Review: The Fault in Our Stars

Title: The Fault in Our Stars

Author: John Green
Release Date: January 10, 2012
Publisher:  Dutton
Cover Designer:  Rodrigo Corral
Age Audience: YA

Genre: Contemporary

Summary: Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs...for now.
Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.
Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

Review:
The Fault in Our Stars lives up to the incredible hype.

It was lovely that the dedication was to Esther Earl, the Nerdfighter girl in whose memory the This Star Won't Go Out Foundation was founded. While little things like "my best friend was an author who didn't know I existed" can set you off, remember that this book is a work of fiction. Mr. Green has stated several times that Esther and Hazel are nothing alike.

Hazel has cancer, and Augustus had cancer, but this wasn't a "cancer book" as much as it was a book about teenagers with cancer. When it came to characters, the first thing I noticed was that the secondary characters weren't as developed as they were in the author's other novels. In Looking for Alaska, there was the whole gang. In Paper Towns, Q had Ben and Radar. But Hazel and Augustus created a little world that was only for the two of them. I rather liked Isaac, even thought the part he played in the story wasn't as important as I hoped.

There were times I wished that An Imperial Affliction, the book that Hazel and Augustus loved, was real so I could read it. The author, Peter Van Houten, never wrote anything else and lived isolated from the world in Amsterdam. Because they knew so little about him, Hazel and Augustus romanticized him as the great thinker of our time. But things changed. Eventually Hazel referred to Van Houten as "an author we used to like".

The Fault in Our Stars followed Mr. Green's style of being both funny and philosophical, sometimes simultaneously. Hazel and Augusts were humorous in their nerdy, adorable ways, but deeper things lied beneath. One of the recurring themes was death. How everything is a side effect of dying. How thousands die every day, but few are recognized, and why are they the ones to be recognized? How Anne Frank was built a museum and went down in history for being killed in the Holocaust, but the four Aron Franks were not.
Another theme was being a hero. Augustus was obsessed with the idea of a traditional hero. But we were shown that not all of us are going to win wars or save the world. We can be heroes in smaller ways, in the ways Augustus was a hero.

I was not expecting the turn of events. I knew someone was going to die, but I was wrong about who it was. For a while, I even thought the book would end mid-sentence in the style of An Imperial Affliction. As for how it really did end, let's just say that if you care about Hazel or Augustus at all, you're in for emotional pain.

Everything you've heard about this book is true. The Fault in Our Stars is everything from heartbreaking to haunting.

★★★★½

Review: Speak

Title: Speak

Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Release Date: October 22, 1999
Publisher: Puffin
Cover Designer: Michael Morgenstern
Age Audience: YA

Genre: Contemporary

Tagline: The tough, tender, and darkly funny story of a teenage outcast.
Summary: Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so her old friends won't talk to her, and people she doesn't know hate her from a distance. The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth.

My Review:

I certainly have mixed feelings.
Based on what I’ve been hearing ever since I started reading YA, I’d come to expect something amazing and true and relatable from Speak.
However, this was not the case for me.

One of the things I liked was the writing. It was very simplistic, yet beautiful in an ordinary and everyday sort of way. Because there weren’t definite chapters in the book, it was almost like reading Melinda’s thoughts and feelings in their purest form.

I think that high school was portrayed stereotypically and unrealistically. Yes, it’s not a blast, but it isn’t exactly the worst thing that’s ever going to happen to you. I don’t find it believable that Merryweather High changed their mascot several times in one year. My school has had the same mascot for 30 years, and it will probably keep it for another 30 years.
Maybe this only applies to my school, but I don’t think “cliques” exist. There are divisions of sorts (the athletes, the people in band, the theatre kids, etc.), but not so strong that you don’t associate with people outside your group. Also, not every cheerleader is a ditzy blonde princess. I know that this book was published in 1999, but really?

Thanks to the lovely people on Goodreads who don’t put spoiler warnings in their reviews, I knew the reason for Melinda’s silence long before I read this book. I’ve never had something like that happen to me, so maybe I’m being insensitive, but I think that Melinda really should have told someone. It would have saved her so much pain and loneliness. This is another reason this book would be better for people other than me, because what happened to Melinda is not something I can relate to.

Overall, I don’t have any strong feelings of like or dislike. Speak is a good book, it really is. It just wasn’t for me.

★★½

Review: Looking for Alaska

This review is going to contain spoilers. I always try to write spoiler-free reviews, but this time I couldn't. The spoilers will be marked, but read at your own risk.

Title: Looking for Alaska

Author: John Green
Release Date: March 3, 2005
Publisher: Dutton
Cover Designer: N/A
Age Audience: YA

Genre: Contemporary

Tagline: First friend. First girl. Last words.
Summary: Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps." Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

My Review:

Mr. John Green, once again you have impressed me.
Well, it's not really "again" because this was his debut, but it is for me because this is his second novel I've read.

Culver Creek was nothing like I expected, and I mean that in a good way. When I think of a boarding school, I usually picture a grand old mansion in the northeast with a regal history and vintage furniture in every room. Instead, Culver Creek was in Birmingham, Alabama, and everything about it was southern. It was a very unique take.

I felt that the "before" section of the book dragged a little. There were many scenes showing Miles hanging out with Alaska and the Colonel and getting to know them. I just wanted to get on with the story.
But when the story did move on, I wasn't ready for it at all.

*spoilers* I already knew that Alaska was going to die because the summary on the publication page mentioned a "fatal car accident", but when it did happen I was not prepared. I actually cried for the first twenty pages of the "after" section, because I could really feel Miles' pain and grief as he tried to adjust to life without Alaska. *spoilers*

There were a few parts of the book that weren't huge aspects, but I couldn't stop thinking about them. For example, Alaska's theory that imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. I never would have thought of it, but now I realize how true it is. And if that wasn't enough:

"If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane."

That, ladies and gentlemen, is perfection. One of the best sentences I've ever read.

I also have something very important to point out. I've seen more than a few reviews on Goodreads stating "all of John Green's novels are basically the same story told over and over again". This is not true.
I have read Paper Towns, and it was uniquely different from Looking for Alaska. The plots of the two books contrasted, as did the characters. Yes, Miles and Quentin have some similar personality traits, but not enough to dub them "the same character". Alaska and Margo are like that as well: they have things in common, but are two different characters. I actually liked Alaska more than I liked Margo.

Even though there were one or two things I didn't like about this book, the things I did were so good that it's more than worthy of 4.5 stars. Looking for Alaska, you deserved every bit of your Printz Award.

★★★★½

Review: Where She Went

Title: Where She Went
Series: If I Stay, #2
Author: Gayle Forman
Release Date: April 5, 2011
Publisher: Dutton
Cover Designer: N/A
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary
Tagline: N/A
Summary: It's been three years since the devastating accident...three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.
Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Julliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future—and each other.
Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

My Review:
I don’t know how Gayle Forman does it! She always comes up with such beautiful titles. “Where She Went”. Those three words sound like lyrics from a sad song, don’t they?

This book takes place three years after If I Stay. Like its predecessor, the actual book takes place over a very short time, a few days in this case, but there are many flashbacks. Except this time, we’re reading from Adam’s POV. I was happy to be reading about the characters that I came to love in If I Stay again (actually, one of them had changed so much that they weren't the character I knew and loved—but I'll get to that soon). When Adam first saw Mia again, I was so excited that it was almost like I was the one meeting my long-lost first love after three years apart!

However, I’m sorry to say that I didn’t like this book as much as the first one.
You see, one of the things I liked the most about If I Stay was that it wasn’t very emotional. But in Where She Went, Adam was no longer the sensitive, supporting boyfriend and all-around great guy that he was in If I Stay. He was an angsty, heart-broken rock star. Between his flashbacks of missing Mia and his accounts of how horrible life as a rock star is, there was so much emotional whining in this book. This is dislike is more of a personal thing than an actual problem with the book. I’m sure most people won’t mind that aspect, but I minded Adam’s melodrama very much.

I was very happy with the ending. At first Adam began saying things that made me worry, but it all turns out well in the end. I’m so glad that Mia and Adam’s suffering is over, and they can be happy now. I’m also glad that Mia helped Adam rediscover his love for music.

While I did like Where She Went, If I Stay was better. If you don’t mind lots of emotion and angst, you’ll probably like this book better than I did. But even if you do, you should still read this if you’ve read If I Stay and you want to see what happened next.

★★★

Review: Brother/Sister

This is the review of an uncorrected advance copy. Changes may be made in the final book.

Title: Brother/Sister
Author: Sean Olin
Release Date: June 9, 2011
Publisher: Razorbill
Cover Designer: N/A
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary
Summary: Will and Asheley have a troubled past. Their father left them when they were little, and their mother has just been carted off to an alcohol treatment center. Now, they have the house to themselves, and an endless California summer stretching out before them. Through alternating perspectives, they tell the story of how and why their lives spun violently out of control—right up to the impossibly shocking conclusion you'll have to read for yourself to believe.

My Review:

For some reason, when an ARC of this book was handed to me by the people at the Penguin booth at TLA, the first word that came into my mind was “incest”. I mean, doesn’t the title “Brother/Sister” sound at least a little suggestive? And the tagline was “Just give them a chance to explain…” That sounds quite suggestive too. But I wouldn’t say this book was incest-themed.

No, it was not incest-themed, but Will and Asheley did have a very close relationship. Maybe a little too close. At first, Will just seemed misunderstood to me. He got angry easily and was very antisocial, not wanting to be around anyone except Asheley. Considering that he and Asheley had had pretty rough lives, I didn’t blame him. But then…he just goes insane. Seriously insane. All rational thinking gone, just “Oh, that person pissed me off. I’m going to kill them!”

The book is told in alternating points of view. From what it seemed, Will and Asheley were telling their story to the police. At first I had trouble distinguishing their voices, but they became unique to me later on. Will is full of paranoia while Asheley is more innocent and trusting. As the book progresses, they start explaining the same events differently, so you start to wonder which one of them is right.

The summary clearly states that the ending was shocking. At first, I thought “Wait, there was no ending!” because the book ended mid-sentence. But then I re-read the last page a times, and I understood. Even now I haven’t quite absorbed the conclusion, because it means that everything I was led to believe earlier in the book was wrong.

While I was very intrigued, I can’t say I liked this book. Brother/Sister was not my cup of tea, but I still would recommend it to those who can handle the rough stuff. Also, I think that this book would be excellent if adapted into a made-for-TV crime movie.

★★

Review: Paper Towns

Title: Paper Towns
Author: John Green
Release Date: October 16, 2008
Publisher: Dutton
Cover Designer: Christian Funfhausen
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary 
Summary: Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows. After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

My Review:

I discovered Paper Towns about a year ago, but I had no interest in reading it until I saw a fan-made trailer (which was very well-done) for it during a presentation at TLA 2011. I didn’t know what to expect (remember that I generally don’t like contemporary fiction), but I was absolutely blown away! It was so fascinating, I really couldn’t stop reading.

The characters were awesome. I loved being drawn into the world of Quentin, Ben and Radar, all of whom made me laugh several times throughout the book. I loved how they weren’t ashamed of their intelligence and general nerdiness. I’m not sure how I felt about Margo though. I think it was selfish of her to run away. Even though it wasn’t the first time…Quentin missed her so much! He even though for a while that she was dead! (See? Look how attached I am to him.)

But behind the witty dialogue and captivating writing, Paper Towns had a profound message. It teaches that you should see people as people, and not expect them to be anything but who they are.

“What a treacherous thing it is to believe a person is more than a person.”

Here are a couple more quotes that are worth sharing:

“It is easy to forget how full the world is of people, full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently misimagined.”

“When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that, we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never seeing inside. But once the vessel cracks, the light can get in. The light can get out.”

The ending was bittersweet and a little bleak, but hopeful. I may or may not have gotten a little teary-eyed. Paper Towns was a compelling and meaningful book that both young adults and not-so-young adults should read.
★★★★½

Review: Across the Universe

Title: Across the Universe (Across the Universe, #1)
Author: Beth Revis
Release Date: January 11, 2011
Publisher: Razorbill
Cover Designer: N/A
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Sci-fi
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon. Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone—one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship—tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next. Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

My Review:
★★★½
First of all, thank you to Brooke from Brooke's Box of Books for pointing out that there are ship blueprints on the other side of the book jacket! I never would have discovered them otherwise.

Anyways, the two things that drew me to this book were the Beatles reference in the title (I am a sucker for Beatles references) and the sub-genre (space opera isn't that popular nowadays). It took me awhile to get around to reading this, but it was definitely worth reading!

Across the Universe was a bit slow to start, but after about 75 pages in I couldn’t stop reading. Something about Revis’ descriptions of the ship make you feel…claustrophobic. I know that word is over-used in describing this book, but it’s honestly the best word that describes the feeling you get while reading.

While I didn’t feel especially attached to any of the characters, they weren’t boring or uninteresting either. I liked the switching POV, because we got to see the Godspeed through the eyes of both someone familiar with it, and a newcomer. However, the romance in this book was barely romance. What Elder felt for Amy was more like obsession than love. He was only interested in her because she was different. I have no idea what Amy saw in Elder.

My biggest issue with this book was the “Season” (to those of you who haven’t read the book, it’s when the people of the Godspeed have sex for days to produce the ship’s next generation). Revis really didn’t spare any details. I am strongly against censorship in YA, but…..does a YA book really need graphic descriptions of 30-year-olds doing it in the fields?

I figured out who the killer was halfway through the book. And the climax, while it was very well-done, was predictable too. Anyone with knowledge of basic math could have figured it out near the beginning of the book. The ending wasn’t exactly a cliffhanger, but there were questions left unanswered.

Despite my criticisms, Across the Universe was a really good book. Who knows? Maybe when the dystopia craze* blows over, YA space opera will rise to popularity!

*Not that I mind the dystopia craze. Sci-fi is sci-fi.

Review: If I Stay

Title: If I Stay (If I Stay, #1)
Author: Gayle Forman
Release Date: April 9, 2009
Publisher: Dutton
Cover Designer: Monica Benalcazar
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary  
Summary: In a single moment, everything changes. Seventeen-year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall riding along the snow-wet Oregon road with her family. Then, in a blink, she finds herself watching as her own damaged body is taken from the wreck. A sophisticated and heart-achingly beautiful story about the power of family and friends, the choices we all make—and the ultimate choice Mia commands.

My Review:
★★★★
This may sound unusual, but what drew me to this book was not the cover, but the title. If I Stay. It just sounded so…songlike. I guess you could say that I judged this book by its title. However, I was unsure when I found out it was realistic fiction. I usually steer clear of contemporary/realistic fiction because it tends to be too melodramatic and sappy for my liking. I don’t think I would have even gotten around to reading this if Gayle Forman wasn’t going to be at the TLA this year.

I read this book in three hours. But those three hours were unforgettable.

It’s difficult to tell what the book is about from reading the summary, so I’ll tell you that If I Stay was about Mia, the protagonist, deciding whether she should keep on living after a tragic car accident, or join her family in death. But this book wasn’t only about death. It was also about life, family and love, as you can see from Mia’s flashbacks throughout the novel.

Surprisingly (at least to me), this book wasn’t melodramatic at all. The characters and their situations were realistic and truthful. This book was touching as well. I mean, it wasn’t Between Mom and Jo-touching, but one of my eyes slightly leaked at the end.

I also loved the musical aspect. I’m not a huge fan of music-themed books, but I can’t imagine If I Stay without the music. It flourished and upheld the story, which made this short book even more engrossing.

Needless to say, I’m very much looking forward to Where She Went.

Review: Matched

Title: Matched (Matched, #1)
Author: Ally Condie
Release Date: November 30, 2010
Publisher: Dutton
Cover Designer: Theresa M. Evangelista
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Sci-fi
Summary: Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate...until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. The Society tells her it's a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

My Review:
★★★
First of all, isn't the cover lovely? It's also symbolic, because at one part in the book, Cassia says,

"I feel like I'm trapped in glass, and I want to break free."

But I'm sorry to say that this book was nowhere near as beautiful as its cover. Okay, that's a little harsh. But it wasn't.

If the cover doesn't make you want to read this, then the premise definitely should. It sounds like an interesting plot, doesn't it? It helped that sci-fi is one of my favorite genres. So I put myself on the library waiting list for this book as soon as it was released.

Anyways, Cassia was a good, well-rounded character. Though at times she was a little selfish, that just goes to show she has flaws and isn't perfect. And another plus: character development! Well, at least in Cassia's case. Throughout the book you can see how she develops from a follower of the Society to a rebel.
I expected Ky to be one of those "I'm-super-hot-and-I-have-a-secret-and-that's-about-it" kind of characters (think Damien from Evermore), but Ky was actually a very good character. I expected the romance between him and Cassia to be some pathetic "love at first sight" crap, but they actually get to know each other and their relationship had buildup, which I appreciated.
However, Xander was a stereotypical boy-next-door. He didn't have much depth.
Em and Piper were extremely flat and predictable. It felt like the author just threw them in because Cassia needed friends.

The writing was good, some of the descriptions were very pretty. However, because of the first-person point of view, the descriptions sounded out-of-place rather than poetic. I mean, nobody talks like that in their inner monologue. So I would have liked this book better if it had been told in third-person point of view rather than first person.

Also, Condie is terrible with explanations! You never really find out how the Society came to be, or how things generally work. I really hope that we'll get more explanations in the next book.

But that's not even my biggest criticism: Matched was way too similar to The Giver.
The Society was just The Community under another name. And the Matching system, the uniforms, the job system, pills that control emotions, not choosing the amount of children you want to have, all that and more was in The Giver first! And since The Giver is one of my all-time favorites, I will defend it to the ends of the earth.

So my conclusion is that Matched was a good book. It was a great book! But not worth all the hype.

Review: Shadow Kiss

Title: Shadow Kiss (Vampire Academy, #3)
Author: Richelle Mead
Release Date: November 13, 2008
Publisher: Razorbill
Cover Designer: Emilian Gregory
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Paranormal
Summary: For Rose Hathaway, everything seems out of kilter. Ever since she made her first Strigoi kills, a dark shadow has been creeping over her. Looming in the background, too, is another realization: If she follows her forbidden love for guardian Dimitri Belikov, she might lose her best friend forever. And these sleep-shaking worries couldn't have come at a worse time. The immortal unloving are prowling everywhere, famished for vengeance against her.

My Review:
★★★

I really have mixed feelings about the Vampire Academy series. I can't put my finger on it, but there's just something about this series that makes it...shallow. No, shallow isn't the right word. Like I said, I can't really explain it.

Anyways, on the the review of this particular book.
(Here come the spoilers! Don't tell me you weren't warned!)
I already knew that Dimitri was going to turn Strigoi because I had heard spoilers from the Internet, but it still came as a bit of a shock to me. Usually I read Vampire Academy books when I have nothing else to read, but I finished this wanting the next one! Still, I wasn't attached enough to the characters to cry. If I had been reading Eragon (for example) and something like this happened, I would be blubbering like a baby.

Speaking of the characters, there is a lack of character development in this series, at least where Rose is concerned. Although it's true that she isn't as slutty as she was in the first book, her manners certainly haven't improved. Then again, you know how boring this series would get if she was like Lissa?

Review: The Ruins of Gorlan

Title: The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger’s Apprentice, #1)
Author: John Flanagan
Release Date: January 1, 2004
Publisher: Puffin
Cover Designer: John Blackford (shield design by Cliff Nielsen)
Age Audience: YA
Genre: Fantasy
Summary: Will had always wanted to be a warrior. The Rangers, with their dark cloaks and shadowy ways, made him nervous. The villagers believe the Rangers practice magic that makes them invisible to ordinary people. And now fifteen year-old Will, always small for his age, has been chosen as a Ranger's apprentice. What he doesn't realize yet is that the Rangers are the protectors of the kingdom. Highly trained in the skills of battle and surveillance, they fight the battles before the battles reach the people. And as Will is about to learn, there is a large battle brewing. The exiled Morgarath, Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, is gathering his forces for an attack on the kingdom. This time, he will not be denied.

My Review:
★★★½
I read this book for my book club. I thought the cover was corny (except for the Cliff Nielsen part). And when I started reading it, I thought the prologue was corny too. But when the book actually started, it got interesting.

One thing I liked about this book is that the names of the characters were relatively normal. In real life, there are people named Will, Horace, Jenny, etc. In most fantasy books, the characters have names that sound completely made up (example: Graceling by Kristin Cashore). I also liked how the Rangers were archers. I love archers in fantasy.

The writing was good, but it wasn't anything exceptional. I also think that sometimes unnecessary details were given. For example, at one point it goes on for a whole paragraph about how Sir Rodney's bedroom looks after his wife's death. Honestly, I didn't think that was relevant to the story at all. It wasn't even interesting. But the upside of the overload of details is that you can really picture the setting in your mind, unlike with some books that don't give much details except whether it's raining or snowing (*cough cough* Twilight). Like, during the battle scenes, I felt like I was there watching the battle.

Here's one thing about this book that makes me wonder. Halt says a French phrase to mount his horse, and he tells Will that it's another language. Which makes me wonder, is this book set in an imaginary world, or in the real world at a time when countries had different names? Come to think of it, the name Skandia is very similar to Scandinavia, and if you look at the cover of book four (The Battle for Skandia) the Skandian looks a lot like a Viking.

Overall, this was a good book, although a little kiddish.