Just One Day by Gayle Forman
new: 8th January
I have loved all of Gayle's previous YA novels. Her writing style is so beautiful and clear, and it lends itself perfectly to duets like If I Stay/Where She Went and Just One Day/Just One Year. I really like that I'm going to be able to get Willem's side of the story, but the incredibly aggressive marketing for it is really starting to grate on my nerves.
That being said, the story is really lovely, and all of the characters felt VERY true-to-life.
Showing posts with label realistically flawed narrator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label realistically flawed narrator. Show all posts
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Review: Origin by Jessica Khoury
I was so excited to read Origin that I pre-ordered it. I'd never read anything of Jessica Khoury's before (this is her debut), and I took a leap of faith. However, that leap paid off.
I got to meet Jessica at this year's Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Georgia. (Decatur is a suburb of Atlanta.) Unfortunately, the book festival took place the weekend before Origin's pub date. But due to the staff of Little Shop of Stories, there were early copies available to festival attendees.
After a quick negotiation with my mother regarding cost, she allowed me to buy one of the early copies, and I started reading it before Jessica's panel began. Each of the authors on the panel could have easily had their own event, so it felt like it was only a few minutes later when we were queuing up for the signing portion.
I got to talk to Jessica very briefly about how I was liking Origin thus far, and after she signed my book, she posed for a picture. (Also, at the risk of sounding totally creepy, her little sisters were hanging around, and they are ADORABLE.)
I finished Origin the next day, and I was AMAZED at how much I loved it. (I think half the reason I love it so much is because there are no sequels.) Pia was such a good representation of a teenager -- despite the fact that she's more than human -- and besides that, she was smart and powerful and emotionally strong.
Most of what I predicted while reading Origin didn't happen, and for that I was glad.I've mentioned before how much I like to be surprised while reading, which definitely happened during my reading of this book.
It's so hard for me to satisfactorily tell people why I love Origin, without throwing major spoilers all over the place, but I think it boils down to these three points:
Description from jacket flap:
The jungle hides a girl who cannot die.
Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest. She was raised by a team of scientists who have created her to be the start of a new immortal race. But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home--and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life.
Free in the jungle, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Together, they embark on a race against time to discover the truth about Pia's origin--a truth with deadly consequences that will change their lives forever. Origin is a beautifully told, shocking new way to look at an age-old desire: to live forever, no matter the cost.
I got to meet Jessica at this year's Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, Georgia. (Decatur is a suburb of Atlanta.) Unfortunately, the book festival took place the weekend before Origin's pub date. But due to the staff of Little Shop of Stories, there were early copies available to festival attendees.
After a quick negotiation with my mother regarding cost, she allowed me to buy one of the early copies, and I started reading it before Jessica's panel began. Each of the authors on the panel could have easily had their own event, so it felt like it was only a few minutes later when we were queuing up for the signing portion.
I got to talk to Jessica very briefly about how I was liking Origin thus far, and after she signed my book, she posed for a picture. (Also, at the risk of sounding totally creepy, her little sisters were hanging around, and they are ADORABLE.)
 |
| From left: me, Z, and Sister, with Jessica in front of us. |
I finished Origin the next day, and I was AMAZED at how much I loved it. (I think half the reason I love it so much is because there are no sequels.) Pia was such a good representation of a teenager -- despite the fact that she's more than human -- and besides that, she was smart and powerful and emotionally strong.
Most of what I predicted while reading Origin didn't happen, and for that I was glad.I've mentioned before how much I like to be surprised while reading, which definitely happened during my reading of this book.
It's so hard for me to satisfactorily tell people why I love Origin, without throwing major spoilers all over the place, but I think it boils down to these three points:
- Pia is a fully realized, fallible, flawed narrator.
- Origin tells its own story -- it's a standalone, and relies on nothing else. It has to be complete, or it falls apart.
- The plot has dribbles of both sci-fi and fantasy, without being so enmeshed in either as to alienate casual readers.
Description from jacket flap:
Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest. She was raised by a team of scientists who have created her to be the start of a new immortal race. But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home--and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life.
Free in the jungle, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Together, they embark on a race against time to discover the truth about Pia's origin--a truth with deadly consequences that will change their lives forever. Origin is a beautifully told, shocking new way to look at an age-old desire: to live forever, no matter the cost.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
An Essay on the Hunger Games Trilogy
I'll start out with my most inflammatory statement: I hate the Hunger Games Trilogy. Well, okay, not the trilogy, but the people who love it so much that they've read all three books a million times and already know the movie by heart.
Now, I truly truly enjoyed both The Hunger Games and Mocckingjay, (Catching Fire, not so much,) but I can't reread them now. They changed my life, for which I am grateful, but they also left deep scars.
I first picked up The Hunger Games in October 2008, at my local library. Earlier that year (like in March? I think) I had read and loved Suzanne Collins's Gregor the Overlander series. So when I saw the words "Suzanne Collins" on a book in the YA section, I literally ran across the entire library and grabbed it off its prominent location on the face-out display shelf. (I might have looked a little like Gollum. But I was thirteen!) I tore through the book in about a day, I don't remember exactly how long.
I loved it. I loved Katniss, even though I could never have done most of the things she did. I loved Prim and Rue and Peeta. I admired Suzanne's vivid writing. (But secretly, I longed for giant bats to appear.) I loved that book from the first line to the last. "Dreading the moment I would have to let go," I remember thinking. "What a terrific ending! That is the best standalone I've read in SO LONG!"
And then my eyes drifted further down the page. END OF BOOK ONE, it proclaimed.
I was heartbroken. Now I knew that Suzanne was going to break my heart over a totally new set of characters. I'd already cried over Rue, and I knew what kind of body count was coming based on the back flap ("effect of war on children") and Code of Claw. (Note to other fans of the Underland Chronicles: It took me two and a half years to get over the ending to CoC. It was ROUGH.)
However, I loved the book, and I was going to read all three books, no matter how heartwrenching they were.
Fast-forward almost two years. I've changed from a sheltered eighth-grader into a tenth-grader with a year of public high school under her belt. My reading tastes had changed drastically, but The Hunger Games still held a special spot in my heart. I was so angry that Mockingjay was going to be released after we returned to school, and that I would have to wait an entire school day to get home and read it after a trip to the store.
Mockingjay broke my heart and turned me into a conscientious objector. Through it, I realized the horrors of war, and the uncertainty of life after. I cried for almost two straight days after reading it. (Maybe it's Mockingjay that started my downward spiral that year? I never thought of that angle...)
I have still never reread any of the books since.
However, I still went to the midnight opening of the movie. I watched it, and was horrified by it. I think the filmmakers did a terrific job of making the movie a warning about, instead of a glorification of, violence. My classmates did not see it this way. They all still think the movie was amazing, that it wasn't disturbing at all. They do not understand why Mockingjay horrified me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's okay to love the Hunger Games Trilogy. It is okay to watch the movie, as long as you understand its real message. It is not okay to treat it as a glorification of violence. It is not okay to treat it as a trivial piece of literature. It is not okay to be blind as to why some people would rather not read it.
And finally, it is not okay to be Team anything in terms of this book. It was not made for that, and to proclaim yourself Team Peeta or Team Gale is to demean the impact of this brave, brave work.
I raise my glass to you, Suzanne Collins, and I WILL read whatever you write in the future. I'm just not guaranteeing that I'll reread it.
Now, I truly truly enjoyed both The Hunger Games and Mocckingjay, (Catching Fire, not so much,) but I can't reread them now. They changed my life, for which I am grateful, but they also left deep scars.
I first picked up The Hunger Games in October 2008, at my local library. Earlier that year (like in March? I think) I had read and loved Suzanne Collins's Gregor the Overlander series. So when I saw the words "Suzanne Collins" on a book in the YA section, I literally ran across the entire library and grabbed it off its prominent location on the face-out display shelf. (I might have looked a little like Gollum. But I was thirteen!) I tore through the book in about a day, I don't remember exactly how long.
I loved it. I loved Katniss, even though I could never have done most of the things she did. I loved Prim and Rue and Peeta. I admired Suzanne's vivid writing. (But secretly, I longed for giant bats to appear.) I loved that book from the first line to the last. "Dreading the moment I would have to let go," I remember thinking. "What a terrific ending! That is the best standalone I've read in SO LONG!"
And then my eyes drifted further down the page. END OF BOOK ONE, it proclaimed.
I was heartbroken. Now I knew that Suzanne was going to break my heart over a totally new set of characters. I'd already cried over Rue, and I knew what kind of body count was coming based on the back flap ("effect of war on children") and Code of Claw. (Note to other fans of the Underland Chronicles: It took me two and a half years to get over the ending to CoC. It was ROUGH.)
However, I loved the book, and I was going to read all three books, no matter how heartwrenching they were.
Fast-forward almost two years. I've changed from a sheltered eighth-grader into a tenth-grader with a year of public high school under her belt. My reading tastes had changed drastically, but The Hunger Games still held a special spot in my heart. I was so angry that Mockingjay was going to be released after we returned to school, and that I would have to wait an entire school day to get home and read it after a trip to the store.
Mockingjay broke my heart and turned me into a conscientious objector. Through it, I realized the horrors of war, and the uncertainty of life after. I cried for almost two straight days after reading it. (Maybe it's Mockingjay that started my downward spiral that year? I never thought of that angle...)
I have still never reread any of the books since.
However, I still went to the midnight opening of the movie. I watched it, and was horrified by it. I think the filmmakers did a terrific job of making the movie a warning about, instead of a glorification of, violence. My classmates did not see it this way. They all still think the movie was amazing, that it wasn't disturbing at all. They do not understand why Mockingjay horrified me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's okay to love the Hunger Games Trilogy. It is okay to watch the movie, as long as you understand its real message. It is not okay to treat it as a glorification of violence. It is not okay to treat it as a trivial piece of literature. It is not okay to be blind as to why some people would rather not read it.
And finally, it is not okay to be Team anything in terms of this book. It was not made for that, and to proclaim yourself Team Peeta or Team Gale is to demean the impact of this brave, brave work.
I raise my glass to you, Suzanne Collins, and I WILL read whatever you write in the future. I'm just not guaranteeing that I'll reread it.
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
I'd been hearing good things about Shadow and Bone for a while before I got a chance to read it. Initially, I got it confused with Robin Wasserman's Book of Blood and Shadow, for reasons that aren't inherently clear. I thought it might be a little like BoBaS and Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone: set in Prauge, featuring a student, and so on. Well, Shadow and Bone is not at all like either of these, which isn't a bad thing.
It does take a bit to fully get into the swing of the story, but it was well worth the wait. I loved all of the different directions the story took, both geographically and in terms of plot.
I quickly figured out that Shadow and Bone is set in a sort of pseudo-Russia, and I really liked trying to connect the fantastical locations to their real-world counterparts. (I also knew at a glance that the map in the front was drawn by Keith Thompson. Oh, how I love his work!) The title is very apt, though I didn't fully realize that until the very end.
The cover is different from most other books out right now, and I really like it. I love the font, and the colors have a symbolic meaning to the story. I love how the palace seems menacing, like beady red eyes are staring at you. The interior font for the chapter titles and the opening sentences is the Artemis Fowl font, which was seriously weird, but it didn't excessively distract me. Basically, this book is really pretty.
For some reason, it seriously bugged me that the Darkling didn't have his own name, just a title, but I need to ponder more thoroughly to figure out why that is. I loved that Alina was a total nobody, and I seriously, seriously loved that she was inclined to be merciful. (I often find that my issue with heroines is that if they're even remotely brave/powerful, they kill easily. Not so with Alina.)
Leigh Bardugo's writing style was very easy to read, and she glossed over the boring parts, which I appreciated. (Days upon days of slogging through snow, condensed into a few sentences! Yay!) I really enjoyed the way the prologue and epilogue were written in a slightly different style, and I think because of that, they really helped settle the story more firmly.
Shadow and Bone reminded me of the ambiance of Tony Abbot's Kringle combined with the intrigue of Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief. I can't wait for the next book!
Surrounded by enemies,
the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a
swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on
human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely
refugee.
Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.
Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha…and the secrets of her heart. (Summary from Goodreads.)
Leigh's website is leighbardugo.com
It does take a bit to fully get into the swing of the story, but it was well worth the wait. I loved all of the different directions the story took, both geographically and in terms of plot.
I quickly figured out that Shadow and Bone is set in a sort of pseudo-Russia, and I really liked trying to connect the fantastical locations to their real-world counterparts. (I also knew at a glance that the map in the front was drawn by Keith Thompson. Oh, how I love his work!) The title is very apt, though I didn't fully realize that until the very end.
The cover is different from most other books out right now, and I really like it. I love the font, and the colors have a symbolic meaning to the story. I love how the palace seems menacing, like beady red eyes are staring at you. The interior font for the chapter titles and the opening sentences is the Artemis Fowl font, which was seriously weird, but it didn't excessively distract me. Basically, this book is really pretty.
For some reason, it seriously bugged me that the Darkling didn't have his own name, just a title, but I need to ponder more thoroughly to figure out why that is. I loved that Alina was a total nobody, and I seriously, seriously loved that she was inclined to be merciful. (I often find that my issue with heroines is that if they're even remotely brave/powerful, they kill easily. Not so with Alina.)
Leigh Bardugo's writing style was very easy to read, and she glossed over the boring parts, which I appreciated. (Days upon days of slogging through snow, condensed into a few sentences! Yay!) I really enjoyed the way the prologue and epilogue were written in a slightly different style, and I think because of that, they really helped settle the story more firmly.
Shadow and Bone reminded me of the ambiance of Tony Abbot's Kringle combined with the intrigue of Megan Whalen Turner's The Thief. I can't wait for the next book!
Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.
Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha…and the secrets of her heart. (Summary from Goodreads.)
Leigh's website is leighbardugo.com
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