Fave New Music: Oct / Nov

Time for another music post!  \(۶•̀ᴗ•́)۶/ I combined months since I didn't find much music in October, but November has been great for finding new writing music! I'm always super grateful for the playlists Spotify puts together. A good number of these are from indie playlists!

Because this post is really long and video-heavy, I'm putting it under a read-more cut. I'm hoping to have a YouTube playlist up within the next few days that'll streamline this post! I've been meaning to do that for the past couple Fave New Music posts but I never get around to it (;° ロ°)

The formatting of the videos isn't uniform, so I apologize in advance! I just figured out that embedding the videos from the HTML YouTube provides is better than trying to embed them from within Blogger, so I'll keep that in mind for next time!

Waterfell by Amalie Howard

TL;DR Talented but with aquatic aliens

(finished 10/30/15)

TBR #465

I really did not enjoy Waterfell. It was one of those books I only finished so I felt like I could write a comprehensive review about how much it frustrated me. (I really need to stop doing this and just let myself write DNF reviews.)

Although I will be honest, part of the reason I read to the end was to see how the climax and the ending would be handled. There were moments fairly early on that screamed "foreshadowing", and I wanted to see if I was wrong or not.

I was not wrong. None of the supposed plot twists were surprising. At all. I saw the whole thing about Lo and Ehmora coming since Lo was introduced. I was way more on the mark than I was expecting to be, and for it to be ~so surprising and earth-shattering~ is really unbelievable. I have to admit, I didn't really predict the thing regarding Nerissa's mom, but it wasn't surprising. I was just like, "Yep. Sounds about right."

And along the same line, I really did not enjoy any of the characters. Not even Jenna. Nobody had any depth. Everyone was characterized inconsistently and nobody sounded human. Even Jenna. This wasn't even a "these teenagers sound like an adult woman" -- their dialogue sounded kind of stilted / scripted too much and not like anything someone would say naturally.

Nerissa acted like she was the all-powerful heir she supposedly was while still behaving like the spoiled brat she swore she wasn't anymore. She totally blew off all her Aquarathi responsibilities for the longest time and then just ~suddenly and maturely~ decides to step up and take her throne back. And then goes about it in a really stupid way.

I think Nerissa could have potentially been done really well in terms of responsibility vs teenage behavior, but she was polarized a little too much. She went from one end to the other without having a believable transition. (I guess this could be written off by her being an alien, but I don't know. That feels kind of weak.)

Nerissa and Lo acted so bipolar with each other and I honestly cannot understand where their mutual attraction came from. Even with the explanation the story gives by the end of the book, there's no proof of it. It just magically occurs without appearing in the narration. Nerissa and Lo's "romance" was so instantaneous and without any sort of foundation, I think it actually beats out the Soul Seekers series in ridiculousness. Romances can't just come out of nowhere, you know? Instalove isn't actually a thing in real life. Insta-lust maybe, but even then the relationship still has to build up somehow. You can't just immediately jump from enemy-ish behavior to boyfriend-girlfriend behavior within the span of a few pages.

The narration was probably the most frustrating thing. It's written in 1st person present from Nerissa's perspective, but she's unnecessarily flowery and detailed with her descriptions. The two don't work together. I could've excused it if it were in past tense, but giving so much detail in present tense just isn't possible without giving up suspension of disbelief. The amount of detail throws off how time seems to pass from a reader's perspective.

On top of that, there were huge gaps in the narration. The transitions between chapters would skip fairly important goings-on and then just explain them in an info-dump. There were also a bunch of times that Nerissa spent a ridiculous part of the narrative explaining things that are easy to assume as a reader. We're not idiots. We can figure out people's moods based on what they're saying and doing. We don't need that spelled out.

The only reason I managed to trudge through the last half of the book is because of Ariana Grande's "Focus", which coincidentally came out the day I finished it. (I find the title of it very ironic. But hey, it helped.) I was having so much trouble reading more than three paragraphs at a time before finding "Focus" that I was very tempted to DNF.

The Aquarathi were fairly interesting in concept, but they fell flat quickly. I don't understand how they got from Sana to Earth, and it really bothers me that it's never touched on. (Like, can they survive in space? Did they build a spaceship? Did they just magically teleport?) Nerissa's narration also gave differing answers to when they arrived on Earth, and I'm not sure I marked any quotes to back it up, but at one point she implies they've been on Earth for a long time and later implies it's only been a few centuries.

Also, I have no idea what the heck they're supposed to look like. They have legs and a tail? They have underbellies? The "heir" has a crown growing out of their forehead? I get that they're aliens and all, but there's no solid explanation of what they look like or how their biology really works. Not to mention that, but they're extremely overpowered. There's mentions of swimming from the Mariana Trench to San Diego like it's walking down the block, even though that's across the Pacific Ocean. Nerissa's emotions control the weather and she can control the water in other people's bodies, look into their memories, and somehow convinced the Aquarathi to back her up while giving them nothing to trust her with. I mean, she's not as bad as Talented's Talia was, but she's pretty damn close.

TL;DR the main characters were overpowered and wishy-washy, the narration style didn't fit the story, and the plot was too predictable. I don't recommend it.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

TL;DR Harry Potter-ish but aimed towards a fangirl audience (heh)

(finished 10/27/15)

TBR #1193

From my review of Fangirl from back in May 2014: 

Also, it was really cool to have excerpts from the Simon Snow series and Cath's fanfictions. I would probably read the Simon Snow series, to be honest;; 

Let me tell you I just about screamed when I saw Rainbow Rowell's tweet about making Carry On its own book. I really enjoyed Fangirl, so I was really excited to see that I had a chance to get more of a taste of the Simon Snow universe. 

The first thing I have to say is that Carry On is not Cath's fanfiction (which is called Carry On, Simon). I initially assumed it was supposed to be, but the author's note at the end states that it's Rainbow Rowell's own take on the Simon Snow universe instead of in relation to Cath or its author in Fangirl. I find it really interesting, but it probably would've been good to know going into the book. 

(That's actually totally my fault since I went into it assuming it was Cath's fanfiction even though there's no mention of Fangirl in the blurb.) 

Carry On actually does resemble a well-written fanfiction. It's not glaring, but the voice is unique and it really does read like something not written by an adult woman. (Although honestly, I don't know the age / gender of the authors of a lot of fanfics I read, so this could be a wrong assumption.) There was no obvious bleed-through of the author; all the narrators had distinct and well-matched narration styles. It felt a lot like fanfictions for children's series where the author is like "my audience is older so I can pretty much do whatever I want" and includes a lot of content that wouldn't have made it into the original series.  

The chapters have different narrators, but it's fairly biased towards Simon -- which is understandable, since he's the main character. I liked how using narrations from (almost?) all the main characters built up the story in a puzzle-piece kind of way and allowed for exploring stuff not directly related to Simon. The chapters were labeled with their narrators, and even without that it was fairly easy to figure out who the narrator was. (They're not all distinct from each other -- meaning you can't tell who exactly it is from one sentence / paragraph -- but they had different styles that effectively contrasted against the other characters and could narrow it down if you picked it up in the middle of a chapter.) 

The world-building was super cool. There were a lot of things that I hadn't actually considered in terms of magic that played a key part -- I haven't seen anything like their system of magic before. (That doesn't mean it doesn't exist in other books, but I haven't found it.) I really liked that the spells were printed in bold; spells are "words laced with magic" (if I remember correctly) so it was a really cool way to convey that they felt different from normal words without having to prove it in the narration. 

I'm also really happy with the representation of the main characters, both in terms of ethnicity and sexuality. I'm also really happy that Carry On's main romance is LGBT+ but it doesn't seem to be marketed that way. (Meaning that books portraying same-sex romances are usually focused on the romance and the problems that arise. That's not bad, but I like that the romance is normalized / that the fact that it's same-sex doesn't create a huge problem in the plot.) 

The plot wasn't what I was initially expecting, but I was impressed by what ended up happening. To me, it didn't really feel like it followed a plot diagram (the ones that look like stock market line graphs), and that made it feel more realistic. It resembled the randomness of things happening in real life. Of course, the way everything tied together so nicely didn't, but it's a standalone. There's only so much you can do with that and still have a good ending. 

The ending was fairly surprising for me in terms of the futures of all the main characters. I would actually like to see more of all of them in their lives after Carry On, but the ending wraps the story up nicely to the point that trying to create a sequel might be messy. ("You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain" sort of thing -- like how successful series tend to get unnecessarily drawn out just because they make money. I've seen this argument a lot regarding the ending of Gravity Falls, but I think it applies to books just as nicely.) 

Like I did with The Sword of Summer, I'm going to hold off on adding quotes into my review until the book has been out a little bit longer. Most of the stuff I've sticky-noted is a little spoiler-ish. 

TL;DR I loved Carry On as a "real" novel that resembled some of the fanfictions I've really enjoyed and I'm so happy that this book (and Fangirl) exist.

I feel like I'm fairly biased, so if you want another perspective, The Quiet People's review raises a lot of good points. (I really like The Quiet People's blog tbh)

Shadows by Robin McKinley

TL;DR getting rid of witchcraft doesn't go as planned

(finished 10/24/15)

not on TBR

Shadows was one of the very rare books I pick up from the library that isn't on my TBR. I almost didn't read it because it sat at the bottom of my book stack, but I'm glad I decided to after all.

The first thing I really noticed was the voice of Maggie. She sounded unique and effectively used run-on sentences to be interesting rather than appearing like a lack of grammar skills. It could definitely come off as annoying, but I liked it.

The worldbuilding could have been stronger, but I think it's believable considering what we learn about Maggie and the world itself. There's not too much room to develop the magic when it's in first person and Maggie lives in a kind of world that's tried to erase magic. Maybe there could've been a way to integrate more worldbuilding, but I think it functions.

I'm very intrigued by the laws of the universe in Shadows. I would actually love to know more about it. I'm actually a little sad that it's not explored more (since Goodreads tells me Shadows is a standalone). The ending was a little disappointing in that it was super open-ended and left a whole bunch of room for more plot but it's just like "oh. We're done. Use your imagination, I guess."

Maybe it is part of a larger series and I'm just unaware. I don't know. I've never read any of Robin McKinley's books before. Which is also apparently why I'm in the minority on this book -- the negative reviews seemed disappointed because of the bar her other books set.

The dustjacket blurb was pretty useless. Caz didn't have nearly as much of a part in the plot as the blurb made it out to be, and Val, Takahiro, and Jill had a lot more presence than I expected.

I liked all the characters. They weren't too developed, but they felt human within the scope of the story. I also got surprisingly attached to them. Mainly Takahiro. I think also the problem with the human-ness was that the story is supposedly a standalone, so there was a lot of stuff going on that had to be covered, and the plot took more precedence than making the characters feel like they could jump right out of the book.

(I have determined my basis for "human-ness" or realistic-ness of characters is if I can come up with headcanons for them outside of the story. So, for Shadows, I can't, but I still liked the characters nonetheless.)

(I'm also pretty sure I make no sense with saying they don't feel developed but yet I love them anyway. I don't know. Take it at face value?)

The only things I sticky-noted were these two pieces of dialogue and a surprising spoiler that I left off for the sake of preserving said spoiler. Which is also why I redacted some of the second quote. (The first two little paragraph sections below go together.)

"[...] Usually the Mammothmobile is stuck to the side of your house by several months' worth of cobwebs because nobody wants to pay for the gas." [Maggie]

"Nah," said Jill. "Greg takes it out at least once a month and runs over any small annoying children that have piled up in our neighborhood since the last time he took it out. [...]" (pg 252 - 253)

"I didn't have a clue," Jill said, "but Caz figured it out instantly and was like whipping his socks off and I'm all whoa, I'm fine for skinny-dipping but where's the lake, but then [spoiler] and I finally got it." (pg 342) 

(That last quote. I just about died. Jill is my fave.)

Adding onto the blurb uselessness, I had no idea that the plot would take the direction it would. I mean, it's good in that it didn't reveal any important information past the exposition / inciting incident, but I was still vaguely "??" for a good part of the plot. Maybe a lot of that was my inability to guess where the story would go. Which can be a very good thing. It didn't frustrate me at all, which is good. It kept me intrigued.

Like I said earlier, I wasn't too happy with the end, but that was mainly because I felt like I was being cheated out of a lot of good subsequent adventures. I would love to see the continuation. (I just want to see more of the characters, honestly. Despite saying they weren't the most human I still got really attached to them.)

TL;DR I really liked Shadows for its characters and its world but I haven't read any of the other books by the same author so I can't say if it's on par for the author or not.

The White Aura by Felicia Tatum

TL;DR soul mates and plot holes

(finished 10/19/15)

free through Bookbub

I read the first part of The White Aura over a period time since I had it on my iPod and really only touched it while trying to wind down for bed, so I don't feel like I can comment too well on that.

At some point, though, I sat down and marathoned The White Aura so I could be done with it, so I will be talking very heavily about that part. 

My notes mention that I was okay up until about 1/5 in, where it suddenly turned melodramatic and trope-ish. (From what I remember, the second chapter was entirely cliche, but I think I forgave it at that point.) 

The narration was basic. There were a lot of the same sentence structures, what's-her-face and Scott's narrations sounded almost identical, and a terrible balance of what needed to be said vs. what was actually said. The only real difference in the narrations was Scott being overly possessive of a girl that didn't even know him yet and sounding way too much like a bad fanfiction version of Edward. And what's-her-face regaled way too much detail about her morning routine and what she decided to wear and spent a significantly less amount during pretty important plot moments. 

(I have forgotten the female main character's name. I think it's Olivia. I wrote the first half of this review pretty close to finishing the book and I still couldn't remember it. That's not promising.) 

And honestly, what's-her-face and Scott came off as very Twilight-trope. It's been a long time since I've actually read the books, so I know my memory of them has been distorted by time and the media, but Scott was extremely reminiscent of creep-Edward. Especially with the whole thing that he was meeting what's-her-face in her dreams for over a year before they moved past the whole makeout session thing and actually talked. Like, you know, don't you want to actually converse with your "heartmate", and not just stick your tongue down her throat and your hands up her shirt? No? Apparently not.

The plot didn't feel consistent to me. There were also some flaws of reasoning that I don't know if they weren't thought out completely or if they were just swept under the rug for the sake of the plot. Like, this curse is supposed to go into effect when they meet, but haven't they still been meeting each other in dreams this whole time? That in itself should negate the purpose of this entire book. What's-her-face is already doomed. People and their heartmates are supposed to be super-intwined with each other and yet there's no indication whatsoever of Anna's heartmate. Scott's so inflicted by being apart from what's-her-face and yet Anna goes the entire book without even just a passing mention of who she's married to? That doesn't seem right. 

The whole "problem" of the story felt kind of insignificant to me. The reasoning behind the curse was never explained (or if it was, it wasn't strong enough to make me remember it) and the villain made no sense. He was definitely one of those "evil to be a plot device" character. He didn't have any goals of his own other than to apparently kill Scott and what's-her-face. 

Also, at the climax the characters manage to forget the initial problem in its entirety until the last paragraph. It creates an unnecessary cliff hanger and brings the book to a crossroads: either The White Aura was entirely for nothing, or the entire problem is going to be written around and given a plot shield so that both the characters survive. That in itself killed any small desire I had to continue reading. (Considering it's at least a trilogy, I'm 99% sure the problem is just written around.)

Juniper, Scott's sister, and Anna all felt like means to an end, too. They didn't have goals of their own. They only existed to support Scott and what's-her-face. Juniper got the complete "best friend syndrome" treatment: [highlight for spoiler] she got killed for just about no reason other than emotional shock factor and then is brought back to life through ~witchcraft~, which completely negates the negligent effect her death had in the first place. I liked Scott's sister to an extent but she felt very trope-ish and kind of overpowered. 

The biggest positive I can come up with is that there were almost no grammatical errors. That was definitely a plus. There were a few minor problems with "dialogue" tag / action "dialogue" lines, but they were easy enough to forgive. 

TL;DR it had a good idea but I wasn't sold on the characters or the execution at all. If I ever encounter a re-write, I'd probably read it, but I doubt there's going to be one based on the subsequent books being established / most likely published (I don't remember if they were).

In my research into The White Aura, I found Hardly's review on Goodreads, which I feel is much more succinct than I am and covers the part of the book I didn't talk about because I forgot a lot of the details about it. 

Mid-NaNo Update

My posting schedule worked out so I would actually have a post on the 15th. Too bad I forgot to actually write the post at first ...

NaNo so far hasn't been as easy as it's been the past two years. Like I predicted, it's been a little hard for me to switch gears from Aperture to Casanova, but I've been toughing through it.

I participated in Double Up Day for the first time this year, which was awesome. I wasn't able to donate the past two years, so I'm glad that I was able to pitch in to keep the program going strong and helping out other people. It also helped me get significantly ahead on my word count! I've been keeping up the pace since then and as of last night my average word count per day was about 2k.

This is how my word count bar looked like as of this morning. I haven't written anything yet for today (which is why my daily average is under 2k).

In regards to the writing itself ... I've been making do with what I can come up. Most of what I write by this point is only dialogue. It's been a little hard for me to focus on a plot-driven story when I'm so used to writing a character-driven one, especially when a lot of the plot still isn't decided on yet. It's helped in forcing me make temporary decisions in regards to the plot in order to make word count. 

The dialogue scenes have helped me get a better sense of the characters, too. I write down whatever ends up coming to mind as responses, and all of the characters have developed more than I thought they would have by this point. They still sound a lot like the Aperture characters, but that's always something I can go back and fix in subsequent drafts. 

I actually made it until the 10th before I started writing for Aperture again! I haven't been including any of my Aperture writing in my NaNo word counts, and it's only been <2k so far, but letting myself take a little rest from Casanova has been good. And bad. Usually I want to write for Aperture more than I want to for my NaNo, so I have to force myself to focus, but that's also been good in making myself get it done so I can go back to what I want to work on. 

I didn't write at all on the 13th, which was a little disappointing, but I'm not super heartbroken about it. I had a sleepover with my friend and we went to see the play at our old high school. I think the day off helped me write almost 3k on the 14th. 

I'll come back to this post later and update it with a day-by-day chart of my word counts (and include what I got done today), so please check back! ♥ If any of you are participating in NaNo too, I'd love to hear how you're doing!

Edit: I made the chart I was talking about! It actually includes through the 16th. 

The blue bars are Casanova and the red are Aperture. I've fallen into the habit of focusing on Aperture again, and I'm pretty sure I've lose any lead I've built up from skipping both the 13th and 15th (and writing only 81 words on the 16th), so I'm hoping I can recover from this quickly. 

The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan

TL;DR Percy Jackson. But Norse!

(finished 10/19/15)

Blood of Olympus was bittersweet for me, because it was the only book that I'd had to wait for the release for with everyone else. I was afraid it would be the only book that I'd be caught up with the hype for.

And thankfully, I was wrong! I was so excited to see that there would be a Norse series coming up after the Roman one. Waiting for The Sword of Summer was just as tortuous as Blood of Olympus was.

One of the first things that struck me was how the Percy-sass was back -- a little too much, according to some people. And I have to agree; Magnus sounds a lot like Percy. I've only read through all of the Greek and Roman books once, so I can't say if they're identical or not, but I personally didn't mind it. I love narrators like Percy and Magnus.

I know almost nothing about Norse mythology other than what I've picked up secondhand from the Marvel universe (which, even at that, is little to none), so I was honestly kind of lost for a good part of the book. Not, like, lost, but I had no background knowledge to draw off of in relation to the characters and plot. I think The Sword of Summer still did pretty good with informing the clueless side of the audience (read: me), though a few things felt slightly info-dump-ish. They're kind of forgivable, though, since I'm not sure the story could still function without them and be understandable to a middle-grade audience at the same time. (Not that middle graders aren't bright; there are just a lot of things that need to be established for the plot to work fully.)

The plot felt a little too linear to me for some reason. Like, that's the standard formula for the Percy Jackson books, and I don't know if it's just because it had been a year since I had read any of the books  or what. I think it's also mainly because of my unfamiliarity with Norse mythology that a lot of what happened seemed fairly unrelated to me, when in actuality the opposite may be true.

I'm really glad that my theory about Magnus and Annabeth was true. I was very surprised to see Annabeth play a role in The Sword of Summer! It's very minor, but it still was a nice cameo. (More than just a cameo, I guess.) I'm looking forward to seeing how the Norse aspects are going to be integrated back into the Greek and Roman stuff. I'm hoping that all the aspects are going to come together, but I also have a feeling that the Greek and Roman demigods are going to be a fairly minor aspect of the story. (Which is understandable. But I can hope.)

My favorite character so far is Sam. I was actually surprised by the amount of representation The Sword of Summer had. Sam's conflicts between her cultures was handled well in my opinion, and I'm glad to see that there's a main character in a big children's series that is neither white nor Christian. (I don't know if they ever specifically stated her religion, but she wears a headscarf, and I was glad to see that it wasn't handled as a hindrance -- it causes her a little trouble, sure, but it also played a key part in some scenes.)

I feel like The Sword of Summer is going to be along the same lines as The Lightning Thief for me -- while I liked TLT, it took my friend to compel me to continue reading the rest of the series. Of course, I'm looking forward to the next book (Thor's Hammer? I think?), but I wasn't quite blown away by it like I was with some of the other Percy Jackson books. It's a very good start, but it's not quite Mark of Athena.

Said friend also managed to finish The Sword of Summer before me. This was partially because I only read it at school and because I was putting my social / school life before reading most of the time. It wasn't quite compelling enough for me to choose reading over anything else, but I still enjoyed the time I spent reading while waiting for my ride home.

I'm a little conflicted on how I feel about the ending, because there was something that came fairly out of left field for me. Which may have been fairly obvious. I don't know. It wasn't bad; I was just like "wait what??"

I have a bunch of sticky notes in my copy of the book, but they're mainly to mark sass that I particularly appreciated. I'm going to wait a little bit before I type those up and publish them because the book is still fairly new at this point.

TL;DR it's essentially a Percy sound-alike thrown into a Norse mythology situation, which may not be good if you wanted a different narration, but it's awesome nonetheless.

TBR for the Remainder of 2015

Aka "I am banning myself from the library until Jan 1st, 2016 because I need to read these books I actually spent money on"

I have a bad tendency to get more books from the library than I can reasonably read, meaning that I a) renew them to the point where they sit on my floor for two months, and b) completely ignore the books I spent my own (or other people's) money on because they're not exactly going anywhere.

But, you know, I should kind of clear out my non-library TBR so I don't feel so guilty about going to the library in 2016.

Edit 12/2/15: I added the links to my reviews of The Sword of Summer and Carry On!
Edit 3/22/16: I added links to the reviews of books I read between December and March.

I'd like to think that my graphic design skills are improving. Or maybe I'm just burnt-out from NaNo that I think anything not a wall of words looks good. I don't know.

So:

Dark Star by Bethany Frenette (my review)

I started listening to the audiobook of Dark Star on our trip to Alaska, like, three years ago. (I can't believe it's been that long, OTL.) I really loved the narrator's voice, but like my struggles with Welcome to Night Vale, I kept falling asleep. It is just impossible for me to be read to. I can't focus on it.

And by the time I decided I would buy the book for myself, guess what? Barnes and Noble stopped selling it in their physical-building stores. So I finally got around and bought it with a gift card I got for my birthday. And it has since sat.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (my review)

This one wasn't really a "oh my gosh I have to have it", but I found a paperback copy at an indie bookstore in Alexandria, so my grandmother bought it for me. (As a birthday-ish present? I don't remember. I think I'm supposed to lend it to her when I'm done.)

I've heard really good things about Shadow and Bone, especially from my friend who just read it recently, as well as really good things about Six of Crows.

Welcome to Night Vale by Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink (my review)

I've been listening to Welcome to Night Vale since we went to Alaska. I haven't really kept up with it, so I was a few months behind when I heard the announcement they were going to publish a book.

I've actually started reading this, but I don't know if I'll finish it before this post goes up. The book has exceeded a lot of expectations so far, and considering I had the bar set a little high in the first place, that's awesome.

Winterspell by Claire Legrand (my review)

I've been wanting this for a while now since doing a sci-fi Nutcracker retelling for my Creative Lit class. But, of course, as soon as I decided I wanted to buy it, I could never find copies at B&N. I found a copy when I bought Welcome to Night Vale and was super happy.

Of course, I went to a different B&N within a week and found the paperback copies for $10 cheaper. >:| Oh well. At least the hardcover will be a little harder to destroy.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

I got my copy from a used book sale, and it's actually a copy designed for an inter-hotel book swap ;; So I'm not sure if there are any edits to the content. It's a fairly thin book.

Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry

This I also got from the book sale, but I hadn't heard of it before. I'm looking forward to reading it since I know very little about this series.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

I'm 99% sure I read the book back during elementary school. (I read The Magician's Nephew, at least, with the intention of reading the entire series. I forget how far I got.) I saw the movie adaptation they came out with back towards elementary school, but y'know, movie adaptations don't always count.

Defy by Sara B. Larson

I got this from my friend's sister well over a year ago and it's been sitting in my "stack of books acting as a nightstand" ever since.

The Feros by Wesley King

I bought this from the same used book sale as Peter Pan and Peter and the Starcatchers. I really enjoyed (first book???) but I had to go back and re-read it to get back into the world.

Of course, I waited too long after my re-read, so I'm still in the same position I started in.

Kinslayer by Jay Kristoff

My grandmother bought me both Stormdancer and Kinslayer when I managed to find them in B&N quite a while back. It took me forever to get through Stormdancer, probably because I kept it in my messenger bag and only read it in the car or while we were out somewhere. I'm hoping that Kinslayer will be a little better in terms of sitting down and reading it willingly.

Invaded by Melissa Landers

I bought Alienated when I bought Fairest and I lent it to my grandmother after I read it. She went ahead and bought Invaded afterwards, and I'm pretty sure I was supposed to read it first before she did, and tl;dr I haven't touched it since. OTL. I'm a terrible granddaughter.

I beat myself to the punch and read these before the post went up:

The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

Their reviews will come out later this month, and I'll update this post to include the links to them! These links now go to my reviews instead of their Goodreads pages.

Let me know if you've read any of these! I'd love to hear more about these books.

Revel by Maurissa Guibord

TL;DR weird mythology stuff happens

(finished 10/9/15)

TBR #208, added Feb 25 2013

Revel's been on my TBR list for a long time. The fact that it was 208 out of about 1500 is pretty impressive. I'd actually forgotten about it, and I think I just picked it up from the library on a whim without realizing it was on my TBR. (But let's be honest, I have about 75% of my library's YA section on my TBR, so the chances were pretty high.)

The worldbuilding was nice, but I'm not sure that is was necessarily completely unique or believable. It had a good aesthetic. I've only been up on the New England coast once, but every book I've read that's set there seems to be creepy / foggy-unsettling, and that's not what it was like when I went. (Maybe my experience was out of the ordinary. I don't know.)

I didn't really understand what the plot was supposed to be about when I picked Revel up, so I kind of went in blind. With that, I had a weird mix between "what is going on" and "I'm pretty sure this is foreshadowing" (and being right about that). The foreshadowing was kind of heavy-handed -- I'm not sure the plot twist at 55% was supposed to be surprising to the reader, but Delia's reaction fell short because I'd seen it coming from pretty early on.

After that 55% mark, though, everything took a really weird turn that I wasn't expecting when I had picked up the book. There was very little indication of it in the blurb and in the beginning (which I guess can be explained with kind of being a mystery), and I'm not sure I would've picked the book up if I'd known about it. The second half of the book wasn't bad, considering I got through the last 45% in about an hour, but it was a strange mix between taking an aspect of YA Paranormal I hadn't really seen before and yet still feeling like all the fairly mediocre  YA Paranormal books I've read.

I was really indifferent to the romance. I didn't really like Delia and Jax's romance, but there wasn't necessarily anything bad about it other than them being fairly insta-love-y. Even at that, though, it wasn't necessarily instalove.They took a few chapters. (The fact that I'm giving the romance the benefit of the doubt because of this is really depressing. Why is the standard for romance in YA so low?) Some of the reviews on Goodreads mentioned an attempt at a love triangle, but I either didn't read it that way or it was so poor I completely missed it.

Unrelated to the main romance aspects, there's a cw for mentions / attempts of sexual assault. Nothing really happens within the narration but it does kind of tie into the plot. I'm very conflicted as to how I feel about it being a bigger part of the plot than I expected. It reflects human corruption and all that, and I don't think the topic is really misused, per se, but I think the plot could've also worked just as well without it. It does seem like it was used as a kind of shock factor.

The characters felt kind of flat. I made a note that they were kind of inconsistent, but the only example I can think of is Delia's grandmother. Her behavior changed significantly over the course of a few chapters, and there was a reasoning for it in the beginning, but the reasoning kind of just got tossed aside. I never connected to any of the characters, and none of them seemed very human, but they functioned. I think a lot of the plot would've functioned better if they had been a little more human instead of just feeling like characters, but that might just be me.

Jax and the other characters of his kind (were they ever given a name?) were kind of baffling to me. There's apparently supposed to be Greek mythology tied into the plot, but almost my entire understanding of that comes from Percy Jackson, so I was very "???" for a good portion of the story. Besides, Percy Jackson has a better explanation for their setting than Revel does. I was pretty disappointed with how Revel's setting and tie-in to the mythology were described and built up.

The ending was really open-ended, which I actually was kind of disappointed with. I mean, it's kind of to be expected since Revel is a standalone, but the ending didn't really establish anything. Stuff happens and then it's like "well alright we're done".

I only have two sticky notes, so I'm just going to add them into this post:

He bounced back and I let out the breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. (pg 5)

I'd never seen a dead person before and really, really wished I could erase the picture from my mind. (pg 113)

The first one is fairly self-explanatory. In regards to the second quote: I'm pretty sure she had to have seen her mom after she died. There's no way she could've gotten around not seeing her mom after her death if she was the only living family left. I'm really surprised this quote managed to stay in despite the fact that it directly contradicts the premise of the story.

TL;DR it was a pretty standard YA Paranormal, nothing ground-breaking and honestly a little more confusing than satisfying.

Boys Don't Knit by T.S. Eaton

TL;DR good fluffy contemp with an awesome MC

(finished 10/6/15)

TBR #1220

When I added Boys Don't Knit to my TBR, I was expecting a delinquent with at least a minor history of getting in trouble that ended up in a knitting class as almost a last resort. That's not what I got at all, and honestly, it made it so much better than what I was expecting.

Ben was quite the opposite of what I thought the main character was going to be like, and that included his sense of sass. I love him. He's great. He's also a pretty flawed character, which I really appreciated, especially since he didn't try to write any of it off. He gave into peer pressure and he lied to try and save face but got caught up in a web of it, and he had realistic reactions to everything. He read as a realistic eccentric kid and I really connected with him.

"People would, like, get up in the morning and go, 'I simply can't start the day without a double vodka and oatmeal.' You know, instead of a cup of tea or whatever?" [Gex] 

 [...]

 "I think there's already a term for what you're describing," I said.

 "Really?" Joz asked.

"Yes, it's called alcoholism." (pg 102 - 103)

(I've typed up some other good quotes into a spreadsheet like normal. They're mainly just ones I was amused with instead of having any real comments.)

The format of the book is interesting in that it's a journal that the program he's in requires in addition to the knitting thing. It's a really good way to document the passing of time and allow Ben to include a retrospect to everything that could seem a little out of place in a normal 1st person past tense. It's definitely more in-depth than a typical journal would be, mainly because of how detailed it has to be to really show the plot and development, but I think it also helps bring out Ben's character. Ben is definitely more introspective than anything and the journal format boosts his voice and particularness (almost OCD-like, though I don't know if that's a correct comparison) without ever really having to be said. The journal actually shows more than it tells and I loved that.

The romance was low-key and while it was a big part of the plot, it didn't overtake the plot. Most (if not all) of the romance was based around crushes and not formed relationships. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that -- I'm so sick of reading about instalust and quick-forming relationships that last despite having poor foundations. Ben's crushes seemed very realistic based on my understanding of high school-aged boys.

The plot is mainly character-based, I think, but it still moved along at a good pace without dragging. I think part of that also has to do with how the book was formatted -- being a journal let Ben skip over anything that wasn't crucial to the story without becoming unrealistic.

Boys Don't Knit is a standalone, so the ending felt a little too "happy ever after" for me, but I'm not going to complain. I was happy with the ending despite it being almost saccharine.

TL;DR it's really good. Please try it out.