Friday Finds

I just found another fun meme - and another one from MizB @ Should Be Reading. Friday Finds are books that you've heard about during the past week. For me, I'm taking it a step further: these are books I heard about and may potentially read.

If you have any information on any of these titles please lemme know! :D

My finds this week:

Incarceron - Catherine Fisher

- (American edition, right) Hardcover, 2010; 464 pages

- (British edition, left) Paperback, 2007; 464 pages

- Goodreads reviews: 37% (5 stars), 41% (4 stars), 15% (3 stars), 4% (2 stars), 1% (1 star)

Incarceron -- a futuristic prison, sealed from view, where the descendants of the original prisoners live in a dark world torn by rivalry and savagery. It is a terrifying mix of high technology -- a living building which pervades the novel as an ever-watchful, ever-vengeful character, and a typical medieval torture chamber -- chains, great halls, dungeons. A young prisoner, Finn, has haunting visions of an earlier life, and cannot believe he was born here and has always been here. In the outer world, Claudia, daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, is trapped in her own form of prison -- a futuristic world constructed beautifully to look like a past era, an imminent marriage she dreads. She knows nothing of Incarceron, except that it exists. But there comes a moment when Finn, inside Incarceron, and Claudia, outside, simultaneously find a device -- a crystal key, through which they can talk to each other. And so the plan for Finn's escape is born ...

The Sugar Queen - Sarah Addison Allen
- Hardcover: April 2009 by Bantam (first published in 2008)
- Goodreads reviews: 27%(5 stars), 42% (4 stars), 24% (3 stars), 6% (2 stars), 1% (1 star)

Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter is her favorite season, she’s a sorry excuse for a Southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her closet. For while Josey has settled into an uneventful life in her mother’s house, her one consolation is the stockpile of sugary treats and paperback romances she escapes to each night…. Until she finds her closet harboring Della Lee Baker, a local waitress who is one part nemesis—and two parts fairy godmother. With Della Lee’s tough love, Josey’s narrow existence quickly expands. She even bonds with Chloe Finley, a young woman who is hounded by books that inexplicably appear when she needs them—and who has a close connection to Josey’s longtime crush. Soon Josey is living in a world where the color red has startling powers, and passion can make eggs fry in their cartons. And that’s just for starters.

AVPM - Part II!

(Early) Cinema Weekend

Here's my early Cinema Weekend! This "movie" you can watch on your computer - brought to you by the good folks @ youtube!

Okay, this is one of my favorite videos of all time. Actually, it's more of a production, because it's close to an hour long - shorter than most films nowadays, but still something you'll need to curl up somewhere and watch :D Here's the story: a couple of years ago, a bunch of theatre kids at Michigan State got together and put on a musical version of Harry Potter. The production's gotten so many hits that they've released a cast recording (free) and from what I've heard, they're talking about touring the production. This is definitely for all Potter Fans out there - and if you're not a Potter Fan, you just might enjoy it anyway!











(PS the scurvy thing will only let me post each scene separately--so I'll be working on getting the whole thing up!). So I created a category just for this - "A Very Potter Musical" over on the left side...

Review of THE SPOOK'S SECRET (Wardstone, #3)

Much, much, MUCH better than the Spook's Curse, thank goodness!

In this third installment of the Wardstone Chronicles, Thomas Ward and his master, the Spook, head over to Anglezarke for the winter season. While there, Tom uncovers more secrets about the Spook's shady past, including a menacing former apprentice bent on destroying the Spook - and the whole County.

Delaney's flair for descriptions has returned full force! Like in The Spook's Apprentice, the setting played a substantial role in the shaping of the story, and Delaney has an obvious knack for truly illustrating each scene. - One of the things I didn't like about its immediate predecessor was the impertinent and condescending tone of the story - in other words, there was way too much of an agenda. Here, for the most part, we go back to a basic story: there's action, there are revelations, there's character development, there's intrigue and suspense, and true to the series' overall nature, a bit of horror too. Now I will say that the Designated Supernatural Creature of this story is almost identical to the Designated Supernatural Creature of The Spook's Curse: a mysterious and seemingly all-powerful spirit-figure that is likened to a pagan god. That bit of repetition was a drawback, as was the Spook's continued crabbiness to all things "churchy".

But the bread-and-butter of Spook's Secret lies in the revelations: we learn so much about the Spook's past here and it's a rollercoaster of a story, too. There were so many twists and turns (like on a rollercoaster - only without the tummyache) that every time I thought I had things figured out, I found myself mistaken. I liked the Spook, then I hated him, then I liked him again, etc.

The best characters, though, are Tom and Alice. Tom especially goes through so much in this book, and it's so enjoyable to watch him mature! I'm ready for him to start aging, though. The three books so far have amounted to only a year's time and I personally like series books to get a bit more sequential: 1 year between each installment seems ideal, not one-right-after-the-other. I think going into Book #4 he'll be 14...hopefully. I want him to grow up!

So much, much better than The Spook's Curse, but still not as good as Apprentice. The series lacks a Main Villain character, so there seems like a lack of focus...idk, that may just be me. And Delaney still is really ambiguous when it comes to philosophical stuff... and that gets on my nerves. For example, he's got this godlike spirit that is powerful enough to "snuff out your soul," yet he's pretty much at the beck-and-call of human summonings? That's awkward, Mr. Delaney! Make up your mind! Oh, well. Mr. Delaney probably knows that I'll keep reading the series anyway, cause I'm a sucker for Tom Ward, haha.

Rating: 4.5/5. Slightly under the Perfect-5-Star rating, but very very good!

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should be Reading.Here's how it works:- Grab the current book you're reading- Open up to a random page- share 2 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page - just don't include spoilers!!!

**Note: I personally will probably fudge on the numbers and do more than just 2 sentences...!

Once again, my Teaser Tuesday comes from my ongoing series of The Wardstone Chronicles...this week I'm on book 4/6 (technically there's 8 right now, but the last 2 books aren't out yet)...so one of these days I will do a Teaser Tuesday for a non-Warstone book!

Here is my teaser, from Book 4 of the Wardstone Chronicles - The Spook's Battle

"He gave a great roar of anger and bafflement, and for a moment I thought he was about to hurl himself down onto me. But instead I heard the sound of claws cutting into the wooden ceiling panels and a dark shape moved above me toward the door. Moments later I was alone..."

- The Spook's Battle, pg 184

The very first COVER WARS!

Okay, I've been looking forward to getting this up for a couple weeks now! Hopefully this will turn into a weekly thing...

The Book on the Hill's French Friday and Bloody Bookaholic's US vs. UK memes are similar to this one, but whereas they have a specific focus (US & French, or US & British), mine will try to be a little broader in focus! Let's get some Australian editions, some Canadian editions, some German editions, etc! Some times (like this week) there may be multiple-country editions...
So every week I will try to war the cover design of one series (or stand-alone book) with another to see who the winner is!

Do you judge a book by its cover [design]?? Well here, ahem, we do! :D
I for one love to see different cover designs and sometimes will buy foreign covers if I think they're prettier... maybe I'm just compulsive!

So for the first ever Cover Wars, I couldn't help but spotlight the series I'm currently reading, The Wardstone Chronicles by Joseph Delaney. There are 3 main cover designs: 2 British editions, and 1 American edition:

Which do you like better???

American Cover Editions

Original UK Cover Editions - these are what mine look like! I shipped them from UK Amazon

New UK Cover Editions - Oh pooh! I personally think these are snazzier!

Reading Recap - January

Note: From now on I'm going to do my READING RECAP on a monthly basis...otherwise I'll be making the same posts every week - redundant! My blog is also a little over 1 month old, so I'm still playing around with what works and what doesn't. So thank you so much for your patience and input!

** I can't seem to make them all the same sizae, aaaggh! Bear with me!