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Kiki Strike: The Darkness Dwellers Kirsten Miller

First off, I need to offer a great big THANK YOU to all that is good in the universe for FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY giving us another Kiki Strike book. IT HAS BEEN FOREVER.

And, has the wait been worth it? Oh yes, yes it has.

Kiki is off to Pokrovia to claim her crown and renounce it, officially supporting the democracy that has sprung up. When she leaves, she leaves Ananka in charge of the Irregulars.

In New York, Ananka and Betty stumble across the L'Institut Beauregard, a finishing school for New York's finest families. Ananka is already aware of them--every year they turn more of her classmates in zombies, completely draining them of their interesting personalities.

Meanwhile, Kiki doesn't make it to Pokrovia-- she's been kidnapped in Paris, but happens to meet two interesting young men with very extensive knowledge of the catacombs. While Amelia Beauregard takes Betty to Paris to help investigate a mystery from WWII, and Kiki and her friends are investigating more recent disappearances, the Irregulars at home are figuring out why Oona's been banned from every shop in Chinatown and trying to defeat an evil pharmaceutical company. Of course, there's still that bit about Kiki's kidnapping and Pokrovia's future as a democratic nation.

I love, love, love how Betty really comes into her own in this one. None of the other irregulars really trust her, because she's the nicest of them. But when she's in Paris, she's more or less on her own and has to prove what she's made of, and she has to decide how she does it. It's really well done. Actually, there's a lot in this one about the dynamics of the group and their relationships with one another. It's been so long since the last one, I can't remember if that's normal or not. All I know is that I love it.

I also loved the exploration of another city's underground. I loved the change in location and mysteries and secrets of the Paris catacombs (which, unlike the underground city that the Irregulars frequent in New York, is actually real.) I also like how much takes place in the catacombs that the tourists don't get to see.

The history buff in my appreciates that the older mystery was just as important as the recent ones-- it's never too late to solve a mystery.

I am not sure how I feel about the cover redesign (they're rereleasing the others as well in the new style).

Fans will not be dissapointed. I can only hope/pray/wish that there is more, and it is coming soon.

ARC Provided by... a friend, who knows how much I love Kiki. (THANK YOU DAVID!!!)

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One is a short, skinny girl with white hair. The other is a newly-minted willowy beauty. Yet these two girls have much in common. Both offer us a look at just what girls can achieve--results that greatly exceed society's expectations. Both Kiki Strike and Frankie Landau-Banks, from the eponymous books by Kirsten Miller and E. Lockhart, are much more than meets the eye.

Kiki Strike is described as an elf or a leprechaun. Her small stature packs quite a punch, as several evil-doers find out the hard way. Yet it is Kiki's mind that is the greatest weapon. Calculating, insightful, and cunning, Kiki forms the group of girl adventurers known as the Irregulars, leading them on an exploration of a shadow city beneath Manhattan. But when an accident injures one of the Irregulars, Kiki disappears in the aftermath. Two years later, she returns, leading the Irregulars on another mission that will reveal Kiki's secret past.

Frankie Landau-Banks was unnoticeable; known as Bunny Rabbit to her family, she didn't attract attention. Then she became pretty over the course of one summer and saw how beauty can draw the eye. Either way, however, she discovered that a girl doesn't have much power. And for a smart, observant, thoughtful girl like Frankie, this was a hard realization to make. When she finds out that her boyfriend is the member of a secret male-only society at their boarding school, she decides to infiltrate it. Frankie manages to direct the actions of the group, keeping her true identity a secret. Yet when a prank backfires, Frankie finds out what it's like to have everyone know who you are.

Each of these books explore girls as they enter their teen years and start discovering the power they hold. Part of this power is due to their looks, as they begin to become women. But such power is fleeting, and is too easily confused with popularity. True power is that which comes from the strength of your intelligence. Both Kiki and Frankie have minds that let them strategize and plan, solve problems and direct others. Yet the truly amazing thing is that they choose to hide their abilities, preserving the belief in sweet quiet girls. After all, no one expects a girl to be up to any trouble. Both Frankie and Kiki realize this and exploit this fact fully.

Why do these two young women do this, when they could be capable of so much more? It's not just the dangers each character faces in the course of her story that causes her to work in secret. In fact, it's the very fact that the deck is stacked against them that makes them appear to live up to the stereotype. Society's view of young females becomes rather like the chicken-or-the-egg problem: Kiki and Frankie rebel against being consigned to silent, invisible girlhood, yet that ability to be unnoticed leads them to be even more successful. And neither of these girls are about to forgo such an advantage.

For Frankie, she begins to use her brain, knowing that she's outsmarting a group of boys who are expected to become the male elite in this country. Kiki goes even further: to achieve her goal, she finds other girls who have great but untapped strength, and teaches them how to wield this power while appearing to be ordinary young women.

As the news tells us, being taken advantage of is a common problem for females of any age. Women seem to be held to different standards, whether they're managing companies, performing research, or running for political office. It's hard for any female to figure out what is the right course for her. Yet through books, girls and women can discover different ways to use their power. And while we might not be a martial arts master like Kiki or be a brainy beauty like Frankie, these two characters offer a powerful repudiation of the expectation that girls shouldn't cause trouble, act too smart, or contradict those who know better. Because who knows better how to make your way through life than you?

Crossposted to Librarian by Day.

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So, maybe it's just girl detective week here at Biblio File. (Well, probably not, as I think I'm out of girl detective books.)

Anyway, I was going to say some other things not book related, but they all sound cool in my head and then really dumb when typed out. Ah well.

Today's song is one of my favorites. Erin McKeown's Float

Anyway, regular readers may well be aware that Kirsten Miller's Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City was one of my favorite books last year. (And, I'd like to give a huge shout out to Ms. Miller, who read my blog and my plea for a t-shirt and hooked me up.)

Well, Miller has completely outdone herself with Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb.

Not to completely take myself back to 3rd grade, but I feel I need point out one of the main lessons of this book:

Secrets secrets are no fun
Secrets secrets hurt someone

You'd think that, after what happened last time, the girls would know that they have to be honest and open with each other. You'd think they know they have to trust each other.

But, because of some very big, explosive secrets, everyone assumes Oona has gone over to the dark side and won't give her the benefit of the doubt. And something's wrong with Kiki, but she's not telling.

But who has time to worry? Giant squirrels are mugging innocent New Yorkers, there's a hungry ghost on the loose, the Irregulars keep finding kidnapped Taiwanese children, and psychologists are just weird. And, on top of it all, Ananka's grounded and about to sent off to boarding school.

There are some very bad things going down in New York, and there's only one band of renegade girl scouts up to the job. But they might just have to save themselves first.

This is even better than the first (who thought that was possible?!) The stakes are higher, the twists are um... twistier... the secrets are bigger, deeper, and will keep you guessing. Plus, it has a hungry ghost, and you know how much I love hungry ghosts. If I had to have one complaint, I was surprised Ananka didn't already know about hungry ghosts. She knows everything! Especially about ghosts!

Now, when I finished the last one, I said that couldn't tell if it was a series, but I hoped it was. The last sentence of this one? Definitely another book coming, and now I really, really can't wait. And my buddy icon hasn't changed.

But, if you haven't read Kiki Strike yet, get thee to a library or book store. Get both books now. Check out the website. (I can't wait until the store is up!) You'll thank me.

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Kirsten Miller works in advertising, and her debut book, Kiki Strike Inside The Shadow City, reads as if a really savvy marketer took a piece of many high profile stories and melded them together brilliantly. You've got a girl spy/criminal in the tradition of Artemis Fowl with her own Scooby Gang (nod to Buffy) that takes on a mean girl posse from...well, any number of recent books and movies. Then you've got a princess, and we love princesses. Really. You've got a world under New York, though it's more like the old Beauty and the Beast series than the Underland.

And you've got some history and mystery, too.

All these elements are worked together very well. The Scooby Gang is known as the Irregulars, which Miller says is a tribute to the Baker Street Irregulars of the Sherlock Holmes' stories. What's more, the book is narrated by a Watson-like character with a voice that is notable and not imitative of other first-person kid narrators. Though I did figure out the ending, I didn't do it right away. And there were plenty of twists and turns before I got there.

Kiki Strike is definitely a good entry in the early teen mystery category.

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I'm a Kirsten Miller fan. You may have been able to recognize this fact from the friggin' I Am Kiki Strike shirt I keep wearing all over the place. So how weird is it that I've never met the woman? She's here in NYC. She writes a book that takes into account all kinds of classic New York places (including a made up library). You would THINK I'd run into her.

But I haven't. The most I can do is go to Tracy Chrenka's blog to read the online interview Ms. Chrenka and her students conducted recently with Ms. Miller. It's very nice. Explains all sorts of things.

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