A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka

The Blurb On The Back:

"Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside"

Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put aside a lifetime of feuding to save their emigre engineer father from voluptuous gold-digger Valentina. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she will stop at nothing in her pursuit of Western wealth.

But the sisters' campaign to oust Valentina unearths family secrets, uncovers fifty years of Europe's darkest history and sends them back to roots they'd much rather forget ...

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

It's okay and it did make me chuckle in places. However it didn't really leave a lasting impression and I don't think the segments involving elder abuse sat comfortably with the rest of the book.

Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier

The Blurb On The Back:

"My mother named me Reason."

Reason Cansino has lived fifteen years in the Australian outback with her mother Sarafina. They're on the run from Reason's grandmother Esmeralda, who believes in magic and practices horrifying dark rituals. But when Sarafina suffers a mental breakdown, Reason is sent to the one place she fears most - Esmeralda's home in Sydney.

Nothing about the house or Esmeralda is what Reason expected. Then, when she walks through Esmeralda's back door in Sydney and finds herself on a New York City street, Reason is forced to face the shocking truth. Magic is real. And Reason is magic.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Definitely worth a look as it's one of the best written YA fantasies I've read. There isn't a huge amount of plot but it's not something you become aware of until the end and the worldbuilding, particularly the thought that's been put into how magic 'works' and what its consequences are is highly original.

Magic Lessons by Justine Larbalestier

The Blurb On The Back:

"The rules of physics had been broken. Magic was real."

For fifteen year-old Reason Cansino and her friends Tom and Jay-Tee, magic is an unavoidable fact of life - one that carries a high price.

Reason, Tom and Jay-Tee have already learned about the terrible choice they must make: use their magic gifts and die young, or let their magic lie dormant and go mad. But many more lessons lie ahead. For Tom, it's time to find out what he is truly capable of, while Jay-Tee must face the consequences of abusing her magic. It's Reason though, who begins to unlock the secret knowledge that could save them all - or destroy them completely.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

It doesn't have a lot of plot to it, which I find disappointing. The world-building remains strong and Larbalestier's writing is excellent. However, I'd query whether there is enough story here to actually sustain a trilogy and would suggest that this would have been better served as being split between two books.