9: Divide and Conquer

Divide and Conquer, book 2 of The Infinity Ring, by Carrie Ryan
new: 16th Jan.

Note to self: it was a bad idea to read this book the night before a major test on the invasion of France.

It was good. I like this series. I don't like how dependent it is on the online game, but then my complaint about the 39 Clues was that the online stuff wasn't incorporated enough.

You just can't please me, I suppose.

2: A Mutiny in Time

A Mutiny in Time, by James Dashner
new: 6th Jan

I am eighteen years old and I love Scholastic's new(ish) line of interactive novels. I've been a fan since Maze of Bones (39 Clues) in 2008, and my interest hasn't really waned through the intervening years. They're really well-written, fast paced, interesting stories, and the online component has improved a LOT since the early days. That being said, these books are TOO SHORT. (Because I am 6-10 years older than the target age.)

I loooooove that this is time-travel, and set in an alternate universe, although SERIOUSLY get me a map already, as well as a timeline, because I want to know everything that's different! I was very distracted in the beginning as I was trying to figure out HOW things were different. I suppose the average eight-year-old wouldn't be... but I am VERY interested in learning more about this world.

I do like the efforts taken to make sure that the Infinity Ring series is a very different series from 39 Clues, because if it were a carbon copy, I wouldn't want to read it.Additionally, I LOVE LOVE LOVE how quickly these books come out. Can we have something like this for teenagers, only longer, with more ROOOMANCE? Please. I would buy it!

I didn't buy Mutiny. I borrowed it from my local library. And yet I can still fully participate in the online game! You can't do that with 39 Clues.

(Also, I am so excited for the new fantasy series like this. Maggie Stiefvater MG yay!)

I would recommend this book for kids in its target range, people who like action books, people who like long series that don't take forever to get published, people who like the time travel aspect of Doctor Who, people who like secret societies duking it out around an unsuspecting public.

Things I Learned From Doctor Who, Part 1

So, I just started watching Doctor Who. After previously trying to watch from the beginning of the reboot (Ninth Doctor, series one, episode one)  and failing to become enraptured, I gave up. However, I have a lot of friends who watch it, so I decided to give it one last shot, only this time starting from the first episode of the Eleventh Doctor.

And I was sucked in. So, corresponding to the episodes (in series five, with a few deviations backwards to learn some extra background things) in which I learned these things, here is what I have learned from Doctor Who.

1. Sometimes Netflix cannot handle the awesomeness that is the Doctor. One of my Doctor Who- loving friends was over when I decided to watch this episode, and she decided to stay with me while I watched it. She warned me that it was an awesome episode, but slightly terrifying. I didn't watch large swaths of it (Well, I watched the TV, but over my glasses, which essentially amounts to not seeing it at all) and when the music stopped, I had my face hidden COMPLETELY in my hands. I refused to look when I was told to, but eventually acquiesced. The screen was showing an error message.

2. Space Whales ROCK That's pretty much my only contribution to this episode. I want a space whale plushie or something. Surely they exist.

3. Daleks are really cool-looking and not scary at all.

4. River Song is SO INCREDIBLY AWESOME. Both of my parents came in a different points in this episode, and both of them sat down to watch awhile with me once they realized that Alex Kingston was in it. (My parents were ER freaks, back in the day.)

5.  Weeping Angels are more psychologically scary than REALLY scary. I kept psyching myself out, but they really aren't scary.

6. Helen McCrory looks an awful lot like Madeleine Stowe. 

7. Rory is kind of awesome. He's the most boring of the three main characters, but he has some kind of weird awesomeness.

8. I hate violent people. I hate people who resort to violence. I completely agree with the Doctor's policy of nonviolence.

9. No spoilers, but I'm so sad. This is so depressing.Those cracks are so cool. I love how Doctor Who loops things into a cohesive overall plot while still making it stand alone.

10 (series 3) Carey Mulligan looks an awful lot like Larisa Oleynik (who played Bianca in 10 Things I Hate About You). Also, I love complicated time-travel-y things.

10. Suicide makes me so incredibly sad. This marks the first episode over which I've cried, though I doubt it will be the last.

11. I love the Doctor's head bump thing. It's like bumping two iPhones together to exchange contact information.

12. River's hallucinogenic lipstick is so convenient and awesome.

13. I freaking love Rory. Can I have one of him when I grow up?

Hopefully this is a series of lists that will return as I make my way up to the current season of Doctor Who, and back through all of the old seasons. (Well, as many as are available on NEtflix, through friends, and at the local library.)

Review: Hourglass by Myra McEntire

I'm having a very difficult time explaining why I like this book so much, so it might be easier if I just made a bulleted list.


Why I liked Hourglass, in ten points.

• It took me FOREVER to figure out that the cover image was of a girl standing on a wall. After I figured that out, I suddenly liked the cover a lot more, and felt the image was a lot more striking.

• Basically, this whole book is like that. You start reading it, you think it's pretty nice, fairly good, a good read... and then you figure things out and it's like WHAM. It gets about three times as awesome.

• I really loved Emerson's voice. She reminded me a lot of Evie from Paranormalcy, in the best way possible. 

• The time travel explanation MADE SENSE.  It also didn't establish that the future is already set, which I liked.

• Michael! This love interest is a gentleman. A rare thing to be seen in YA now, apparently. He reminded me of movie-Michael from the Princess Diaries, which is, you know, a HUGE compliment.

• I really liked Lily. Her best-friend-ness isn't fake at all, and it seemed like the relationship between her and Emerson was completely true, without being too "We share EVERYTHING with each other!" 

• Some twists I saw way ahead of time, but others bowled me over. One, in particular, nearly made me chuck the book across the room, but I didn't, because I needed to know what happened next.

• Thomas and Dru were awesome characters. Like Reese in Blood Magic, they balance between well-meaning parents and understanding sibling/sibling-in-law, but it's a role that is under-appreciated in the books I've read lately. 

• Hourglass is set in the South, yet it doesn't feel overly Gothic or drawly to me. A few books I've read that are specifically set in the South always feel too overwrought to me, but this is managed perfectly.

• I hesitate to compare Hourglass to The Time Traveler's Wife, but... they are similar. It isn't near as depressingly sad, but the writing is just as vivid, there's the time travel - of course - and the love story is, well, lovely.

Myra McEntire's blog, Facebook, and twitter.