And the whole werewolf lore? Interesting. Of course, I’d take werewolves over vampires any day.

Checking out the author’s site, apparently SHIVER is the first of a trilogy. I’m not sure if I’m excited or…worried. I really enjoyed SHIVER, about would hate to watch it deteriorate as a series (Twilight anyone?).

Not exactly persuasive

I ran across ACCORDING TO JANE by Marilyn Brant on Amazon (before the whole Macmillan bit went down), and thought for some unknown reason it was YA. Instead, it’s an adult romance. Which is fine…except, well, if the whole I-slept-with-this-boy-once-in-High-School-and-then-hooked-back-up-with-him-when-I-was-34-despite-his-being-a-jerk story line is your thing. I found it depressing, even with the happy ending. If it meant to be a retelling of Persuasion, it missed (or miss-understood) that book.

Everyone always goes on about Pride and Prejudice, and it’s a good love story, don’t get me wrong, but for the whole depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight — that would be Persuasion. Not only is Anne an amazing, if quiet, protagonist, but the story holds THE most romantic letter in all fiction:

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.

It’s like hearing Nat King Cole sing “My Flaming Heart,” how could you not melt in a puddle on the floor?

But more often then not, Persuasion gets lost, tucked somewhere between Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey.

When I watched The Jane Austen Book Club movie (I can’t speak for the book, never having read it), I was floored by how every person in the film, and thus probably the script writer as well, completely missed the point of Persuasion. They at least had talking points with Austen’s other novels, some more valid than others, but all at least somewhat relevant. Persuasion, however, might as well have been written in Martian for all they grasped or understood.

Maybe it’s story’s quietness, that it’s more about people than a general social commentary, it’s threads running deep. Perhaps because the characters have endured more, lived years of making the best of what they had, when all the while they dreamed for more. Anne is strong in ways Elizabeth never had to be, and yet it’s Elizabeth who touted as Austen’s greatest heroine.

Poor Anne, she’s overlooked, maligned, and undervalued even in the world outside her pages. Still, considering how the story ends, I don’t think she’d mind.

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Books: from werewolves to Austen

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Still, I haven’t laughed aloud like that from a story for a while, and will definitely look for other of Alexie’s books to read. ABSOLUTELY is on my list-of-books-to-buy-once-I-get-myself-to-give-this-copy-back-to-the-library.

lust, fear, and flat-out stupidity

HUSH HUSH by Becca Fitzpatrick has sexy teenage lust down to a science, steamy scenes abound, but the outcomes are all Twilightesque. (The characters do, eventually, kiss later in the book.) It’s a fun page-turner, and I enjoyed the escapism.

On the BUT side, I’ve got three things:
1) Fear for your personal safety isn’t sexy. Sure bad boys and the aura of danger can be attractive -- but if you are honest-to-God afraid of being alone with him? It’s time to back up, find your pepper spray, and get the hell outta Dodge. To reiterate: IF YOUR GUT IS SAYING THIS MAN MIGHT/WILL DO YOU BODILY HARM, THEN (and I seriously cannot stress this enough) DON’T GO OUT WITH HIM!!!! This is dating basics 101, or What Your Parents Should Have Taught You When You Were Twelve. Or Seven. Or Straight Out Of The Womb.

Getting into the whole Nora/Patch romance was, at times, near impossible. If a guy frightened me as much as Nora was frightened of Patch, I’d be calling 911. You should too.

Just so we’re clear on that point.

2) I’m still not entirely sure who Patch is, as in his personality. HUSH HUSH is written in first person from Nora’s viewpoint, so most of my interactions with the boy involve Nora’s a) fear, and b) lust which don’t mix well.

3) The antagonist has a monologue. Actually, a series of monologues. I almost wished he’d go ahead and kill the protagonist so we could just get on with things. I have no respect for bad guys who feel the need to explain themselves to their victims. I’m not talking justification, but the whole let-me-draw-you-a-picture-of-why-you-need-to-die.
(Side note: monologues are especially monotonous when listened to in Audible format.)

However, on the plus side, the story had loads of atmosphere and some very creepy occurrences. And I like Nora. She annoyed the hell out of me sometimes, but then most good (as in, well written) characters tend to do that now and again.

Hush Hush

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UsDkZ1Ej5I

THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN

I couldn’t find an official book trailer, but I did find a video of the author reading his work:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwiQb8OQ6dY

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Books: boys and angels

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It’s 2010, the new millennium. 2010. Swapping out a protagonist’s skin color in a book cover shouldn’t even cross our minds. You’d think, as a nation, we’d have grown up by now. At this point, there’s just no excuse. But then, there never was.

What am I talking about? The Bloomsbury YA book covers for LIAR by Justine Larbalestier and MAGIC UNDER GLASS by Jaclyn Dolamore. For in-depth coverage of MAGIC, read the timeline at Chasing Ray, Ari’s open letter to Bloomsbury, and Jaclyn’s response.

There’s also a petition in motion. Feel free to sign.

The covers of doom

And the million dollar question is…

Why?
How is this ok?
How does it continue to go on?

Several bloggers (see links above) have already addressed the fundamental devaluation of people in this issue. So I’ll just say, they’re right.

It’s also fundamental devaluation of the stories and the authors themselves. Think about it, a publisher must have little value for an author and his or her work if they completely rewrite the protagonist’s image. Sorry, your character isn’t really someone we think deserves to be on the cover of your book.

If the publisher can’t stand behind the story enough to show the protagonist on the cover, then why exactly did they publish the story in the first place? What’s the point?

If a story is worth printing, isn’t it worth printing the actual story? If a character is worth reading an entire book about, isn’t he/she worthy of representing his or her own journey?

Don’t we hold these truths to be self-evident?

Seriously? We’ve had 234 years to figure this out.
The answer is yes.

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

By the cover

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Can I just say I am completely, utterly, hopelessly smitten with this book? One of these days, I’ll write an ode to it. Yes, it’s that good.

(I’ve included quotes from the book in the header. Keep hitting Refresh. You’ll see one.)

Girl Templar supreme

In library news, DEVIL’S KISS by Sarwat Chadda arrived at my local branch last week (along with a few others I’ve yet to read). While I didn’t entirely buy the book trailer’s promise of “Forget Buffy, Billi SanGreal is all you need to know” (I’ve seen five seasons of Buffy, and I can tell you – Billi just isn’t at that level of kickass yet. However, I will grant you that Billi SanGreal is a much cooler name than Buffy Summers), it was certainly a fun read with a beautifully well thought out ending sequence. How the antagonist is defeated took my breath away. Very inventive. I like muchly. Her adventures continue this year with a new book, coming out in the fall I think, which I will definitely add to my list.

On a side note, one of the supporting characters, Percy, has massive shoulders and a tanklike chest. I bring this up because Percy’s tanklike massiveness is mentioned nearly very time his name shows up. There were several key scenes where I was lost to the dramatic intensity due to general eye rolling and thoughts such as “What? Massive? Percy? I had no idea!” The other characters are mercifully free of never-ending description, except perhaps for **** (name removed for non-spoiler purposes) who, for a while, is unbelievably sexy in every line. Of course, every good YA with a dash of romance needs one of those, right? Heck, some super popular books contain nothing but sexy line descriptions. (cough*twilight*cough)

In case my general recommendation just isn’t enough for you (there’s no pleasing some people), I’ve embeded the trailers for both books after the jump.

Devil’s Kiss

Chasing Brooklyn

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Books: Verse and fantasy

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But while andany is finally sorted out, my book drama just gets worse. Not in writing. Reading.

The perfect story

After anything good, an amazing book, a heart-stopping game, an incredible movie, there’s almost always a lull in the normal, everyday enjoyment of fiction. Because how could anything be as perfect as that story? How could anything else make one feel so intense?

At the same time though, I’m dying for another story–a new world of people to be passionate about. So I pick up another book.

Bookworld anomalies

In this case, the perfect story was WAKE by Lisa McMann. Loved it almost as much as the Abhorsen series–what I consider the ultimate in YA fantasy. While I didn’t like the second book, FADE, as well, it was still great to revisit that world. And then…

I tried to read something else. A lot of something elses.

Sex, lies, and the mom from hell

First I tried KENDRA by Coe Booth. Well written, strong voice. Interesting. Plus all the subtle foreshadowing of a sledgehammer. There’s only so many times a first person narrator can protest that she’s a “good girl” before you just know she’s going to get herself into serious trouble.
That she did.

At fourteen, her first set of sexual experiences are, uh, non-traditional. At first I was angry at her classmate for taking advantage of her. On the second round though, when Kendra ignores the pain because his “hands felt good on her,” I start to skim. I had a bad feeling she was going to end up with this total user guy.
She does.

However, even he isn’t half as bad as Kendra’s mom, who has my vote for Parental Fiend From Hell, and whom almost everyone else in enamored with. I gave up skimming.

With Death for a narrator, pink’s an excellent choice

Next up was THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak. Everyone tells me it’s amazing. I have no idea if it is or not, because when I opened my (used) copy I discovered…

The highlights and margin notes of doom. Example:
Highlighted quote–The injury of words. Yes, the brutality of words.
Margin note–Words can really be so powerful!

What, really? I had no idea.

Standardized punctuation: a good thing

About this time I remembered BORN CONFUSED by Tanuja Desai Hidier. I was officially hooked in the voice, the story, the pacing–until I hit my first page of dialogue.

No quotation marks. None.
All dialogue was signified by dashes.

According to Wikipedia’s Quotation mark, non-English usage, “This style is particularly common in French, Swedish and Greek.” My copy of BORN CONFUSED wasn’t printed in France, Sweden, or Greece. It was printed in New York by Scholastic.

Just the thought of digging through 500 pages of dashed dialogue gives me a headache. I’ll look for the audio edition.

Two pups & a gas stayshun

So I moved on to a story my best friend recommended, THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO by Patrick Ness. I was intrigued. The narrator was amazing, and Ness does a great job of showing the reader what’s going on while keeping the narrator clueless. Not an easy feat.

Then the odd spelling kicked in. Stayshun for station, Attenshun for attention, etc. It seemed to come and go at random. There’d be pages of normal grammar, then a flood of bad spelling – as if the author kept forgetting to keep the language impaired.

Two things caused me to skim: the sudden and endless use of “yer” for “your,” and Viola’s (lead girl character/love interest) decision to talk. I found her immensely irritating when she was silent. When she deigned to open her mouth, I simply couldn’t deal with spending a substantial amount of time with her–no matter how much I liked the narrator.

Skimming turned out to be a wise choice. The story was dark anyway, but the ending was hopeless. As in, no hope left. Sure it’s the first book in a series, but…wow.

Also, I wikipediaed the second book. It’s darker and even more hopeless. However, it may end on a happier note. I don’t know. I got bored with the endless misery and clicked elsewhere.

A spark in the mire

Then it hit me, READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN by Azar Nafisi. I’ve been meaning to read this since college. So far it’s excellent, but…

There are no punctuation marks for dialogue at all.
No quotation marks, dashes, or even paragraph breaks. It’s written well enough for me to keep up with who’s speaking most of the time…but still. I miss quotation marks. Desperately.

This will be a book I read in bits and pieces.

Blood, teeth, & furry critters

Because I’m discovering a real love within myself for proper punctuation and spelling, and since by this time I’m wanting something happy, hopeful and fun (not that READING LOLITA isn’t hopeful, it is), I picked up BLOOD AND CHOCOLATE by Annette Curtis Klause.

It met my requirements – great grammar, happy ending. Only one problem, I hate the narrator. Not as much as Viola from KNIFE, but enough to start skimming around page 23.

Why am I bothering? she asked herself as she went through the side door. Because I’m a pirate of the night and I want to see who’s trespassing in my territory, she answered.

Oh yeah. From page 22.

Never give up, never say die

Perhaps now’s a good time to reread something I like, or even lay off reading for a while to watch more Being Erica, or better yet, write. Still, THE BLUE GIRL beckons to me, as does HAIRSTYLES OF THE DAMNED (which I bought for the title alone).

I could buy the latest Celia Rees, or reread PIRATES! And I hear the new Jasper Fforde is good too…

All in the past

If you missed the last andany design in the two seconds it was up, here you go:

It occurred to me that inverting the colors (red background, white text area with black text) would be much easier to read.

Written by Tessa, posted at And Anything

Site transfers and odd books

Related posts:

1. Books: Verse and fantasy I follow Lisa Schroeder’s blog, so when I saw CHASING BROOKLYN, at Borders, I snagged it from the shelf &...
2. Books: boys and angels THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie had me laughing from the first paragraph. Sweet, sad,...
3. Books: from werewolves to Austen For young paranormal romance, SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater was excellent. Not necessarily because I was in love with either of...