April Round-up, May Releases

 Books  13 Responses »
May 032011
 

Books I Read (and loved) in April

The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta

Via GoodReads Thomas Mackee wants oblivion. Wants to forget parents who leave and friends he used to care about and a string of one-night stands, and favourite uncles being blown to smithereens on their way to work on the other side of the world.

But when his flatmates turn him out of the house, Tom moves in with his single, pregnant aunt, Georgie. And starts working at the Union pub with his former friends. And winds up living with his grieving father again. And remembers how he abandoned Tara Finke two years ago, after his uncle’s death.

And in a year when everything’s broken, Tom realises that his family and friends need him to help put the pieces back together as much as he needs them.

I – loved – this book. It is a companion novel to her book Saving Francesca (which I also loved) but way more serious and dark than the first. The first takes place in high school while The Piper’s Son takes place a few years later and features most of the same characters (although it is missing my FAVORITE from Saving Francesca, but no one can have it all I guess.) You don’t have to read Saving Francesca to love The Piper’s Son, they stand completely alone, but I highly recommend reading both. They are a perfect matched set. Last comment – it is one of the only books I can think of that portray young men in a very believable light. All of the young men stand on their own, and this is definitely a young man’s story.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Via GoodReads In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race’s next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew “Ender” Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn’t make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

I’m actually a little embarrassed it took me so long to read this book. It is sort of one of those staples of young adult sci-fi. It sets the ground work for the rest of us by making science fiction accessible. I had a hard time in the beginning accepting how young the kids were (6 I think?) but their thoughts were as grown up as mine. True, they are genius kids, but still. As it rolled forward, the age clicked. I totally understood. His thoughts were grown up, but his emotions weren’t. The trick ending was surprising and awesome, and Ender’s brother scared the pants off me. These characters were so well developed. I can understand why this has become a quintessential sci-fi read of our generation.

Being Jamie Baker by Kelly Oram

Via GoodReads An accident that should end in tragedy instead gives seventeen-year-old Jamie Baker a slew of uncontrollable superhuman abilities.

To keep her secret safe Jamie socially exiles herself, earning the title of Rocklin High’s resident ice queen. But during a supercharged encounter with star quarterback Ryan Miller she literally kisses anonymity goodbye. Now the annoyingly irresistible Ryan will stop at nothing to melt the heart of the ice queen and find out what makes her so special.

Unfortunately, Ryan is not the only person on to her secret. Will Jamie learn to contain her unstable powers before being discovered by the media or turned into a government lab rat?

More importantly, can she throw Ryan Miller off her trail before falling in love with him?

I started reading this on a whim, though it has been on my TBR list for a while. It has one of the best book trailers I’ve ever seen (which I featured on my best 2010 book trailers round up at the end of last year.) It’s a superhero story, and I had superheroes on the brain when I started reading it. It’s a good, fast read. It lacks the depth I was looking for when I started reading it, but it is still a great story with excellent characters. There’s a lot less superhero to this story than I anticipated though and I have a pretty big gripe about how a certain criminal act was accepted by everyone in the story. I kind of wish it wouldn’t have been in the story at all because it distracted me sometimes from enjoying the super-story. I would still recommend this book, very enjoyable.

Red Glove by Holly Black

Via GoodReads:  Curses and cons. Magic and the mob. In Cassel Sharpe’s world, they go together. Cassel always thought he was an ordinary guy, until he realized his memories were being manipulated by his brothers. Now he knows the truth—

Holly Black is a master storyteller, there’s just no way else to describe it. Reading one of her books guarantees you’ll get a fantastic journey from beginning to end. Red Glove is the sequel to White Cat, and as the middle child in a trilogy, it doesn’t disappoint. In a world where a lot of people are curse workers and bare hands are as risqué as if I stripped off my shirt and wandered around downtown, the world is incredibly well thought out. Criminal families take advantage of curse workers – from luck work to memory work to even death work – there is room for plenty of con artists. Cassel is a very special worker (spoiler-save!) and spends most of this book dodging and conning his way out of being taken advantage of by, oh, everyone.  The ending plays out like Ocean’s Eleven. It could have ended the series right then and there and I’d been fine with it. I’m interested to see what will happen in the third book.

Liar Society by Lisa Roecker and Laura Roecker

via GoodReads: Kate Lowry didn’t think dead best friends could send e-mails. But when she gets an e-mail from Grace, she’s not so sure. Now Kate has no choice but to prove once and for all that Grace’s death was more than just a tragic accident. But secrets haunt the halls of her elite private school. Secrets people will do anything to protect. Even if it means getting rid of the girl trying to solve a murder…

My biggest gripe about this book actually leads into what I love about this book, so I’m going to go out of order for this one. Biggest gripe: the description of the book combined with the quirky book cover featuring the girl with attitude and pink hair, the bright colors, the quirky typography and backwards R, all led me to believe this was sort of a modern day Nancy Drew sort of story. A private school Veronica Mars.

NO. Big fat NO on that one. I spent the first like, nine chapters feeling completely discombobulated because the book didn’t feel like I expected it would feel, and it wasn’t until I chose to ignored the cover and started really listening to the book itself did I realize HOW FREAKING AMAZING THE BOOK IS. It is very dark, twisty, mysterious and tricky. It’s got Latin riddles and violent murders and secret societies and a threaded history you don’t dare trust. Every new clue brings us deeper into a world of powerful people keeping secrets and fear. It demonstrates just how controlled people can become because of their secrets. And everyone, everyone, everyone is in on it. Which means no one can be trusted. GOD I loved this book. For anyone else who has read this book, did think of My So Called Life’s Brian Krakow every time Seth showed up? I loved him :-) And Liam!! More please. Now please.

Exciting May Releases!

Divergent by Veronica Roth

All I can say is, ABOUT DANG TIME. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this one for forever.

Deadline by Mira Grant

I lovedlovedloved FEED that came out last year. One of the best zombie stories I’ve ever read. 28 Days Later meets The West Wing meets Hackers.

Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier

Time travel! Through historical 18th century London! Where do I sign up for this ticket to awesome?

Nightspell by Leah Cypress

Lovedlovedloved Leah’s previous book, Mistwood. I can’t wait for this one.

Wrapped by Jennifer  Bradbury

Love this cover! Also, we haven’t seen any mummy stories yet. I’m down to try it out.

Awaken by Katie Kacvinksy

I don’t know what it is about this book, but I’ve been captivated by it since it was announced.

Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott

If Elizabeth Scott wrote a grocery list I’d pay $9.99 to read it. Love her and her books! Can’t wait!

Girl Wonder by Alexa Martin

Another book I’m excited to read and I can’t quite put my finger on why. It sounds wonderful though.

Die for Me by Amy Plum

Love the cover of this one and the concept sounds original and wonderful. Can’t wait.

Pop Zombie Culture

 Zombies!  4 Responses »
Feb 172011
 

Zombies!

I haven’t posted many good zombie things lately. Sorry about that.

But! I’m ready to rectify that with an exciting new video game coming to XBox 360 (and PS3 and the computer I think) called DeadIsland. It is a first person shooter RPG with drop in/out co-op play like Left 4 Dead. If you’re not a gamer, that’s cool. This information is probably boring to you then. But! The trailer for the game is one of the coolest trailers for a game I’ve ever seen, forget that it is about zombies. The trailer is gorgeous and sad. Evisceration never looked so heartbreaking. I think playing the game will be more terrifying, but the trailer is quite beautiful. If you like your horror to be kind of lovely and sad and scary all at the same time.

So here is the first trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZqrG1bdGtg

And here is the second recut trailer going backwards (which will make sense only after you watch the original.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BoIqVn-qB4

Here is the official website but alas, it isn’t up and running quite yet. Apparently the game is due out sometime this year, so I suspect the site will be up and running soon too.

—————————————————————————————————————

Deadline by Mira Grant, the second book in the Newsflash trilogy (the first, FEED I reviewed here) comes out in May and I bloody can’t wait. FEED was so, so good and the writing was so gutsy. I loved every minute of it. Here’s the cover, and here’s a blurb. Isn’t Mira great?

via GoodReads. Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organization he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn’t seem as fun when you’ve lost as much as he has.

But when a CDC researcher fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun has a newfound interest in life. Because she brings news-he may have put down the monster who attacked them, but the conspiracy is far from dead.

Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

NaNoWriMo Cookies: Day 14 with Seanan McGuire and How to Write a Book

 Comics, Fantastic Authors, NaNoWriMo 2010  No Responses »
Nov 142010
 

Day 14.

Today’s cookie is a tiny article and comic by author Seanan McGuire – who I have never read but I hear is amazing, although I HAVE read Feed by Mira Grant, Seanan’s awesome other self and I can tell you with 100% certainty that I’d hand Feed to anyone who likes words. So I’m assuming that since Seanan and Mira are one and the same, anything that Seanan does must be equally as spellbinding.

Have you ever wondered about the identity of that guy sitting in the International House of Pancakes at eight in the morning, hunched over his laptop and hammering away like he’s trying to save his work before the apocalypse?  How about the woman on the bus with the notepad on her knee, scribbling away and glancing around like she’s doing something wrong?  The odds are good that they’re writers, trying to steal more minutes from the day. – Seanan McGuire

The reason I picked this as a cookie is because it sums up the writer’s life in a really important way – we are kind of clueless about the world around us when we have a word count to make. This goes for November during NaNoWriMo or any other time we are working on a story that is important to us. You don’t even have to be a professional, published author to be constantly aware of your self-imposed deadlines. “I will finish chapter 3 before I sleep.” Even when that means you don’t sleep until after Saturday morning cartoons have already started.

There have been points in my writing adventure where I had the Jimmy John’s delivery page queued up nightly for when my husband came in wondering when I was going to feed him.

I imagine it is worse in November as we fight to get to some magical word count ending place. Remember back at the beginning of the month where I congratulated you on being well fed and washed? Yeah well, I’m guessing you’ve started skimping on the daily showers and you’ve probably been subsisting off of mini candy bars, diet soda, expensive coffee, and licorice for the last seven days. It’s ok, you don’t have to be ashamed. We’re all in this together.

Be fierce, writers.

Inspiration Point #6: What Flavor is Your Dystopia?

 Book Covers, Dystopian, Inspiration Point, Theme Week  2 Responses »
Aug 272010
 

As a special Inspiration Point Friday, I’ve compiled a list of YA Dystopian novels of all shapes, sizes, colors, and hardships. There are plenty of corrupt governments, mind experiments, viruses, natural resource depletions, zombies, monsters, prisons, pirates, and bombs…some are very new, some haven’t been released yet, and some date back to the 1970s and yet still remain some of the best YA dystopias ever written.

Dystopias come in all flavors. So pick a flavor, any flavor. Which of these have you read? Any that I’ve missed? Share them in the comments!

President Bartlet hates zombies too.

 Book Reviews  3 Responses »
Jul 272010
 

I love zombie movies, but I read almost no zombie novels. I find this fact kind of alarming, but my tastes in zombie storytelling are super specific. I love them when they are done well, I loathe them when they aren’t.

One of the popular trends in zombie stories is to make the zombies funny. It’s like, if the storytellers go out of their way to make them purposefully funny, they won’t accidentally do it. I don’t want my shambling, moaning zombies to be clumsy and slapstick. I want them scary. Always scary. That’s why I stand in the minority in that I like it when zombies run because that scares the crap out of me. I like when they are all crazy-eyed and animalistic. That scares me in all the right ways.

I also don’t like the long chapters of scientific back story. Blech. I am too well versed in zombie lore to know that it’s all smoke and mirrors, there is no good explanation to create scientific explainable zombies. I’m going to get an excuse as to why a virus mutated and turned crazy time in to I-Want-To-Eat-Your-Brains unstoppable monster of the week, and I just don’t care that much. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter why the dead won’t stay that way. It won’t make me feel better to know who set it loose. Unless they can put it back, the hows and the whys are just filler text. I want to know what we are going to do Right. Now. to survive.

I finished reading FEED by Mira Grant this last week just before OsFest. And you know what? It was pretty darn scary and awesome.

FEED is like a cross between Dawn of the Dead, Hackers, and The West Wing. You think I’m joking, but I’m not.

FEED has zombies, it’s been (I think) 25 years since zombies rose up due to some interactions between two separate cures – the cure for the common cold and the cure for cancer. My biggest complaint about the book is that there is so much scientific hand-wavery that I got a little bored in spots. Once you get past the science back story, it’s actually a really great zombie book. Sort of. I mean, it’s not as much about zombies as you might think. It is a lot more about news, the internet, xenophobic culture shock, and politics.

All with zombies shambling and noshing in the background.

Here’s the thing- after I was done reading FEED, I got hung up on a few details that I didn’t buy into. Considering that bloggers saved the world, they still aren’t treated very nicely by most people. The main characters went out of their way to be unlikable a lot of the time. Considering huge portions of the country are inaccessible due to zombies, technology has jumped heads and shoulders over what it is now. The political candidates seemed more like cookie cutter archetypes than actual people. We have the super right wing insane Texan, the moderate to left republican, the whorish and kind of stupid female republican…see where I’m going with this?

And yet. And yet. And yet. After the first couple of back story chapters, I couldn’t put the book down. It didn’t matter that there were a few points that I disagreed with…it was a page turner that kept me all the way to the end. The author pulled a super gutsy move a few chapters from the end. It didn’t take me by surprise because if you pay attention, the surprise is given away a few chapters before it happens. But the clue is buried and when I saw it I had to get up and walk away from the book before I started to bawl because there was no possible way the author was going to do what I thought the author was going to do. And when the twist happened? I cried for the rest of the book. An endless amount of tears. So there you go.

I still wish the characters, particularly Georgia, had been a little more likable. I wish Shaun had played a bigger part. I wish there had been more zombies. But I don’t wish so hard that it destroys my enjoyment of the rest of the book. I love the West Wing and I love zombies and this was a perfect marriage. The world building was quite impressive even if I found some of the technology leaps to be a little questionable, Mira Grant supported her world with confidence and clever, colorful details that made me believe the whole way.