Book Highlight[s]: Modern Magic

I don't talk nearly enough about the books I read - and they are really fantastic and should be talked about often. I had a long streak where I was reading a lot of similar genre books that have been on my to-read list for ages which makes for a very tidy blog post.

THE RAVEN BOYS by Maggie Stiefvater [4.5/5]

I have always been drawn to magic, in stories and wherever I can find it in real life. That's why I read so many fantasy books. Some authors, though, create books that feel magical, whether or not there is something recognizable as magic in the story. Maggie Stiefvater's SHIVER trilogy certainly felt this way - okay, yes, there is a strong paranormal element propelling the books, but I consider that very different from actual magic.

On the other hand, THE RAVEN BOYS, which I read a couple of weeks ago, has psychics and scrying and rituals and tarot cards. It's written in the same spell-binding way, but with the additional element of the otherworldly in it. So naturally, I loved the book. [The last chapter, not so much. I am not a fan of cliffhanger endings in trilogies and this one was a super rushed cliffhanger ending that didn't make the most sense. That's the reason I can't quite give the book 5 stars.]

All the characters are so compelling, although the villain turns out to be a little lame [see previous rant about the ending]. They have the most complicated of complicated relationships and everybody's hiding things from everybody else and did I mention that there are psychics? Because they are the best and I love them.

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl [4/5]

[Yes, this is the same story as the recently-in-theaters movie with Jeremy Irons in it which I decided I want to watch and thus is the only reason I finally read the book].

I think my only complaint for this book is the pacing is a little weird. There are long periods where nothing happens so you're skipping ahead a lot and I lost track of where in the year they were. But it wasn't too bad. What I really found impressive was that a lot of the "twists" at the end, despite being painstakingly obvious, were still compelling.

And while the magic is a little boring [the narrator is not fazed in the least by being thrown into a crazy, spell casting family], BEAUTIFUL CREATURES had a much better cliffhanger-ish ending. Even though it is long. And despite the almost love-at-first-sight romance. I was also surprised at how much I didn't mind that part of it.

Also there's the deep South and antebellum houses. I love those.

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor [5/5]

Prague. Magic doors. Wishes. Languages. Art. Teeth. Angels and demons.

Even weeks after I finished the book, I still get hit sometimes with how beautiful and tragic it is. It's a story about family and identity and hope. It's full of irony and near-misses and if-only-this-had-happened-differently moments. There's a fabulous dynamic between the two opposing perspectives in war - which side is the crusader and which the invader?

My favorite thing about the book [besides the fact that Laini Taylor is herself a magical book-crafter and all the words are perfect] is that I did not see one of the twists coming. That happens so rarely in books and it is the most exciting thing and in this case also the most heartbreaking. So everyone should read this one. Everyone should read ALL of her books, actually.

My Fictional Idol

Oh dear goodness.

This is the reason I read. The reason crazy people work crazy hard on crazy books and then deal with all the hassle and waiting and rejection that is publishing.

My darling sister once (recently) made fun of me for reading "silly" books. There's nothing wrong with reading literature or the classics or whatever you want to categorize as "not silly" books. But I can assure you - really assure you - that commercial/entertaining/silly books are just as meaningful and deep as those serious, esoteric novels.

I've read quite a few of these very well-done, highly intelligent books recently. Anna and the French Kiss, The Dark and Hollow Places, and Supernaturally aren't simply about kissing or escaping zombies or paranormals [kissing]. They're about finding a home, for the most part. They're also about the mistakes we make and the beliefs we hold and the people we meet along the way. Basically, about humanity. That's why I liked them so much.

And then we come to today. And oh my goodness the magic is just seeping through me making it impossible not to tell you how amazing The Goblin War is. MAGICAL. AMAZING. OMG. [I should remember this I-have-to-write feeling the next time I'm sitting not knowing what to write in my own book experiment...]

I've already mentioned how much I love this series and author. I love it for the plot and the world and Hilari Bell's awesome writing and the characters. The characters. I realize I may sound completely insane, but these people and goblins (the goblins!) are some of my greatest heroes. I wish so desperately that they were real so that I could meet them.

Most especially Makenna. [Yes, the one I'm naming my first kid after.] I didn't realize until just now, finishing this book, that my obsession with her is due to the fact that I'm just like her - or at least hope to be. She's [a misanthrope who saves humankind], uncompromising in her loyalty to her goblin friends/army, brilliant in her strategy, and always fights for those who don't have anyone fighting for them.

And she wins.

That's what I'm most afraid of in the future: that all my dreams and work and everything will have been useless. That I'll fail in attempting to finish my Personal Legend. (Oh, The Alchemist. Another inspiring book.) Sure, the attempt is worth a lot, but succeeding is worth so much more.

For Makenna's successes, I'm willing to put up with all the stupid happy endings literature has to offer.

I think it's good to have role models wherever you can find them - in real life, in gossip magazines, in silly books, in scholarly papers. Makenna, and all her literary and real comrades, is someone I know I can turn to for a bit of humor, a bit of steel, and a whole lot of dedication to my cause.

So I will proudly keep reading and writing silly Young Adult novels that mean a whole lot more to me than a bunch of intellectual tomes.

[My word count, for those of you keeping track, is still the same BUT I have been working on the book. In a non-writing way. While I get back into the swing of getting things done. And quit making excuses. I am also trying to figure out a way to put it in a sidebar so I don't have to keep tacking it onto the ends of all my posts.]

Freaks of Nature (59 & 89)

First, Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays, or Happy Chanukah, or Happy Whatever-You'd-Like-To-Celebrate!

Now, onto the books. I wasn't sure that these two fit in the same category, but I had nothing else to pair them up with. The more I thought about it, though, the more it made sense to me. Both have elements of sci-fi/fantasy and a character or two with serious mental issues. And both have GORGEOUS covers.

So beautiful I want to post them multiple times.

Bleeding Violet

I have read some strange books in my life, but this is the most beautiful insane creation I've ever read. And may just be the best book I read all year. I don't even know what genre it fits under. Fantasy? Contemporary? Sci-Fi? Paranormal (romance) is the only title that could encompass all of those.

Hanna is half-Finnish and half-small-town-Texan, which already gives her several cool points. She's also biracial and mentally unstable and obsessed with the color purple after her father's death. And determined to make her Momma love her and fit in after moving to her mother's very, very strange hometown. This place is just dripping with unquiet spirits, monsters under the bed (and in the windows and in the hedges and parks), etc. Plus, a cute boy. It never hurts to have a cute boy.

So beautiful I can't stop looking at them.

Across the Universe

You can't get much more sci-fi than a book set in space, right? Amy and Elder are both passengers on the Godspeed, but Amy has been cryogenically frozen along with 99 others, including her parents, who are going to be the scientific and military leadership on a new planet. Elder is one of the thousands of inhabitants of the ship, descended from the ship's non-frozen crew. The ship was supposed to have an uneventful 300 year journey, but then...a bunch of things happen that I won't tell you about :)

The story is told in alternating viewpoints, switching from Amy to Elder. It works really, really well - they even switch narrating during the same scene WITHOUT it interrupting the flow. I think it actually works better this way, because at different points (like in a conversation), you really want to know what the other one's thinking. And then you get to hear it from them!

I know Across the Universe has a sequel coming out in January and Dia Reeves has written a couple more books set in Portero, the crazy awesome setting of Bleeding Violet. So you can fully expect those to be on my reading list for next year.

More Blessed Word Count: may or may not be changing due to holiday fun

Zombies Can Be Sweet (57 & 58)

I was going to call these dystopian books, but the other day I read (somewhere) a post complaining about how everything is getting called dystopian today (I think mostly because of the Hunger Games) even when they don't fit the genre. So these are actually post-apocalyptic (harder to spell) because there's no evil government masquerading as a utopia.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

We start this novel with Mary and her brother facing some family issues. Then there's the Sisterhood, the nun-like group who controls the fenced in town where she grew up. There's also Henry and Travis and Cass, her closest friends. And of course, a horde of Unconsecrated (AKA zombies) waiting outside the vigilantly guarded fence.

The combination of the fabulous setting, complex characters and brilliant writing make this whole series stand out. It's brutal by nature, with many of the characters not surviving long past adulthood. It's also heart-breakingly beautiful, especially Mary's desperate desire to someday see the ocean.

The Dead-Tossed Waves

Many of the same elements of the first book appear in a different form in the second. This time, the narration follows Gabry and her best friends, brother and sister Catcher and Cira. It's not long before tragedy strikes, in the form of mudo (AKA zombies). And then the journey begins :)

I loved the change in setting (not that there was anything to dislike about the forest) - Gabry lives in a coastal city with a different set of zombie problems as the forest. As in, they wash ashore and have to be beheaded before they invade the town. And just like Forest, this novel has the same suspenseful energy that makes it impossible to put down.

And now I have to wait for the library to get The Dark and Hollow Places.

These two books are more that I would never in a million years have picked out for myself to read - it's not really a secret that I can't watch horror movies and I'm really jumpy when watching anything remotely suspenseful. I ended up reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth one night when my roommate wasn't home and I had to check the whole apartment for zombies, just in case but I still am SO GLAD that I read them. They would definitely be in my top 10 of the year, if I sat down to figure that out.  

More Blessed Word Count: 16,117 (plus I've been working on a short story)

Girl on Fire (51, 61 & 64)

Please, please, please read these if you're planning on seeing the movie next March.

Just in general, if you know a movie's been based off a book, read that book first. Or at least read it at some point. It's driving me crazy that I haven't read Stardust or The Fellowship of the Rings, to name some famous examples, when I've already seen the corresponding movies (several times). I guess I should go back to the library, now that I think about it. But anyways...

The Hunger Games

The book begins with Katniss and her harsh existence, scraping by with hunting and trading in District 12, located in West Virginia. Ish. Her life is changed by the 74th (I believe) Hunger Games - the annual tournament where each district has to send 2 adolescent tributes to serve as gladiatorial entertainment for the Capital.

Basically the whole book centers on the Games. They're bloody and intense and horrific, yet totally believable. I think the different characters' reactions to this brutal situation are genuinely portrayed - the conflict between wanting to survive and retaining your humanity. That's what really hooked me. And Katniss is pretty darn awesome. She and Archer from Fire make me want to take up archery.

Catching Fire

We don't usually expect a sequel to be better than its predecessor (for example, just about every Disney sequel ever created). This one, though. You guys, this is one rockin' sequel. It starts out slow, but then there were SO MANY THINGS that surprised me, shocked me even. I LOVE not being able to guess what's going to happen.

First, though, I never could have imagined the world-wide ramifications of the end of The Hunger Games. It makes total sense though! I won't go into detail, obviously, but the choices the characters have to make and the brutality of the system are so much more important and ever-present.

Mockingjay

And then we get to the final book. I'm torn on this one. I love the series as a whole, but there were some elements of Mockingjay that really bugged me. Especially the ending. But I can't talk about that here so...well, I really can't talk about the plot at all because most of the surprising things that happen in Catching Fire are related to the action going down in Mockingjay.

My memories of reading this are kind of vague, I guess overshadowed by the inconsistencies and obviousness I saw. I do want to point out that Suzanne Collins has an incredible voice throughout the series. They're very easy to get lost in, whether it's an action segment or a sentimental segment or something in between.

I have a confession to make, though. I put off reading The Hunger Games just because the series was so popular and I often have low expectations for more "mainstream" books. I don't know why - I end up liking most of them, which was certainly the case for this trilogy. I should have known. After all, I LOVE dystopias. (How ironic - Firefox thinks "dystopias" is misspelled. It wants to correct it with "utopias.")

More Blessed Word Count: 15,817

An Alternate WWI (50 & 90)

I've come up with another way to stave off those writer's blocks: staying up really late. I wasn't up until 3 last night writing (I was reading book #100) but I was reminded just how much energy I typically have left despite it being the middle of the night. I've been physically incapable of waking up on time for most of the past week and a half. Not even kidding.

(Thank goodness I woke up for my 8:00 exam last Tuesday. I had a dream last night that I forgot the time and showed up in the afternoon.)

But since it's Winter Break and I can do crazy things like sleep in until noon, I've decided to experiment with staying up late to work on my book. I don't seem to get much done in the mornings anyways. At least I'm getting blog posts written!

Leviathan

Okay, first, I discovered a deep love for steampunk. The British/Darwinist clash with the German/Clanker perspective is such a perfect way to retell the World War 1 story. Second, I love Derryn-disguised-as-Dylan Sharp. But of course, I always love spunky girl characters. Especially when they hang out on airships.

As far as plot goes, the narrative basically follows the actual historical timeline. There are some inaccuracies that are necessary to the story - in this book, the character of Alek is introduced as Sophie and Franz Ferdinand's only child (they had several, none named Aleksander). As much as I love when authors stick to the history, I understood why Scott Westerfeld had to make this kid up.

Behemoth

The Darwinists and Clankers are busy fighting in Europe while the crew of the Leviathan heads over to Istanbul. They get their own share of surprises in the diplomatic fight over control of the Ottoman Empire - and in the resulting difficulties, we learn more about the brilliant lady scientist (with all her sneaky plans) the Leviathan has been carrying.

Again, there are some liberties taken with history, but that lets Behemoth include fun things like secret missions and elephant rides. And of course, lots of crazy plotting and antics from both Alek and Derryn. I don't want to say any more because I'd hate to ruin the twists, from this book or the first.

I had no clue what this series was about when I picked it up as part of my 300 book long To Read list. I can't even remember who first recommended it because so many authors and readers were talking about how brilliant Scott Westerfeld is. I get it now. The two books are so much fun to read and so marvelously crafted.

I mean, just look at that map. Yet another great thing about these books is all the beautiful artwork (meant to give the book a 1914 feel). The illustrations are invaluable for picturing some of the complicated machinery and "beasties" that the Clankers and Darwinists use, respectively. And they're pretty :)

More Blessed Word Count: 15,613

(Mind you, I have been doing other researchy stuff, so the word count doesn't reflect any of the work that's gone in behind the scenes, if you will. My notes and stuff take up several documents and thousands more words.)

Why Nerdfighters are Cool (34 & 54)

Oh look! I do read books with boy protagonists! This shouldn't be so surprising. John Green is one of several YA rockstars. For real. This man is one of the most witty, brilliant authors I have ever read. And that's not just an opinion - he's won all sorts of fancy-shmancy awards too.

An Abundance of Katherines

Child prodigy Colin has only ever dated Katherines. And not just a couple. Number 19 breaks up with him at the beginning of the book, prompting him and his best friend Hassan to take a random road trip. And then he meets a Lindsey... (who is dating The Other Colin). Plus, the grave of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

PLUS, during the whole novel, Colin is trying to attain "genius" status by perfecting a theorem to predict the outcome of relationships. Primarily, the 19 relationships he's had with Katherines. The math is even explained, more or less. It's funny and snappy and freaking hilarious.

Looking for Alaska

Still keeping the wit alive, John Green's debut novel is a bit heavier than Katherines. This time, the MC Miles is obsessed with last words. He goes off to boarding school - to seek a Great Perhaps - and makes a bunch of wild and crazy, serious thinking, pranking friends, including "The Colonel," Lara, Takumi and Alaska.

It's also very deep, but I can't tell you why or that ruins the whole book. Well, I can mention their English (I think) class where they discuss suffering and the meaning of life. But nothing else. Just read it. Please? Further justification - look at the fancy-shmancy Prinz Award stamp on the cover :)

A warning - in both of these and other books on my list, there's plenty of drinking, sex, smoking, kissing, swearing, etc. that some people have found offensive since they're about and for teenagers. Just so you know.

More Blessed Word Count: 15,493

More Magical Ladies (28, 65 & 98)

The problem with starting to review 2011's books before the year is completely over with is that you end up reading freaking fantastic books that will then need to be added to the absolute favorites list...so I've bumped another book to the Honorable Mentions list in favor of number 98.

The Goblin Gate

My absolute favorite book when I was younger was Hilari Bell's The Goblin Wood. I was so ridiculously excited when I found out that she was writing not one, but TWO sequels. And the first of those definitely does not disappoint. (Depending on the library/bookstore, they might be considered children's books and not YA.)

We thought everything was resolved in book number one, but surprise! Incorrect. I loved that the world gets explained more and the stakes are higher and my darling Makenna gets even more awesome (yes, I'm naming one of my future children after her). Plus, there's a character with the same name as me, just misspelled :)

The Folk Keeper

Speaking of names - this book is the reason I also answer to Corinna.  I first read it so long ago that I forgot about it, but one day I randomly read a Wikipedia article about selkies and it popped back into my brain. And I am oh so glad that it did. Franny Billingsley is an absolute genius. She writes beautifully and with such magic and emotion that it's impossible to put her books down.

Miss Corinna starts off disguised as a boy in an orphanage. She is the best Folk Keeper they've ever had, meaning she keeps the mysterious, powerful and rather ominous Folk from destroying the place. And then she moves to a manor. And then crazy stuff happens. Which I will let you read about.

(Also, I imagine this would also be considered a children's book, but I can still call it YA if I want to!)

Chime

And now...one of my new EVERYONE IN THE WORLD MUST READ books. Oh my goodness. I'm still feeling blown away. SO MUCH MAGIC. I'm jealous.

First, Chime is set in (next to) a swamp, which is bound to give it an eerie feel. But add witches, pretty boys, and Dark Muses, and you get a novel jam-packed with melancholy images and secrets and so much magic.

Second...nope, there is no second. Don't you want to read it already?! If for some bizarre reason you don't, you can fully expect me to buy it and shove it in your face. Or get it from the library and shove that copy in your face, because I'd never loan my own precious (future) copy to anyone.

I realize that all three of these (and the majority of the other books I read) are told from the girl's perspective. At least girls get one form of media to be the majority in :) But seriously, if guys want more male MCs, then they should read more.

More Blessed Word Count: 15,241 + brainstorming

Fangirls and Strong Women (13 & 14)

A bit later than promised, I present: my gushing love for Kristin Cashore and her two novels.

Graceling

I liked this book so much that I read it twice. And then bought it. And will soon be reading it again. I don't think I've mentioned before but I got the original idea for More Blessed after reading Graceling. I was thinking about how the "graces" were recognized by eye color and how you might identify them if you didn't have that to go off of. Thus, the supernaturals and the Registry were born :)

The idea and worldbuilding are obviously inspiring, but the protagonist is my favorite part. Katsa is fierce and strong and so beautifully flawed. She feels trapped by her uncle, who happens to be the King, but at the same time figures out how to help people. Sneakily. Relentlessly. Awesomely.

Fire

Book #2 is more of a companion than a sequel. It tells the story of some important stuff that happens before Graceling, in the country that lies past the mountains. There's still plenty of traveling around, but no one clear destination or journey.

I haven't decided, but I might like Fire a bit more than I do Katsa. (Maybe because she likes babies, which is the polar opposite of Katsa.) She's unabashedly feminine and yet so powerful. The politics aspect of the book is a little...not weak, but kind of unexplained. It's the relationships between all the major characters that are really compelling.

More Blessed Word Count: 14,569