May Wrap-Up

This is late because I dropped the ball. In more ways than one, since it kind of turned out to be a bad reading month (I blame exams, but really, I think I've just been in a bit of a reading slump).

Read:

• The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melissa Salisbury
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
• The Start of Me and You by Emery Road
• The Wondrous and the Wicked by Page Morgan
• The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry
• The Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
• The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

Re-read:

•  Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
• Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo
• Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

Purchased:

• Outbreak! Plagues that Changed History: There was a copy of this in the back of the math classroom when I was in eighth grade, and I was fascinated by it. I've wanted to get a copy of my own since then.
• The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi: I already have a bind-up, but I caved and bought these for vanity reasons (I love Tony DiTerlizzi's art on the original hardcovers.)
• Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre: I've been meaning to read this since it was first released.
• The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, and Maureen Johnson: I have  weird relationship with the Shadowhunters books (I've decided to call them that, for simplicity's sake).
• Deadly by Julie Chibarro: *Suddenly notices epidemiology theme of book purchases*
• Rebel Nation by Shaunta Grimes: I read Viral Nation a while ago, so I snagged this off Book Outlet
• The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place by Julie Berry: This was a fun Middle Grade novel.
• Summer and Bird by Kathrine Catmull: I'm smitten with the cover, and the story sounds neat.
• The Shadowhunter's Codex by Cassandra Clare and Joshua Lewis: See above comment on my feelings about these books. Overall, I enjoy them, I also really like Cassandra Jean's artwork.
• Sea Change by S. M. Wheeler: This caught my eye a while ago, it sounds beautiful.
• The Search for Wonderla by Tony DiTerlizzi: I believe I've mentioned how much I like Tony DiTelizzi's art? 

Review: Crimson Bound

Title: Crimson Bound
Author: Rosamund Hodge
Genre: Fantasy
Release Date: May 5, 2015
Goodreads

A Quick Introduction: Three years ago, Rachelle was training to protect her village from the creeping darkness of the Forest. She was, until a reckless meeting with one of the sinister Forestborn bound her to the Forest and stained her hands with innocent blood. Rachelle is still trying to atone, all the while knowing that time grows short- both for her and for the world. In a desperate attempt to stop the spread of the Forest, Rachelle allies herself with the King's son to search for a sword so long lost that it has passed into myth.

Out of Ten: 5/10

Review at a Glance: An interesting enough world, but Red Riding Hood-inspired story suffered from less-than-engaging characters and slightly fumbling plot structure.

Review: It appears that Rosamund Hodge specializes in writing heroines with dark pasts and dark futures who I am not able to connect to. I had the same problem when I read and reviewed Cruel Beauty last year.

The setting is inspired by France, where the story of Red Riding Hood originated (Crimson Bound is very loosely based on Red Riding Hood). The scenes at court and in the Forest are vivid and interesting, and the world itself had enough unique elements that it felt original, despite its French influences.

Where this book fell down for me was in its magic system and characters. While the day-to-day and visual components of the world were clear, how and why the magic worked wasn't. This made a lot of the events that moved the plot along feel too convenient and a little forced, and made the ending difficult to follow.

The characters themselves were the other point where this book failed for me. I mentioned that Rosamund Hodge's heroines aren't characters that I really don't connect to. Their emotions just don't feel real to me, and the seem to go through the same realisation four or five times without ever really facing it. This was a little frustrating for me, and I found the motivations of the other characters hard to understand at times. I also found that the author falls back on the same tropes that were present in Cruel Beauty, in a slightly different arrangement. There was a lot going on in this book, and, without investment in the characters, I found it difficult to keep track of the nuances.

I'm still unable to tell if certain events were foreshadowed and I missed it, or if they just weren't foreshadowed at all. This ties in to how I mentioned that elements of the plot and ending felt too convenient, precisely because they felt like they came out of nowhere. The writing was nice, but it wasn't anything that blew me away. I appreciated some of the turns of phrase, but it wasn't enough to make me really interested in the book.

Overall, this book was just fine. The world and story had potential, but I struggled with some aspects of the execution, and it kept me from really investing in the story.

Armchair BEA 2015: Book to Movie Adaptations

This is something I've written on before, and I don't really think my feelings have changed much. Film is vastly different from books, so book-to-movie adaptations are just that- adaptations. As much as I would love to say that everything has to be done just like the book, the truth is that a lot of things that work in books don't work on screen. I've loved adaptations that are very different from the book (Lord of the Rings, for example).

There's two ways to love an adaptations: as a film, and as an adaptation. Loving it as a film is something based solely on its own merit. Loving it as an adaptation is appreciating how well one medium was translated into another. Going back to Lord of the Rings, I LOVE it as a film on its own, though I do have a few mixed feelings about it as an adaptation (though, all things considered, it still scores pretty high there, too).

Then we've got movies that are more "inspired by" than "adapted from" a book. This, to me, is films like Howl's Moving Castle, the book and movies of which I both really like. They share a general concept and a few similar scenes, but tell stories that are quite different in terms of plot, villain, and overall feel. These are the films that use the books more as a touchstone than as anything else, and they can have wonderful results as well.

How loyal do you think adaptations have to be to the book? What are you favourite adaptations, and why?

Armchair BEA 2015: Character Chatter and Blogging Q&A

Character Chatter

Characters are a big part of what makes a book a great read. While I wouldn't say that I have to like a character per say, I do sometimes have a harder time getting into books with narrators that I really don't like as people, and I have an even harder time if I can't sympathise with or connect to the character. Basically, its nice if I like the character as a person, it is important that I sympathise with/connect to them in some way. A good example from right now is Alina from Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo; I don't always like her, but I do understand her. Liking them is a bonus. Have a list of some (not all) or my favourite female leads from a Top Ten Tuesday a little while ago.

I talked about some things that I like and dislike in book couples in a Top Ten Tuesday post, and what it basically boils down to I like couples that are partners in more than just a romantic way. Having them feel like they know and trust each other is a big plus for me.

Blogging Q&A

I'm (obviously) on Blogger right now, but I'm thinking it might be time to switch to my own domain name. Which would be a kind of big step for me, so I'm naturally dithering. That's what I do. I dither.

I've never been very good at HTML (or CSS), which is a big contributor to the aforementioned dithering. I've tried to learn, I just can't get the hang of it. (Advice?) Networking for me is mostly Twitter, Tumblr, and sometimes NetGalley. I'm also trying to comment more on other blogs, I got out of the habit for a while. 

I still feel like I don't know much about blogging, despite having done it for a while now. I learn new things all the time. For one, I'm still trying to start scheduling posts. It isn't something I generally do, and something I would really like to get better at, especially for when classes resume again in the autumn. Its been a great few years, and I'm looking forward to doing even more with this blog in the future.

Armchair BEA 2015: Visual Representations and Social Media

Visual Representations

I don't read as many graphic novels as would like, so if you've got some great ones, feel free to leave recommendations in the comments. I love the idea of visual storytelling, but I think I can be kind of picky about art styles. There are so many wonderful options for storytelling now. There's visual, which is graphic novels, comics, webcomics, and the like. There's audio, which, on top of audiobooks, also opens up the realm of podcasts. Books sometimes have playlists now. Sometimes novels are illustrated. The diversity of the ways a story can be told keeps growing, and its pretty amazing.

Social Media

My social media presence, aside from this blog, of course, is really concentrated to three main other areas:

• Goodreads is great for keeping track of the books I've read, and I post my review there as well as on my blog. Though I find it kind of unweildy in some ways (it is 2015 and we still can't give half-stars, people review books without having read them...) I still like having a structured way to track, and let others track, what I'm reading
• My Tumblr is much more casual than this blog is. Because of the more relaxed design of Tumblr, I find that its a nice format for read-a-thons and the like (I'm tempted to start an impromptu one later this week, if anyone's interested...). Its more visual than my blog in a lot of ways. My Tumblr is a mix of reblogs and original content (mostly reblogs recently...)
• Twitter is a more recent acquisition for me, and one of the best choices I've made as a blogger. In a lot of ways its the most social of the social media outlets I use, and it is a little more rapid-fire than the others. 

Feel free to drop me a line on any of those, its always great to hear from other book bloggers! 

Armchair BEA 2015: Introduction

Click here to visit the Armchair BEA site.

How did you get into blogging?
My book blog wasn't in my first blog. I desperately hope the other blog has faded from the universe's collective memory, but regardless of that, my first blog post ever went live in 2009. As I say, it wasn't a book blog at first, but books are a huge part of my life, and I started writing more and more about books. I then stopped with that blog, and started this one in 2013, just for my book obsession, which continued to rise to ever-greater heights. I didn't discover that there was also an amazing book blogging community until a little later, though.

Why do you love reading and blogging?
I love reading because it lets me experience so many things, it makes me think, and its wonderfully fun on top of that. I don't have anyone nearly as mad about books in my life outside the internet as I am.

Share your favorite blog post on your blog.
*Strokes own ego* I found my How to Dislike a Book post really calming to write, because it was something that was really bothering me at the time.

What book are you reading right now?
I'm rereading Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo.

Take a picture of your bookshelf and share it with us!

Would you believe that this is the best angle I could find for my fiction shelves right now? It's a narrow room. Also, I just realised I still haven't delivered on that shelf tour I promised a while ago... I just have to organise my shelves first, they're mildly disastrous right now.

Ten Books I Plan To Have In My Beach Bag This Summer

Top Ten Tuesdays is a weekly feature created at The Broke and The Bookish.

Here are my fiction picks for summer reads. We don't really have many beaches near where I live, but none the less, here we go:

1. End of Days by Susan Ee: These books are quick reads, and I'm looking forward to having a chance to finish up the series.

2. Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee: This sort of just sounds like a good summer read. Some books just do.

3. The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh: Mostly because, by the time I get my hands on it, it will definitely be summer. Libraries are like that sometimes.

4. Sea Change by S. M. Wheeler: This sounds like a strange little book about a sea monster that isn't quite a monster.

5. The Martian by Andy Wien: I get the sense it will be the sort of book that I wander around with my nose in, attempting to do everything one-handed.

6. Compulsion by Martina Boone: This is another book that seems like a warm-weather read. Especially if the weather is humid.

7. This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel: Especially with the movie news, I would like to try it again, I'm not sure why I didn't finish it, I think school got busy.

8. Monstrous Affections edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant: I started this a while ago, but I would like to finish it. Short stories might be good for something to read between doing other things.

9. Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose: Stories about language barriers interest me, and this has a language barrier. Its also a part of an interesting time in North America's history.

10. Silver in the Blood by Jessica Day George: Sounds like a fun read.

Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Title: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Volume: 1
Genre: Fantasy, Romance, NA
Release Date: May 5, 2015
Goodreads
ARC from sixappleseeds

A Quick Introduction: When Feyre shoots a wolf in the woods, she doesn't realise that it is a faery, or that it had friends- vengeful friends. Feyre fins herself spirited away to the realm of the faeries. She now lives on the land of the faery lord Tamlin, and she comes to realise that nothing is as it seems- not even her captor.

Out of Ten: 4/10

Review at a Glance: Weak writing and plot didn't make up for the frustrating aspects of this NA fairy story.

Review: I found that I really didn't like this one. I read and reviewed Throne of Glass last year, and, while I didn't love it, I didn't mind it. I've found that Sarah J. Maas's writing isn't something that I enjoy. A lot of the things that I didn't like in Throne of Glass were magnified in this one.

The characters simply weren't characters that I really felt anything for. They were characters whose story I didn't feel compelled to really put much investment into most of the time. Feyre was a character who I didn't really like, primarily because she wasn't someone whose thought processes I could understand. I really wasn't a fan of Tamlin, or of Rysand, both had traits that I think were supposed to be attractive but really, really weren't for me. There were weaknesses in the characterisation that made the characters feel inconsistent.

There was only one chapter where I really found myself engaged in the story (the worm chapter, for those who've read it). The rest dragged, with very little in the way of plot in a world that didn't feel particularly vivid, as it was less constructed and more simply infodumped. Sarah J. Maas writes wonderful action, and I just wish there was more of it.

This was one of those books that I would have been pretty neutral towards, except that there was one thing that really bothered me, which kind of spoiled it for me. What infuriated me that Feyre was constantly being blamed for things that weren't her fault. As in: "You didn't do what I told you, I assaulted you, and, so,  my actions are your fault." There wasn't any reason to withhold information, but they did it anyway, sometimes to force the lagging plot along. I am not a fan of the whole blame-the-person-assaulted-for-the-assault thing, so I really didn't enjoy that, nor did I particularly like aspects of how women were treated.

In the end, this wasn't the book for me, I wasn't invested in the characters, and really didn't love some of the narrative decisions. I think Sarah J. Maas's writing might not be my cup of tea. I'm still undecided as to whether or not I'll be continuing the series.

Top Ten Bookish Memories

Top Ten Tuesdays is a weekly feature created at The Broke and The Bookish.

1. When I decided to read Harry Potter on my own. It was the first really full-length novel on my own. I was six or seven, I think. My reading really took off at the time.

2. Library summer reading program. My library runs a program every summer where kids get tickets for reading to enter into raffles. I ended up with a lot of tickets.

3. Grade 6. My sixth grade teacher took a period to read aloud to us frequently. She read Eragon, which I ended up really enjoying. (Dragons, people, dragons!)

4. Sherlock Holmes cassettes. My favourite was The Speckled Band. Audiobooks were my parents strategy of keeping us quiet on long car rides.

5. Harry Potter CDs. The greatest of the long-car-ride entertainment time.

6. Scholastic book orders.Those were awesome. Do they have these in the States? Anyway, basically every month we got an order form, and it was all very exciting.

7. Being read to as a kid. My parents read to us at a young age.

8. Writer's festival. There aren't that many book events around where I live, and this is a small one, but it was the first book event that I went to.

9. Visiting Waterstones when I was in the UK. I dragged the people I was with into every bookstore I saw. Six story book stores are exciting things.

10. Finding signed books at the bookstore. They sometimes have signed ones.

Reading Habits: Places I Read

I should warn you that some of you will want to throw something (a hardcover?) at me after I mention a few of these. I don't really have a reading place... I have hundreds.

1. On the bus. At this point, I have an hour-and-a-half bus commute in to classes. I'm moving closer to campus next year. This will be my first time moving with my library (maybe, my books might stay at my parents). Reading on my buses (there are three) is way easier in the warmer months (Ontario isn't as cold as some places, but... still -30 Celsius plus windchill...) The trips are a little short to settle in for serious textbook focus, so I often delegate this time to reading time.

2. At school. Between classes, I need to sort of re-set my brain, or waiting for classes to start. I think for the longest time the dominant impression people had of me was "that person who seems to have a different book every day."

3. The breakfast table. Yes, while I eat. This was one of the ones that I thought people might want to chuck something at me for.

4. Comfortable chairs. Ones that I can curl up with. I think my favourite is a giant Ikea chair.

5. Bed. I have mentioned how I read until two in the morning with unfortunate frequency? Yes? Yes.

Bout of Books 13: Wrap Up

Pages: 812
Books Finished: 2
I kind of hit a reading block, which I only started to get past until the end of the week. I didn't end up getting very far into a couple of the books that I started, but I am planning to finishing them.

Bout of Books 13: Day 4

Daily Challenge: From Modern to Classic

Here's the thing with classics: most of the classics that I've read were books I was forced to read for school. Most of those classics and I were not friends. I love reading and I do not read well when forced.

A book that I would love to see become a classic is The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. Because its a book that I would like to see read in high schools, instead of the the hideously depressing stuff that they made us read. (If you've seen the meta people write on this book... you can see how it would be a fun read in the school system.) 

Bout of Books 13: Day 3

Daily Challenge: Book Haiku

A Confusion of Princes

Fight for rule of an

Intergalactic empire.

The last standing wins.

Bout of Books 13: Day 1

I didn't end up getting any reading done. (I know, I know, for shame.)

Daily Challenge: Bookish Survey

1. How do you organise your bookshelves? By mood? Mostly by mood.

2. What is one of your favourite books not in your favourite genre? Well, I'm not a fan of contemporary, but I still quite liked Fat Cat by Robin Brande for making me think about what is in the food I eat.

3. What was the last 5 star book you read? I'm terrible about giving 5 star ratings. I have a weird difficulty doing it. I think The Winner's Curse last year?

4. What book are you most excited to read during the read-a-thon? Is it terrible that I don't have a TBR? I'm in a bit of a rut. I'm kind of going by mood, but I've got a book by Michael Crichton.

5. What books do you recommend the most? The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan.

Review: The Sin Eater's Daughter

Title: The Sin Eater's Daugther
Author: Melinda Salisbury
Series: The Sin Eater's Daughter
Volume: 1
Genre: Fantasy
Release Date: Mar. 1, 2015
Goodreads

A Quick Introduction: Twylla is the kingdom's executioner, her poisoned skin killing all but the royal family with a single touch. As Daunen Embodied, she is seen as both a goddess walking among mortals, a sign of the god's blessing on the kingdom and royal line, and an object of fear. She's engaged to marry the prince, poised to become the next queen of a kingdom recovering from a long war, until a new guard makes her question everything she's ever believed to be true.

Out of Ten: 1/10

Review at a Glance: Poorly constructed characters and plot, on top of the romanticizing of some disturbing relationships made this book one that I couldn't enjoy.

Review: I loved the title of this book, and I found the cover intriguing (the colours are lovely). But, unfortunately, that's all I loved. I considered dropping this book several times, but decided to try to push through since I was already 100 pages in before it really started to hit me that I wasn't enjoying it.

The characters were flat. The main character and narrator, Twylla, felt like a concept of a character, rather than a person with believable feelings and motives. Lief was, in a word, terrible. I genuinely wanted to hit him with a shoe whenever he spoke. Merek was pretty terrible too. While the characters bothered me, it was the relationships between the characters that really put me off.

The main focus of the book is a love triangle, where there doesn't seem to be any actual love involved. Its more like a triangle of disrespect and manipulation. I didn't buy the romance. I didn't think anything that happened was particularly romantic. Twylla, while not someone I remotely liked, was constantly being manipulated (at best) by her love interests, and it really got to me. I didn't like that it was portrayed as romantic for her feelings to consistently be utterly ignored, or how she was treated by either of the boys. Overall, how all the relationships in the triangle were portrayed made me very uncomfortable.

My enormous issues with the relationships in this series aside, I had very little interest in the plot. The main focus, as I mentioned was the relationship triangle, leaving a little plot to be mentioned and tacked onto the end, in a way that felt both rushed and poorly constructed.

Overall, I really didn't enjoy this book, and I won't be picking up the next book in the trilogy.

Top Ten Books I Will Probably Never Read

Top Ten Tuesdays is a weekly feature created at The Broke and The Bookish.

There aren't a lot of books that say with confidence I will never read.

1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: My interest in reading this book has always been... less than zero. I really have NO interest whatsoever in reading it. Even with friends who tried to feed it to me. Nope. His style doesn't work for me.

2. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: Doesn't sound happy. I actually don't think I'll read anything by John Steinbeck.

3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I was kind of forced to watch the movie, and I couldn't stand it. A lot.

4. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: I did try the first chapter, but I just couldn't get into it. I keep being told how fantastic it is, but I really don't know if I'll ever do it.

5. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton: When I was in the eighth grade I had teachers try to compel me to read it by requiring that we go to the musical. I didn't. I never will.

6. The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis: My parents read The Chronicles of Narnia to us when we were kids, but not the last book. And I won't read it because I'm happier not reading unhappy endings, and I get unhappy ending vibes.

7. Anything by Ellen Hopkins: Her work just isn't my cup of tea.

8. Anything (else) by Khaled Hosseini: I had to read The Kite Runner for class in high school, and I really wasn't a fan.

9. Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling: I keep meaning to read it, but I haven't done it and its beginning to look like it won't be migrating toward the top of the TBR pile. This is more toward the probably, and less the never. It isn't that I don't want to read it, I just... haven't.

10. Delirium by Lauren Oliver: Its just never been something that caught my interest.

April Wrap-Up

This is late because I dropped the ball. In more ways than one, since it kind of turned out to be a bad reading month (I blame exams, but really, I think I've just been in a bit of a reading slump).

Read:

• Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn
• Midwinterblood by Marcus 
• Empire of Night by Kelley Armstrong
• Princess of Thorns by Stacey Jay
• Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
• The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters
• My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick

Re-read:

• Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund

Purchased: I only bought one book in April! 

They had this a few days early at Chapters, and for 40% off.

Bout of Books 13 Sign Up Post

Its that time again. The time when Kelly has a read-a-thon problem. Let's do this thing.

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 11th and runs through Sunday, May 17th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 13 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

I have no idea what I'll be reading, but I'll be there. There? Here? I will be there on the internet, but here in the physical world.

Review: Firefight

Title: Firefight
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Series: The Reckoners
Volume: 2
Genre: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dystopia
Release Date: January 6, 2015
Goodreads

A Quick Introduction: Steelheart is dead, and Newcago is free, but work is just beginning for David and the rest of the Reckoners. When a series of attacks leads them to the Epic-ruled city of Babalar, where nothing is as it seems and they can't shake the feeling that they're playing into a trap. With Steelheart gone, and Megan revealed as Firefight, David must reconsider his view of Epics on the whole as he tries to learn more about Epics and their abilities.

Out of Ten: 7/10

Review at a Glance: An interesting sequel that reveals more about the Epics, though I still wasn't blown away.

Review: This series just keeps failing to wow me. I want to be crazy about Brandon Sanderson's work, but I haven't found anything that awes me. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy parts of the story. I love the concept- its a bit like evil superheroes.

This book dives further into the world after Calamity. Newcago has reached a new equilibrium of sorts, now being run by humans. The Reckoners repel attacks by Epics on the city, until they become aware that these Epics are being sent by Regalia, the Epic ruler of Babalon Reborn (Babalar), with connections to Prof's past. Babilar presents a very different side of Epic control, where people are less terrified, and more accepting, of Epic rulers. The descriptions of the city were vivid, and set a strong sense of place.

I think part of the reason I'm not enamoured of these books is David, the narrator. It isn't that I dislike him, exactly, its more that he doesn't feel real to me. There's something about him that just doesn't feel believable. I'm not sure if its that I can't invest in him which makes him feel unreal, or if he feels unreal so I can't invest in him. Either way, it makes it hard to become really emotionally involved in his journey.

The Epics are explored more as David strives to learn more about them, both about how their abilities work, and how they can be stopped. The more David learns about Epics, the less he thinks of them in terms of black-and-white.

The world and the action components of the story pulled me in, and I ended up finishing this book fairly fast. Its a pretty quick read, and the pacing is pretty non-stop. Overall, I enjoyed it despite my lack of connection to the main character, and I will be picking up the next (last? It feels like a trilogy) book.