Waking Storms by Sarah Porter

Title: Waking Storms
Author: Sarah Porter
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Release Date: July 3, 2012
Pages: 400 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC through Amazon Vine
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

After parting ways with her troubled mermaid tribe, Luce just wants to live peacefully on her own. But her tranquility doesn't last long: she receives news that the tribe is on the verge of collapse and desperately needs her leadership. Anais, the tribe's cruel queen, wants Luce dead. Dorian, the boy Luce broke mermaid law to save, is determined to make her pay for her part in the murder of his family. And while the mermaids cling to the idea that humans never suspect their existence, there are suddenly ominous signs to the contrary.

But when Luce and Dorian meet, they start to wonder if love can overpower the hatred they know they should feel for each other. Can Luce fulfill her rigtful role as queen of the mermaids without sacrificing her forbidden romance with Dorian?

Full of miraculous reunions and heart-pounding rescues, this haunting second installment in the Lost Voices trilogy finds Luce eager to attempt reconcilation with humans--as long as war doesn't break out first.

Review:

Though the mention of forbidden romance in Waking Storms left me wary and drove me batty for nearly half the book, I'm surprised at how much I liked this book. This may turn into a pattern with this series; the quality of the first book surprised me too. Luce could use some stronger characterization so I actually had something to say about her, but you know what? Whether or not she gets a personality, I'll keep reading. The expansions Porter makes to her universe are enticing enough to make me not care.

The first hundred pages were not very good to me. We spend time in the head of Dorian, the human Luce saved the life of at the end of Lost Voices, and it's made very clear he's in pain after the death of his family in the mermaid-caused sinking of the Dear Melissa. When he's not thinking about them, he's tortured by thoughts of Luce. So why were he and Luce making out by page sixty-two and pretty much declaring their love soon after? No! No! Noooo! After that hundred pages, the problems in their relationship started to come out. This is not meant to be true love. Whew! Close call.

So while Dorian and Luce's insta-love romance drove me batty, I started to see Romeo and Juliet parallels in it. No, not like that! If I had to say, I think Porter understands what the often-misinterpreted play is really about. Like Romeo and Juliet, Dorian and Luce are young and stupid (Dorian is fifteen, Luce fourteen). They fall in love very quickly for little good reason, and it seems their relationship will negatively affect themselves and others if it ends badly--and all signs say it will end badly. Even if it does work out, others will be hurt because of them. Do these parallels follow through? I suggest reading the novel yourself to find out, but I will say I was somewhat happy and somewhat wary about where the novel left the two. Kind of like how I felt at the end of Lost Voices.

The mix-up of sirens and mermaids grates on me more in this book than it did in the first (sirens sank boats/killed people by singing but they didn't live in the water; mermaids lived in the water and killed by charming/tricking sailors into the water), but I'm willing to let go of that. The history of the two being combined is too extensive for any complaints to mean much. Dorian's character isn't fleshed out as much as I wish it was, but he's rather endearing. Focusing on a mythical, dreamlike mermaid like Luce to forget about the pain of his parents seemed like a way he might try to cope due to his age and the circumstances. There isn't much I can say about Luce herself, unfortunately.

The last book showed no signs that humans knew mermaids existed, but over the course of Waking Storms, we discover that not only do some humans know about mermaids, but they're actively trying to prove they exist in order to eliminate them. A scene where a room full of FBI agents and goverment higher-ups listen to a thirty-second snippet of the mermaid death song was one of the strongest of the novel! Subtle and creepy. Just the way I like it!

The Twice Lost, the final book in the Lost Voices trilogy, doesn't come out for another year, but I'm looking forward to it. Yet another pattern with the series: the ending leaving me wary of the next novel. But since Waking Storms did better than I thought it would, why can't the third book pull off the same trick?

4 stars!

What am I reading next?: So Close to You by Rachel Carter

Dark Companion by Marta Acosta

Title: Dark Companion
Author: Marta Acosta
Publisher: Tor Teen
Release Date: July 3, 2012
Pages: 368 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC received through Amazon Vine.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: author website

Orphaned at the age of six, Jane Williams has grown up in a series of foster homes, learning to survive in the shadows of life. Through hard work and determination, she manages to win a scholarship to the exclusive Birch Grove Academy. There, for the first time, Jane finds herself accepted by a group of friends. She even starts tutoring the headmistress’s gorgeous son, Lucien. Things seem too good to be true. 

They are.

The more she learns about Birch Grove’s recent past, the more Jane comes to suspect that there is something sinister going on. Why did the wife of a popular teacher kill herself? What happened to the former scholarship student, whose place Jane took? Why does Lucien’s brother, Jack, seem to dislike her so much?

As Jane begins to piece together the answers to the puzzle, she must find out why she was brought to Birch Grove—and what she would risk to stay there…

Review:

The first time I tried to get a copy of this novel after I saw someone give it a lot of praise, I was told no. I was sad and meant to ask for it again, but I got a copy through another avenue and all was well. Why do I keep forgetting that publishers usually tell me no for books I'm not going to like very much? Sometimes, it's like they're psychic and I'm the skeptic who refuses to listen to them. The praise for Dark Companion is well-earned, but I just wasn't into it.

Acosta's novel is well-written for the most part, if a teensy bit overwritten in the sense that there were too many unnecessary scenes. The lush descriptions of Birch Grove Academy, the birch groves surrounding the school that give it its name, and the air of mystery around everything really brings the Gothic atmosphere to life. Jane is fairly well-written and though I didn't always like her, I very rarely tired of reading about her.

Mary Violet, one of Jane's new friends, is absolutely adorable. She's an undeniable stock character (specifically, she's the plump best friend who drops the one-liners and acts as comic relief), but she was so cute that I will temporarily stop caring that Dark Companion had to fall back on such a trope. Jack is another high point among the cast and he's less of a stock character, thank goodness. I could reread the scenes where Jack and Jane verbally spar over and over again! It was kind of cute, the way he always insisted she had to be a Halfling or a magical woodland creature, though that made him easy to see through. Why Jane didn't get it is beyond me.

Then around the halfpoint of the novel, gears shift completely. Anyone looking for a paranormal twist will be sadly disappointed because there is nothing paranormal about the novel. A scientific explanation for what is going on is offered in a way that befits the novel, but the shift in tone, plot, and Jane's mindset after this point is where Dark Companion starts losing me. The way Jane justified everything with Lucky... It's horrible. Absolutely horrible.

What really got me was how Jane's actions didn't seem to mesh with her characterization half the time. She strongly disapproves of her friend Wilde's situation, where her boyfriend/pimp provides everything for her and stays with her as long as she keeps up her appointments. The latter makes me wonder why Jane spent most of the book consenting to a situation that parallels Wilde's significantly. A provider gives her everything she could want in exchange for her performing a not-so-little service for them whenever they ask her to--hm...

Jane's rough upbringing must also be taken into account and it's understandable that it leaves her with a desire to be loved. The way I saw it, she's been looking after herself her entire life and that comes with being able to pick what might pose a threat to her. It struck me as wrong that after all the crap she dealt with growing up, she was willing to take all the crap Lucian threw at her. Most of the creepy things he says? Right over her head. The way he treats her like dirt? Same thing. The severe co-dependency they had going on made me sick and I wanted to put down the book over it. The resolution on that front made me very happy, but other readers may not be able to swim through all the fuckery to the ending they beg for.

The ending was a neat wrap-up of the novel--almost too neat. Resolution with Lucky comes out of nowhere (or maybe I wasn't paying attention, but I swear I saw no hint of it anywhere) and little details made me unsure of whether or not there would be a sequel. Everything seems resolved and happily-ever-afterish, but then it's said the antagonist was never found. We all know what it means when the antagonist isn't found after the climactic battle.

I can see Acosta's novel finding many fans, but I don't feel I'm one of them. If you're not into blood play (and I most definitely am not, so those scenes grossed me out), you might not want to read this. I'm still not completely sure how I feel about this very strange novel, but I have put my feelings into words as well as I could manage.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan

Title: Team Human
Author: Justina Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: July 3, 2012
Pages: 344 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC received through a swap with a friend.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon; Barnes & Noble; Book Depository

Just because Mel lives in New Whitby, a city founded by vampires, doesn't mean she knows any of the blood-drinking undead personally. They stay in their part of town; she says in hers. Until the day a vampire shows up at her high school. Worse yet, her best friend, Cathy, seems to be falling in love with him. It's up to Mel to save Cathy from a mistake she might regret for all eternity!

On top of trying to help Cathy (whether she wants it or not), Mel is investigating a mysterious disappearance for another friend and discovering the attractions of a certain vampire wannabe. Combine all this with a cranky vampire cop, a number of unlikely romantic entanglements, and the occasional zombie, and soon Mel is hip-deep in an adventure that is equal parts hilarious and touching.

Acclaimed authors Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan team up to create a witty and poignant story of cool vampires, warm friendships, and the changes that test the bonds of love.

Review:

You know how you sometimes think, when reading a vampire book "Man, this girl has no brains/has a terrible best friend. She needs someone to talk some sense into her/be a better friend!"? Mel wants to be that sensible best friend advising her lovestruck friend to take it slow with the vampire. How successful she is at being the sensible best friend and main character in Team Human is up in the air. For multiple reasons, this is one of the toughest reviews I've ever had to write.

As you might expect, the characters sometimes feel like improved versions of more famous characters in vampire lit. Cathy is our typical mature, bookish girl who rushes into a relationship with a vampire, but she knows exactly what she is getting into. She weighs the pros and cons of becoming a vampire, buries herself in books about transitioning, and isn't letting anyone, including her vampire boyfriend or her best friend, tell her what to think or do. Mel is the best friend we've been begging girls like Cathy to get, though she gets pushy and prejudiced sometimes. (But I love her name--Mellifluous. Heehee!)

I've read novels from both Larbalestier and Brennan before this and while they blended their individual styles well, there were a few moments where I felt like I knew who had written that specific line or scene. A line about Francis having a stake where the sun don't shine is one I'm almost certain is Brennan's. While it was a funny novel and a solid parody of the "girl meets vampire" trope, it didn't quite make the leap to hilarious. I would call it more of a dramedy than a parody, though. Book gets seriously serious toward the end.

One of my problems with the novel is that things from it tended to resemble a few things in real life that I'm unsettled by. Some of Mel's statements about human-vampire relations and how the two groups should be kept apart strongly reminded me of how segregationists in the U.S. during the '50s and '60s spoke. How thorough the process of informing a human about the risks and consequences of transitioning (showing them zombies, three required sessions with a counselor, parental permission required if underage) very slightly reminded me of the million hurdles women have to go through to get an abortion in certain places. But--I can't stress this strongly enough--the resemblance to abortion hurdles is very slight because aborting a fetus and changing species are two entirely different things.

I see bits and pieces of why I love both authors in this book. Humor I can see Brennan coming up with, Larbalestier's own brand of quips, and the gifts they both have in writing relationships between characters are all there. All the central characters are well-rounded too, so why, for some reason I can't figure out, couldn't I get fully immersed with the novel? Maybe it was the mystery element that took over the story halfway through. The only thing that impressed me about it was the aftermath of it. I tried so hard to love it, but you can't force bookish love.

After having so much trouble investing myself in the novel and finding things to love about it, I'm not sure I'll be back for its sequel. Vampire fans will almost certainly love it, and others who want to see the "girl meets vampire" scenario poked fun at by two talented YA authors will want to check Team Human out. I'm sad to say this is a bit of a disappointment for me.

3 stars!

What am I reading next?: Forgotten by Cat Patrick

A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink

Title: A Temptation of Angels
Author: Michelle Zink
Publisher: Dial Book for Young Readers
Release Date: March 20, 2012
Pages: 435 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

Even angels make mistakes in this page-turning epic romance.

When her parents are murdered before her eyes, sixteen-year-old Helen Cartwright finds herself launched into an underground London where a mysterious organization called the Dictata controls the balance of good and evil. Helen learns that she is one of three remaining angelic descendants charged with protecting the world's past, present, and future. Unbeknownst to her, she has been trained her whole life to accept this responsibility. Now, as she finds herself torn between the angelic brothers protecting her and the devastatingly handsome childhood friend who wants to destroy her, she must prepare to be brave, to be hunted, and above all to be strong, because temptation will be hard to resist, even for an angel.

Michelle Zink masterfully weaves historical fantasy with paranormal romance to create a gripping tale of love and betrayal.

Review:

New rule: I will immediately say no to any novels with a mention of a love triangle in the jacket copy from this day forth. The only way I shall reconsider a novel is if trusted friends heap praise upon it (which is what pushed me to read the magnificent Unearthly by Cynthia Hand despite love triangle presence in the jacket copy) or if I've already started the series and may as well finish it. Why am I making this rule now? The misses far outnumber the hits and after coming off one novel with an irritating love triangle, rebounding with A Temptation of Angels was not a good idea. A lack of tension, stock characters, and a heroine whose split affections annoyed me sunk a promising novel.

Zink's writing style has a Dramatic flair to it, one I enjoyed and loved no matter how much the content of the story annoyed me. It was wordier than most prose, but it was just enough to give it a deliciously formal feel. It it had been much more, I would have called it purple and become more irritated than I already was.

The world of Keepers, descendants of the original angels assigned to guard Earth, and the Legion (demons and such; Lucifer leads them) was of great interest to me and I was sad to see it wasn't expanded on very much. The way Keepers were trained as children for their lifelong duty with games like Find the Way Out and other such little things that made sense once they knew the truth impressed me. If I had to pick something out, I'd say that was the best detail of the novel.

For all the good ideas and Dramatic prose A Temptation of Angels has to offer, there isn't much else I like about it. The characters are flat and uninteresting, stock at best; I couldn't have cared less if everyone died during the climactic scene. On that topic, with thirty pages left in the novel and the book entrenched in its climactic scene, I found myself unable to care about anything. I could have put the book down and never picked it up again and I wouldn't have had one problem with leaving it unfinished so close to the end. Uneven pacing had me hooked for the first one-hundred pages of the novel, but the next two-hundred or so bored me before it got back on track.

As I'm sure you figured out if you read my personal rule above, I don't like love triangles. I like them even less when one of the love interests has wronged the heroine pretty badly (like, say, giving the order to have her parents killed by burning to death in their home) and she falls in love with him anyway. I'm sorry, but... You know what? I'm not sorry. That disgusts me on a pretty deep level. "He killed my parents, but I'm going to fall in love with him!" Really? It reminds me of a series by another author where one of the heroine's love interests was a guy who kidnapped and tortured her twice. Ick ick ick!

And on another note, one of my greater pet peeves in a novel? When an author gives a character a Russian last name such as Baranova but does not follow the system that comes with Russian surnames, which makes the spelling change with a person's gender. A male in that family would be a Baranov; a female in that family would be a Baranova. Andrei and Raum Baranova are not female, so their surnames should be Baranov.

So yeah, I'm going to start following my new personal rule. Like, right now. Right? (Oh please, let me follow the rule this time unlike the last time I instituted it! I don't want to keep putting myself through the pain!)

2 stars!

What am I reading next?: When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen

Eternal Starling by Angela Corbett

Title: Eternal Starling
Author: Angela Corbett
Publisher: Pendrell Publishing
Release Date: December 6, 2011
Pages: 320 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

A love so strong, even eternity can’t separate them.

Evie Starling has lived a relatively uneventful life hanging out with friends, gossiping about boys, and driving her 1966 Mustang. All of that changes when she moves to Gunnison, Colorado, to start college and meets two mysterious men.

For centuries, Alex Night and Emil Stone have yearned for Evie—but they each have their own reasons for wanting to be with her. When both men claim to be her soul mate and tell her about an unbelievable past, Evie learns that she’s not the person she thought she was. Soon, Evie finds herself in the middle of an age-old battle between the Amaranthine Society—the soul protectors, and the Daevos Resistance—the soul destroyers. With a past she doesn’t understand, and a future rife with danger, Evie has to decide who she can trust. But Alex and Emil aren’t the only ones who want Evie, and her soul is about to become the rope in an eternal tug-of-war.

Review:

"Alex had just met me. Why would he care if I went careening off a cliff?" -Eternal Starling, 3% mark on my Kindle

That was a warning. After all, if Evie thinks there is something wrong with another having the common decency to not want a person to go careening off a cliff, there may be something wrong with her. Did I listen to that warning? Not for a second, and did I ever pay for it! My violent dislike of love triangles aside, I thought Eternal Starling was going to be a good book, but its half-awesome, half-infuriating heroine, unlikable love interests, badly done love triangle, and slow-moving plot killed it for me.

Half the time, I liked Evie. She took little to no bull from her boyfriends and she had so much backbone that I wanted to ask her to donate some of it to YA heroines in need. If only we could get the truly fantastic girls to share the wealth, YA would be a better genre for all! But I'm derailing myself. The other half of the time, I could not stand her. In addition to the quote at the beginning of the review, she lets her hormones control her brain--and she admits to it. It does not make me like her any more when she admits to it. It just makes me think she's even dumber.

Let's say it together: reincarnation does not excuse insta-love even if they knew each other in a past life. It is not an excuse to skip over development either. Here, we get not one, but two cases of insta-love, and I wondered for a minute if Anthony Sullivan and his pitchman ways had anything to do with this book. This story is driven by the love triangle (after all, most of what you see in the jacket copy is only just getting hinted at around the halfway mark) and giving it no development is a death sentence. Why does Evie have two soul mates when people are only supposed to have one? Hell if I know and hell if the book has an answer.

Both of her love interests can go jump in a pit of vipers. Alex constantly criticizes Evie's independent spirit, which led to me literally shouting expletives at my Kindle, and he always found a way to rub me wrong. Emil was not as offensive to the senses, but his mushy, annoying attitude got on my nerves. Some of the things he said to her and the way he kept just as much from Evie as Alex did is what sentences him to the pit. I get more excited watching my two inside cats attack than reading about Emil and Alex fighting over Evie. (And really, my cats are hardly fighting; the kitten jumps on our overweight cat and the two run around the house hissing at one another.)

My main reason for hating them both? When Evie uses her backbone to stand up to her, they shut her down almost every time. What the hell?! I love backbones, but when they are chained down by other people like Evie's is constantly, it's almost preferable to have a spineless heroine! Between seeing a heroine rarely stand up for herself and then seeing one stand up for herself but be told to sit back down and shut up, I can't decide which one I dislike more.

When the plot finally steps in, the greater antagonist's motives are poorly explained. I get why the Amaranthine Society tries to help soul mates, but what does the Daevos Resistance get out of breaking them up? The explanation the book offered (they're evil and building an army) was poor. They're never explored any deeper than "they're evil" and the flat picture it paints takes away a lot of the tension. I did like the idea of the two groups, but they're so shallowly covered that they aren't much good. The specific antagonist, a  Daevos Clan, isn't much better.

And I suppose this teaches me not to listen to one particular book blogger. They may be popular and many people may love them (to be fair, this blogger really is a sweet person), but their reviews never match up with my tastes and the books they tend to love the most are the ones I hate the most. Remember, everyone: make sure the people you rely on for book reviews have tastes that match yours in some way. Otherwise, you end up like me, buying books you hate because someone whose tastes are unlike yours said it was awesome.

1 star!

What am I reading next?: A Temptation of Angels by Michelle Zink

Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma

Make sure to check out this novel as Fade Out, newly updated and marketed as a YA novel!

Title: Dani Noir
Author: Nova Ren Suma
Publisher: Aladdin
Release Date: September 22, 2009
Pages: 272 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

If this were a movie, you'd open to the first page of this book and be transported to a whole other world. Everything would be in black and white, except maybe for the girl in pink polka-dot tights, and this really great music would start to swell in the background. All of a sudden, you wouldn't be able to help it--you'd be a part of the story, you'd be totally sucked in. You'd be in this place, filled with big lies, mysterious secrets, and a tween girl turned sleuth....

Zoom in on thirteen-year-old Dani Callanzano. It's the summer before eighth grade, and Dani is stuck in her nothing-ever-happens town with only her favorite noir mysteries at the Little Art movie theater to keep her company.

But one day, a real-life mystery begins to unravel--at the Little Art! And it all has something to do with a girl in polka-dot tights.... Armed with a vivid imagination, a flair for the dramatic, and her knowledge of all things Rita Hayworth, Dani sets out to solve the mystery, and she learns more about herself than she ever thought she could

Review:

Typically, middle-grade isn't my genre. It never has been; even when I was a tween, I skipped right over middle-grade books and went straight to YA. About a week ago, I went to the bookstore with the intent to buy Fade Out, which is Dani Noir updated and marketed as YA, but when the bookstore had no copies of Fade Out in stock but had multiple copies of Dani Noir on clearance priced at $3.97... Well, I left with Dani. Though the novel lacked the delicious creepiness that made me love the author's second novel Imaginary Girls, Dani Noir was fun in its own right and a great coming of age story.

Dani was a such a witty narrator and a great character too. Her problems and emotions felt so real, and I wished I could do away with all the pain she felt concerning her father cheating on her mother, leaving, and then deciding to marry the other woman. Dani wasn't perfect (she was extraodinarily selfish and I was happy to see her get called out for it), but she was someone I wanted to read about.The movie motif was a great choice because of how it illustrates Dani's dissatisfaction with real life. History has already shown people escape to the movies during tough times.

Though the novel is a bit of a mystery (who is the girl in the polka-dot tights? Is Jackson cheating on Elissa with her?), it's very easily solved and not that impressive. Then again, the novel isn't really about the mystery of the girl; it's about Dani. On a side note, it was a little strange reading about the love triangle through Dani's eyes. Because of my love of YA, I've gotten used to seeing love triangles where the narrator is one of the angles as the focus. In Dani Noir, it was like seeing the YA triangle through the younger friend/sibling of someone who is part of the triangle.

Not that I expected anything less than a great novel from one of my favorite authors. It's simpler than Imaginary Girls, but it's much easier to relate to and it's not quite as out-there. This makes waiting for the author's next novel, 17 and Gone, even more painful. Why does spring 2013 have to be so far away?!

4 stars!

What am I reading next?: So Close to You by Rachel Carter

This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers

Title: This is Not a Test
Author: Courtney Summers
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release Date: June 19, 2012
Pages: 322 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: ARC through Amazon Vine
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon; Barnes & Noble; Book Depository

It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago, her world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually want to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life—and death—inside. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?

Review:

"Maybe the only way our story can end is varying degrees of sad. And that I miss her, and that I need her, and this kind of missing, this kind of need, the kind of emptiness it leaves behind is worse than waking up one day finding the whole world has collapsed in on itself, that I was over long before it was." (ARC p. 226)

Zombies? Usually, I'm not interested. The zombie fanatic of the family is my brother. Still, something about This Is Not a Test intrigued me. The good word friends put behind this author and this book in particular? The way I swear I saw someone describe it as a more depressing The Breakfast Club in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? Whatever it was, I snatched it up and started the novel with a sense of caution.

Unless you really can't stand zombie books, go pre-order or buy this now. Do it. Less a story about the zombie apocalypse (though we do get some good zombie scenes in there, especially toward the end) and more about a group of hurt people doing what they have to and being forced to deal with their own problem while doing so, This Is Not a Test took me by surprise.

Characterization is the novel's strongest suit. Sloane's well-painted struggles with her sister's abandonment of her to their father's ways create a brilliant character. All of the teenagers except perhaps one of them are given the same treatment as Sloane and do some pretty despicable things over the course of the novel. Some of them turn other people into sacrifices; some of them have to become murderers. They're trying to survive long enough to see the next day, not be good people. But they're still just teenagers. They're just children without parents forced to find a way to make it through the zombie epidemic that's suddenly taking over the world.

More than it's about killing zombies (but there is some zombie-killing, especially toward the climactic scenes), it's about these broken people trying to pull themselves back together. Wanting, angry, hurt people who need a reason to keep going and not toss themselves to the ragged-breathed hordes outside the high school just waiting for their next meal.

Partway through This Is Not a Test, I had a revelation: This is it. What Summers can do is exactly what I want to be able to do as a writer when I try to focus on the less noble emotions of my characters. She channels these desperate, damaged characters so well and makes them feel so alive even when they themselves feel like they're the walking dead (the kind that don't want to eat human flesh yet). I want to capture the hopelessness of a hellish situation you can't escape the way Summers did. When my characters feel like there's nothing left for them, I want them to be as authentically wretched as Sloane and co. are after everything concerning Mr. Baxter.

The only problem I had with the novel was that its writing style was often off-putting. Perhaps this will be fixed because I had an ARC, but the long, rambling run-on sentences nearly drove me up the wall. Their meandering structure made it hard to keep the picture in my head moving the way it should. When they mixed with short fragments--oh God, the pain. Toward the end, I stopped caring because it ended up working so well.

Just over halfway through the novel, I was feeling so good about this novel that I added Courtney Summers's entire backlist of novels to my to-read list. An author with this great of a handle on the darker human emotions and characterization (and who can also make me shamelessly jump up and down with the book in my hands in the middle of a high school) is one I need to keep an eye on.

"I wouldn't have let you die. When I saw them coming for you, I ran to you, to save you," I say. "I wouldn't have left you like that. Not like she did to me." I swallow hard. "She always said I'd die without her and she left anyway."

"But you didn't die," he says.

"I did," I say. "I'm just waiting for the rest of me to catch up." (ARC p. 226)

5 stars!

What am I reading next?: Social Suicide by Gemma Halliday

Keep Holding On by Susane Colasanti

Title: Keep Holding On
Author: Susane Colasanti
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Release Date: May 31, 2012
Pages: 224 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: Won it in a Goodreads giveaway
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: author website

Lunch is the worst, but there's no safe place at school for Noelle. Keeping her mortifying home life a secret and trying to ignore the kids who make her life miserable are Noelle's survival strategies. Her emotionally distant boyfriend, Matt, isn't the one she really wants to be with. But she's sure there's no way she could ever be with Julian Porter.

When Julian starts talking to her, Noelle is terrified. It seems safer to stay with Matt than to risk a broken heart. But when the bullying of a friend goes too far, Noelle realizes it's time to stand up for herself--and for everything that makes her keep holding on.

Review:

Books like Keep Holding On are the kind of books no one really wants to criticize. It delivers a strong anti-bullying message with its stark portrayal of the torment Noelle goes through and anyone who has been bullied--no, anyone with a heart--will realize how worthwhile the novel is. After the recent attention on suicides due to bullying and bullying itself, this kind of novel was begging to be written. Colasanti's novel begins strongly, but a lack of strong characterization throughout the cast and lacking coverage of other subjects brought into the novel weaken its overall impact.

Noelle's characterization is fantastic. The self-loathing, the way she felt helpless to change her fate until late in the novel, her feelings of isolation--they all ring so true because I've felt the same way. From kindergarten to twelfth grade, there wasn't a year I wasn't bullied by my classmates, and I was more than happy to graduate a few weeks ago after a rough senior year that saw me having panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. Like Noelle, I considered suicide, but I decided to keep holding on because I knew it would get better eventually. I found something I loved doing and clung to it for dear life, and Noelle reflects so many aspects of me in her personality that it's almost uncomfortable.

What I wanted to see was stronger characterization across the board. Noelle's love interest Julian is never really a character. He functions more as a goal or ideal to Noelle. With him in that role, their romance becomes very underwhelming and he is robbed of becoming the full character he deserves to be. Noelle's bullies and her own mother get taps of characterization, but they deserved more depth too. Two-hundred pages is relatively short for a novel and when major topics like suicide, child neglect, and rape are introduced, they don't get the full attention they deserve and need because of the length and concentration on bullying.

So while I feel Keep Holding On itself is only worth three stars because of its weaknesses, I will give it a fourth star for the resources listed at the back of the book. The links to organizations like A Thin Line, To Write Love On Her Arms, and Love Is Respect are perfectly placed so any reader the story resonated with can reach out to the right people and groups. Short and poignant, Keep Holding On is the kind of novel I can see making a difference in the right person's life.

4 stars!

What am I reading next?: Waking Storms by Sarah Porter

Falling Under by Gwen Hayes

Title: Falling Under
Author: Gwen Hayes
Publisher: New American Library
Release Date: March 1, 2011
Pages: 324 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: Bought it.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: audiobook clip | book trailer | author website

Theia Alderson has always led a sheltered life, not allowed the same freedoms as the rest of the teenagers in the small California town of Serendipity Falls. But when a devastatingly handsome boy appears in the halls of her school, she feels every urge she's ever denied burning thorugh her at the slightest glance from Haden Black. Theia knows she's seen Haden before--not around town, but in her dreams.

Theia doesn't understand how she dreamed of Haden before they ever met, but every night has them joined in a haunting world of eerie fantasy. And as the Haden of both the night and the day beckons her forward one moment and pushes her away the next, the only thing Theia knows for sure is that the incredible pull she feels toward him is stronger than her fear. And as she slowly discovers what Haden truly is, Theia's not sure whether she wants to resist him--even if the cost is her soul.

Review:

What a surprise! Though I've had Falling Under on my shelf for months, I didn't expect to like it very much. I wanted to see how someone else wrote about demons (because I have an idea or five about demons stuck in my head), but reviews from friends told me all I felt I needed to know about it. Then I actually got to reading and discovered I liked it. It was this close to being one of my five-star reads, but the romance sunk this ship.

Hayes's descriptions are often so lush I want to do nothing but bask in them; Under and its inhabitants are like a mixture of Alice in Wonderland and Tim Burton films (but not the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland; more like Corpse Bride). That sort of twisted, nonsensical beauty wowed me. There are multiple scenes I'll be going back to not just because they're great for reference, but because they're well-written and overall fantastic. The tarot-reading at Madame Varnie's, the chaos when the hell noise goes off at Theia's school, and the early dreams Theia has, for instance.

The romance. Oh, the romance. This is my sole problem with the novel and it was bad enough to bring it down quite a few notches. Theia was a well-rounded character for the life her father has forced her to live and I often felt for her, but she got stupid if it had to do with Haden. She's ready to confess that she's in love with Haden by page fifty-three, for Pete's sake! They fell in insta-love and though I can see why Hayes forced them into it, the weakness of their relationship weakens the novel overall because so much depends on their feelings for one another.

You know what the sad thing is? Both Theia and Haden had somewhat legitimate reasons to develop feelings for one another so quickly. Haden has lived in hell all his life and found something that made him happy when he first saw Theia. Meanwhile, Theia has been restrained all her life and when a boy comes along to show interest in her, all the freedom she's never been able to enjoy comes out and she falls head-first in "love". Even when these reasons, they still fall into the insta-love trap and make me want to scream (not the good kind of scream), mostly because Theia never really questions how quickly she falls and doesn't get put of the way she should by Haden's behavior.

I'm not sure I want to read its sequel Dreaming Awake, but I'll keep it in mind because Falling Under was such a pleasant surprise. I originally thought I'd be giving away this novel for credit at the used bookstore, but I'll be holding onto it instead. A girl needs references when she gets writing, after all. I just wish the romance had been restructured and made much stronger. That would have made this a five-star read in my eyes.

3 stars! (But more like 3.5 stars.)

What am I reading next?: Keep Holding On by Susane Colasanti

Armchair BEA 2012: Beyond the Blog

Armchair BEA Day 4: Yet another topic I'm not sure how to cover because the prompt wasn't phrased so well. Option one: Share tips for getting beyond our blogs, like doing freelance writing, monetizing our blogs, and making connections outside the book blogging community. Option two: Share something fun about our blog/life that might not have anything to do with books.

Though I have done freelance writing of a sort (I wrote for my school newspaper for about two years) and I do monetize my blog so I can try to get together money for giveaways, option one isn't going to work for me. Option two it is!

Books and the English language itself aren't my only passions. I also have an interest in digital design and doing stuff on the computer; I took tech classes for two years and enjoyed them very much. As I'm sure is obvious, I created my banner, button, and the pictures I use to denote ratings in my reviews (DNF, 1 star, 2 star, etc. Speaking of which, I feel like redesigning them.). The books in my banner? I lined them up on my shelf, took the picture, and got to work in Photoshop.

I took all my best Photoshop creations with me on a flash drive just before I graduated, so here are a few of them for you to look at.

A fake magazine cover featuring Ke$ha that I had to create for a project:

An eye/stars combo I used as my background on the computer I used at school, though it looked better on the other computer than it does on here:

Three fake digital design business cards (the two with black boxes in them are blanking out my last name; the author that recently posted a reviewer's personal information is one I have had long-standing problems with and I don't feel comfortable putting my last name out there because of her):

A photo I took on a camping trip and then messed around with (my mother was not holding that knife, the fire was not that large, and that beer was not on fire either):

Finally, a mock cover I created for my manuscript using stock images from DeviantArt (the weakest of the pieces I've posted today, in my opinion):

As you may be able to tell from the title, it has to do with vampires. It seems to start off as your typical "girl meets vampire, vampires bites girl" story, but then the vampire asks the girl to marry him, she refuses by saying she'd have to be insane to marry him, and he takes that literally. While he's trying to break her, she accidentally makes a vow to a thirteen-year-old psychic that forces her to protect the child from all the monsters after her and she's got to deal with all the problems that come with being turned into a superhuman guardian against her will. It's fairly dark and I wrote my first draft of the novel when I was sixteen. I'm now on my fourth draft.

I'm not a master at using design programs and there are a lot of things I still can't do, but I'm happy with where my skill level is at and I love to play around. I've never really thought of doing commissions because I'm insecure about my abilities and the Photoshop software my computer has isn't the best. I'm not near as good as I want to be. Maybe one day.

Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

Title: Struck
Author: Jennifer Bosworth
Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux BYR
Release Date: May 8, 2012
Pages: 373 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC I received in a swap with a friend.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: book trailer | author website

Mia Price is a lightning addict. She’s survived countless strikes, but her craving to connect to the energy in storms endangers her life and the lives of those around her.

Los Angeles, where lightning rarely strikes, is one of the few places Mia feels safe from her addiction. But when an earthquake devastates the city, her haven is transformed into a minefield of chaos and danger. The beaches become massive tent cities. Downtown is a crumbling wasteland, where a traveling party moves to a different empty building each night, the revelers drawn to the destruction by a force they cannot deny. Two warring cults rise to power, and both see Mia as the key to their opposing doomsday prophecies. They believe she has a connection to the freak electrical storm that caused the quake, and to the far more devastating storm that is yet to come.

Mia wants to trust the enigmatic and alluring Jeremy when he promises to protect her, but she fears he isn’t who he claims to be. In the end, the passion and power that brought them together could be their downfall. When the final disaster strikes, Mia must risk unleashing the full horror of her strength to save the people she loves, or lose everything.

Review:

I sit here with this book next to me and have just seventy pages left until I reach the end. For the last two-hundred pages or so, I have been skimming and forcing myself to keep reading but I can't do that anymore. My brain is so adamantly against this book that when I try to read it, I can't register any of the words on the page. I've got limits on the bookish torture I will inflict upon myself. With lackluster development, annoying insta-love, a heroine and love interest I didn't care much for, and sometimes cliched writing, one of the most fascinating premises of the year goes to waste in Struck.

The warring-cults aspect of the novel, though unexpected, was what I enjoyed the most and what had the most potential. Numerous religious groups and cults are focused on when the end of the world is coming and it's only logical one would spring up when it appears the apocalypse is upon us as it is in Struck. That people would join them when the world appears to be going to rot the way Mia's mom did? Totally realistic to me. The sci-fi aspect of the novels that gives people struck by lightning their powers undoubtedly makes this novel fantastic for some readers, but I felt the novel would have been more powerful and entertaining if it was contemporary rather than sci-fi/post-apocalyptic. Personal tastes and all. Surprisingly, the heavy doses of Christianity and religion did not bother me like usual.

Mia states at the beginning of the novel that she has lost her hair more than once after lightning struck her. I think the lightning strikes made her lose some brain cells too. When she calls love interest Jeremy's eyes "the most beautifully tortured blue eyes I'd ever seen (ARC p. 68)", a flag so red that it burned went up because torture is not beautiful. At all. The way Mia reacts the the idea of Jeremy stalking her with "Jeremy, a stalker? No way. A guy like Jeremy didn't need to stalk (ARC p. 86)" is actually kind of dangerous. I hate seeing that myth be perpetuated. And there's the whole thing where he sneaked into her room and meant to stab her...

As far into the novel as I got, I still wasn't sure why Mia liked Jeremy. I get part of why Jeremy likes Mia after reading through his backstory, but why does she like him? Is it because she's a hopeless girl in a hopeless world trying to find some hope in a guy who appears to be interested in her? Is it because he's hot (spoiler: YES)? I applied as many reasons to them as I could, but nothing worked and made me understand. With so many pages in this book, seeing so little development for these two was disappointing.

Overall, Struck needed a little more time in the oven so it came out golden brown instead of lily white. The characters experienced very little growth and were given little depth. This book was of a somewhat formidable length, but so little was done in all those pages. Why do any of these characters do the things they're doing? Why can lightning do everything from giving people superpowers to curing cancer? Eh, they just do and it just can. Just go with it. "Just go with it/just because" is the answer to about half the questions I asked about this book and that kind of non-explanation can ruin a book for me.

And that is why Struck is yet another novel I did not, could not, and will not finish.

What am I reading next?: Falling Under by Gwen Hayes

Armchair BEA 2012: Networking

Here on day three of Armchair BEA, we're supposed to talk about a positive real-life experience with books. Their suggested topics were partnerships in the community, a book signing I may have gone to, or a get-together with other bloggers, just to get us thinking.

Unfortunately, I've done none of that. There aren't any bloggers in my area that I know (but I know one is around here; ARCs for YA books both recent and unreleased keep turning up at a used bookstore) and I've never been to a book signing. So my topic? What one book series I read ended up doing for me and how it encouraged me to both deal with and start speaking out about one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. Hoping this doesn't end up being terrible off-topic, but I felt it would work.

(For anyone who may need trigger warnings, putting up one right here for sexual abuse of a child.)

Like most people once were, I used to be thirteen and stupid. Though I consumed books like they were candy--reading, like my body type, is a trait passed through my mother's side of the family--I didn't care about them and never thought much on them. More than anything, I read magazines like CosmoGirl! and Seventeen.

 In one issue of CosmoGirl! that I read in October 2007, there was an excerpt of a novel called Vampire Kisses 4: Dance With a Vampire by Ellen Schreiber. I can look back on that passage now and recognize how bad it was, but at the time, there was something about it that spoke to me. It wasn't anything big; it was just Raven and Alexander on a date together, and Raven thought Alexander was finally going to bite her and turn her into a vampire.

Whatever captured my attention, it did it fully. A few days later, we were on our way out of town on a trip when I begged my parents to stop by the bookstore and let me get the books. My parents have always encouraged me in any of my pursuits and they had no problem with letting me buy some books. And so I left Books-A-Million with the first four books of the Vampire Kisses series, read them all over the weeekend, and promptly fell in love with them.

Not only was I thirteen and stupid, though! I was thirteen, stupid, and hurt. A year and a half before, when I was but twelve, my brother's best friend came on a camping trip with my family and molested me. It took me six months to tell my parents and at the time I encountered Vampire Kisses, I still wasn't sure how to deal with what happened to me. My parents never sat down and had a talk with me about it and very few thirteen-year-olds have been educated on how any sexual abuse inflicted upon them isn't their fault. I wasn't one of those children and so I often blamed myself for what happened.

Vampire Kisses by itself didn't help me deal with the trauma, nor did any of the books I sought out after I finished reading the books and decided I wanted more like them. As I started reading more books and became exposed to broader ideas, my views changed. I started registering it more when women in a book were treated badly and recognizing it as Not Okay when this treatment was justified. I eventually stumbled into contemporary YA and the books about sexual abuse, which gave me the message that had never occurred to me before: What happened to me is not my fault.

So did I use this blog and my books to get involved in the book community? Unfortunately, no. I have never been good at networking, though I've been working hard to improve on that in the last few months. Have I used books to get more involved with other feminist-minded readers who don't want to see women blamed for what happened to them or put down for daring to be sexual? Hell yes. That is how I've networked: by connecting with other readers, online and real-life, who want to see the same changes I do in YA so harmful messages aren't being sent out to people who can be affected by them. I've used my experience to educate people more than once on how they should be careful of what they say and how they treat others.

It is always difficult to talk about what happened to me. I've kept it bottled up for close to six years now and I've only started opening up about it in the past year or so. But I don't want anyone to torture themselves the way I did because books are giving them the wrong messages.

(And as a postscript, I've been the one having the last laugh at the guy who molested me. He's been having some marital problems lately with his pregnant wife--it turns out she cheated on him and the child may not be his--and though some may call me cruel, I say this is karma coming back to him.)

Timepiece by Myra McEntire

Title: Timepiece
Author: Myra McEntire
Publisher: Egmont USA
Release Date: June 15, 2012
Pages: 336 pages (hardcover)
How I Got the Book: ARC from the publisher through NetGalley.
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon; Barnes & Noble; Book Depository

A threat from the past could destroy the future. And the clock is ticking...

Kaleb Ballard's relentless flirting is interrupted when Jack Landers, the man who tried to murder his father, timeslips in and attacks before disappearing just as quickly. But Kaleb has never before been able to see time travelers, unlike many of his friends associated with the mysterious Hourglass organization. Are Kaleb's powers expanding, or is something very wrong?

Then the Hourglass is issued an ultimatum. Either they find Jack and the research he's stolen on the time gene, or time will be altered with devastating results.

Now Kaleb, Emerson, Michael, and the other Hourglass recruits have no choice but to use their unusual powers to find Jack. But where do they even start? And when? And even if they succeed, it may not be enough...

The follow-up to Hourglass, Timepiece blends the paranormal, science fiction, mystery, and suspense genres into a nonstop thrill ride where every second counts.

Review:

Light bulbs and appliances exploded because two people loved each other so much and had such chemistry. Someone made a glass fog up with their hands even though it's impossible. A girl could not stop talking about how hot her guy was long enough to get anything done. I tore my hair out. And all of that was just in Hourglass. Why did I read on? I hoped Timepiece would be an improvement since it's entirely in Kaleb's point of view and he was more tolerable than Em.

Well...

As with Hourglass, Timepiece was compulsively readable and flowed smoothly. A large number of short chapters (some as one front-and-back page) that all end in small cliffhangers keep things moving as the Hourglass kids are given a deadline to find Jack by and try to stop the rips that signal problems with the fabric of time. Whatever I have to say about the content of her novels, I can't say McEntire doesn't know a thing or two about pacing. Lily, Kaleb's love interest, is kind of adorable and I like her backstory. The insta-love between her and Kaleb never gets any better and they don't have any chemistry, but I would still kidnap Lily and keep her in my closet so I could huggle her whenever I pleased. Kaleb can go away. He's such a cockwaffle.

Kaleb sounds exactly like Em. Their narrative styles have little to no difference and it can really mess up how you read the book. When Kaleb lusted over Em's best friend Lily, it could have been Em lusting over Lily. When Kaleb fawned over Em in the first chapter or two, it sounded like Em fawning over herself and Michael and pretending it wasn't her doing the fawning. The two characters have different personalities and the two of them sounding the same the way they do is a serious flaw.

Then there was this line (the context of which is that Lily and Kaleb were making out in her bed and starting to strip off their clothes):

"I wanted to unzip my skin and pull her inside." (ARC p. 250)

?! o_O

The above was my exact response to that line. At the time, there were literally no words I could come up with. Some people are going to like that imagery, but all I get from it is that he basically wants to eat her and I hate it. Is cannibalism the new Hunger Games? I've seen this happen in other books too. Characters are making out and they're biting at each other like they're trying to eat each other (like Jace and Clary in one of the Mortal Instrument books I never read) and it's supposed to be romantic and I'm like YOU PEOPLE ARE CANNIBALS. Stop romantic cannibalism before it starts, people.

Yet another cliffhanger and clues to the location of the Infinityglass, an artifact everyone spends the entire book chasing, close out the installment and set up the plot of a third novel in the Hourglass series. I don't think I'll be reading on this time unless Lily narrates it because I don't think there is anymore hope for me and this series. Bad metaphors that invoke a reaction of OMG CANNIBALS are a deal-breaker. And yes, there are still exploding light bulbs and appliances when people kiss.

2 stars!

What am I reading next?: Beautiful Lies by Jessica Warman

Armchair BEA 2012: Best of 2012--So Far

The second day of Armchair BEA is about the best books we've read so far in 2012 and doing giveaways if we have any to give. (Or was it just awesome 2012 books we've read? I've seen about three or four different ideas of what Day 2 is supposed to be about. Fuck, I don't even know anymore, so I'm doing this.) Unfortunately, I do not have a giveaway, but I do have plenty of fantastic books I've read in 2012 that I can babble about.


Stolen by Lucy Christopher: Beautiful, engrossing, absorbing--I am at a lack of adjectives for this book. You should have seen me go on the warpath when I found someone was plagiarizing this book with a story they were posting online! But that story is gone now and my rage is soothed.









Angelfall by Susan Ee: So all my friends jumped on this bandwagon and I grabbed onto someone's leg, crawling my way into the wagon three months after everyone else had gotten on. Like ninety percent of the people who have read this novel, I'm impatiently awaiting the sequel's release.









Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein: Word for this = I can't even. Unreliable narrator, epistolary novel, fantastic characters, tear-jerker moments--this has it all. Out of all of these books I'm listing, this is my #1 favorite.










Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers: Friends have been praising her for years, but I only just got around to reading Summers's novels after I loved This Is Not a Test. I was so happy to see this come up as a deal on Amazon that you can't even know. Though it was definitely weaker than the novel that made me buy Cracked Up to Be in the first place, I still loved it very much.






All the books below this point haven't had their reviews posted yet, but leaving them out of this list when they were some of the best I've read this year would be a crime.


 
This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers: I'm really not into zombie novels or zombie anything (that is my older brother's department), but I went for it anyway and WOW. Wow. Summers tapped into the darker sides of her characters the way I wish I could with my writing. My experience with this novel made me put everything else she's written on my to-read list. I read Cracked Up to Be up there because of this.






Spark by Amy Kathleen Ryan: I didn't care much for the first book in the series, but I kept on with it because after all, I read Glow in the first place because I knew I had an ARC of Spark coming. I impressed with where the story went. It was even better than Glow! Spark made me a fan of the series, and that is why I sometimes persist with series I dislike or feel ambivalent about.







Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan: There really aren't any words for this one but EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! I'd previously been disinterested in her Demon's Lexicon series after a so-so experience with the first book, but Unspoken was so good I bought the other two books of the Demon's Lexicon trilogy. The power of good books is strong like that.

What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang: Took me completely by surprise. I was on vacation the weekend I read it and when I should have been out getting a tan and entertaining some children, I curled up inside with my computer instead in order to finish reading this book. Look for it when it comes out--the relationship between Eva and Addie is fantastic and the way the romance was but an undercurrent to the main issues of the novel was perfect.

Armchair BEA 2012: Introductions First!

This year, I'm participating in Armchair BEA 2012! Here's a small interview with myself to kick off this year's activities with.

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? How long have you been blogging? Why did you get into blogging?

Hi! I'm Ashleigh, a fan of books, cats, scented candles, and parenthetical asides (I like to think they're my unique little touch). I've been blogging for roughly a year and a half now, having started in September 2010, and I admit, I started blogging because I saw all the lovely books other bloggers were getting and wanted a piece of that. Shortly thereafter, I came to care less about the ARCs (though I appreciate them when I get them) and more about the freedom to share my thoughts on books with other people. No one in my life except for my two best friends read the same kind of books I do and finally being able to discuss them has made me that much more intelligent.

2. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012?

I'm divided between four books I'm reading right now:

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas; I'm a little wary of it after reading the three available novellas, but I planned a month-long event for the novellas/novel and I'm going to stick with it. I really hope I like it just so the money I spend on the hardcover of Throne of Glass I'm giving away during the event won't make me feel icky.

Waking Storms by Sarah Porter; The events of the first book are a little fuzzy in my head because I read it well over a year ago, but I've gotten about forty pages into the second and I'm liking it so far. Here's hoping the romance doesn't take over. I loved that the first book was about the mermaid dynamic, not romance.

Struck by Jennifer Bosworth; I'm reading it solely on a recommendation from one of my friends. Otherwise, I'm not sure I would have picked it up, though the idea of a lightning addict and two religious cults who want her sounds interesting enough. Fingers crossed!

Dearly, Beloved by Lia Habel; I admit, I'm reading this solely for Pamela. She is one badass girl! Not looking forward to the six points of view, though. The first novel couldn't use five well and I doubt this one can use six well.

3. Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you.

On June 1, I graduated magna cum laude from high school with a GPA of 4.18. When I go to college in August, I'm attending on a full-ride academic scholarship.

9. What is your favorite part about the book blogging community? Is there anything that you would like to see change in the coming years?

I love that the book blogging community is drama-free--in a manner of speaking, of course. Most of us know how it's been lately with all the author/reviewer fights and Kristi the Story Siren's plagiarism (now that was an implosion) and that definitely isn't the kind of drama-free I mean. Maybe I don't get out enough, but I don't see one book blogger fighting and creating drama with another book blogger for no reason. When I jump online, I don't hear about So-and-So from This Blog spamming and threatening This Person all the time.

In the next few years, I would like to see authors, publishers, and book bloggers alike come to a better understanding of one another so that all the drama stops. In addition, I'd like everyone to be more aware of the intricacies of plagiarism so nothing like the Story Siren implosion happens again. The response to that made me happy in some ways (yay! Everyone knows more about plagiarism now and what to do about it!) and disappointed in others (who the fuck thought it was a good idea to email threats to the plagiarism victims?!).

10. Have your reading tastes changed since you started blogging? How?


My God, how they have changed. By reading so many books both great and terrible, my tastes have become more refined. I'm difficult to impress and I know exactly what kind of book I want to read. I've become more socially minded in the past few years. Reading with a feminist eye has become second nature to me and when a book is blatantly anti-feminist (see When You Were Mine, Starcrossed, and Nightshade), I go on the warpath. Abusive relationships (and not just physically abusive), slut shaming, and homophobia turn me off to a book; books that celebrate the diversity of people in gender, orientation, and ability make me swoon. Code Name Verity in particular was one I swooned over because of how it showed men weren't the only ones fighting hard for their freedom; women were fighting just as hard.

In addition, I've gotten a little bit masochistic with my reading. I get a little fascinated with how terrible a book is said to be. Hey, nothing makes you appreciate a fantastic book the way a horrible book does. I only pick up those kinds of books from time to time, though. Ninety percent of the time, I read a book honestly hoping I will love it.