Thursday, December 12, 2013

Death's Daughter

by Amber Benson

So ... remember how I said that Hilary Mantel was a study in minimalist writing? Well, I'm pretty sure this book was the antithesis of that. Seriously, there were a number of places where I could have deleted three paragraphs without losing anything. The main character took way too long to figure stuff out when I was way ahead of her and just wanted to get on with the story. Also, the big twist at the end, wasn't really such a big twist. I saw it coming way before it hit.



OK, now I have to talk about what I liked. Despite being overly chatty, I did like the main character. She was funny and tough, even though she didn't know how tough she was. Also, on a side note, what is with the recent fad of heroines who are tough but don't know that they're tough? Can we please bring back the heroines who know exactly what their strengths are and play to them? Thanks

I also really liked the side characters. Jarvis was my favorite, largely because I loved the main characters' reactions to and interactions with him. Clio was also a blast and I totally want to be her bff. I particularly liked the scene where she was trying to explain physics and magic to the main character because the main character's reaction was pretty much exactly how I would have reacted to that explanation.

Ultimately, it was a fun light read. It entertained me and definitely made me want to keep reading.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Shiloh

The Battle That Changed the Civil War

by Larry J. Daniel

The research for novel #2 continues, and yes, this is the novel I was working on during National Novel Writing Month last month. I must say I certainly wished I had done more research before then, because doing research while writing 1,666.67 words per day, not to mention holding down my day job, was quite the challenge. Obviously, I'm still not done, as I just finished reading this book about Shiloh over the weekend.

Overall, I really liked the book. It included a lot of "what ifs" which I didn't think I would like, but I ended up really enjoying. Every once in a while the author would discuss a decision that someone made and how things might have turned out drastically differently if that person had made a different decision. Given that I was merely looking for information on the battle so I could continue writing my novel, the "what ifs" weren't really what I was looking for, but as I said, I did find myself enjoying them.



In the end, though, I don't think any of those decisions significantly affected the battle. Historians can blame Confederate generals or credit Union generals all they want but the fact remains that the South was outnumbered. The Union army won that battle after receiving massive reinforcements. The South could never hope to match those reinforcements and the survivors of the battle were already exhausted. I had always thought it was settled that the North's superior numbers, funds, and technology made it so that the outcome of the war was inevitable. Yes, the war had turning points, but if the Union had lost those battles, they would not have lost the war. The turning point would simply have come later. In the end, the South could not overcome the sheer numbers of the North and the battle of Shiloh exemplifies that.

That being said, it does seem to be a miracle that the generals managed to accomplish anything at all. All of the generals and politicians of both sides were so busy bickering amongst themselves that I can't believe our country has come to revere such a bunch of babies!

Sunday, December 1, 2013

National Novel Writing Month 2014

I DID IT! 50,000 in 30 days! :D

I'm not sure how I feel about it, though. On the one hand yes, I got my 50,000 words. On the other hand, my story is no where near finished. I'm only half way, maybe two thirds of the way through. So, do I still win NaNoWriMo if I got the word count but didn't finish the story?

I don't know. Who cares? I didn't officially sign up anyway.



So, here I my thoughts on this little experiment. On the one hand, I learned how much I could do in one month. It took some practice and, obviously some days are better than others, but I learned that, on a good day, I can blow through 1,500 - 2,000 words in an hour. Lots of little bits of time, like half an hour, that I have throughout the day suddenly became an opportunity to cram out seven or eight hundred words. That is a really good frame of mind to get into and I'm hoping I can continue it.

On the other hand, I don't like feeling rushed. Yes, I got a lot done, but how much of that will I have to go back and rewrite or delete because it's so bad? There's something to be said for taking the time to do it right the first time. As far as I can tell, there's writing quickly, and then there's writing well. They're two different things, although I hesitate to call them mutually exclusive, they are certainly not mutually inclusive.

Whether or not I'll do this again next year has yet to be determined. I don't think I'll be able to make that decision until October 2014 rolls around. In the mean time, I am glad that I tried it and I certainly developed some good writing habits that I hope I won't lose over the holidays.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Beautiful Redemption

by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

I was actually kind of disappointed in this book. Because I absolutely loved the first three books of this series, I had pretty high expectations for this one. To be fair, this book still has a lot of the elements I loved of the first three, namely the awesome characters. Link in particular is my favorite, but I really love all of them. I love Lena and Ethan together, which is a lot of the reason this book wasn't my favorite. The two of them were separated until the very end of the book and I didn't get to see them interact with each other. When they did finally get together, their major obstacle to being together was magically solved. They didn't even bother to try to explain how that happened and I don't know if I love or hate that fact. I guess it's a little of both.



SPOILER ALERT:
Ethan died at the end of the third book. I have to admit that, given that he's the narrator and all, I wasn't expecting him to actually die. But they did it. So most of the fourth book consists of Ethan fighting his way through the afterlife to try to get back to life. It was interesting, but not as interesting as the two of them would have been if I had gotten to see Ethan and Lena together. Ethan did get to meet some interesting characters in the afterlife, but ultimately he faced a lot of this battle alone (OK, so he had a crow with him for some of the journey but, given that crows can't talk, I'm not sure that that really counts).

That's really my only complaint about the book. Ultimately, it just wasn't as packed with action as the first three books. On a personal note, I had to deal with the passing of friend while reading this book so reading someone's interpretation of the afterlife while dealing with that was a little awkward. That wasn't the fault of the authors though. From an arbitrary perspective, their take on the afterlife was actually quite interesting.

All in all, it was a good book, but I think it was the weakest of the four.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Bring Up The Bodies

by Hilary Mantel

I loved this book every bit as much as I loved the first one. Probably more.

As it turns out, the title is not quite as creepy as it initially seems. They just say "bring up the bodies" when they mean "bring in the suspects for trial" so they're not actually dead yet. Although, by that point in the story, they're as good as dead, so I guess when you think about it, that really makes the title so much more creepy than it initially seems!



Seriously, though, this was another excellent read that kept me pressing the page button on my kindle until I was surprised to find myself at the end already! My one qualm with the first book was Mantel's liberal use of the pronoun "he" when I would get lost as to who was speaking when. She still does that, but makes a point of using "he; he Cromwell, said ..." which made it much easier for me to understand and enjoy. There were still a few confusing moments but, overall, I really enjoyed this book.

I don't know if it was the author's intention but I found it really hard to believe that just a few years passed from the beginning of the book until the end. Every time they talked about Wolsey I felt like all of that was ages and ages ago. Turns out, it was only a few years. I had known that Henry only kept Anne around for a few short years but I guess I forgot. This book does a really excellent job of packing in all of the things that happened while Anne was queen, which is what made me feel that so much more time had passed than a few years.

The most impressive part of this book, to me, was the way that everything was presented. Mantel had me so convinced that I was in Tudor England (or at least that she had been to Tudor England to research this book) that I found myself thinking, "Huh, I didn't know it happened that way. I always suspected it happened some other way," before remembering that this book is fiction and relies on speculation just as much as every other book about this time period that I've ever read. Well done, Mantel! You made me forget that I was reading fiction. In a good way.

The other thing that amazed me was that just reading about all of the stuff that Cromwell does makes me feel lazy. Sometimes I get home from a full day of work and make myself dinner and do laundry and pay my bills and I'm all "Look at me and all the stuff I can do!" And then there's Cromwell who is running the country while always making it seem as though Henry is the one running the country. Not to mention staying one step ahead of his enemies so they can't manage to bring him down. He hardly seems to sleep and he never gets sick because, as he puts it, he's not "allowed" to get sick. Seriously, the guy gives "workaholic" a new meaning.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

National Novel Writing Month 2013

Okay. Okay. You guys talked me into it. I've decided I'm going to try to participate in National Novel Writing Month this year. I haven't officially signed up and I'm not going to. I highly doubt that I'm going to finish this novel in one month but I will try my darnedest to get 50,000 words out.

This NaNoWrMo just happens to work out well for me this year because I've just finished editing my novel for the umpteenth time and I really need a break from it. At the same time, I've had this other idea for a novel that I've been tossing around for more than a year now and I think now would be a great time for me to take a break from novel #1 and try to get a good start on novel #2.



The reason I have been so anti-NaNoWrMo in the past is because it took me 1 year to crank out my first novel and that was about 75,000 and I was really stressed during that year because every minute that I wasn't at work or sleeping, I was writing. If I wasn't doing any of those things I began to feel guilty and resentful of the time that I thought would be better spent writing.

So here's my pledge. I won't stress out about this. I write because I love writing. It's fun for me. If it stops being fun, that defeats the purpose. So, with that in mind, I know that there will be days that I will not make my word quota and that's fine. Hopefully I'll make up that time on the weekends but, again, if I don't, I won't stress over it. This is an experiment for me. We'll see how it goes.

I'll see you all in December.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

The Paleo Manifesto

Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health

by John Durant

I'm not entirely sure what to think of this book. I was excited to read it and I'm definitely still excited to discuss it with some of my paleo buddies. All in all, though, it wasn't entirely what I was expecting.

The middle part of this book was definitely my favorite. The very beginning covered a lot of information about how the first hunter-gatherer societies lived (and how some modern hunter-gatherer societies live), much of which I already knew and all of which I was expecting. Then he got into some of the intricacies of what happened when we started building civilizations. Not least among these is religion and religious laws. While this was fascinating, and I certainly learned a lot in this section, my attention kept wandering as I wondered where he was going with this.

Then he brought it all together. While elaborating on things like barefoot running and exposure to extreme temperatures, he kept referring to Part 1 throughout the book, and it all made sense. At no point did it seem to be irrelevant or like he was going off on a random tangent. It was actually a very well-thought out, well-organized book.



As I said, the middle part of the book was my favorite and it has convinced me to do things I was otherwise unwilling to try. Running barefoot, for example, is something I've been wanting to do for awhile, but given peoples' tendency to injure themselves when they first start running barefoot, I was hesitant. Durant, on the other hand, gave very good tips for starting slow and how to get into the habit without injury. Now I just need to find myself a pair of Vibrams.

Cold showers were something I had heard other people tout as beneficial but I was unconvinced. Most of what I had heard was merely anecdotal evidence. Durant, however, links the practice to thousands of years worth of tradition in countries all over the world, from Russia to Rome, that regularly submit themselves to either extreme hot or extreme cold, and then immediately immerse themselves in the other extreme. The way Durant told it actually had me convinced to try cold showers, although when the moment of truth came this morning, I chickened out. Maybe tomorrow ...

The ending of the book was a very interesting analysis of where our food comes from and where our food should come from. Turns out, he's not worried about the environment, which I, personally, don't agree with. But he did have some very intriguing theories on balancing the whole local/organic movement with modern industrial food. He acknowledges the need for both in order to feed the world, which makes sense to me, given that I have never been entirely convinced by claims that eating organic is actually more sustainable than industrial food.

All in all, an excellent book with a lot of information and some great food for thought. It is all well-written and engaging and I definitely recommend it.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

The Brothers Karamazov

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky


I have to admit, I really enjoyed this book. I wasn't sure I would, having read Anna Karenina, which I absolutely hated. That book bored me to tears. But I was assured that Dostoyevsky was much better than Tolstoy and I was hankering to get back into the 19th century so I went for it. I'm really glad I did because this was certainly much better than stupid Anna Karenina.



My copy of the book has a quote from Dostoyevsky on the back which says, "I'd die happy if I could finish this final novel, for I would have expressed myself completely." I can easily believe that because this book (at a mere 1045 pages) includes just about everything you can think of. It's part mystery thriller, part psychological thriller, part philosophical debate, with social commentary strewn throughout. There's even romance. Seriously, all he needs is some vampires and/or robots and he'll have all of the genres covered. But then that would have put him way ahead of his time and, as I said, at 1045 pages I think this book might just be long enough as it is already.

As much as I enjoyed this book, my favorite parts were probably the parts that didn't feel like what one typically thinks of 19th century literature. The book started off by describing one man's multiple marriages and his penchant for drinking and orgies. Later on this man competes for a woman with one of his sons. It's like Jerry Springer. Only it's Dostoyevsky so that makes it culture.

My only complaint about the book I think stems from the translation rather than Dostoevksy himself. For example, misusing the word "literally" I can sort of tolerate in modern writers (to an extent) but I know that trend had not yet started in the 19th century. There were also some modern-sounding phrases that took me out of the time period. It was minor things like that that I had hard time with, although I wouldn't say they affected my overall enjoyment of the book. 

Saturday, October 12, 2013

No Tab Friendship

by Alison Ver Halen


"Jesus! Mary, you scared the crap out of me."

"Sorry," she shouted from the other side of the glass. "Can you let me in?"

Thoroughly grumpy now, Jane went to unlock her front door. As she opened it, she asked, "You couldn't have used the doorbell like a normal person? What were you doing in my bushes?"

"A car drove by. I thought it might be his so I ducked for the nearest cover. That's when your dog started barking. Hey, buddy." She bent down to pet the dog, who had stopped barking and was now wagging his tail, having recognized the intruder.

Jane let out a heavy sigh. "What is it now?"

"He found out."

Mary didn't extrapolate and Jane's sleep-addled brain couldn't decipher what she meant. "Found out about what?"

"About the money I've been stowing away."

"Christ! And you're still here to tell the tale?"

"So far." Mary snuck a peak around the curtain to look outside. "I can't stick around, though. I have to get out of town. Now. Jane, I hate to ask this of your, but could you possibly lend me some money? You know I'll find a way to pay you back as soon as I get on my feet."

"What happened to all that money you were saving up?"

"Like I said, he found it. He has all of it now. All of it."

"You hid it all in one place?"

"Of course not, but once he found one wad of bills he started tearing up the apartment looking for others. Each one he found made him madder than the last."

The gravity of the situation finally hit Jane. She was fully alert now and had gone from grumpy to concerned in an instant. "Of course I can help you out. Just wait here and I'll see how much cash I have." She disappeared into the back room while Mary checked the window again.

When Jane reappeared she asked Mary, "Do you need a ride? I can take you as far as the state line."
"Oh, Jane, I couldn't ask that of you. Just take me to the nearest bus stop."

"Nonsense. He'll find you there for sure. We at least have to get you out of the county."

"Thanks, Jane. I owe you for this."

Jane waved it off. "Don't mention it. I'll just put it on your tab." It was a long-running joke between the two of them. Jane was always getting Mary out of scrapes like this and Mary was always insisting she would find a way to pay Jane back, though she never did. Jane was too sensible to get herself into any kind of trouble and Mary's debt just kept mounting, though nobody actually kept track of it. True friendship doesn't come with a score sheet and Jane knew that.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

How Doing a Puzzle is Like Writing a Book

I did a puzzle earlier this year. My brother was kind enough to help me out when I ran into trouble with the border at the very beginning but, after that, it was all me. It was the first time I had ever done a 1000-piece puzzle mostly by myself and it took me much longer than I had thought it would. As I was working on it, I would think of how I could be spending the time working on my novel and that was when I realized there were a number of similarities between completing the puzzle and completing my novel.



1) It took me way longer than I thought it would.

I was naive enough to think that I could finish the puzzle in a few weeks. It took me closer to five months. However, that just made me that much more proud of the finished product. I took a picture, posted it to all my social media, bragged to all of my virtual friends (and real friends). It felt awesome.

Likewise, my novel has taken me much longer to complete than I thought it would. I completed the first draft in one year and, considering I work full time, I was actually pretty happy with that. It was all the editing that surprised me. As with the puzzle, I was naive enough to think that I would get some constructive criticism from a few friends, make the necessary touch ups, and hit "publish". Ok, I never thought publishing was going to be that easy but I certainly never thought I would spend three years editing! However, like I said about the puzzle, the extra time has made me that much more proud of my work. When I think of how far it's come from that first draft, I have to admit, I feel pretty awesome.

2) Attention to detail is important.

My puzzle was particularly tricky in that there were a lot of pieces that looked like they went together, but they really didn't. Some of these mistakes I realized right away. Some of them I didn't realize until I was down to the last few pieces of the puzzle and I realized that they didn't fit in any of the available spots.

Same with my novel. I thought some things worked really well. I was even really proud of certain narrative choices. My beta readers were kind enough to let me know otherwise. As much as I wanted to ignore them all as ignorant panderers to current literary fashion, there were times when I had to admit they were right, especially when I got the same comment from multiple readers.

3) The value of walking away.

If I hadn't managed to add any pieces to the puzzle for a significant amount of time, I usually found that the best thing to do was to just walk away. When I came back the next day, I was refreshed and better able to find matching pieces.

We all know the value of beta readers because they have a distance from the story that we don't. Stepping away from the story and working on something else for awhile can help us gain some of that distance. This might be even more true after having received a criticism you don't agree with. Step away from the manuscript, get your mind off of it, maybe do a puzzle, and then, when you come back, you might be able to see it from your reader's perspective.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Zoe's Tale

by John Scalzi

I actually didn't think I wanted to read this book. I was wrong. I should have known better and had more faith in Scalzi because this book is absolutely something that I wanted to read, whether I knew it or not. I didn't think I wanted to read it because I knew it was just a retelling of The Last Colony from Zoe's perspective and, as much as I love both The Last Colony and Zoe, I wasn't very interested in rereading that. Then my brother read it and advised that I read it, too. Thank god I bought him all of the first four books for Christmas! I took his advice and I am immensely glad that I did.

Scalzi, like the true artist he is, manages to tell an entirely different story while retelling a story he's already written. There is a minimum of repeated scenes (like, maybe two) and he does an excellent job of glossing over all of the stuff we saw last time. Instead, he focuses on Zoe's perspective and the things going on in her life that her parents never knew about. Also the things that they kind of knew about but only vaguely, which was awesome.



She is also an awesome character and I fully enjoyed reading about her. In his acknowledgements, Scalzi admits that he had trouble with her voice since he doesn't actually have much experience being a teenage girl *gasp* so he recruited help from some of the women in his life. For the most part, I did find her to be a very believable teenage girl, if a bit too mature for her age. Yes, I know there are always the children who act older than they are but, at a certain point, the hormones just take over. There are a number of scenes with the Obin in particular where she manages not to fly off the handle because she knows it won't do any good and I had a little bit of a hard time swallowing that. Maybe she just has more practice with the Obin than most of us but, in my experience, knowing that getting angry won't do any good and actually not getting angry are two very different things. Times ten when adolescent hormones are racing through your body and you don't have time to sleep (which she apparently didn't). On the other hand, whiny teenage girls aren't very likable interesting to read about so Scalzi is forgiven.

That being said, all the fantastic elements of The Last Colony are also present here. It is fast-paced and action-packed with a minimum of unnecessary information or anything to slow down the story. I was also surprised and glad to see Scalzi go from third person limited to first person, which is really saying something because I don't normally like first person narration.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Flight Behavior

by Barbara Kingsolver

Before I talk about this book, I would like to take a moment to pat myself on the back. While on vacation last month, we visited a bookstore that we love and I purchased three books. I have since finished all three books. That's right. They didn't sit on my shelves gathering dust for ages while I read the dozens of books I have downloaded onto my kindle or one of the countless books I could get from the library. No sir, I got down to business and read all three of these books right away while other books that I bought ages ago are still sitting on my shelf, gathering dust, slowly giving up hope that I will ever actually read them. And, yes, I still feel good about that!

I really enjoyed this book. Kingsolver is one of those authors I know has a great reputation but, while I do like her stuff, she's never been one of my favorite authors. I dove into this one because I need a serious break from all the YA and this book fit the bill perfectly. It starts off slow and took me awhile to get into it because I had gotten so accustomed to the hit-the-ground-running action-packed books that are taking over the market these days. I was bored, at first, but I stuck with it and I'm very glad I did. Once I got into it, I realized it had it's own way of maintaining suspense.

At first glance, the stakes don't seem all that high. Bored housewife is trapped in a marriage she should never have entered into, but can't leave her kids, blah, blah, blah. Hardly the end-of-the-world drama today's YA has taught me to expect.



Except the world is ending. Dellarobia (the bored housewife) happens upon millions of butterflies right in her own back yard. As it turns out, this is due to global warming. The butterflies were unable to make it to their normal winter roost in Mexico and so were forced to make due with Tennessee. The book is an excellent exploration, not only of global warming and what it could mean for us and our children, but of clashes between "high" and "low" culture.

Dellarobia is a very intelligent but uneducated woman living on a sheep farm in a small town. She starts working for Dr. Ovid Byron who is shocked to learn what their education system is like. My favorite part of their conversations on this topic is that they're filled with mutual respect. Yes, feelings get rankled but no one ever says "you're stupid" or "you're wrong". They ask why. And the other side explains and there's a great crossing of some very solid boundaries and I love it.

The only thing I didn't like was the ending. Dellarobia miraculously helps to give birth to a lamb for the first time and is all proud and ecstatic to experience the miracle of birth, etc, etc, etc. At the end she explains to her five-year-old son that she's moving out and going to college but they'll still see each other and it's all just a little too happy and predictable for me. Yes, the Earth is still FUBAR but, for now at least, everything turned out for the best. *gag*

Monday, September 2, 2013

Quiet

The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

by Susan Cain

I have a lot of feelings about this book. In one way, it answered a lot of questions for me. I have always known and accepted the fact that I am an introvert so it didn't surprise me that I fit a lot of the descriptions of introverts listed in this book. There were, however, a number of elements that did not necessarily apply to me. Of course, very few of us exist at one end of the spectrum. Most of us have elements of both and I noticed some of my more extroverted elements have been learned and developed over the years.

However, there were some things I had not anticipated. I think the most surprising one for me was the fact that introverts tend to be more conscious of letting other people down and have a higher sense of personal responsibility. This explains a lot of my interactions with some of my more introverted friends and family. I've never understood how a person could just blow people off and not even care. That has always been one of the most frustrating things in my life but, apparently, they're just born that way. It's not something that can be taught, you're either aware of it or you aren't.



I don't want to say that extroverts come off badly in this book because that's not always true. Cain points out that, in studies where introverts are paired with extroverts for conversation, both sides benefit. Introverts helped extroverts to open up and extroverts took a lot of the burden of making conversation off of the introverts who tend to struggle with small talk. I also felt deeply gratified to learn that small talk is a strength of extroverts, not introverts. We're better at the deeper discussions and I was very glad to learn that my dislike for and ineptitude with smalltalk is inborn.

Cain also points out that she took a retreat that was apparently designed for introverts. No one was forced to talk if they didn't want to. While that certainly had a certain appeal, she admitted to missing the extroverts that would normally populate a portion of the group.

Moreover, whereas our culture places a higher value on extroversion (not always for the better) Cain spends some time exploring the introvert ideal of Eastern cultures. While that certainly has it's advantages, personally, I've always thought that's a big reason their suicide rate is so high. I think we'd all be better off to find a happy medium where we can appreciate the advantages of introverts as well as the advantages of extroverts and use them appropriately.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

The Book Thief


by Markus Zusak

I finally got around to reading this book! I know. I've fallen so far behind. It rose on my TBR list when I saw that they had cast Geoffrey Rush in the film but I thought I still had time. Then I saw that the film was due out in November and I figured I had better get my butt in gear.

As much as I love Geoffrey Rush, I'm not sure I want to see the movie. The book is fantastic and I just don't know how the movie can live up to it. Let me explain why I feel this way by describing the things I loved so much about the book. First of all, it's about a love of words and the power that words have. The story takes place in Nazi Germany during WWII and, as you would expect, there is much talk of the "Fuhrer", the dictator who gained power, not by weapons, but by talking his way there. He convinced the people of Germany that he could lead them to a better world and so they willingly followed him. This fact is not lost on the characters of the book.



The main character is a very poor little girl who loves books but has no money to buy them. Her foster father sells some of his cigarettes to buy her a couple books but, after that, she's reduced to stealing them. The first one she steals from a fire, one of the massive book burnings that took place at the time. After that she steals mostly from the personal library of the mayor's wife. Although, it turns out she's not much of a thief when it's revealed that the mayor's wife knows all about it and is happy to allow it to continue, even encourages it.

The other thing I loved about this book was the narrator. It took me until page eight to realize that the narrator was Death. I loved Zusak's take on Death almost as much as I loved the language he used. His vocabulary is excellent and the way he played with words amused me immensely.

Obviously, the writing style cannot be transmitted to the movie. Whether or not they can manage to convey the importance of words as a theme has yet to be determined, I suppose, but I have my doubts. Personally, I think a story about a book lover is best told in a book, but I might be biased in that regard.

P.S. Okay, I just saw the trailer and, yeah, it looks pretty awesome. You should all watch it and then check out this post because it's awesome! http://bookriot.com/2013/08/23/the-book-thief-trailer-rundown/

Monday, August 26, 2013

Beautiful Chaos


by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

I went for a little mini-vacation recently so I was wondering what I could read that would fulfill the vacation read requirements of a mindlessly entertaining quick read. From my experience with the first two books in this series, I knew this was just what I was looking for.

True to form, it kept me engaged and made me want to keep reading all the way up to the very end. Which proved to be a problem when my kindle died on me when I was 5% away from the end! So I've found another downside to ebooks. Don't get me wrong, I still love them (I wasted no time in ordering a replacement kindle) but I do recognize the pros and cons to my kindle as well as the pros and cons to physical books.



While I normally prefer to take time off between books in a series this one had a surprise ending that I want to see how they deal with. I may have snuck a peak at the beginning of the final book in the series when I was downloading it onto my new kindle. Fortunately, I was able to tear myself away after the first paragraph or two and resume the next book on my list. However, it may not be long before you see a review of that book pop up on this blog. Fair warning.

I got interested in this series when the movie came out (which was awesome, btw, and you should all get the DVD so that they'll make the rest of the series into movies) because I liked the idea of a family divided by good and evil. On your sixteenth birthday, you get chosen as Light or Dark. You have no say in the matter. Epic battle between Good and Evil ensues, complete with family drama.

Seems pretty cut and dried, right? I thought so, too. Until this book. This book reveals that, regardless of how a person is chosen, they can fight it. Whether or not they can have any success is another matter but the point is that no one is entirely Light or Dark, good or evil. Both Light and Dark exist in everyone, it is merely a matter of which side is more dominant. As with all good YA, this book wasn't afraid to tackle the big issues and, for that, they gained an extra measure of my respect.