Charlotte Mielswetski (Meals. Wet. Ski.) is a very plucky, sympathetic young lady who has to save the world from Philenecron, a character from the Greek Underworld who is trying to steal children's shadows to make an army. Charlotte and her cousin Zee have to stop them with brains, courage, and a little help from their friends.

This is apparently the first volume in the Cronus chronicles (not to be confused with The Kronos chronicles which is also currently underway and makes me wish people communicated more about these things) and also not to be confused with the Percy Jackson series, which like this series uses the "what if Greek myths were real?" tagline. This is not to say that Miss Anne Ursu is unoriginal -- no, indeed, I quite liked her book. It's not a first person narrative, but is written with that cadence and syntax typical of the American teenager's internal monologue. For that reason, some people will not be able to stand reading it, but as it sounds exactly how I thought when I was 13, I find it laugh-out-loud funny. That said, this is a darker picture of the Olympians than we find with Percy Jackson, and a more mundane picture too. The heroine (it's a girl this time, though she has a co-hero -- her cousin -- who is a boy so I'm not sure it totally counts girl-power-wise) is a human, with no divine blood and no special skills. She does have a few things going for her though, including a pretty spiffy cat (it's just a cat, and yet not, but I can't tell you more because it would give it away -- but don't worry, you'll figure it out pretty quickly) and she lives in Minnesota, which seems an odd fit for a story involving the Greek gods, but it works, and I like it. In fact, I really liked this whole book. It's very me. I kind of wish I had written it, but I am not that good. So, you know, read it. :)

http://www.lonelymountain.net/books/a... ( )

Charlotte is a prickly sort of girl, whose tendency is to believe the world is out to get her. The daughter of a high school teacher and a child psychologist, she is definitely not one of the "it" girls at school.

Eighth grade is turning out to be as predictably dull as her previous school years. The girls are banal (one of Charlotte's favorite words, apparently) and the boys are well, dull.

The arrival of a kitten, an overseas cousin, a strange English teacher, and a mysterious plague combine to make the beginning of Charlotte's eighth grade year a good deal more exciting than she'd bargained for.

Complete with evil Footmen, plotting immortals, descendants of Prometheus, harpies, gryphons, and a visit to Hades, the first book of the Cronus Chronicles is a promising start. ( )

After her cousin Zee arrives from England, thirteen-year-old Charlotte and he must set out to save humankind from denizens of the underworld, Nightmares, Death, Pain, and a really nasty guy named Phil.