Rating: 
Summary: Heir Apparent
Review: The book startedoff with a girl around her birthday and she wanted to go to a video game arcade but the bus that she was on was a computer bus said there was an angry mob there so she could not takeyo u to the arcade because i was progrmed to keep people safe and the bus said there is a museum that i can take you to but you have to promise not to go to the arcade the girl promised and lied and went any way once she got there she got one this game that took you inside the game and she woke up and her foster mother was calling her and there beside her was standing a guy her motherand she found out that her real dad was a king her mother the kings mistres and the dad had died asked for her to be part of the kingdom to be king.some of the main was the girl Janeine, Abas her half brother, Wulger, and Kinric Sir Deming her gopher ,a nun and the wizard and there was a ring that made you fall in love with who ever you gave the ring to .The most exciting part was the part when she found the ring I liked the book because it had adventure .I was exciting
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic Book!
Review: The Book was fantastic! Vivian Vande Velde does a awesome job of capturing the emotions of what has happened in Giannine's life such as a distant father, and from that she doesn't do certain things, but learn that she must do some things as Janine (the character she plays in the game Heir Apparent) that she wouldn't do as Giannine. Giannine must be crowned king in two days times, she comes up with challenges such as being captured by a bunch of barbarians, to ghosts poking at you and pulling your hair all the way to the fighting of a Dragon. She also must deal with the people she comes across, such as her half-brother Wulfar, Abas and Kenric. She also has to decide who she wants as her councilor, it all comes down to choices but with Giannine make the choices based on the virtual world or choices based on her life in reality? It all comes down to her to finish the game, or start over again...
Rating:
Summary: Not What I Expected (but that's a good thing!)
Review: The only reason I even picked this book off the shelf was because I love Vivian Vande Velde. After taking it home and staring at it for a while I decided I would take a chance and read it. The first thing I noticed were the hilarious chapter titles. Now, if there is one thing that will attract me to a book, it has to be humor. And really, Heir Apparent has enough of it to take me all the way through. The story is about a girl named Giannine Bellisario who just recieved a gift certificate from her divorced father for her 14th birthday. The certificate is to Rasmussem Gaming Center Virtual Reality Arcade. Giannine decides to try out the new total-immersion game called Heir Apparent. The object: to be crowned King. Seems simple enough, but not when something goes wack with the gaming system and Giannine HAS to finish the game before her time is up.
Rating:
Summary: A very good book
Review: this book is a nice mix of fantasy and science fiction. it brings you t oanother world so different from our own, but most exciting. it does not take much effort to get lost in this book, and once you do, it is even more difficult to get out.
Rating:
Summary: "Apparent"ly one of the best books I've read
Review: This book is smart a funny fantasy and very much in touch with the way MY daughters play video games. For years I have watched them play one game or another, including the best game ever, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.
Giannine Bellisario receives a gift certificate from her father for 30 minutes at the Rasussem Enterprises Virtual Reality Arcade. When she arrives the business is being picketed by the Citizens to Protect our Children who are protesting all entertainment that is supernatural, violent or scary. The protesters eventually storm the building and damage the computers while Giannine is "in" the game and she must play her way through in order to survive. Sure this plot sounds like a Star Trek Holodeck malfunction but it is great fun. Like any video game, when she "dies" she gets another life and has to start over again. Her repeated returns to the starting point are hilarious. In between the action and the humor there are some genuinely poignant moments. As she leaves her "virtual" family at the beginning of the game, over and over again, she muses:
"Maybe the people at Rasussem need to develop a new game called Happy Family, where there's no gathering treasure or fighting hostile warriors or solving puzzles, just nice people who speak kindly to you and don't make you feel like one of these Christmas trees you see by the curb on December 26. I bet other people, besides me would be interested. Maybe."
This book is on this year's Texas Lonestar Reading list. Good call committee! I hope lots of girls are reading it! It is in the vein of Tamora Pierce's books Pierce describes her heroines as "girls who kick butt."
Rating:
Summary: Very Entertaining
Review: This book was really good. I believe a lover of fanstay would enjoy it thoughly. It has a new plot. However, the ending was a little...unfinished. It is more implied and readers desire facts.
Rating:
Summary: A Review on Heir Apparent by a Fantasy Lover
Review: This is a great book. Giannine, or Janine as she is about to become, is playing a virtual reality game when the equipment is damaged and she must beat the game to survive. Giannine has a delightful sense of humor and believeable. I reccommend this book!
Rating:
Summary: You'll be hooked from the start!
Review: This is my favorite of all the Vivian Vande Velde books and I'm one of her biggest fans! I am also a fan of fantasy adventure games which is what the book is about. The plot is exciting and the writing is wonderful. The reader becomes absorbed in trying to figure out what is going to happen next. Not just for kids, adults will love it too!
Rating:
Summary: Reader Friendly
Review: User Unfriendly is the one Vivian Vande Velde book I come close to actively disliking, so I was disappointed when I discovered that Heir Apparent would be a sort of companion book, also dealing with fantasy role playing games. Happily, it isn't at all necessary to have read User Unfriendly to enjoy Heir Apparent, which is by far the best of Vivian Vande Velde's more recent books. Heir Apparent is an entertaining twist on the been-there-done-that fantasy cliche of Lost Heirs. (See Diana Wynne Jones's entry in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.) Giannine, the protagonist and narrator, plays one of those ubiquitous misplaced heirs in what at first appears to be a standard fantasy setting in a virtual reality game, full of courtly intrigue, wizards, magic rings/boots/crowns, dragons, etc. The only problem: the virtual reality equipment has been damaged, and Giannine must finish the game within a certain amount of time before suffering very real brain damage in actual life. Every poor decision resulting in death means starting over at the beginning of the game, and Heir Apparent is lacking that most essential option of all computer games-- the ability to save a game. Because Giannine dies so many times, particularly at first, the beginning sequences can become a little repetitive. But she learns very quickly, and every mistake makes her warier, wiser, more diplomatic, and better prepared to make good judgments. In the end, navigating through a maze of people and events, equipped with newly gained assurance and leadership, Giannine is seriously kicking... Unfortunately, it isn't just a matter of winning the game; it's winning the game within a set period of time, and she's running seriously short on time... Giannine is an instantly likable narrator, smart, sarcastic, and far from perfect. Her first person narration makes Heir Apparent very immediate and accessible, and the rising tensions from both the internal world of the game and Giannine's external reality make the book nearly impossible to put down unfinished. The framing device requires a little suspension of skepticism, but the science fiction of Heir Apparent is no less plausible than, say, hyperspace engines and little green men. The pace is rapid, the dialogue snappy, and the characters quirky. In other words, Heir Apparent is Vivian Vande Velde at her best; thoroughly entertaining, and yet with some substance. As earlier reviewers pointed out, the intersections between Giannine's experiences in her two worlds are particularly thoughtful, as is its commentary on censorship. This is not a book for anyone who thinks Harry Potter should be banned! Although technically science fiction, Heir Apparent should be readily accessible to YA fantasy fans, particularly of fractured fairy tale cliches. And for a *very* different take on a similar theme, try Diana Wynne Jones's Hexwood. Ailanna
Rating:
Summary: A Tour de Force
Review: What a book! Vivian Vande Velde does an amazing job of capturing both the virtual world of an interactive game--the Heir Apparent of the title--and the emotional world of a lively 14 year-old girl who is trapped playing it. Vande Velde balances both worlds masterfully and never slows down the action or humor as Giannine faces one challenge after the next. I would recommend this book to everyone--teenagers, parents, teachers, fantasy-lovers, and non-fantasy lovers alike. It is a delight to read.
|
