[Review] The Dream Thieves *****

Firstly, I want to apologize to everyone who can't read these books yet. I feel like I'm living in a dream because I've been lucky enough to get my hands on ARCs of two books that I have been drooling over for almost a year. I hope that by reviewing these now it will excite anyone who reads this blog to go out and get these when they come out. PLEASE do! I'm ordering a signed copy from Fountain Bookstore as we speak!

The Story

The Dream Thieves continues where The Raven Boys left off, with a few of our favorites changed and secrets revealed. If you haven't read The Raven Boys yet, I won't spoil you on any of the juicy details, but I'll give you the short version of the tale: The story centers around Blue, a girl from a family of psychics and mediums who has no power of her own except to enhance the abilities of others. All her life she has been told that if she kisses her true love, she'll kill him. Luckily for Blue, she has no interest in finding her true love among the rich and statused Aglionby "Raven Boys," but in this case, finds friendship with four boys any way. While Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah may look rich and spoiled on the outside, they each harbor their own not-so-normal secrets, the biggest of which is that they're looking for a long dead Welsh king, who if found, can grant a wish to the one who finds him.

In this sequel, we have the boys and Blue continuing their search for the ley line and the reason why they haven't been able to find Cabeswater, the location closest to the ley line. This book is also about growth, and each of the characters begins to move toward their larger destiny and the truth of who they truly are.

What's So Great About It?
The hardest part about telling all of you why this book is so amazing is trying to do it without spoiling the best parts of the book (so here we go.) In a nutshell, it has to be the characters, their growth, and their changing interactions with one another. Throughout the first book the reader is baited with this idea that Blue might have to deal with the fact that she could potentially find her true love...and then what? You aren't given a definitive answer on this until this book, and believe me,  the wait is completely worth it. The problem over Blue's true love definitely isn't completed in this book, but you can see the beginnings of something that is really going to be hard for Blue to handle by the end of this series.

Then there's Ronan. Oh, Ronan. I have completely and utterly fallen head over heels for the way Maggie writes her characters and how she makes them seem so unbelievably real, especially when they are so breathtakingly flawed. This is what I've always been a fan of in books, and the broken ones always seem the most interesting to me. Just: Ronan. I wasn't a huge fan of him in the first book, and I'm thinking it was mostly because we didn't get to see much of the book from his perspective. Here there is enough to make any Ronan fan giddy and then some. The secret that Ronan discovers about himself not only changes what he thought he knew about his life, but contributes to the overall weirdness that is happening in general with the books' mythology in a spectacularly amazing way.


Why This Book?
If characters are what draw you deeply into a book, The Dream Thieves is something you need to get on your shelves. Maggie Stiefvater does an amazing job with using description as something that makes you truly feel what the characters are feeling in a way that I haven't encountered in many books, let alone in much YA, and it's this gift of hers that makes her such a fantastic writer and author. The connections that she creates between what she is trying to say and her reader is often times so good that it's painful. I found myself physically moved to stay in the world of her book, and when it was over, felt like I was leaving my own world behind. Perhaps that's a bit extreme of an example, but it's the best way I can describe the way Maggie sets up her worlds. I would HIGHLY recommend this book in a classroom, both middle school and high school. The prose might be a little much for the average 7/8th grader, but high school students will eat this up, especially the boys. There is enough racing and modified cars in this novel to get even a girl like me, who has fascination with muscle cars, squeeing over the detailing.

Pick up this book as soon as it comes out in September. No. Seriously. And if you don't have the first one, GET IT!

One day I'm going to need a library with a ladder

Organizing my book shelves today, I realized that my shelves have exploded since college. I read a lot as a kid, but never really kept my books, opting to donate them once I finished (my mom was big on clutter and books became clutter). It wasn't until I began to make my own money and could buy the books myself that I started to collect them. I've given them away over the years, donated some, and tried my best to only buy ones that I've really enjoyed or might read again. This hasn't always happened.

I also think that you can tell a lot about a person by their book collection. So, here's a glimpse into my psyche. It's kind of crazy.

My Essentials

As a writer, I think that my favorite book of all time is the Thesaurus. If I were stranded on a desert island and could only bring one book, after I freaked out about having to CHOOSE one book, I would pick the Thesaurus. I'm pretty sure I own at least 10 of them. I don't remember what age I was when I understood the magic of this book, but once I did I couldn't get enough. I won't lie, sometimes I'll sit and just read it. Finding new words is amazing.
Other books included here: Baby Names for finding new names of characters. Dictionary of Difficult words for funsies, and Grammar for Dummies, because no one is ever a grammar expert and I will always be referring back to a book.




A Quick Tour of My Shelves

I don't have enough. There are 4 in my apartment. Technically 5. The first two shelves are YA books that I haven't read yet and the two large cases consist of my favorites and my miscellaneous. The first black shelf I've read all of, the second is a collection of non-fiction, poetry, collections, grammar, psychology, philosophy, classics and etc.

Here's a close up if you're curious about what I consider to be amazing books. There are some doubles because I'm crazy like that. (The smaller shelf is my night stand. This is my unofficial 5th shelf because it always ends up holding the books I should read next.)

Getting a Closer Look

It's not that I'm running out of room, per say, but I don't have enough space to really place my books the way I want them to be. I actually have a good-sized collection of manga at my parents' house that never made it over to my apartment. So here's my latest acquisitions. As you can see, everything from Bride of the Water God  to psychology and Albert Camus ends up on my shelf.



My Attempt at Being an Academic

 I have always fought myself on "classics" as in I can't really get in to most of them. Jane Eyre  was the first "classic" that I really fell in love with and I didn't know it at the time, but Animal Farm also helped me get into them. Even today, I'm really picky about my classics, but I'm trying to broaden my reading variety. I always buy a copy of whatever I think I might like with the promise that I'll read them, even if I have to drag through because I'm also a proponent of reading certain literature just so that you have that background knowledge coughprideandprejudicecough. So here is my attempt to be academic with literature.


The Book You Buy Even When You Already Have It

These are my babies. For someone who collects books, there will always be an author or a certain book that you will buy no matter what. Robert Frost is one of those exceptions. I think I have five different copies of his "collected" works in different forms. One is small enough I can carry with me, another I have in my classroom library and these two I keep at home. You never know when you might need Frost.




 From My Hometown

I grew up in historical Gettysburg Pennsylvania and spent my childhood nose-deep in stories about ghosts (#1 most haunted town in the USA!). I even spent the past 4 summers as a ghost tour guide, taking people around the streets of Gettysburg telling a fraction of the never-ending tales of fallen soldiers. At Gettysburg is the diary of a girl who lived through the battle and something I read to gain more historical background about the battle. I absolutely love these books for their connection of history with the paranormal.

Poetry: My Not So Secret Love

I cant' exactly pin down when it was that I found myself obsessed with poetry. I knew I enjoyed it in high school (and wrote some terrible stuff myself), but it wasn't until college that I truly became a connoisseur and the words really slapped me in the face. What I love most about English and writing are the words. My favorite part is the way the sounds and meaning of words can come together and create this new meaning. I love connotation and denotation and how that can play together to make something new. Hence, Poetry. I got pulled into Ranier Maria Rilke by Maggie Stiefvater who quotes some of his work in her Wolves of Mercy Falls novels. Conrad Aiken I literally stumbled across in my college library. I pulled a book off the shelf of poetry, randomly opened it, and found "Sound of Breaking". I've never fallen in love with words so quickly.

I Fell in Love with Shakespeare Through Theater

Theater I fell in love with during high school after seeing my high school's production of Brigadoon. The following year I got into the pit orchestra and played flute for the next three years. I had always enjoyed theater in the way that most people do, through it's cousin the movie. Yet, I had never really put together the fact that plays are originally a story on a piece of paper that people bring to life with their words. This was how I finally fell in love with Shakespeare. Reading something and seeing it performed live are two completely separate experiences and when reading plays I feel it's imperative that you not only read, but see what's being written as well. Spring Awakening is definitely the pinnacle of what I love about theater. It started off as a banned play in Germany and became a rock musical that changed Broadway in 2005. I saw the musical before I read the play, but I came to love the words so much more by having seen them shown to me live on a stage. 

And Last, that Cute Factor

You see that empty space being occupied by relics of my childhood? That space wont' last long. Ever since I saw Beauty and the Beast and became complete enamored by the Beast because he gave Belle a LIBRARY, I always knew that would be my fate. Sometimes I sit at my shelves and just contemplate all of the eternity in front of me. So many lives and worlds and experiences, all cocooned in square inches of space that I can visit any time I want. There's something powerful about being able to collect such a thing, and the idea of having so much that I might need a ladder to access it all, makes me so terribly giddy. So, keep on reading, people. Keep on collecting. And yes, allow your cats to get in the pictures once in awhile. Here's Buffy, reminding me that there are live animals in my apartment as well as worlds.

[Review] The Coldest Girl in Coldtown *****

ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies) are a rare bird that I only discovered existed about a year ago when I finished my student teaching and made friends with a librarian. Usually ARCs are sent out to large companies or other authors to garner discussion about a book before they come out. Rarely do people outside of the publishing industry get hold of these things. Unless you know where to look. Especially if you're a teacher. 

Holly Black has been one of my go-to's when I want to show a skeptical reader that current YA is much more mature, intellectual, and not only for tweens any more. Her novels are always highly aware, poetical in nature, gritty, emotional, and rife with deep characters whose skin I can always crawl under.

The Story

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a novel born out of a short story. In Tana's world, vampires exist and they aren't the things of romance novels. People infected by the bite of a vampire become Cold, and either suffer the agonizing pains of hunger until they drink human blood and turn, or sweat out the virus for almost three months before possibly surviving. Vampires, and their groupies are sent to live in "Coldtowns," or giant vampire towns where every debaucherous thing you could think of is possible. These places are romanticized by not only people but also the media and serve as a delicate holding ground for a world where humans are no longer the top predator. 

Tana is a girl drawn into this mess through party gone terribly awry. In an attempt to save her ex-boyfriend (not your typical ex, btw, Aiden is impulsive, bisexual, and much deeper than expected) from the disease he's infected with, Tana drags along a teenage vampire with way more beneath the surface than even I expected. Gavriel has to be one of my favorite vampire characters of all time because he is the scary side of vampirism while still being completely off-kilter and terribly real.

 Each relationship in this story has a depth that truly holds the book together and the drive of each character bends the plot into a constant flow of action and decision. There are times when even Tana doesn't know why she does the things she does and I like that. It's real. Sometimes an action has so many layers that it's impossible to give a name to why something happens or you choose to go this way instead of that. 

What's So Great About It?

I have always loved vampire stories and the diversity with which so many writers display them. So when I see new books about vampires I am always eager to see what new spin the writer has on the tale. 

Sometimes I'm disappointed, in this case, it was completely the opposite. 

Holly Black's vampires are seen by the people of her world as the romantic ideal that many authors portray them as. They're beautiful, sexy, and flaunt the idea of immortality as if wearing a new pair of Coach sunglasses. I find this fascinating because it mirrors "reality." Well, as in most aspects of reality, all that sparkles isn't necessarily Edward Cullen. These vampires are real, not something you'd want to meet in an alley, and come from the idea that maybe as humans we all carry inside us the capacity to be truly and horribly despicable if given the right opportunity. It's this forray into the question of "what makes of human" that will always grab me and swallow me whole in a novel. The idea of "who am I, really" is the big question that I think plagues most people very acutely between the ages of 14-17 and what makes the combination of this as a YA novel a marriage made in angst. 

Psychologically, there is so much depth in this story that I could spend most of my day squeeing over every aspect; characters, story, setting, society. You name it, there's serious thought behind it. Perhaps my favorite is the psychological breakdown of a certain main character who is an amazing example of mental instability while still having poetry and beauty to who they are. This is where Holly Black thrives, in the sanity behind the chaos. 

It's also in this chaos where Tana thrives as a main character. It's really refreshing to see a character who isn't caught up in the glamour of it all and is the driving forces behind the question of "Why?!" behind everyone. It's through Tana's eyes that the reader sees the true horror behind what everyone else sees as fantastical, and it's a wake-up call that I've read very few times in YA or even in this genre. It's an amazing thing for an author to put their reader in a position where they feel like the only sane person in the room. It's also insanely magical and mind-blowing when it's done so well.

ps. If you are squeamish, I suggest you bring your skip-over-some-parts glasses, but I wouldn't expect anything less from HB. I've always loved the macabre and gothic feel that always emanates from the pages of her novels. 

p.s.s. Yes, there is romance. No, it's no the main plot of the book. Yes, it's steamy, grounded, and refreshing in this genre. It's also the reason I am hoping Holly Black writes some adult novels sometime. Whew. I had to calm down a few times. 

Why This Book?

It's Holly Black. 

If you've had the opportunity to read any of her Modern Faerie Tales  novels it won't take much convincing for me to get you to grab hold of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown the second it hits shelves in September. I will admit, HB's books do have a certain taste to them and if you don't find books that are rather dark and edgy at their core, there might be something about this that rubs you the wrong way. 

However, if you're looking for a really engaging new twist on the vampire genre that's intelligent, grounded, and a swift moving ride through strength during inexplicably horror, pick up this book. You will not be disappointed.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown gets a 5/5 stars for it's realistic insight into a genre that often times gets stale and it's realism when it comes to romanticizing dangerous things. I would definitely recommend it for the use in a classroom library,  but it should probably be kept in a high school. More mature middle grade readers might be okay with it, but I think high school students are the key audience for this and will be deeply drawn in. 

I think that last book ruined me

I blame Clockwork Princess for my inability to find a book that I can really freak out about.

I've been browsing through a lot of books that have been on my back burner since there haven't been any huge titles out lately (it seems like most of the big ones come out in the fall. I have a list of about 10 that are going to cause me to have financial issues from August-November.) So, I took this opportunity to catch up on a series I've always been meaning to read but haven't had the time. Also, I think I may have found my own personal bias when it comes to YA literature. Ie: What Causes Me to Enjoy a YA or Throw It to the Floor.

The Fae are Back on my Shelves!

My interest in the world of the fae exploded with Holly Black's Modern Faerie Tales series. I loved that she wrote the classic idea of faeries with a very gothic twist and as time has passed, I definitely prefer the fey that you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley to the ones that float around and dump dust on people (if you pay attention long enough, you'll notice that I usually enjoy the darker area of literature. All the best of us do.)

I had seen Julia Kagawa's Iron Fey series in the stores for a while and for a really silly personal reason, had avoided them. Luckily, by avoiding them I was able to read straight through the series. The premise is really interesting; a girl discovers that she is the half-fae daughter of Oberon and finds herself caught up in a world she didn't think existed. Honestly, I was pulled into the series by the premise of the dark haired prince who kind of hates her for no reason  (let's be honest ladies, would you say no?).

While I enjoyed the series and found the plot interesting and fun, there was something missing from the whole experience. On GoodReads I gave most of the books 3/5 stars because while I enjoyed them, I found myself pushing my way through. For me, a book can have an amazing plot and a great premise, but if the writing isn't a style that I enjoy, I'm automatically put off.

This is where my bias exists. Every reader has a bias. Reader bias is what makes our literature culture so amazing and also where I often get frustrated. What appeals to me doesn't necessarily appeal to you. I've read a book and absolutely adored it, handed it off to my friend really thinking they would love it, only to find out they either didn't like it or felt "meh" about it (I've also freaked about a book, handed it off to someone and they flipped-out along with me. Love that.)

I enjoy novels that have a style where they play with their words. I've tried to get very specific about what I mean, but the best way is to describe it is that I like to see new things done with words. I love when authors create metaphors and similes that make you go "oh! that's an interesting comparison." I also really like when description is strong, but not overwhelming. One of the reasons I could never get into J.R.R. Tolkien or George R. Martin is because they describe FOREVER. It takes Tolkien four pages to say "and then they when over the hill."

What I'm finding in YA is that there is a clear divide. On one side are the novels that have whatever topic is popular at the time, have a good plot and "fun" characters, but lack a real sense of writing style. Then there are the ones that are harder to find, but exist. Books where there is a clear style and the writing is mature and has an academic feel to it (high level words and play on sentence structure). I would really love to do some research into the backgrounds of each of the writers whose books I love and the ones I just couldn't get into. I wonder if there is a correlation between academic history and quality of writing. (I am not saying that people without a literature/college education can't be good writers, I would just be interested to see.)

So, even though I couldn't get into the Iron Fey, I am really enjoying her Blood of Eden series which is a dystopian story about a world where vampires have taken over AND the zombie disease has basically infected any humans left (right?! I would be dead.) I don't know what it is about this series that causes me to consistently give the series 4/5. I would love to prove my theory about good writing and say that Julie has grown as a writer, but let's be honest, this type of book is more up my alley than the Fey series. The main character is much darker and her situation much more dire. There is lots of blood and some rather icky description of limbs flying around, so perhaps this is what has peaked my interest. But with that said, her characters feel more real to me. There is something tighter about her writing. I also really enjoy the voice of the main character. She is super snarky and has a hard time dealing with the life she leads and the one she's left behind.

Currently Reading:
Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Reading List Update

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
This is a really fantastic book for anyone looking for a YA with high fantasy, kings, queens and people who are actually dragons. The political aspect really gripped me and I was pulled in by the society that Hartman grows in this, especially between humans and dragons.

Dualed by Elsie Chapman
This is one of those books that I really wanted to be good. The premise of living in a world where a clone of you will kill you unless you kill them by the time you're 18, was fascinating. Yet, I found myself skimming through it half-way through. This might really catch other people, but I found it lacking.

The Selection by Kiera Cass
This. Book. I'm sorry, but if you liked this book, PLEASE explain to me how. I tried. I did. The idea was REALLY interesting, but the writing and characters were SO FLAT. I didn't see anything new in this that I was already expecting. I can see this book in the middle-grade category, maybe? But not YA. Bleh.


Waiting in the Wings
.
 Stolen Nights by Rebecca Maziel
Rift by Andrea Cremer
Crash by Lisa McMann
Pivot Point by Kasie West
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan
What Happens Next by Colleen Clayton <-written a="" attending="" be="" by="" fall="" graduate="" i="" ll="" mfa="" next="" of="" p="" program="" the="">The Unquiet by Jeanine Garsee
The Sweetest Dark by Shana Abe
Let the Sky Fall by Shannon Messenger
Elfin by Quinn Loftis
Shadowcry by Jenna Burtenshaw

No seriously, I'm back

Every time I say, "yes, now I'm going to dedicate myself to updating this blog," something always seems to go not as planned.

I am currently at the end of my first year of public school teaching and was accepted into a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program for entry in the Fall of this year. So things have been rather crazy.

My YA readings, however, have exploded. I've read more than 50 books since last summer...and just haven't been posting about them. This is changing.

With the probability of going into this program, I feel like I have a legitimate place to really update this blog as it should be. So. Let's start fresh!

A Few that Stick Out

I recently finished Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare and I cannot recommend this book series enough. Cassie's series have been starting out rather normal, and the plot exciting, but nothing huge. By the time you have read the last series in the book, everything has exploded in such and amazing way that it makes you feel like these characters have truly come alive and that they are stable people in your life. When bad things happen to them, it's even worse. Without any sort of spoilers for the Infernal Devices series, you had better be prepared to have your heart wrenched out of your chest and your tear ducks to cry in both joy and pain.

It. Was. Amazing.

Cassie is best at developing her characters and truly getting the reader to become invested in their lives. Her plot and story telling is also a highlight. While the foreshadowing is often times very heavy (you can usually accurately predict what's going to happen in the story), there are enough twists that are surprising enough, and the characters are so powerful, that what happens still tugs at your heart.

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas was a book that surprised me after picking it up from it's dust jacket. I've always been a fan of the medieval/renaisancey themed books that involve thieves, princes, guards, and just anything involving swords. What most surprised me about this was the main character. Celaena is kind of mean. She is haughty, speaks her mind, and is loyal in a way that sometimes works against her. As much as I enjoy novels where the main character is squishy, it's nice to see characters with backbone that doesn't always make them likeable. It's also nice to see that sometimes, the character doesn't have to be "rehabilitated" and that sometimes people have layers to them that aren't always black and white.

The key to this book is reading the novellas that come before. I thought I was invested in Celaena's story just from Throne of Glass, but after reading the novellas, which deal with her time before the book, I was so much more into her story. Without spoiling anything, Celaena's past is a new plot device that I have been seeing pop up a lot in YA novels and it's a mature change that I'm really enjoying. I love when YA straddles that line between being a teen book and being something that has an intelligence and depth that adults too can enjoy.

Reading List Update:

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan 
-I started out feeling iffy about this one and then the ending hooked me. Looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.

Team Human by Justin Larbalestier
-This book really surprised me with it's twist on the vampire story. I really liked the flip of, what if a human lived with vampires and had to fight to be human. Such a great twist.

The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
-This is another book where I wasn't a huge fan of the first book, but this second one really caught me by the end. I did skim some, but by the middle I wasn't anymore.

Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake
-This one suffers from a slow pace, but I'm so glad I got to see how the story continued. I really hope there's another. Still creepy and awesome at the same time.

Through the Ever Night by Veronica Rossi
-Oh my. I love when things aren't perfect even after the main characters get together. The tension in this book was amazing and I'm really, really looking forward to the finish of the trilogy.

Promised by Caragh M. O'Brien
-A fitting end to a really great series. I'll admit, the first book didn't necessarily hook me, but I'm so glad I kept up with this one.

Poison Princess by Kresley Cole
-What I liked most about this one was that it was rather fierce. The characters are no nonsense and I LOVE when characters have abilities they can't quite control. The plot is twisty and confusing, but by the end you see where it's going.

Days of Blood and Starligh by Laini Taylor
-Liani Taylor is definitely one of my current favorite YA authors. Her stories are so mature and intelligent and the passion in her characters just bleeds off the pages. I can NOT wait for the third book and I'm so excited to see how it ends!!

Waiting in the Wings
False Memory by Dan Krokos
The Girl in Clockwork Collar by Kady Cross
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

So, here's to more reviews, more updates, and lots more YA books. Thank goodness all the ones I'm really looking forward to are coming out in the Fall. More time to get through the couple hundred books I have on my to-read shelf!!

The Raven Boys Trailer by Maggie Stiefvater

Because this series is going to be amazing.

http://youtu.be/nWzaJrJUP-w

Longer entry soon. I have been reading wayyyyy too much.

The Book-to-Movie That Might End Me

I saw a couple of the Harry Potter movies at midnight (pulled along by friends) and yes, I was one of those people who waited in line for Twilight when it came out in theaters. I actually saw that one 3 or 4 times in one day. Each of these romances have since ended horribly. My love affair with Harry ended in book 5 with the whole Ginny thing (no build up, we never see her, there's no reason for it...so dumb) and then Twilight exploded, the fans went crazy, and the movies have just become unbearable to watch (except the parts with Taylor Lautner and Jackson Rathbone. Nom.)

So forgive me if I fall on my knees and cry like an infant if something goes wrong with The Hunger Games. From everything I have seen so far, such as the trailers, movie tie-in books, music, and merchandise, I am so, absolutely sold. In this case, I think it helps that Suzanne Collins has screenwriting experience, so the book itself was basically made to be a book-to-movie in. I have purchased not only the mockingjay pin (twice) but the Tribute Guide, World of the Hunger Games, Movie Companion, and yes, the crowning jewel of my collection, four of the Capital Colours collection by China Glaze (Foie Gras, Smoke and Ashes, Harvest Moon and Hook and Line, which I adore, btw!) There have been so very few movies that have been able to stay true to the source material and give the audience the same feelings that they felt when they read the story they love so much. I am really, really hoping that The Hunger Games does it. After all, I am shelling out almost $20 to see it in IMAX.

READING LIST UPDATE

Sadly, I just wanted to gush about The Hunger Games, so I don't have much else to blabber about. I have, however, been reading my face off, so I figured I would give an update on what I've been inhaling.

A Beautiful Evil by Kelly Keaton
When I read Darkness Becomes Her, the first book in this series, I wasn't overly impressed. I can't remember exactly why I wasn't blown away by it, but I do remember that the end was powerful enough for me to pick up the second one. A Beautiful Evil was the book that I had been looking for. When the real action starts, Keaton really digs in deep. I fell in love with the characters, the story, and the pulse of this tale as soon as things began to move. This is the second book (Prized being the first) where a sequel has actually hooked me into a series. I don't know what this says about book series, but I feel it might be a version of the "Series Disease" that I talked about a few entries back. In order to get a series out of a writer, publishers often mess up the pacing of a story in order to lengthen it. I feel that might be what's going on here. Either way, I LOVED this book and can't wait for the third.

Embrace by Jessica Shirvington
I ended up liking Embrace more than I initially thought I would. The "fallen angel" genre has been rather stale lately, and the mythos of this novel falls very close to many of the ones I've seen in the past. It was the relationships between the characters that really sold me on this book in the end. There were a couple of twists in the love triangle that I hadn't seen before, and I was very excited to see those things happen. I'll be checking out the second in the series to see how it picks up from here.

Enclave by Ann Aguirre
I don't know if maybe I read this book too close to re-reading The Hunger Games, but I actually skimmed through the first 60 or so pages before I actually started really reading it. I didn't see enough of a new angle in the dystopia/zombie genre to give me enough of a reason to really get into the book. I was, however, very intrigued by the character development throughout, so I will probably check out the next book through the library.

Legend by Marie Lu
This is another book that might have suffered from my re-reading of The Hunger Games or maybe even Under the Never Sky. I would actually call this one a mixture of both. It was another dystopian/survival/technology hybrid that I began to lose interest in by the end. I would definitely rate this one higher than Enclave because I felt the writing was more mature and the characters more developed.

I always seem to have a book that I dropped, so here's The Duds List

Darker Still by Leanna Renee Hieber - I got about half way through before I realized I was forcing myself to read this one and just stopped. The story was very intriguing, but the combination of the story being in diary entry form and the lack of constant movement made me finally give up on it. When I don't have 100+ books sitting on my "to read" pile, I might go back and give this one another go.

Tiger's Curse  by Collen Houck - I was very upset about this one because the story seemed so interesting! But sadly, I just couldn't get into the writing style. Might be for some people, but not me.

Born at Midnight by C.C. Hunter  - Couldn't get into this one either. The plot and characters just didn't grab me. Again, might be up the alley for others.


Books I'm Currently Reading
 A Curse as Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce <-----Yup. Still going.
Unbroken by Rachel Caine -<---- Still going on this one too
The Lost Saint by Bree Despain<-----pulled this one out of my "on hold" status


Waiting in the Wings
Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan
Forgive My Fins by Tera Lyn Childs
Whisper by Phoebe Kitanidis
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Splendor Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore
The Fledgling  by Octavia Butler

Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel
The Gathering by Kelly Armstrong

What Makes Me Want to Read a Book

Awhile back, a friend and I had a discussion on what makes us want to read certain books. Of course, the first item we came up with was the Aesthetically Pleasing Cover (APC- does the book look pretty?) and then we focused on our tropes. Tropes meaning, that little thing in a book that, if it has it, you HAVE to pick it up. This might be hard to explain, but as soon as you see my list, you're going to see what I mean. I call them my achilles heels.

 
-Re-tellings of fairy tales/mythology. + points if it's an obscure one.
-Girls pretending to be boys in order to do something she wouldn't have been able to otherwise. + points if she has feelings for a boy.
-The two main characters start the story hating one another. + points if the reason is related to morals/something BIG ++ points if they fall in love.
-Characters with powers that they can not control. + points if this makes them dangerous/deadly.
-Halflings, or characters that are trapped between two worlds of any kind.
- If the story has this type of character/aspect: prostitute, thief, really mean fey, steampunk, poison, shapeshifters, someone mentally unstable/insane (+ points if it's the protagonist)
-And yes, vampires and werewolves. But this has dwindled as I only have a few favorite takes on the mythology and unfortunately the community is realllyyy over saturated.



I'm sure that I have more of these, but at the moment, I can't think of them. Now, life is full of short-cuts, and sometimes these short-cuts don't work out. Sometimes I like books that have NONE of these aspects in them and sometimes I like books that have these aspects that I can agree are horribly written. As a reader, and a writer, I think it's really important to understand what pulls us towards certain books. As a reader, it helps us to pick out of the millions of books out there what we want to read. As a writer, it will often times help bring me back to Earth. Am I writing a story a certain way because it's what I like? Is that helping or hindering my story?

Someday I would love to do research on why it is people read books on the topics that they do, because I think that the books you choose to read can tell things about yourself that even you didn't even know.

READING LIST UPDATE

Since I had a rather intense list from last time, here's a quick update on the books I chowed down on.

The Space Between by Brenna Yovanof
-LOVED this book. The writing style was really great and I loved the characters.

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
-I'm definitely looking forward to the movie version. Marion put an interesting twist on the zombie mythology that I enjoyed.

Swear by Nina Malkin (sequel to Swoon)
-I would have liked this book to have been a little more intense like the first, but as a sequel, it definitely satisfied.

Prized (Birthmarked #2) by Caragh M. O'Brien
-Where I sauntered through Birthmarked, I ripped and sped right through Prized. I almost put it down 50 pages in until we were reunited with Leon...and everything got really good. 

I couldn't really recommend Die for Me, as I put it down 30 pages in. It wasn't a story for me, but others might enjoy it. 

Books I'm Currently Reading
A Curse as Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce <- yes, still. I'm going at a snail's pace
Unbroken by Rachel Caine
Darker Still by Leanna Renee Hieber

Waiting in the Wings
Graveminder by Melissa Marr
Born at Midnight by C.C. Hunter
Beautiful Evil by Kelly Keaton
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl      

I find that the more I try to find a niche for this blog the more it tries to escape my clutches. Apparently, it wants to be YA Writing/Reading blog. Well okay then, we'll go with your plan.

As much as I wanted this blog to be review site for Really Awesome Current YA, I've found that I have far more to say and so much more to show everyone about the world of YA. So, confining this place to only reviews just doesn't seem right. I must confess that I am very much inspired by the blogs and tumblrs of awesome writers and fans. That! I want that! Now I just have to finish my manuscript and actually send it out into the mad house...

I've start using my local library again because I have this problem of buying wayyyyy too many books, many of which I feel rather "meh" about. Plus, my library system has a ridiculously great YA catalog that I keep forgetting to take advantage of. I'm actually thinking about going out there now...

Speaking of books I've picked up from the library, I had the chance to read Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi and The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson.

Under the Never Sky is a dystopian novel that really grabbed me. The story centers around two character who have been thrust out of the worlds they thought they knew and into the unknown of both themselves and their environment.

I was most drawn to the relationship between Perry and Aria and how it grew from a feeling of mutual disgust to a romance. This is one of my achilles heels of story telling: two characters who can't stand each other that find they have more in common than they think.

I'm a also a big fan of books whose minor characters could easily have novels of their own. I mean, who can resist a character named Roar?! You can't. The character of Cinder, a twelve-year-old boy with dangerous powers, tugged at my heart strings and I left wanting to hear more of his story. You can't give me a character like that and leave me hanging! 

Rossi also paints a really gorgeous portrait of the world they live in. Any novel that looks like THIS when an artist paints it is going to pull me straight in.

And although the end of the book kind of fizzles out, I have to give Rossi some wiggle room because the book is part of a trilogy. The end wraps up the major plot points and I felt okay with waiting for the next book.

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson has been a book that's been catching my eye for a while. My friend and I have this thing where we're attracted to books that have "aesthetically pleasing cover" or APCs. I'm often pulled in by these APCs and sometimes I get lucky that they are awesome.

I enjoyed this book for its character growth. Elisa starts as a girl who doesn't quite know where she fits, into the leader of rebels. She knows that she is "The Chosen One," but doesn't quite know what that means.

This is one of those books that I wish had a little more "umph" though. With words like "chosen one" I think I had expected more daring action and adventure than I got. That isn't to say that there isn't action and fighting and intrigue and indeed, some death, but I didn't completely believe it. The book is part of a series, and I feel may fall victim to the "series curse" of having to be pulled too thinly in order to span longer books. I wanted more to happen.

I'll definitely be checking out the second book to see what else happens, but I wish I'd gotten more the first time around.

I'm cheating a little with Cinder by Marissa Meyer, because I actually received an ARC of this book back in December and didn't actually get it from the library. I wanted to give it a quick review, however, because I really liked it.





I love re-tellings of classic fairy tales, it's another of my Achilles heels (I'm going to do a post on these sometime in the near future.) And this one does not dissapoint. If you can't tell, this re-telling of Cinderella with a dystopian twist. Here, Cinderella has become a second-class citizen because she's part machine.

The best part of this novel comes from Cinder's constant wonder as to what she really is and who she is. As a reader, I sadly figured it out for her as soon as certain plot points were mentioned, but it was still interesting watching her try to understand it as well. I like that she was an independent mechanic and bold in how she lived her life. Strong female characters are always a super big plus.

Again, this is a story with great characters and an interesting plot. I'm really excited to read the next one, but also saddened that I have to wait so long. This is the problem with ARCs, if you really like them you usually have to wait an extra 6 months on top of the normal wait time to get a sequel because you've gotten it in advance. Balls.

Other Books I Currently Have My Hands On:

Prized (Birthmarked #2) by Caragh M. O'Brien
A Curse as Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce 

Waiting in the Wings
The Space Between by  Brenna Yovanof
Graveminder by Melissa Marr
Blood Red Road by 
Die for Me by  Amy Plum
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
Swear by Nina Malkin 

[Review] The Scorpio Races by Maggie Steifvater *****

I've made some slight alterations to the blog, mostly my posting schedule, mainly that I'm not going to keep to it. I thought that by giving myself set days I could encourage myself to actually update, but the opposite has actually occurred. I get all flustered that I haven't updated, then I get frustrated, then I don't want to do it. Yet, when I don't have a schedule I tend to update more because the freedom doesn't put pressure on me!

I have also decided to loosen up a bit on the structure of the blog. Review entries will still have a "classroom" aspect to them, but I won't be writing them specifically for classroom purposes. On this blog you'll find reviews of YA books I think everyone should read, ramblings from a YA writer about the topic of writing YA, and anything else that may be relevant. 

This tiny look into my crazy writer brain brought to you by having free time and getting back on the writing horse. Now, without further procrastination, a review!!

~~~~
The Story

The Scorpio Races are a deadly game of man playing with fire, with the fire being ancient, and deadly water horses that riders must master to cross the finish line. Sean Kendrick and Puck Connolly come from two separate parts of the island; one an experienced trainer, the other a girl with a will of iron.

When Puck's brother decides to leave the island, the only home she's ever known, she enters the races to make him stay. But the races are violent and bloody, and a girl has never raced in them. It's here she notices Sean, a young man chained to his job by a mixture of duty and the love of the water horses. Together, their twos stories intertwine into a mutual tale of trust, self discovery, and what it really means to be free.

What's So Great About It?

If you haven't picked up a book by Stiefevater, you are really missing out. I plowed through her Gathering of Faerie novels at least a year ago, then demolished her Wolfs of Mercy Falls trilogy shortly thereafter. Stiefvater is a writer whose voice and writing have really grown into a beautiful mixture of poetry and prose, culminating in the execution of The Scorpio Races. I can't write enough about how much I enjoy her prose and how essential this is to the story. I saw a few pictures of the areas that she has used as inspiration for the book a few days ago and she truly captured the essence of the locations.

Each of the characters, no matter how minor, are brought to life by the prose and the attention to their motivations. By the end of the book, I really felt as if I could run into Sean or Puck in real life and have known them as friends. I was instantly pulled into their stories and by the end of the book, I wept with them at their joys and sorrows. I have found it extraordinarily hard for YA novels to do that to me lately, and not only is this a skill I attribute to true writers, but also an essential aspect of reading. If can't be made to care about your characters or their stories, how am I supposed to have felt anything or taken anything away from what I have read?

Why This Book?

For all the reasons stated above! Well, alright, if we're being more specific I recommend The Scorpio Races for its characters, story and the magic of the water horses. The feral and dangerous nature of the water horses was a completely fascinating story plot. I absolutely love the complete lack of control that the people really have of these animals. Stiefvater does an amazing job of describing, and detailing, how these animals can (and will) rip you to pieces faster than it takes you to look at them. For an animal that is usually considered pretty tame, these horses become things of nightmares. The horses also become the focal point to which the characters act around, and its such and interesting dichotomy of human and animal that I couldn't help but fall in love.

I would also recommend this book for its depth of character and willingness to provide nit and grit into the YA genre, which I have been finding severely lacking lately. I want a true story that will pull me in, make me feel for its characters and take me on a journey of the human spirit and The Scorpio Races does this.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater definitely gets a 5 out of 5 stars for me and I wouldn't hesitate for a second to recommend it for the classroom, either. I think students of both sexes could get into the tale and become thoroughly entranced by the story. I'm waiting for the movie for this, too. It would be an AMAZING movie!