Sort of book-related

Amazon is having an ama-zing sale today on the soundtrack for New Moon. It's only $4.99! Tons of great indie bands, plus my favorite band Muse. Sweet deal!

Amazon + Me = True Love

A week's worth

Evidently I haven't been in a posting mood. Ah well, inspiration comes in waves. So here's what I've been reading this week:

Mark of the Lion by Suzanne Arruda

Plot, courtesy of Amazon: An ambulance driver during WWI, Jade del Cameron promises a dying soldier that she'll track down his brother. The only problem is that the soldier's mother, whom Jade goes to visit in London, insists that she had only one son. Jade reasons that the missing brother must have been born to another woman, conceived when the now deceased family patriarch was exploring East Africa. So off she goes to Nairobi, where she mingles with the colonial elite, kills a hyena, learns Swahili, fingers a drug smuggler, romances a man twice her age, uncovers a murder and attracts the attentions of a local witch.

My thoughts: Kind of dark with a mystery I wasn't a huge fan of, interesting setting, I'll probably read the next one...

Countdown by Michelle Maddox

Again, courtesy of Amazon: Kira Jordan wakes up in a pitch-black room handcuffed to a metal wall. She has 60 seconds to escape. Thus begins a vicious game where to lose is to die. The man she's been partnered with--her only ally in this nightmare--is a convicted mass murderer. But if he's so violent, why does he protect her? No one to trust. Nowhere to run. And the only hope of survival is working together to beat the COUNTDOWN.

My thoughts: Action-packed, fun, quick reading...it's a SHOMI book and I think I may like the genre.

As Shadows Fade by Colleen Gleason

My thoughts: The last book in the Gardella series...and it had an excellent ending. I am thoroughly satisfied with how Gleason ended the love triangle.

Hello again

So I haven't been reading any new books lately. I'm just in a re-reading mood. This week, it's been Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (which was just as charming and adorable as the first time I read it) and...one other book. Hmmm. Oh! I remember: When Twilight Burns, in preparation for the final book in the series, As Shadows Fade.

Currently I'm reading my one nonfiction book of the month, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). So far, so good...except it's convincing me that I'm a bad driver...

Revel-yawn

Reading a messy book is an interesting sensation. You know it's a complete mess, with aimless chapters and repeated phrases/emotions/statements. You want it to get better, especially if it's in a series you've enjoyed, but wishing does not make reality happen, so you force yourself to read each page until, suddenly at the end of the book, whole new twists are thrown in and you know you're going to read the next book and you're not happy about it. Welcome to Melissa de la Cruz's Revelations.

Pretty cover, yes? It's so much better than the scary second one. I liked the first two books in the Blue Bloods series. Although to be fair, they were the sort of books I read and then immediately forget. It was bad when I started reading Revelations. I couldn't remember anything about the plot other than the character's relationships.

Here's my first complaint: the book opens up with a "here's what happened in the last few months" which included the main character, Schuyler, hooking up with a certain someone, losing her emancipated status, being forced to go live with another family instead of her grandfather, becoming best friends with another girl and a few other things that I can't remember. A lot happened in those few months...which maybe explains why nothing happens in the first three quarters of the book.

The book just didn't seem to have a plot. I really felt like it meandered all over and never really settled on anything. Schuyler was much more annoying in this book, too. And, for some reason, the pop culture references in this book really got me. (Quick rant: Authors, using tons of pop culture references dates your books. Seriously. Do you really think people are going to remember The Hills and random top 40 hits you reference? The classics survive because they don't; they keep most modern references out--just look at modern classics like The Painted Veil or Mary Stewart. Stephenie Meyer discusses this in one of her interviews; she didn't name the band Bella and Edward were supposed to go see in Twilight because she didn't want to date the book. Yet another reason why I admire her...) Anyway, I didn't remember those references being in the earlier books.

Of course, although I suffered through the book, the ending had so many twists and so much action that I will read the next one. ARGHHH.

Rating: 4/10

Dripping with emotion

I was somewhat looking forward to reading Evernight by Claudia Gray but wow, I didn't really enjoy it and here's why: teenage love. I just can't handle all the emotions teenage love comprises.



Evernight is about Bianca, a girl who's forced to go to boarding school (but don't worry; her parents are teachers there, so she's not alone but she's SUCH an outsider...yeah...) and is forced to make new friends. She feels like she doesn't fit in, is super shy, blah blah blah...but then she meets Lucas. She can be herself with Lucas! It's LOVE! So they have a little fight and don't talk for weeks...it's still LOVE. Okay, so you don't even know why they're in love other than they're both misfits...it's still LOVE.

Basically, the love aspect of the story was just dumb...I couldn't accept it at all. And the book reminded me majorly of Twilight. So much so, I was literally about to stop reading it...but then, Gray pulls out a nice twist that kept me reading. The book ventures into an un-Twilight-esque book from there, which is good.

Yeah...I just didn't like the book. Too much drama, too much "love," too much...teenageness.

Rating: 6/10

I like her books

Let me just say I have been thoroughly enjoying Colleen Gleason's books. Her books are just pure pleasure reading.

Perhaps?

I re-read Stephenie Meyer's Twilight this week. I'm not going to rehash it; if you're curious about it, just google it. You will find more than you can handle. However, I did have a thought about why Twilight is so successful. (I may have also been inspired to write a piece for a literary journal on my idea, but that lasted for about five minutes. Literary criticism is a lot of work--especially when you're out of college.)

I think Twilight has been so successful because it's actually fairly simple and has classic archetypal story: Character moves to a new situation; character meets mysterious stranger. Character falls in love with mysterious stranger and adventure follows. In good archetypal storytelling, there is also magic.

Aren't some of the most successful stories retellings of a familiar plot? And this book surely has a familiar plot--but unlike others, I literally could not put this book down the first time I read it. It blew me away. That in itself makes the book a 10 for me--I couldn't get it out of my head for days. Plus, I really enjoyed the story. (Unlike The Lace Reader, which I still randomly think about--but mostly how I still can't believe the freakin' twist in that book. Has anyone else out there read it and can sympathize with me?)

So that's my literary thought for the day. Happy (almost) weekend!

I read it!!! and loved it!!!

The suspense was killing me and so I broke down and bought Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. And I am so happy I did.

I did not read any reviews of BD before I read the book because I didn't want to have any influence on my opinion. I'm glad I did because there's quite a few negative reviews on Amazon. I'm actually a bit sad at how many people seem angry at the ending. I have no idea why--it was a freaking HAPPY ENDING, people! It was as if some reviewers wanted a great tragedy....why, you crazies? Why?

The story picks up with Bella preparing for her wedding and honeymoon--and then a few chapters later, the story takes a totally unexpected twist. A new character is introduced that transforms the rest of the book and shapes Bella's destiny. Plenty of closure is given, as necessary.

Here's what I liked about the book: Bella finally becomes Edward's equal. She's not whiny or indecisive. That was also a major complaint about the series--but no longer. She's matured greatly from the girl in Twilight. She can handle the challenges her new life is presenting her. And finally she and Edward can be truly together (and Jacob gets his happy ending, too! Seriously, I gasped out loud when he imprinted but I love how it works out).

We all know that I really admire Meyer but honestly, I liked the ending. It was thoroughly happy. It's an author's right to end a series how she likes--if she wants it to be perfectly happy, isn't she allowed to do that? And seriously, how do you think the legions of teenage girls who live and breathe this series would handle a tragic ending? I read an interview with Meyer and she's had the ending planned out for years (literally). The story is fantasy; happy endings can occur in fantasies. Real life can suck; I want my books to be joyous.

Here is an excellent review of the book from All About Romance Novels. It sums up my feelings nicely.

Rating: 9.5/10

(Spoiler: the only reason why I'm giving it a 9.5 instead of a 10 is the last 100 pages or so--the story is building up to a fight, which I wanted, but then it just doesn't happen. It was a bit anticlimactic. Other than that, it was soooooo good.)

Bite me.....oh wait, don't

I have a quest: to read one classic work each month that I somehow avoided reading during my English major undergrad years (or earlier in my life). This month I picked Dracula.


It wasn't exactly what I expected; like with Frankenstein, the character has been so dramatized and changed from the original that your expectations get twisted. Anyway, the basic story is guy gets sent to Count Dracula's castle for business; freaky business ensues. Guy comes home, Dracula follows, a girl becomes a vampire. The guy, the guy's wife, a doctor, a professor, the girl's fiancé and a cowboy from Texas (SO random!) decide that Dracula must die.

It's a suspenseful story, albeit a bit unbelieveable at times...but it's about vampires so why would I expect true realism? One aspect that did surprise me was the gore. A girl (her name is Lucy--sorry if that just ruined the whole book for you; but then again, if you are reading it and didn't know she was becoming a vampire, well, I have no words left for you) who became a vampire had to have her head chopped off! Wow.

One aspect I really liked is how the main girl (Mina, not Lucy-vampire-girl) was portrayed as so intelligent. How refreshing to have a smart girl in a pre-1900 book!

I'm sure a lot has been said about this book and I don't have anything new to really add. I'll just have a better appreciation for Breaking Dawn now.

Rating: 8.5/10

21st century perks

One of the coolest aspects (at least regarding books and authors) of living in the 21st century is the access we have to the authors themselves--via blogs and websites.

Stephenie Meyer, who wrote the incredible Twilight series, keeps her site amazingly up-to-date. I just read that Twilight is going to be a movie--and it's already in production. How cool!

I've already put my name on the list for The Host, which sounds a bit more sci-fi than I'm normally into, but I'll discuss that another time...

What a gorgeous cover!

Vamping it up

So I just finished Masquerade by Melissa De La Cruz (cool last name!). And can I just say that the cover freaked me out a bit? Take a close look: it's pretty, ornate, I love the idea of masked balls, etc.....

But then take a closer look....

How freaky are those eyes?!?!?! I didn't realize a real person's eyes were in the mask before I really took a close look at the cover. Then I was freaked out and couldn't handle looking at the cover.

Masquerade follows Blue Bloods, which I actually think I liked a bit better. The books are about a group of people known as the "Blue Bloods" aka vampires. I like De La Cruz's take on vampires and all that...I think the books will appeal to those who like Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. However, the action was a bit slower in this book and there's quite a bit of mystery about who's a "Silver Blood" aka the bad vampires and who various characters are actually in love with and such. The beginning didn't really hook me, but by the end I was involved. So if you can handle creepy eyes, give it a try.

Rating: 7/10