Sunday, February 21, 2010

A Quick Recap



Books Read
The Sugar Queen
Perelandra (for my C.S. Lewis class - I don't have a review yet)
Child of the Dark Prophecy (in progress)

Books Reviewed

My Posts
Cover Wars [3]: Incarceron & Leviathan
Imagined by Amelia at 12:11 AM 2 shout-outs!

Friday, February 19, 2010

So long to one series, hello to a new one

From January 16 to February 14 I was immersed in The County of The Wardstone Chronicles by Joseph Delaney. The series is incomplete and the next installment (The Spook's Nightmare) is scheduled for UK release on May 27, 2010. It was weird to read The Sugar Queen this week because for nearly a month I had read nothing but this series, and I had come to love and care about all the characters. I also loved Delaney's knack for scenery and detail, and The County seemed like such a real and attainable location :)

For fans of Harry Potter, Septimus Heap, and other magic-and-fantasy YA series, The Wardstone Chronicles (known as the Last Apprentice series in the US) is a must-read.

I’ll miss Tom, Alice, the Spook and their pet boggart, who I’ve come to know and love in this last month, but I’ll see them again in May. Until then, it’s a sad but fond farewell to the world of The County...


...and a 'hello' to the Seven Realms of Avalon! The Great Tree of Avalon by T.A. Barron is a completed trilogy so there will be no axiety awaiting the next installment (I could barely focus last year, I was so excited about The Last Olympian!).
Here's some info...
- 12 October 2004 by Philomel
- (Hardcover) 432 pages
- GR reviews: 42% (5 stars), 33% (4 stars), 19% (3 stars), 4% (2 stars), 1% (1 star)
Long ago the great wizard Merlin planted the seed that would become the peaceful world of Avalon. Now, the enchanted land is in peril, and its fate lies in the hands of three people-but only one of them is Merlin's heir who can save Avalon, while the others are destined to destroy it.
- 6 October 2005 by Philomel
- (Hardcover) 432 pages
- GR reviews: 44% (5 stars), 33% (4 stars), 19% (3 stars), 2% (2 stars), 0% (1 star)
Continuing the Great Tree of Avalon epic, three companions embark on separate, far-reaching quests to solve the mystery of the vanishing stars-confronting the very powers of darkness along the way.
The Eternal Flame - T.A. Barron
- 19 October 2007 by Philomel
- (Hardcover) 400 pages
- GR reviews: 43% (5 stars), 33% (4 stars), 19% (2 stars), 0% (1 star)
I'm not putting the blurb because it has a SPOILER! I got SPOILED!!
Imagined by Amelia at 7:44 PM 3 shout-outs!

Friday Finds [2]

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. Friday Finds is hosted by MizB @ Should be Reading

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

My finds this week:

The Troll Trilogy by Katherine Langrish.

A secret kingdom of trolls, and their legendary gold, lies in the mysterious shadows of Troll Fell. It is to this eerie and dangerous place that Peer must go after his father's sudden death, to live with his greedy uncles, Baldur and Grim, at their mill.
When Peer discovers his uncles' plan to sell children to the trolls, he has to bury his fears and set out to stop them somehow. In a world filled with magic and mystery, Peer has only his bravery, his wits, and two new allies -- a daring girl looking for adventure and a mischievous house spirit looking for a good meal. Their story will become part of the legends and lore that fill this extraordinary land by the sea.

Fifteen-year-old Peer Ulfsson is haunted by his past. Forced to live with his evil uncles under the eerie shadows of Troll Fell, he nearly fell prey to their plan to sell children to the trolls. Now Peer lives with his friend Hilde's family, but can he ever truly belong? And will Hilde ever share his deeper feelings?
One rainy night, Peer watches in shock as his neighbor Kersten pushes her baby daughter into his arms and then disappears into the sea. Rumor says that Kersten is a seal woman who has returned to her ocean home, and the millpond witch, Granny Green-teeth, seems intent on taking the "seal baby." Peer also discovers that the mill, abandoned when his uncles joined the troll kingdom, is running again -- all on its own?
With angry trolls, mysterious seal people, a mischievous house spirit, and three unusual babies in the mix, Peer and Hilde have their hands full and more! Katherine Langrish returns to the magical world of her acclaimed debut, troll fell, in this second story set in an extraordinary land by the sea filled with Viking legends and lore.

The dramatic and gripping conclusion to Katherine Langrish's highly-acclaimed TROLL trilogy. When seafaring traders, Gunnar, and his sword-wielding son, Harald Silkenhair, land in Trollsvik, looking for crew to join their journey to Vinland (North America), Hilde is desperate to join the ship. She begs her parents to let her go as Gunnar's wife Astrid's companion, and when Peer agrees to go and look after her, her parents reluctantly agree. But Gunnar and Harald are dangerous men. Harald has killed a man, and Gunnar has been cursed and is losing his wits in fear that the dead man's ghost is following him. Harald has an uncontrollable, raging temper, and a perilous rivalry develops between he and Peer. By the time they finally reach the shores of Vinland, the settlement is looking less of an attractive proposition. And that's before they meet the "Skraelings" (the Native American people) and the terrifying Jenu -- the cannibal giant with a heart of ice! Action-packed, suspense-fuelled and with a wonderful cast of characters, Troll Blood is a truly rip-roaring read.


And look - mighty purrty cover designs! That's almost always a good omen (except if you're Wicked Fugly, of course...sorry I couldn't help myself!)

I cannot wait to read these! My brothers read them over the Christmas break and they absolutely loved them! Did I mention my little jock brothers are avid readers?! So we're going to do a Avalon-for-Troll swap in a few weeks!
Imagined by Amelia at 9:45 AM 4 shout-outs!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Newsflash! Newsflash!

Here are 2 contests that I wanted to >spolight<

My lovely-wonderful blog buddy Melissa's birthday is coming up! YEEHAW!
She's hosting a birthday contest and giving away 2 of her favorite books & a $25 card to Amazon! Isn't that nice of her to give gifts on her birthday!!

For more details, visit Melissa's site @ I Swim for Oceans




My amazingly awesome blog buddy Choco @ In Which a Girl Reads recently reached 400 followers! HUZZAH!
To celebrate, she is generously hosting a giveaway in which you can win a book of your choice from The Book Depository (they are great) up to a total cost of $20.

For more details, visit Choco's site. The deadline is March 6, 2010.


:D

Imagined by Amelia at 7:18 PM 4 shout-outs!

Some Awards :)

So...either I can study for my Greek test (baaarf) or we can have an award ceremony (huzzah!).
I'm going with award ceremony :)

Thank you so much to Jami @ YA Addict for this kewl award!



And now I'll pass it along to some other kewl blogs:

And then thank you to Sara @ Along for the Ride for this cutie-patootie award!



I am so excited to pass this along to some of my other great bloggy buddies!

Yay! And hey, tomorrow's Friday - yeehaw I'm ready for this week to be oooooverrrrrr


Imagined by Amelia at 6:43 PM 7 shout-outs!
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Review - THE SUGAR QUEEN


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.



I went into this book kind of the same way I go into candy stores – not knowing what exactly I’m going to get, but expecting it to somehow taste good.


- What I liked best about The Sugar Queen was Sarah Addison Allen’s writing style. Her prose is simple yet really elegant and also packed with all sorts of literary techniques that will have English teachers squealing in delight. There are several times when this book just seems so savory! I am probably going overboard on the references to sweets, but come on, sweets play a major role! And so do books. Bloggy buddies, we all can probably see a little of Chloe in ourselves when it comes to her “relationship” with books! There are also several passages in my copy that are underlined; not only does Allen have an amazing style of prose, but she is so good about conveying the messages and themes of her story. Unlike candy, The Sugar Queen is not all fluff and sweets: there are important lessons that can be learned from the stories of all the characters.

- Characterization is another of Allen’s strong suits. She is able to take several characters, give them all important stories, connect them all together and yet keep them somehow independent. Josey Cirrini – a 27year old “this side of plump” young woman with a penchant for sweets and romance novels is the main character, but the omniscient perspective of the story follows pretty much every character at least once – I counted at least 7 perspectives by the end. While it was certainly interesting to get the dibs on every major character in this small town, and watch their emotional growth, it got a bit hectic at times.

For example, if there were 3 people in a scene, the perspective would switch back-and-forth so rapidly that I wasn’t sure who was doing the thinking and the speaking. That’s the downside of omniscience, I guess.

- And also, because each character is explored in such a complex way (kind of like putting characters under a microscope) you really start to develop feelings for all of them. I can’t believe it, but Allen was able to make me sympathetic to characters that I thought I’d already figured out (Jake - for finished readers)! All of her characters are flawed – they all have hurts, habits, and hang-ups that are binding them in some way and keeping them from living their potential. That’s always an interesting thing to see in fiction – particularly grown up fiction. I guess at some point in literary history, characters were idealistic and “super-human,” without faults or weaknesses at all, because now the pendulum has pretty much swung in the clear opposite direction: we have characters who are so flawed they run the risk of being unrelatable. Sure, nobody’s perfect in real life so that needs to be seen in fiction, but if authors “screw up” their characters too much, they lose common ground with the reader. That’s probably my main disappointment when I read – authors write characters who are such screwballs that not only can I not relate, I can’t sympathize. The reason I want to introduce this idea is because Allen does not do that in her book. You can trust me on that – I’ll be the first to say how critical and hard-to-please I am! While I can’t relate specifically to certain characters, like what Chloe is going through (completely dependent on a man and thus in a passionate but one-sided and unhealthy relationship) I can relate to the feeling of not being in control of your own life. I'm sure we all feel that way sometimes. That’s pretty much the theme here – every character, for some reason or another, has a hurt, habit, or hang-up that they’re "in bondage" to. This book is about what happens next. And so I find this book appealing on the broad scale – on the lessons that Allen teaches through the story. And sure, I don’t see eye-to-eye with the author on some plot-y parts of the story, but I definitely am on board with her themes.

So bottom line: I ventured out on a limb with a bona fide adult book and was pleasantly surprised not only by the sweet story and emotion-grabbing characters (you can’t help but cheer for Chloe and Josey and even Della Lee!) but by the substance of the thematic elements. I love books that teach, or at least, books with messages!

Final rating: 4/5. Since this is an adult book, I wasn't surprised to find sex (not explicit but more that 'la la la how romantic!' feel and usually in flashbacks only) and language (I think like 3 'f' words toward the end). I only turn into a screaming banshee when I see that in YA stuff, so I guess I have no complaints. And I love the idea of books being magical, enchanted objects with minds of their own! That in and of itself is a brilliant and endearing concept!
Imagined by Amelia at 5:14 PM 10 shout-outs!
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

A Yummy Award!


Thank you so much to Maxine @ Maxine Reads for passing this yummy award on to me! Oooh it looks so good!

The rules for this Bliss (Happy 101) Award are that I must list 10 things that make me happy, then pass it along to 10 other bloggers.

1. Reading awesome YA/fantasy books! (everybody say "duh" on 3)
2. Chatting with my lovely bloggy buddies
3. the Anaheim Angels
4. Books with pretty, eye-catching cover designs
5. Guffawing at inside jokes with my bestfriend/roommate Lindsey! She's either Robin and I'm Batman, or I'm Robin and she's Batman...still trying to figure that one out...
6. BBC TV serials (the British really know their way around period pieces!)
7. Glenn Beck - I can't help it, that little dude cracks me up! He reminds me of a little elf...
8. church youth group back home
9. talking Percy Jackson with my ultra-awesome professors
10. anything to do with J.R.R. Tolkien!

I am happy to send this award on to...
Imagined by Amelia at 6:40 PM 12 shout-outs!
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