Cursebusters! - Julie Smith - Blog Tour Review

Budding-psychic Reeno is the most accomplished teenage burglar in California, but one tiny screw-up and poof!—she's sentenced to Bad Girl School. And that isn’t even her worst problem. Her sister Haley’s dying of an illness no one can diagnose, and now she can’t even help.

But wait, maybe she can! The school psychics have found each other and formed their own club. With the help of her gay friend Carlos and the other Ozone Rangers, Reeno finds out Haley’s disease is the result of an ancient Mayan curse. And A.B., the group's sinister non-faculty adviser, claims he knows how to break it.

All Reeno has to do is time-travel to an ancient Mayan city and steal a little item A.B. needs to save the world. Since she’s an ace thief, he has complete confidence she can execute the task before the outraged Mayans can execute her.

But can she trust A.B.? Despite his cuddly appearance, she knows he’s a merciless predator and ruthless assassin.

And he's not even human.

Synopsis taken from goodreads.

Title: Cursebusters!

Author: Julie Smith

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Time Travel

Publisher: Bold Strokes Books

Publication Date: May 17, 2011

Format: Softcover

Source: Received from author courtesy of Teen Book Scene. Many thanks goes to Julie for sending me a copy of her book for review. I received this book free of charge in exchange for an honest review. 

Tour: Teen Book Scene. You can follow along with the tour here, or by clicking through the banner located below the review.

Look for it: Amazon

My rating: 3.5/5

Reeno is a crackerjack at burgling houses, until one day she is foiled in her tracks by a cat. She is shipped off to Bad Girl School, and from there she needs to work towards redeeming herself. Her sister, Haley, is suffering from an unknown disease, and Reeno wants to be by her side. When she is shipped off to her new school, she realizes that the fastest way to get home will include being a perfectly good student. Things don't go according to plan when she finds out that she needs to travel back in time to a Mayan city to lift a certain item to save the world. Maybe she will find a cure for her sister's disease at the same time. She will need to rely on both her new psychic friends, and her sidekick, A.B. the immortal being masquerading as a cat. 

Reeno is a hilarious, main character. Her impetuousness will have you grinning in no time as you realize what she's got up her sleeve. Infused with humour, her plans go awry, and you'll enjoy finding out how she reacts in certain scenarios. Another character that got quite a bit of face time is the "cat" A.B. He is the epitome of all cats everywhere, deigning to come over when he wants to, not when you call him. He is a being that can eviscerate or maim someone without the slightest provocation. However, Reeno's field goal comment, and the context within will have readers laughing or at least, cracking a smile. 

Cursebusters! is a cute read, one that might make your brain hurt what with all of the time travel to different dimensions, and the rules and regulations for said time travel. Reeno's psychic friends add a colourful dynamic to the book and it was interesting to see some of them showcased at different points during the read. 

All in all, Cursebusters! is a laugh out loud, outrageously fun read. I quite enjoyed it even though I wasn't fully invested in it, though that may be due to circumstances outside of the book. I find it similar in style to the Stephanie Plum series, as they both have a lot of humour infused throughout. A.B. will win you over, especially with his attitude towards certain elements within Cursebusters!

Blog Tour: Cursebusters! - Julie Smith - Guest Post & Giveaway

Today, Julie Smith is here with a behind the scenes look at the making of Cursebusters! courtesy of the Teen Book Scene. Thank you for being here, Julie! You can follow along with the tour here, or by clicking through the banner. Enjoy!

A BEHIND THE SCENES LOOK AT THE MAKING OF CURSEBUSTERS!

The world is definitely coming to an end next year. Have you heard? Well, six years ago, I had, but I didn’t know everybody was going to make such a big deal about it. Back in 2005, when I started writing a YA book, then called BAD GIRL SCHOOL (now CURSEBUSTERS!), I wanted to use an ancient Mayan city as a setting and I knew that thing about the Mayan calendar stopping in 2012. Great idea, I thought, to have my protagonist time-travel back to a Mayan site and prevent the end of days.

But the first eighteen or so versions didn’t work out. I based the story on something that happened to someone close to me—a kid who ended up in a “school for troubled teens”, a place so strict you couldn’t even talk to the other kids. And where you were watched every second and there were walls to keep you from running away. How on earth was Reeno, my teen-age burglar protagonist, ever going to have an adventure under those conditions? Well, there was the time-travel thing. That was a perfect fit--you can do time-travel without going anywhere. (Well, except backwards or forwards.) But who was Reeno going to talk to? Enter the Alpha Beast (aka A.B.), her “handler” for the adventure, a telepathic….um…cat. See, a cat wouldn’t be noticed by anyone at the school, I reasoned. Kind of like a fly on the wall. I didn’t actually realize he was going to take over the book. All good ideas, right? Bad girl, time travel, talking cat. But there were more—Reeno’s mom was trying to kill her, for one thing. Aaargh. Too much, said a kind editor who wanted to publish the book.

Multiple rewrites ensued! First I made Mom nice, but harassed because Grandma had Alzheimer’s and lived with the family, all of whom were pretty much full-time babysitters. That helped, but there was more.

The original beginning was harrowing: Reeno got kidnapped and dragged off to school by detectives hired for the job. But that didn’t fit with the humor. So I made the first part kind of slapstick—the burglary that goes wrong and lands the kid in Bad Girl School. That was better, but still, Reeno couldn’t talk, except in Group, which was basically a psychotherapy sharing kind of thing—very stiff and unnatural.

It still read kind of like two different books—one about the school and the other about the time-travel adventure. Said the kind editor. I was about to go back to the drawing board when she quit her job and moved back to the Midwest. Waaaah!

So I put the book away. Until one day I woke up and realized it was almost the end of the world! Or at least 2012. My agent suggested I run it by a new kid in the office, a young man named Cooper. Well, Cooper was chock full of great ideas, one of which was a conclusion I’d come to as well—I just had to relax that rule about talking! Reeno needed some real friends she could talk to. And maybe a boy friend.

Make them psychic, he said—that could be a lot of fun. Well, yeah. So I did.

And let’s have a curse, said Cooper. If she has to break the curse on her family, she’s got a lot more reason to do the stupid cat’s bidding. Great idea, I said! I love curses. And I love that time-travel thing where you caused something in another time period and now you have to go back and undo what you did—which wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t gone, so you’d think all you have to do is not go. But time travel just doesn’t work that way. Which is great! It’s a lot more mind-bending when it’s all tangled up.

I had a lot of fun rewriting with the curse and the friends and the psychic shenanigans. And of course the love interest. Guess what I named him? Only one choice there.

And then I had even more fun finding a girl with pink hair and some kids who could levitate and making the CURSEBUSTERS! Trailer. My characters came to life before my eyes! Want to see? Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7FmSPElyak

Thank you for this "behind the scenes" look at the making of Cursebusters!, Julie! 

It does sound incredibly mind-bending! 

You can find Julie on her website, her blog, or twitter. 

Giveaway

Julie has graciously provided Lost For Words with a copy of Cursebusters! for giveaway. 

I ended up getting two copies of the book sent to me, so this is a giveaway for one of those copies. 

Many thanks, Julie! 

Giveaway is open to US/Canada only. (Sorry to those of you who are international.) 

Giveaway will end on June 16, 2011. 

Please fill out this FORM to enter. Comments, while appreciated, will not be counted as entries. 

Thank you!!