by Kay | Mar 15, 2014 | Book Haul |
You can never have too many books… is what I tell myself whenever I hand over my credit card. Here’s what I’ve received/bought lately a-la Stacking the Shelves/Mailbox Monday – I’m taking a more chatty approach this month: let me know what you think!
First off, I got another lovely copy of the Rags & Bones anthology for review – I will be giving this one away, so look out for that! Also for review is Sarah Lotz’ The Three. I was surprised (but happy!) to see this in my mailbox as it seems like an EPIC book. It’s kinda apocalyptic rather than post-apocalyptic – something you rarely see. Oh, and the edition itself? Super gorgeous, with lovely black-edged paper. To the right we have Leah Cypess’ Nightspell, which is actually a signed edition that I won ages ago but then disappeared in my house! Glad to actually “have it” at last.
Skipping the order the appear, let’s start with…. CRESS by Marissa Meyer! OMG I cannot wait to start this book. Damn real life for getting in the way!! … ahem, anyhow. I also picked up The Walking Dead, Vol. 8: Made to Suffer, despite not having read any of the series. My bookstore had a few of the volumes (not the first, of course) massively on sale, so I thought I’d give one with the Governor a go. Of course, I adore the TV series, so that bodes well for the comics.
I also decided to take a bit of a risk and got Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven. I tried reading her Earthsong Quartet many years ago, but I wasn’t in love with the style. But since she is one of the world’s all-time fantasy authors – not an easy thing for a woman, might I add – I thought it only right to give her another go. This book sounds like it borders on the philosophical, which I am kinda into at the moment. This is one of the reasons I love bookstores: you walk out with books you would have never even considered!
Another thing I love about bookstores: the temptation. OK – maybe that’s something y’all hate. But I love the feeling of just giving in and getting a book I really want. Case in point: The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy anthology. I have been eyeing this edition for years and never could justify putting it into my amazon basket because of the price tag. Not to mention the fact that I own most of the series in paperback! But, my dear God, I have longed for it. My friend spotted a copy in a second hand store about 2 seconds before me, and snatched it before I had the chance! (She is a lovely lady, FYI – but, well, books before bros.) It was the book that got away, and at last it is mine. *cackles*
Ahem… anyhow. Since I couldn’t possibly have the series in hardback with the sixth part in paperback, I was forced – yes, forced – to buy And Another Thing… by Eoin Colfer. There was simply no other choice; my shelves demanded it.
Well, that’s all for now. Looking forward to seeing what everyone else got this month!
by Kay | Mar 12, 2014 | Weekly Feature |
“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted over at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that are being eagerly anticipated.
Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre
Goodreads – August 5th 2014 by Feiwel & Friends
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Edie Kramer has a score to settle with the beautiful people at Blackbriar Academy. Their cruelty drove her to the brink of despair, and four months ago, she couldn’t imagine being strong enough to face her senior year. But thanks to a Faustian compact with the enigmatic Kian, she has the power to make the bullies pay. She’s not supposed to think about Kian once the deal is done, but devastating pain burns behind his unearthly beauty, and he’s impossible to forget.
In one short summer, her entire life changes, and she sweeps through Blackbriar, prepped to take the beautiful people down from the inside. A whisper here, a look there, and suddenly… bad things are happening. It’s a heady rush, seeing her tormentors get what they deserve, but things that seem too good to be true usually are, and soon, the pranks and payback turns from delicious to deadly. Edie is alone in a world teeming with secrets and fiends lurking in the shadows. In this murky morass of devil’s bargains, she isn’t sure who—or what–she can trust. Not even her own mind…
OMG a new Ann Aguirre book! Having finished her YA Enclave trilogy – which I loved – I am super super excited about her coming out with MORE YA novels. She is one of my all-time favourite authors.
by Kay | Feb 25, 2014 | Reviews |
The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle #2
Published by Scholastic on 2013-09-17
Pages: 448
Genres: Paranormal YA, Young Adult
Source: Received for review from publishers
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Rating: If you could steal things from dreams, what would you take? Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself. One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams. And sometimes he’s not the only one who wants those things. Ronan is one of the raven boys — a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan’s secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface — changing everything in its wake.
“Boys like him didn’t die; the got bronzed and installed outside public libraries…His voice was full of the honey baked accent of old Virginia money.”
In full disclosure, one of the reasons I’ve latched on to this series is because I just moved to a quiet, unexplored corner of Virginia. This story, which is full of so much crumbling grandeur, sad wildness and…well and magic…it lends my loneliness a romantic edge.
This book brought an unforgotten nostalgia for my own childhood and the wishful half-belief in the sorcery of deep woods and hidden creeks, which transforms moss and vines into bowers, thorns and mud into dark fey, power lines and clear cuts into the ravages of orks or – far worse – the inevitable encroachment of men into the holy places of the world.
“…Blue thrilled again and again with the knowledge that magic was real, magic was real, magic was real.”
In a way, my memories are a compliment to Maggie’s lovely book. Within her words I rediscovered the enchantment, and she doesn’t patronize those experiences by turning them into figments of a character’s imagination.
Isn’t that the most irritating thing? When the desires of your heart are made flesh, and then you’re supposed to wake up, grow up or die – and learn something from it.
The Dream Thieves, like The Raven Boys, has buckshot of loss spattered through it. In the morning light, she somehow makes me feel like the day is already done – simultaneously experiencing a moment and mourning its passing. And the Kavinsky/Ronan Janus-dynamic illuminated the delicacy of the balance between creation and destruction.
The characters are so vivid – from golden boy Gansey and our girl Blue to the interesting supporting characters like Calla and Mr. Grey.
“In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them. Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness. Her Raven Boys.”
Me too, Blue.
Except maybe Noah. Poor fellow. But that there’s unworked land. I’d like to be given the chance to fall in love with Noah. Right now he seems kind of pathetic. Smelly. Dead.
I’ve enjoyed witnessing Maggie Steifvater develop as an author. The Wolves of Mercy Falls series was good, but I never really understood the hype. In my opinion, The Scorpio Races was much more interesting, and the Raven Boys series is top notch — Definitely one to curl up alongside the other keepers in your mind.
I can’t wait to see which character we get into next.
Kelly is a science communicator and writer. She recently completed an internship with the US science communication team for the Large Hadron Collider at CERN and is currently freelancing in rural western Virginia. Kelly likes swimming, hiking, eating good cheese and reading young adult fiction. Visit www.kellyaizlar.com/ or follow Kelly on twitter
@KellyIzlar
by Kay | Feb 21, 2014 | Reviews |
I tried Grammarly‘s check for plagiarism free of charge… because cool cats aren’t copy-cats.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Published by HarperCollins
Pages: 400
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Source: Purchased myself
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Rating: Richard Mayhew is a young man with a good heart and an ordinarylife, which is changed forever when he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. His small act of kindness propels him into a world he never dreamed existed. There are people who fall through the cracks, and Richard has become one of them. And he must learn to survive in this city of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels, if he is ever to return to the London that he knew.
Thoughts: Neverwhere is one of those classic novels that everyone loves to love. It is heralded as a masterpiece in urban fantasy and… maybe it was when it was written. Neverwhere was published in 1996 which – while not exactly the stone age – was a primordial era for the UF genre. And unlike the early Anita Blake books – which have aged beautifully – Neverwhere doesn’t make the muster.
That’s not to say it isn’t a wonderful book. It is an homage to the city by someone who obviously loves it. It is a creative piece of work that – now that I think about it – made me feel like I was visiting the Night Vale version of ol’ Londontown. That said, there were two major issues I would be remiss not to point out.
The first: the characters. Despite the 300+ words of the novel, the characterizations were weak. Very, very weak. I had no sense for any of any of their motivations – not even those of our narrator and protagonist. Gaiman spent his words on the world building, and not on the characters. I honestly can’t believe this is by the same man that wrote The Doctor’s Wife… but I’m willing to forgive because on the whole it-was-pioneering-at-the-time thing.
My second issue was with the overwhelming familiarity of the plot: London is weirder than we’d suspected, male protagonist is thrown into aforementioned weird world, and male protagonist learns the ropes and falls in love with it. Dull. If you loved Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch or A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin, you will probably adore Neverwhere. It is feels like the inspiration for both of those books and – as the original – is significantly better. But I just couldn’t learn to love it.
Bottom line? Neverwhere is well-written but lacked any and all emotional depth. That said, it is a classic urban fantasy novel. You may want to pick it up just on that.
by Kay | Feb 12, 2014 | Reviews |
The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey
Series: The Fifth Wave #1
Published by Penguin Random House on 2013-05-07
Pages: 480
Genres: Science Fiction YA, Young Adult
Source: Received for review from publishers
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Rating: The Passage meets Ender's Game in an epic new series from award-winning author Rick Yancey.
After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.
Now, it's the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.
Thoughts: To hear some people put it, The 5th Wave should have been called the The 2nd Coming. The hype surrounding this novel was crazy. Absolutely crazy. So much so, that it was hard for me to separate the book from the hype even while I was reading the thing.
But now, having let it stew in my mind for a good long while, I can see why people were excited when it came out. It’s got the right mix of action, fantasy, dystopia and romance in it to appeal to a wide spectrum of readers. This is mostly down to the multiple narrators: we’ve got a mix of genders and ages (oh, and species) telling the story, and I can see how that makes the book more appealing to publishers and booksellers alike.
“Lovely, Kay. Nice insight into marketing. But was it a good read?,” you ask.
Not really.
Sorry people, but the truth is I had to force myself to finish The 5th Wave. While I could appreciate what Rick Yancey was shooting for, I found the jump between narrators extremely frustrating. Just as I was starting to become emotionally invested in a character, we would switch over to someone new. Then, by the time we’d get back to the original subject, I had lost the emotional tie I had previously had.
You play two great symphonies at once, and they’ll just become noise. The 5th Wave was a very noisy book.
So despite the body-snatching aliens, the child soldiers, the Walking Dead style of survival, my main takeaway from The 5th Wave was a lesson in how not to structure a novel. Intellectually, I am interested in knowing how the series ends, but if everyone dies in the end, I wouldn’t really mind. Never a good sign.
Bottom line? The 5th Wave lacked any and all emotional pull, and I can’t say I’m rushing to recommend it. But if you adore multiple narrator books, perhaps you’ll love this book.
