Guest Post by Blogger Lisa Marie Pottgen: What I Would Like to see More of in YA Novels

I suppose first and foremost, I should introduce myself so you all know who I am.  My name is Lisa, or Just Another Rabid Reader, or Destinyisntfree on the Twitters.  Some of you have seen me around.  Some of you may not have.  If you aren't sure, I am that chick whose always talking about landing in Twitter jail.  It is inevitable that it will happen every time I do a group chat.  It is just a fact of life and I have accepted and even embraced it. 

I have begun to notice a trend in young adult novels, or at least in the young adult novels I have read anyway.  And before we even get into the meat of it, I love reading YA, and it is the main genre that I read.  I have loved a majority of the books I have read and this is not meant to be a dig at the genre or the writers.  I also write Young Adult, so I would never in any way try to say anything negative about my brothers and sisters in arms.

But here is the thing.  How often do you see a main character in YA that is a disabled person?  How often is it blatantly obvious that the main character is a minority?  I can tell you, I could count the combined total in the books I have read on one hand.  And that makes me sad.  Let me explain.

I am the parent of a child on the autism spectrum.  I also have another child with ADHD.  Two of my 3 children are mixed-race and favor their father's heritage and so have darker skin.  In a perfect world, race would be irrelevant, but since we do not live in a perfect world, I just think that it would be nice if they had books about characters that they could relate to as they hit their teen years.  Maybe I will have to be the one to write them.  Who knows, it could happen.

But I am going to focus more on the disabilities angle for this post.  As the parent of a young child who has both autism and what is suspected to be a mild cerebral palsy, where are all of the young adult characters that have had to overcome a disability and are thriving?  Where are the heroes and heroines who have to struggle to do things?  Is it that people do not want to read about characters like that?  Does that make it all too real?  I don't know.

It is those facts that have prompted the story I am currently working on.  I have published already a short story that is the prequel, if you will, to the novel.  My main character is a teenage boy who is autistic.  <Gasp> Yep, I am going there.  My main character was nonverbal his entire life, until he was a teenager, and in the course of the story, he finds his voice and finds out that just because he has difficulties, that does not mean he cannot accomplish great things.  These are the kinds of stories I want to see available for my children.  They need to have characters in stories they can relate to.  No one else is writing them, so I will.  And my hope is that, maybe, if I start writing characters like this and people see that there are people who want to read them, then more stories with characters with challenges will start to appear in the stories that we read.  I would read them.  Would any of you?

A Bit About Lisa:

Lisa blogs at http://justanotherrabidreader.info. 

You can find her on:

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/destinyisntfree

Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7203920.Lisa_Marie_Pottgen

Her blog's Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Just-Another-Rabid-Reader/190458081073700

Followers in any form are always appreciated, and Just Another Rabid Reader is on Bloglovin!  http://www.bloglovin.com/en/blog/6689049 will take you to the page where you can follow!  

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Curmudgeon's Corner (CB): Infodumps

Let’s talk about infodumps. Sometimes you’re reading a book and the author just decides to tell you about… well, whatever she decides she’s interested in that day. It doesn’t really advance the plot. Or else it does advance the plot, but it could have been said in a lot fewer words, and it’s clear the author just wanted to share.


Bitterblue (Cashore) is an example of this. The action completely stops in the middle of the book, while we’re treated to a lecture on cryptography. Cryptography! I happen to really like cryptography (I used to study something related), so I had a blast with this, but I can totally see another person being a little taken aback by it. For another perspective, a similar cipher is used in Curse of Chalion (Bujold), and the cipher is described in less than a paragraph. (To be fair, in Curse, the cipher is a little less important to the plot.)

I just read a book called Admission (Korelitz) (which isn’t a YA book, can I still talk about it?) which has multiple infodumps about college admissions, as far as I can tell simply because the author wants us to know about it. It’s not really relevant to the plot. It’s sort of vaguely relevant to the characterization of the main character (who is a college admissions officer), but everything that’s relevant could have been communicated in far fewer words. Again, I had a great time reading the infodump digressions.

And of course there’s the King of Infodump Digressions: Victor Hugo. Les Miserables is famous for whole chapters and sections where Hugo tells you all his FEELINGS on convents, or (famously) Napoleon, or poop. (No kidding. There is a whole chapter on poop. I had no idea you could say that much about it!)

Do you enjoy infodump digressions, or do they just take you out of the story?

Curmudgeon's Corner: The Twin Disasters: The Beautiful Disaster, and the not so Beautiful Disaster-- Review and Rant

So I may be one of the last people to finally pick up Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire. It's a fun read, and I blazed through it one day, although as you'll see in my review, I thought that the main two characters were possibly the most dysfunctional people (and even more so as a couple) I had ever read about. Then there came Walking Disaster, which I had a lot of problems with. But here are first my reviews, and then I'll get to the rant portion of this discussion.

Goodreads Book Description: Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Review: I actually received the ARC for the sequel, Walking Disaster, so I knew I had to read this one first before sinking into the next one.

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire is told from the perspective of Abby (or "Pigeon" as she is affectionately nicknamed by Travis) as she maneuvers through college and her love life, which is kind of like a mix of a romcom with Fight Club. Travis is a man ho for lack of a better term, and he is the most glorified fighter in a secret betting fight club. He sees Abby for the first time there, and their love/hate relationship starts in that moment. He won't leave her alone, and she is determined to ignore him because he's everything that's she's tried to leave behind. Will they make their way together or will it all end... in disaster? Sorry, couldn't help it.

I would characterize this book more as new adult than young adult and would recommend that no one under 18 should read it for graphic violence and sexual encounters. This book is well written and the characters pop off of the page. I read it from cover to cover--pacing is definitely not a problem. The characters are really well described and three dimensional, and McGuire pulls out some twists that I did not expect but really liked.

The biggest problem I had with this book is while there is no doubt that this couple was sizzling hot, they were also probably the two most dysfunctional people I've ever read about. I think Abby was probably right in that they'd end up just destroying each other. Maybe years of counseling would help them, but would it be worth it? If I were Shepley or America (their respective best friends), I'd give them a berth of at least 50 feet... maybe even a few continents. I also have to agree with other reviewers that this may give the wrong message to teens about love-- if I were a parent, I'd really have an honest discussion about relationships and what is okay and what is not. Having a guy fight for and over you using physical violence is not something to adore and admire.

That said, I really enjoyed this book overall, but couldn't help but be relieved that 1) I didn't have to watch them tear each other apart any longer and 2) that I don't have a relationship like theirs.

Goodreads Book Description: Finally, the highly anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Beautiful Disaster. Can you love someone too much?
Travis Maddox learned two things from his mother before she died: Love hard. Fight harder.

In Walking Disaster, the life of Travis is full of fast women, underground gambling, and violence. But just when he thinks he is invincible, Abby Abernathy brings him to his knees.

Every story has two sides. In Beautiful Disaster, Abby had her say. Now it’s time to see the story through Travis’s eyes.

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Review: Don't hate on me... I can already feel the anger from the rest of the people who absolutely loved this book. I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire is a version of Beautiful Disaster from the perspective of Travis, the hotblooded fighter from the first book. And let me repeat, it's exactly the same book with a different epilogue. You can read the synopsis from either book to get an idea of what this is about-- Travis and Abby (or Pigeon) fall in love and have a very dysfunctional relationship. That pretty much sums it up.

Don't get me wrong, seeing into Travis' rage crazed head is interesting at times and a sometimes fascinating exercise to write a book from a male's perspective. I would say that McGuire succeeds and that I felt like Travis' voice was authentic and believable. I not once thought he was a girl (a problem that a lot of YA books have with female authors writing as male voices). The epilogue was entertaining (and the one part that was new) if not unbelievable.

The way I read and review companion books is TOGETHER. If this were a stand alone, it would probably have earned another star. The first book was a solid 4 stars for me, but there was no anticipation in this book of what was going to happen. I had just read the first book, and had the sense that this book was a cut and paste except for a few additions here and there. I mean, talk about a great way to easily get out another book for fans of Travis and Beautiful Disaster to salivate over. But for me, I felt like this was just a letdown-- could we at least have seen the time between the end of Beautiful Disaster and the epilogue? That could have been more interesting (and different) than the first book. I found myself skimming through all the dialogue and scenes with Abby and Travis because you can be sure they were the same.

Overall, a repetitive addition to the Beautiful Disaster franchise-- this one wasn't for me.

Rant (Beware: Major spoilers from both books)
OK, so here's my problem, which I kind of went into in my review above on Walking Disaster. Is it just me, or does it seem kind of wrong to charge people for an entire "new" book when it is basically the same book as before? I could actually tell that McGuire was getting a little tired of the "new" book herself, when she just cut and paste large chunks of dialogue from one book to the other without any new additions into Travis' head. 

The two big additions are a prologue (which I could have done without), and a completely unrealistic epilogue where Travis becomes an FBI agent. REALLY? I mean, Beautiful Disaster's ending was pretty unbelievable (ok, the getting married part wasn't that unlikely, but the living happily ever after DEFINITELY was), but this was completely in left base. The likelihood of Travis pulling himself together and snagging a high profile job after a lifetime of being messed up and a fighter seems very low. It is much more likely that he ended up in jai,l and he and Abby ended up divorced with kids. In fact, it seemed like a more fitting end for these two was a dual suicide-- it would fit their pattern of total insanity and violence.

These two people are completely dysfunctional, and honestly, make each other more unstable. Are we supposed to believe that once they finally decided to be together that they never had any more fights? And are we also supposed to believe that someone who is physically violent with other people won't ever hit a woman or children? I see a lifetime of abuse for Travis' loved ones-- and I can see him totally doing the "I'm so sorry, I promise I'll never do it again." It seems to really fit his personality.

Overall, while I enjoyed reading Beautiful Disaster, it had its problems, and then Walking Disaster was basically... a complete disaster. I would pass that one by.

What did you think of these books?

Curmudgeon's Corner: The Best Blog Post Since We Beat Hitler (SK)

Welcome back our guest poster, Shawn Keenan! He is the author of two great books, The Intern's Tale and The Buried Covenant.

I’m noticing a new trend in our culture, and most prominently, with the talking heads that squeeze themselves into the rectangular shaped boxes in our living rooms, bedrooms, and above our keyboards (fine, on our ipods, ipads, ibooks, and idontcares as well).  I’m not sure how to describe it with nuance or subtlety, so I’ll just pull a page from one of their playbooks to tell you about it.

It’s the worst trend I’ve seen since Hitler started making an entire race of people wear armbands to identify themselves as genetically inferior across the face of Europe!

Ok, so did I overreach a little there?  I don’t care, because these commentators and faux-experts on misplaced rage and incorrectly identified injustice use scare tactics and propaganda to force their worldview on people the same way ….

Wow, it’s really easy to slip into that (slowly pulls off shiny black, goose stepping boots). 

I want to connect this to writing in some meaningful way, even though the issue is indicative of a problem that’s become pandemic throughout our entire society.

Let’s call it “The Hitler Conversation Ender”.

Now, imagine that in your book or story you were ready to introduce your villain, maybe in chapter three or so.  Let’s even make him a very straightforward villain, not a lot of shades of grey (one or two at most, but, please, not fifty).  Now let’s write an opening scene for him.

Trevor Gluth was sitting in the dermatologist’s waiting room, flipping lazily through a fourteen-month-old copy of Field and Stream.  His eyes skimmed across the surface of the pages, never causing a ripple, never picking up a word.  With every turn of an unread page, Trevor stole a glance across the room and absorbed a piece of Whitney Moon.  The color of the stitching running along the hem of her skirt, the way stray hairs fell over her ears even though the rest of her hair was pulled taut behind her head, the way the carotid artery on the left side of her neck rose and fell with the twist of her head.  Trevor looked back down and savored that last detail like a burst of crepe filling in his mouth as he skimmed the next glossy page.  Just like Hitler would have.

So, were you starting to get creeped out?  At least a little?  Hopefully you wanted to know the connection, if any, between Trevor and Whitney.  Maybe you wanted to know why he was obsessing over her circulatory system.  If you’re a guy reading this, maybe you were curious about those Field and Stream articles going unread.  Whatever your interest in the passage and the character, I’d bet my last Deutschmark I lost you as soon as I jumped to Hitler.  There’s a simple reason for that.  Wait, there’s actually an even more simple reason for that.  Nobody’s like Hitler. 

Thank God. 

I’m willing to concede there may be people in the world today with minds as dark, as twisted as Hitler’s was, but the world is a different place, filled with people determined never to let someone like that commit global-scale atrocities again.  Now, I’m sure this basic argument could be countered by people with more social awareness than I have, sighting genocide in dark corners of the globe that the mainstream media is uninterested in shining much light on, but I think for the purposes of this analysis, there is no one like Hitler.

Again, pretty glad about that.

So what does it do to your argument, or your writing, when you jump straight from a double dare to a triple dog dare in the form of a Fuhrer comparison?  In my opinion, it completely invalidates the most important character reference for the validity of a person’s perspective: their judgment.  I just don’t believe what anybody has to say after they throw Hitler into the mix.  Here’s my logic:  Comparing someone with whom you have a difference of opinion with to Hitler is crazy.  I don’t listen to cray-cray, ergo, I don’t listen to you.

Lumping someone in with Hitler seems to be the go-to argument ender these days.  “If you agree with this other person, you agree with Hitler, so now you have the blood of innocent millions on your hands.  So who’s right now?”

Well, no one can argue with that logic, and if you try to, I’m sure there’s a nice camp somewhere you can be sent until you see things the right way.

What do you guys think?

Curmudgeon's Corner: Lord of the Rings 2.0

 

So... my husband comes home after Black Friday with a huge new TV. So what are we supposed to do with that? My answer: watch some really cool movies on it. So I bought him the Blu-ray DVD set of Lord of the Rings, extended version. Boy, I knew they were going to be long, but they were REALLY long.

But they were really fun to watch. I have some qualms about some of it, but I admit, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Me and my achy back.

Fellowship of the Ring is probably my favorite of the three. I know I'm probably in the minority here since not much happens. My bias comes from a couple of places-- I think they do Hobbits Really well in this movie. I love all the moments with Pippin and Merry... hilarious! And we start to see a friendship bloom between Legolas and Gimli, one of the other strongest parts. Lastly, the movie is just much more interesting than the book. New Zealand is gorgeous, and the film takes advantage of that.

Two Towers is a lot more action, which is fun too, but a little more piecemeal. We meet the Ents, who are really funny, and Eowyn, my other favorite character. I was surprised to see some of the prose taken straight from the book, which I appreciated. This is the first time I had ever seen the extended version of this film, so I was surprised by some of the additions. In particular, there was a lot more about the side plot of Faramir. And I was also surprised that the crazy dad (Stewart of Gondor), is none other than Walter Bishop, from Fringe fame. That made his delusional state all the more hilarious.  Lastly, poor Gollum gets more screen time, but probably not for the better. He gets beat up several times in succession-- strangled, thrown against rocks, etc. to the point where it just seems rather gratuitous. I would hate Humans/Hobbitses too!

The last movie was better than I remembered. This is because I had such a low estimation of the movie the first time I watched it because I made the unfortunate mistake of reading the book right before watching the movie. Return of the King is the best of the three books, but to me, the worst of the three movies. My pet peeves: 1) Saurman getting impaled by a stake at the bottom of the tower and Grima getting killed pretty quickly. OK, I guess this was a quick way to get rid of Saurman, but the readers know that both of these guys survive to the end. 2) The flaming fireball. Probably my least favorite part of the film. In the book, this is an extremely creepy scene where Faramir's father is determined to burn himself and stands in the flame until he dies. I had chills for days afterwards. In the movie, the stupid guy is like, "What? Faramir's ACTUALLY ALIVE?!" even though Pippin has been saying this over and over for like 10 straight minutes. The steward is like, oops! And then runs out of the hall screaming and flings himself off of the cliff, and viewers see a small flaming fire ball at a distance. REALLY?! 3) Eowyn's scene at killing the Witch King was way too short. But if I'm fair, it was barely mentioned in the book as well. 4) Lastly, this makes my heart hurt. There is a wonderful scene in the book where Pippin finds Merry after that battle and he thinks he's dead. Merry stirs and looks at Pippin and says, "Pippin, will you bury me?" I cried buckets after that scene. In the movie, the prose that replaced this, was, "Hey, you ok?" Meh.

That said, these are terrific movies, and a great way to break in our new TV. I won't even go into the Hobbit, which Shawn Keenan has already talked about (and I haven't watched yet), but I will say I am bitter they are stretching it out into a Trilogy. Really?

My husband bought me the 8 DVD set of Harry Potter for Christmas, so that'll be next on the viewing list :-)

What's on your to watch list?

Curmudgeon's Corner: Notes on Les Miserables: the movie, after reading the book

(Note: this post will have copious spoilers for both the movie and the book, and assume you have seen one or the other.)

Okay, I finally saw the movie Les Miserables and it was totally wonderful!

I saw it right after embarking on -- and finishing -- a reread of the 1500-page brick! Normally, going back to the source text for me is a terrible idea when I see adaptations, but for this movie? It totally helped me appreciate the movie more! And after about the fifth time I said to my sister in reply to some point, "Ah, but you see, in the book --" she was all, "So, maybe you would like to write a post about this?" :)

In the movie, they interpolated a lot of lines that weren't in the original musical. (Note: I also have the Complete Symphonic Recording of the musical -- that is to say, I have the entire thing pretty much memorized, so I knew when they were adding stuff.) Most of these lines -- although sometimes they were kind of weird because they didn't have any meter, what happened there? -- to me, elucidated something that was drawn out in the book but wasn't clear in the musical, or contributed to further character development following the book.

Javert: Okay, do not even get me started on how I actually am very unhappy with both Crowe's singing (though, okay, whatever) and his interpretation of Javert (which is much more woobly than the book, in which Javert is quite a bit more harsh and unyielding and I DO NOT LIKE FILM JAVERT, although I do acknowledge that it is a perfectly valid interpretation and makes Javert more human! And see my notes on Marius! Though it makes his suicide a little more strange in context). However! There were lines added about how Javert wants to resign because he denounced M. le Maire as a convict, and I loved those added lines because it really does give Javert more character.

Valjean: I adored Hugh Jackman like anything! His interpolations: While I was not a huge fan of "Suddenly," the new song, as a standalone song, I really loved it because it brought out something that Hugo spends a great deal of time on in the book: the way that Valjean's life is transformed by having Cosette in it, that having something to love changes and redeems him. The other lovely thing was the couplet they gave him about how he has always feared the day a man would come to take Cosette away from him, because this is kind of a central conflict for Valjean in the book: that he has to save Marius despite, actually, loathing the guy (there's a line about how he's trudging through the sewers and gazing at Marius in hatred. It's awesome!) -- showing the struggles he has to go through.

Marius: Marius' character is basically completely different from the book, except that they're both lovesick kids. Marius in the book is extremely self-righteous and kind of a prig and actually not all that likeable. He basically talks to Eponine, like, once during the book, and doesn't know her at all. He doesn't consider any of the revolutionary college students his friends except for Courfeyrac. He is basically the cause of Valjean dying at the end (by giving him the cold shoulder once he finds out Valjean is a convict). I think Hugo had reasons for this, mind you! But in the movie, Marius is a nice kid who is friends with and cares about Eponine, who considers all the other students his friends and even his brothers. Normally (see Javert) I don't like changes in book canon, but here I love it, because movie Marius is quite a bit more likeable! (I know movie Javert is quite a bit more likeable too. Shut up.)

Eponine: Eponine, in the book, is a much more pathetic -- but also fascinating -- figure than in the musical. She is a street rat. She isn't pretty. She's ugly, dirty, has a raspy voice, is basically alive because it's too much trouble to die, but figures that one way or another that won't last long. She may or may not have something going on with Montparnasse (in addition to being in love with Marius). She tells Marius to go to the barricades (I think... this may happen in the movie too? Can't remember) because she figures this way if she can't have him, at least no one can have him -- but at the end is redeemed by her love for him. In the musical/movie, she doesn't get a whole lot to do besides be in love with Marius, but at least they gave a nod to her interior struggles in the movie, I think.

Cosette: I thought movie Cosette was pretty close to book Cosette, but neither gets a whole lot of screen time.

The Bishop of Digne: Looooooved that he showed up at the end; the book has a strong implication that the Bishop is present at Valjean's death, and thematically it makes a whole lot more sense than Eponine (although the trio with Eponine sounds really nice).

In conclusion, I LOVED THIS MOVIE SO MUCH!

What about you? Anyone else read the book? Did I forget to discuss anyone's favorite character?

Curmudgeon's Corner: Novellas as interludes in series, Good or Bad thing?

The new popular thing in YA books is doing novellas in between sequels to a series. These are hidden scenes or stories that occur between books. Supposedly, this tactic is geared to keep fans interested and satisfied until the next true installment comes out, as well as usually giving a sneak peak to the first few chapters of the next book. I have mixed feelings about this, because if misused, it can take away from the story instead of adding to it.

Case in point. Both of the novellas that Lauren Oliver has written in the Delirium series fit this bill. The first is Hana, a novella written in the perspective of Lena's best friend. I was excited at first because I felt that Hana as a character had a lot of promise and wanted to see her perspective. What I got instead, was a retelling of Delirium in her point of view of things that we already knew about. The only thing different in this novella was the "surprise" ending, which was fine, but there was no build up and it made no sense. And honestly, what I really wanted to know is what her life was like between Delirium and Pandemonium after her cure. Also, I'd like the reason for this "twist."


Her second novella just recently came out and takes place before the first book. It is entitled, Annabel, the name of Lena's mother. This novella is slightly better in the sense that we at least get the perspective of a character that we don't see very much at all, since Lena barely knows her. That said, again, we could have predicted most of what was told from her perspective, and Annabel ends up being not a very sympathetic character. Both of these novellas are extremely short and probably fit the short story category more than a novella category. There is a myth that you can't do very much in a short story form, but I would beg to differ. It's a smaller format, but you can really pull a punch in a smaller number of words.

My last example of this, where this fails, is Tortured, a short story by Caragh O'Brien, which takes place between Birthmarked and Prized. We get the perspective of Leon, the man that Gaia has left behind as she runs away with her baby sister. He has been tortured by his father, and then gets ready to find Gaia. I'm not sure how this adds to the story at all. I think that it would have been more interesting to get the story of his actual journey to finding Gaia-- that's where the mystery is.


That said, there are two recent examples of how this gimmick really works and adds depth to the ongoing series. The first of these is Indomitable, a novella about Jonas, the vampire from the book Intangible by J. Meyers. Jonas is possibly the most intriguing character in the book and yet we get so little background about him at the time. This novella gives a whole back story of Jonas, what his life was like as a human, how he was turned, what his life was like as a vampire, and how he came to change into the person/vampire he is today. I felt like this novella really answered some big questions I had, told the story in a completely different perspective, and highlighted a fascinating character that we didn't know much about.


The second novella that I was incredibly impressed by was Neverfall by Brodi Ashton. Neverfall takes place after before and during Everneath as well as after Everneath. We get a completely new perspective from a very unusual and tantalizing character, Cole. We see some of his handiwork for what it really is, from his perspective, his true feelings for Nikki, and new reveals about Everlings not to mention a whole new group of creatures. I was impressed by how well this story was told, in a completely new perspective filled with both raw emotion and distinct humor. It was very clear that this was told by Cole. Furthermore, we learned new aspects of this world that we didn't know about before, and thus, this story enhances our experience of the trilogy. Because of this novella, I'm even more thrilled about Everbound, the follow-up to Everneath. Neverfall is a must read for everyone who reads this trilogy.


What do you think are the pros and cons to this short story/novella promotion of sequels?

Current Giveaways
1. Young Adult Faeries and Fantasy Giveaway Hop, Featuring Ellen Oh, author of Prophecy and Giveaway of Signed hard back copy of Prophecy, Korean cell phone charm and bookmark (US only), 1/7/13-1/15/13
Prophecy Giveaway

2. Bad Boys Rehab Giveaway Hop, Featuring Jason from Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock, giveaway of signed book and bookplates,  (INT) 1/10-1/18
Hemlock Giveaway

Curmudgeon's Corner: My favorite books of 2012 (CB Guest Post)

Happy New Years, everyone! My sister requested a list of my favorite books of 2012 so here it is!

1. Code Name Verity (Elizabeth Wein). This book about female friendship in WWII was my favorite book from 2012. Clearly a huge amount of research went into writing this, but it's the emotional weight of it that gets me every time.

Goodreads Book Description: I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.

That’s what you do to enemy agents. It’s what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine — and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.

He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France — an Allied Invasion of Two.

We are a sensational team.

 2. Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis, reread). I will freely admit that this book pushes all my buttons like anything. But I do think it's the best and most adult thing Lewis ever wrote. I don't like his SF trilogy, but I adore this book.

Goodreads Book Description: This tale of two princesses - one beautiful and one unattractive - and of the struggle between sacred and profane love is Lewis’s reworking of the myth of Cupid and Psyche and one of his most enduring works.

3. tiny beautiful things (Cheryl Strayed). Best of her Dear Sugar columns. Read those first, and get this book if you want a hard copy of them.

Goodreads Book Description: Life can be hard: your lover cheats on you; you lose a family member; you can’t pay the bills—and it can be great: you’ve had the hottest sex of your life; you get that plum job; you muster the courage to write your novel. Sugar—the once-anonymous online columnist at The Rumpus, now revealed as Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild—is the person thousands turn to for advice.
Tiny Beautiful Things brings the best of Dear Sugar in one place and includes never-before-published columns and a new introduction by Steve Almond.  Rich with humor, insight, compassion—and absolute honesty—this book is a balm for everything life throws our way.

 4. Team Human (Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan) - In any other year this book would have been my favorite (not its fault it came out in a year with a lot of other strong contenders). Vampire meta that still manages to be its own spectacularly funny book.

Goodreads Book Description: Just because Mel lives in New Whitby, a city founded by vampires, doesn't mean she knows any of the blood-drinking undead personally. They stay in their part of town; she says in hers. Until the day a vampire shows up at her high school. Worse yet, her best friend, Cathy, seems to be falling in love with him. It's up to Mel to save Cathy from a mistake she might regret for all eternity!

On top of trying to help Cathy (whether she wants it or not), Mel is investigating a mysterious disappearance for another friend and discovering the attractions of a certain vampire wannabe. Combine all this with a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and touching.

Acclaimed authors Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan team up to create a witty and poignant story of cool vampires, warm friendships, and the changes that test the bonds of love.

 5. Bitterblue (Kristin Cashore) - Cashore takes the world of Graceling and Fire and amps it up a notch. Not a perfect book, but an ambitious and fascinating one.

Goodreads Book Description: The long-awaited companion to New York Times bestsellers Graceling and Fire

Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck's reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle--disguised and alone--to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn't yet identified, holds a key to her heart.

What were your favorite books that you read in 2012, and why?

 Current Giveaways
1. Interview with Jennifer Lane, author of Streamline, US giveaway of signed paperback + bookmark and International giveaway of e-copy, 12/16
Streamline Giveaway

2. New Years 2013 Blog Hop, featuring Interview with Morpheus from Splintered by A.G. Howard and Giveaway, 1/1/13-1/7/13 (INT)
Splintered giveaway

Curmudgeon's Corner (SK): Too Much of a Good Thing?

Welcome back Shawn Keenan, the author of The Intern's Tale and The Buried Covenant. If you haven't read these two awesome books, pick it up over the holidays to have something fun to read! They are definitely special. He also has a great blog. Stop by!

http://www.errantauthor.blogspot.com/

I watched the movie THE HOBBIT this weekend.  I’m not as big a fan of Tolkien as some, but I have read the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, THE HOBBIT a couple of times, and watched these stories on the big screen. 

I say I’ve watched THE HOBBIT, but I’ve actually only watched about a third of what is that relatively short story.  And it took almost three hours.  That means I probably have about another six hours ahead of me to get the full story presented in all of its 48 fps glory.  (Not sure if that’s how I actually saw it, it just looked like a movie to me).

So here’s my rant.  Did Peter Jackson do this classic story a service or an injustice by stretching it out, puff it up, and possibly making it a bit bloated in his efforts to create another trilogy? 

Bottom line, yeah, just a little.

The book THE HOBBIT is very unique.  In so many ways, it’s a rough draft for the three-book saga that is THE LORD OF THE RINGS.  You can see him trying things out, playing with themes, and taking a first swipe at what would be expansive world building in his trilogy.  And I find a charm in that.  I don’t go so far as to say it’s a children’s book, but there is a fairy tale quality to it and Bilbo, I think, would be very relatable to younger adults and even preteens who feel like they are setting off on a journey into a larger world filled with Giants, Goblins, and Dragons every time they step out their front door.

In my opinion, Jackson has tried to turn THE HOBBIT into a sequel to LOTR’s, without recognizing that the story is distinctly a prequel, and is in many ways more like an extended prologue.  By adding plots, weight, and melodrama to what is a more straightforward story, he burdens it a bit.

My point is this (maybe):  When you take a beloved story, even though you are staying very true to the author’s source material, if you ignore the essence of what that story is, you may lose something in the process.  I think LOTR fans will love this movie and so will most other moviegoers. 

I don’t think anyone who ends up seeing all three movies of this new trilogy will have experienced much of what people who read the book THE HOBBIT felt in reading it, and that’s ok.  Movies are movies and books are books.  Sometimes a movie can’t accomplish what a book does, and that’s part of the magic of books. 

What do you think about The Hobbit being stretched out to three movies?

Enter some great giveaways!
Current Giveaways
1. Interview and Giveaway of dystopian YA novel, There Comes A Prophet by David Litwack, US/Canada giveaway of paperback of his book
There Comes a Prophet giveaway

2. Interview with Jennifer Lane, author of Streamline, US giveaway of signed paperback + bookmark and International giveaway of e-copy, 12/16
Streamline Giveaway

3. The Best of 2012 Giveaway Hop Featuring Jonathan Maberry, Author of the Rot and Ruin series (one INT and one US winner of signed copies of Flesh and Bone), 12/27-12/31
Rot and Ruin giveaway

Curmudgeon's Corner: Worst books I finished in 2012 (CB)

A disclaimer: I'm now at the point where if I really don't like a book, I just don't finish it. These are the worst books I've finished this year, so they can't be as bad as all that! Mostly with these books there was at least one moment of WHAT WAS THAT? Links are to my (sometimes very short, sometimes long and ranty) writeups on Livejournal.

1. Shadows in Flight (Card): Hands-down the worst book I finished in 2012. (Review contains fairly major spoilers.) WOW, this was bad. And I LIKE Card, a lot: the only reason I finished the book. Increasingly irrelevant (and what's worse, boring) fanfic about minor characters from a spinoff of his most popular work. It's frankly quite surprising to me that the same man who wrote the brilliantly disturbing Ender's Game and the incredibly moving, thoughtful, and subtle Folk of the Fringe, not to mention the layered Memory of Earth series, is putting out this kind of shallow garbage.

2. Thirteen Reasons Why (Asher): I thought I'd really like this book about suicide. I usually do like Issue-Laden YA. But I think I was supposed to be sympathetic towards the protagonist (who committed suicide --not a spoiler), and mostly I wanted her to stop whining!

3. Bathsheba (Smith): This was technically fine, I guess. But it was just boring, and given how intensely interesting the original Biblical story is, there just seems to be no need for that. 

4. Incarnate (Meadows): It wasn't so much that this was a bad book -- lots of people I know, including my sister, quite liked it -- as that it hit me squarely in my large-age-difference-romance squick, and this made it impossible for me to really take it seriously as it wanted me to.

5. In Spite of Everything (Thomas). I was told this was a book about a Gen X woman who had divorced parents, swore she would never get divorced, especially after they had kids, and then got divorced. Well, that was exactly what I got. It was well-written, but... a goodreads review called it "mind-bogglingly solipsistic," and I think that's an excellent description.

What are your least favorite reads of the year?


Don't forget to enter some great giveaways!


Current Giveaways
1. Interview and Giveaway with Tracy Rozzlynn, author of the Fast-Tracked and Verita trilogies, Two Sets of Fast-tracked (first two books), Two sets of Verita Trilogies (first two books) OR $25 Amazon GC
Verita and Fast Tracked Giveaway

2. US giveaway of 5 Elemental Bookmarks signed by Antony John
Elemental Bookmark Giveaway

3. Interview with Eric Gale and giveaway of signed ARC of The Bully Book (INT)
Bully Book Giveaway

4.  Book Lovers Giveaway Hop Featuring Rachel Harris, author of My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century, US giveaway of signed paperback and International giveaway of e-copy,12/4-10
Book Lovers Giveaway Hop

Curmudgeon's Corner: My 2012 Top Ten Reads

Hello, everyone! Since the bottom 5 reads was so popular, I have to do my ten top reads of the year (there were too many to limit it to five!). My sister, blogger CB, will also be ranking her top and least favorite reads of 2012 too in December!

10. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
This was a surprising find for me-- I wasn't sure what to expect, but I absolutely fell in love with the characters, the world, and the non-preachy spirituality I found in the pages.

Goodreads Book Description:  
Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness.
Elisa is the chosen one.

But she is also the younger of two princesses, the one who has never done anything remarkable. She can't see how she ever will.

Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.

And he's not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies seething with dark magic are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people's savior. And he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.

Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young.

Most of the chosen do.

9. Black City by Elizabeth Richards
I just recently finished reading this book after Fiona Paul highly recommended it to me. I love how Elizabeth Richards takes a stereotypical set up and completely turns it on its head. This is a must read with a beautiful love story.

Goodreads Book Description: A dark and tender post-apocalyptic love story set in the aftermath of a bloody war.

In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-olds Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable—they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed—but their feelings are too strong.

When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.

8. Everneath by Brodi Ashton
I read this book quite some time ago, but it still resonates with me even now. I loved the imagery of the world building, and the characters are terrific. Cole is devastatingly sexy in his evil way, and Jack is the boy next door that every girl wants to eventually marry. I can't wait for the follow up.

 Goodreads Book Description: Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she's returned--to her old life, her family, her boyfriend--before she's banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance--and the one person she loves more than anything. But there's just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.

As Nikki's time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's queen.

7. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
I was completely impressed by this book. Shawn Keenan recommended this one to me, and I was blown away by how realistic this post-apocalyptic world was described. It's an intense ride with some amazing characters, and I was in tears by the end. 

 Goodreads Book Description: Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.

6. If I Lie by Corrine Jackson
Talk about another intense read. Every move in this novel was deliberate and thought provoking. One of the most emotionally gripping novels I've ever read-- and out of my comfort zone. I don't typically read contemporaries, but this one was well worth the exception.


 Goodreads Book Description: A powerful debut novel about the gray space between truth and perception.

Quinn’s done the unthinkable: she kissed a guy who is not Carey, her boyfriend. And she got caught. Being branded a cheater would be bad enough, but Quinn is deemed a traitor, and shunned by all of her friends. Because Carey’s not just any guy—he’s serving in Afghanistan and revered by everyone in their small, military town.

Quinn could clear her name, but that would mean revealing secrets that she’s vowed to keep—secrets that aren’t hers to share. And when Carey goes MIA, Quinn must decide how far she’ll go to protect her boyfriend…and her promise.

5. Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Another earlier read that I can't quite get out of my head. I felt this novel was so unique and terrifically modern while still having a goth/horror vibe. I was on my toes from beginning to end, and Anna remains one of my favorite YA characters of all time.

 Goodreads Book Description: Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. 

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

4. Elemental by Antony John
Yes, Antony John is a good friend of mine, but that has nothing to do with how I felt about this book. I was blown away by the pacing, the characters, and the plot reveals. This book just came out, but I had the privilege of getting to read an ARC quite some time ago. One of my favorite dystopians of the year-- plus it manages to have an element of fantasy!

 Goodreads Book Description: A lost colony is reborn in this heart-pounding fantasy adventure set in the near future . . .

Sixteen-year-old Thomas has always been an outsider. The first child born without the power of an Element—earth, water, wind or fire—he has little to offer his tiny, remote Outer Banks colony. Or so the Guardians would have him believe.

In the wake of an unforeseen storm, desperate pirates kidnap the Guardians, intent on claiming the island as their own. Caught between the plague-ridden mainland and the advancing pirates, Thomas and his friends fight for survival in the battered remains of a mysterious abandoned settlement. But the secrets they unearth will turn Thomas’ world upside-down, and bring to light not only a treacherous past but also a future more dangerous than he can possibly imagine.

3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
For someone who lived through the eighties and played some old timey video games when they were still pixelated, this was a must read. I'm not sure that people who don't get as many of the references will love it quite as much as I did, but still without those references, this is a pulse pounding thriller with wonderful twists and terrific characters.

 Goodreads Book Description: It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place. 

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. 

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune--and remarkable power--to whoever can unlock them. 

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved--that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. 

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. 

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt--among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life--and love--in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape. 

A world at stake. 
A quest for the ultimate prize. 
Are you ready?

2. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
I loved this book. The world building was incredibly unique and the whole novel was different than anything I had ever read before. The prose was beautiful, and I loved the quirky three dimensionality to all of the characters. I can't wait to get my hands on the next installment, which just came out. Close to my favorite book of the year.

 Goodreads Book Description: Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?


1. Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry
This was my favorite book that I've read this year. I was so impressed with how thoughtful the text was-- it is literally a tome of a possible culture that would be created in a zombie apocalypse. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen, I was wrong. I compare this book to an onion-- I kept peeling back layer after layer, getting more and more involved with the wonderful characters. Not only that, many ethical issues were presented in this book, and handled elegantly. Lastly, Tom Imura was my biggest book crush of the year.

 Goodreads Book Description: In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn't want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.

Don't forget to enter some great giveaways!
Current Giveaways
1. Interview and Giveaway prize pack of Beckoning Light and Perilous Light by Alyssa Rose Ivy (US only), 11/12
Afterglow Trilogy Giveaway

 2. Interview and Giveaway with Tracy Rozzlynn, author of the Fast-Tracked and Verita trilogies, Two Sets of Fast-tracked (first two books), Two sets of Verita Trilogies (first two books) OR $25 Amazon GC
Verita and Fast Tracked Giveaway

3. US giveaway of 5 Elemental Bookmarks signed by Antony John
Elemental Bookmark Giveaway

4. Interview with Eric Gale and giveaway of signed ARC of The Bully Book (INT)
Bully Book Giveaway