked the premise of the book, which is a twist on the werewolf theme and were intrigued to know how it would resolve in the end. The author effectively kept us guessing. Jamie’s killer review line ‘Like ‘Twilight’ without the Vampires’ turned out to be a bit harsh. It’s a better written and more interesting read than ‘Twilight’ and we’d recommend it, especially to those who enjoy supernatural romance. Even so, we were satisfied by just one book with these characters and this theme. We weren’t convinced by the idea of it stretching to a trilogy – but that is what publishers seem to be interested in just now, if they’re going to give anything any serious promotion. It’s a shame. It’s a good stand alone book. Our next meeting is Tues May 10th (tbc) and our chosen book is ‘Skulduggery Pleasant’ by Derek Landy.  will be published on Friday April 1st ***Keith & Frances at Warwick Books are always happy to order books for you - ring 01926 499939 for more information. If you are an Amazon customer, then the links from individual book covers will take you to the correct Amazon page.
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