Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is having a good day and get to spend some time with people they love.
And I hope (if you celebrate Christmas), that you got what you wanted! Of course, I got books. This is what my husband got me (which technically I got a week ago, before we went to visit family):
I also got a 8GB micro SD card as external memory for my nook. 🙂
My brother is taking me on a shopping spree to Bookman’s as his present.
What about you guys?
The Premise: Margo Gentry is happy with her life as a award-winning DJ of Manhattan’s only Country Music station, and her relationship with Kevin, a man who doesn’t want to take things to the next level. Then everything falls apart – Margo is laid off when her station changes format to Korean radio, and Kevin wants to get married. When she balks at marriage, Kevin reveals that he doesn’t think much of her job or collection of weird Elvis memorabilia. With no where else to go, Margo moves in with her best friend Chris Treem, a known womanizer. To top it all off, Margo’s mother is getting married for the 11th time, and wants Margo to be her maid of honor — the last thing Margo wants to do, but without a job, she has no excuse to skip it, particularly when Chris wants to drive cross-country to be there.
Read an excerpt of The Kiss Test here
My Thoughts: I read this book in one sitting on the plane trip from NY to AZ (visiting the family for the holidays). I’ve always liked romances in which long time friends realize they feel more for each other than friendship, and with the promise in the blurb for a long road trip between Margo and Chris, kept me glued to the pages in anticipation of their relationship heating up.
Margo seems like the last person I’d expect to fall in love. She’s the narrator, and she makes it very clear that she’s happy to never get married and to make the same mistakes her mother did. In fact, she has been known to break up with a guy just for falling in love with her. Then we have Chris. An extreme sports enthusiast and store owner, he’s good looking, dangerous, and a magnet to females. He often administers his “Kiss Test”, not minding if Margo is nearby, and has been Margo’s best friend since she was eleven. It didn’t seem like these two were anything but really good buddies, and neither is saving themselves for the other by any means (on the contrary), but as the book continued, I began to see that Chris may be the perfect guy for Margo and that she may have been in love with Chris, and vice versa, all along. With his willingness to let her indulge in a trip as an homage to Elvis, despite not being a fan, and forgiving and taking care of Margo when she repeatedly gets herself in (very funny) trouble throughout the trip, Chris showed his acceptance of Margo as she was. In the meantime, the trip teaches Margo that honesty may be the best policy, and when she’s finally honest with herself, she makes some rather scary discoveries.
I liked that the story delves into Margo and Chris’s past to explain who they are today, although the explanation comes a little after the fact. I found myself judging Margo based on her actions, then learning the details behind those actions afterward. For the most part, the past history does explain a lot of things, even if I wish some of these revelations were explained earlier. The ending however, had one minor story element that felt a little tacked on, but maybe that’s just me.
There’s lots of sexual tension but only one sex scene in this story, so this fell into what I look for in romance – slow burn and not all about the lust.
Overall: This felt like a modern-day contemporary romance — where the hero and heroine are both flawed and no one is an angel. Even if I disagreed with how these two conducted their relationships (which could be a problem for other readers), I wanted an HEA for both of them. The relaxed chemistry between best friends that becomes surprisingly more is rather refreshing and sometimes funny, and if this book came out in print form, I’d buy it to have a hard copy.
Buy: Amazon | Carina Press
Other reviews:
Smexy Books – 3 out of 5
The Premise: Kyle Kingsbury is handsome, popular, and, a big superficial jerk. His father is a famous newscaster and taught Kyle that people who did things out of friendship or love are suckers, so Kyle lives only for himself. Life is good: he goes to an elite school in Manhattan where he’s ultra popular and has a lock on being voted king of the ninth grade spring dance. Then Kyle decides to humiliate a strange new girl at the dance, and is rewarded with his comeuppance – cursed to be a beast unless he can love and be loved in return. He has two years to learn and to become someone worth loving or he will stay a beast forever.
Read and excerpt of Beastly here
My Thoughts: Kyle is incredibly unlikable in the first few pages of this book. Before his world is rocked by the curse, he really turned me off. In fact, I read a few pages of Beastly through Amazon’s Look Inside program a year or so ago and I was worried I wouldn’t like the book because of him. But once I got a chapter or two in, I empathized with Kyle despite my first impressions. Kyle’s growth from the snobby pretty-boy with negligent parents into a man of character doesn’t happen overnight. It took much of the two years he’s allocated and it’s not an easy road, but I believed and hoped he could make it eventually.
Kyle (who renames himself Adrian), is exiled by his father to a house in Brooklyn when it becomes clear that nothing can fix his appearance. All he has is his faithful housekeeper Magda, and after he asks for it – a blind tutor named Will. Adrian watches the world through a magic mirror. The forced isolation produced by becoming a beast gives him plenty of time for introspection, and he uses the time productively. He starts to appreciate things he thought of as unimportant before, and I enjoyed his discovery of less superficial interests, although he continues to despair of really breaking his curse. That is until circumstances allow Lindy, the “Beauty” of the story to enter the picture.
Lindy is probably the opposite of what Adrian used to be when he was Kyle – not popular, not good looking, and not rich. She lives in a poor neighborhood with an addict father. Despite being rather plain and not particularly noticeable, there’s something that draws Adrian to her. Adrian’s feelings for her were rather sweet – wanting her to like him, and realizing he can’t buy or bargain for her affections. His loneliness and yearning at this point made their tentative friendship something to root for. While I found Lindy to be a nice person, but not particularly compelling compared to Adrian, I wholeheartedly believed the feelings Adrian had for her. And I believed this version’s explanation of why her family so easily let her go to the Beast.
As a bonus, I loved that Beastly was based on the version of Beauty and the Beast in which Beauty is a reader. Reading books like Jane Eyre, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Les Misérables, Phantom of the Opera and The Picture of Dorian Grey are all part of the story, and I loved the parallels, which were not lost on Adrian/Kyle. I also enjoyed the “transformation” chat room conversations that Adrian joined. It was hilarious to see the little mermaid, the frog prince and others kvetching online.
Overall: A very pleasing modern-day Beauty and the Beast. I really liked this spin on my favorite fairy tale: told from the first person point of view of a spoiled Manhattan teen who does become a better person and has to win the girl the hard way. If you’d like to read a YA with a sweet romance, and you like the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, I recommend this one.
I’m looking forward to reading the other books in this series – A Kiss in Time, and Cloaked. And I’ll probably look for the DVD of Beastly the movie whenever it comes out (it’s been suspiciously delayed in it’s release).
Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository
Other reviews:
Steph Su Reads – 3.5 out of 5
My Favourite Books – positive review
Chachic’s Book Nook – positive review
All Things Urban Fantasy – 2/5
The Book Smugglers – 6/10
Angieville – positive review
See Michelle Read – positive review
Ranting & raving is something I do periodically on this blog. Look for the “rants and raves” category for past rants and raves.
I finished Beastly and I’m writing up a review for it, but because I’m visiting my parents I keep getting interrupted mid-thought (hmm). So while I edit my review here’s some lovely Beauty and the Beast inspired images that I found online.
Annie Leibovitz for Vogue Magazine (via Once Upon a Blog)
The Premise: Anastasija (Ana) Parker has just turned sixteen, which is the day she becomes a full witch in the coven which she and her mom belongs. Ana dreads the ritual which will prove that she has no magic: although she can feel spells, she can’t cast any herself. Her birthday turns out to be even more of a disaster when her father, a man Ana never met, turns up. And he’s the vampire king. Ana discovers she’s a dhampyr, and each parent wants her to reject the other and embrace their particular heritage.
My Thoughts: At 241 pages, this is a really fast read. Ana is a typical high school student, albeit one who has been put into the “weird” crowd because of her different colored eyes, and odd friends (Bea is witchy, Taylor is one-of-a-kind). Besides a jock trading barbs with her at school, and interactions with the coven, she’s nothing very special. This all suddenly changes overnight on her birthday when her vampire father shows up and the cat is out of the bag. Her mother flips out and begins throwing spells like crazy. Ana has no idea why and her mother refuses to explain anything. Things get worse at the ritual, but Ana seems to be catching the eye of both Nicolai – a witch her age with a family tradition of vampire hunting, and Elias, the captain of her father’s guard. Ana finds herself ping-ponging between parents and trying to decide what she should do.
There are a few things that I liked about this book, but I think I had more problems than I had positive reactions. The main issue was the feeling like this was very well-trodden territory – there were too many things in this book that I’ve read before. This in itself is I suppose OK, but it wasn’t balanced by enough original ideas to keep me connected to the story:
The fact that I didn’t really like her mother (who kept Ana’s half-vampire status hidden when a lot of the coven knew about it, and then puts spells on Ana which basically enslave her) did not help. I had a lot of questions about why her mother was like this that didn’t feel explained. I didn’t quite believe her explanation for keeping Ana in the dark either. Maybe that’s for another book, but it frustrated me in this one. The beginnings of the love triangle in this story was another issue. I think both guys were interesting, but I couldn’t buy their attraction to Ana because it almost seemed like both guys liked a concept of her, but didn’t really knew her. Perhaps this is something else that gets addressed in a sequel.
What I did like was Ana’s friendships with Bea and Taylor. I liked that Bea was someone Ana didn’t always like, but there was love there – I was interested in what their history was and I wished there was more room in this book to explore their friendship. Taylor has an even smaller role – she’s basically a friend with a lot of interesting (if a bit geeky) interests, who wears a hijab with jeans to school. She doesn’t know what’s going on with Ana’s supernatural life, but when she’s on the page, I loved her. I also liked the particular spin on the origins of vampires and the world building there. The explanation behind the enmity between witches and vampires was a good one. Finally – I thought that the way cell phones/communication in this story was well thought out.
Overall: An average read. I wanted to like this book, but there was a lack of freshness to the story that left me feeling underwhelmed. Maybe this would work better as an introduction to paranormal YA genre than someone who has read a lot of these.
Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository
Other reviews:
I couldn’t find other reviews yet. Let me know if you have one and I’ll link it here.
Congratulations to Arantza, who runs Fiction Kingdom! Her book is on it’s way (she’s an international winner so it’s winging it’s way over the Atlantic)
🙂
Read an excerpt of The Broken Kingdoms: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3
My Thoughts: You could read this book without reading the first book, but I think some of the background information regarding The Three (the first three gods and creators of the known universe), may be a little hard to follow. The information is there, but because Oree is the narrator, and she is a commoner, she knows little about what really happened 10 years ago; only that the Order of the Light has suddenly allowed the worship of gods beyond Itempas. She finds out more as the story goes along, but if you haven’t read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, you need to wait for Oree to catch up, and if you have read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, you’ll have more knowledge than she does about the shift in power, why godlings roam the streets, and who ‘Shiny’ really is.
Although the reader has an edge over Oree about the general back story, Oree introduces us to what’s happened to the streets of Sky (now Shadow), since then. The most significant change is of course the godlings. Oree explains:
” I am, you see, a woman plagued by gods.
It was worse once. Sometimes it felt as if they were everywhere: underfoot, overhead, peering around corners and lurking under bushes. They left glowing footprints on the sidewalks (I could see they had their own favorite paths for sightseeing.) They urinated on the white walls. […] Sometimes they followed me home and made me breakfast. Sometimes they tried to kill me. Occasionally they bought my trinkets and statues, though for what purpose I can’t fathom. And yes, sometimes I loved them.”
Oree seems to be a magnet for gods (or godlings as they are sometimes called), and because she finds Shiny in a muckbin, her life changes. He’s a silent and arrogant jerk, but they work out an amicable living arrangement and life goes on at first. Until Oree discovers a godling in an alley, her heart cut out. There’s a big uproar – immortal creatures aren’t supposed to be murdered like this, and this draws unwanted attention on her by the Order. Shiny is upset, chaos ensues, and Oree shows up on the radar of people she really doesn’t want noticing her – the murderers.
In this series so far, the protagonists have been mortal females thrust into events caused by gods. In the first book, what I remember being the big theme was that of revenge. Revenge on many different levels: between the gods and humans, and even in Yiene’s heart, revenge was a driving force. In Oree’s story, she feels the echos of what happened ten years ago, but the story feels like it’s more of a murder mystery (who are killing godlings and why?) and about taking the first few steps to move on from the past, than it is about revenge. So, while there are some commonalities between the books, I found them very different. Oree and Yiene share a relatively pragmatic point of view, at least compared to that of the gods, and are both caught in the general maelstrom created by them, but they aren’t the same person and this isn’t the same story. I found Oree a little more innocent than Yiene regarding her knowledge of politics, but more intuitive about people. She also was raised Maroneh, and was a follower of Itempas, with a healthy fear of the Night Lord, which is a different religious background as Yiene. It was interesting to see how their perceptions of the Three were different.
I also found myself believing more in her relationship with the gods than I could believe in Yiene’s relationships with them. I think that there’s three reasons why – the relationships were developed over time, they developed in ways I believed, and I found these gods not beyond the reach of mere humans. Part of the equalizing in the relationships was who Oree was, part of it was who the gods were, part of it seeing how being immortal made the gods almost immature compared those with an expiry date, and part of it was seeing how these gods were not all-seeing and knowing – they had no idea who the killer was or how they were killing. (By the way, I know I am saying relationships, but I want to point out that this is still a fantasy and not a romance and the relationships are not like romance relationships.)
In many ways, I think I found The Broken Kingdoms better than The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. I think that the gods were more relatable and less powerfully alien than the last book and it made the story work better in terms of my disbelief in their relationships with the narrator, and I liked how thoughtfully the story brought us forward in time ten years from the last book. There were a few cameos of characters from the first book and it was really fascinating to see them through Oree’s perceptions (pretty much all my favorites showed up). It’s also really differently paced – I was really turning the pages with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms because treachery and death seemed to be around the corner of every page, and it is that way from the get go, but while murder and conspiracy is compelling too, The Broken Kingdoms took more time to get us there, so it took me longer to really get into the story (maybe fifty pages in), but I didn’t mind this difference – I knew it would get there.
Overall: I’m really enjoying this fantasy series. It’s entertaining and thoughtful, I really like the (female! POC!) narrators, and I love (love, love) the world building with it’s pantheon of flawed gods and the consequences of those flaws. The Broken Kingdoms adds more dimension to a fascinating world, and I’m rather sad that this is supposed to be just a trilogy, but I’m happy these books exist. Cannot WAIT for book 3.
(I am gleeful to hear the author has a new series coming out in 2012)
Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository
Other reviews:
Fantasy Cafe – 9/10 (I had a really similar reaction to hers)
Gossamer Obsessions – A+
Babbling about Books, and More – DNF (I think she has a valid point about storytelling style. It’s probably a style more seen in fantasy and worked for me, but may not be for everyone)
Dear Author – B
Fantasy Book Critic – A+
image is from cute overload
Just a quick note to say congratulations to the two winners:
I’ve already sent emails and got confirmation about their addresses. Estara will be mailing out their books soon!
And don’t forget that the contest for The Secret Society of the Pink Crystal Ball is still ongoing!
This weekend I received my gift from the Book Blogger Holiday Swap from Page from As the Page Turns. She did very well in what she sent – Beastly by Alex Flinn and Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint. I’ve been meaning to read Beastly “one day”, but it didn’t seem to be happening, and although I downloaded the audiobook, the volume hasn’t been loud enough for me to hear it in the car (using just the nook’s speakers at least). So I’m very happy to have the book! And Charles de Lint – I need to read more de Lint. I usually enjoy his stuff (The Blue Girl and Moonheart were two I liked), but haven’t read his stuff in a while. That needs to be remedied.
Thank you, Page!
The Premise: Erin Channing is a tenth-grader with the “most boring, normal, regular life ever”, until her aunt Kiki dies and leaves her a pink plastic ball with a set of cryptic instructions. Erin doesn’t believe in magic. She’s known as an “inside the box” thinker, but her two best friends, Lindsay and Samantha convince her to try the ball, and when it seems to actually get results, it begins to change Erin’s outlook.
My Thoughts: I liked Erin. She’s a good kid — that girl in school who works hard and listens to teachers. She follows the rules and has the highest GPA in tenth grade. But because she doesn’t really have any interests outside of school and doesn’t have any quirky traits, she considers herself boring. So boring, in fact, that she worries she has nothing interesting to say in her essay to apply for a coveted position for a school sponsored trip to Italy. And she really, really wants to go to Italy. Two things stand in her way – the essay, and making sure she gets at least an A- in the class.
Writing the essay is something Erin obsesses over, but she can’t think of anything interesting to say. She’s well aware of her “in the box”, “follow the rules” persona, but she doesn’t know how to get out of it, but her aunt’s death and the Pink Crystal Ball is a start. Her friends are the ones who push her into even trying it, and pointing out that she needs to expand her horizons. In the meantime, the A- grade in her AP Art History class also depends on her end of year project which is worth one third of her final grade. Unfortunately, she gets partnered with Jesse Cooper, the last person in class she wants to work with. Jesse used to be a close friend, until his father died at the end of eight grade. Suddenly, the guy who was her first kiss stopped talking to her and started dressing like an art school punk kid, leaving Erin wondering: “What happened?” and what Jesse’s neutral expressions and his offhand comments mean. It’s clear that she’s not exactly over the crush she had on him.
The story is full of thoughtful layers. Although Erin, Lindsay and Samantha seem to fit a particular mold at first (Erin is the brainy one, Lindsay is the nice one, and Samantha is the cool one), they aren’t cardboard characters. Each of them has their own lives and problems, which Erin explains as the story progresses. Lindsay has a bully at school, and her father has begun dating a young, twenty-something girl. To escape, she spends her money on new-age, metaphysical objects like voodoo dolls and crystals. Samantha is chasing after Aiden, a boy who can’t stand her, and her parents are always fighting. She may be the beautiful and cool rebel, but when coming home at 3am gets noticed by the Portuguese housekeeper, not her parents, you know there’s something wrong there. But these girls aren’t in their own personal bubble. They play off each other and affect one another”s lives. The dynamics of their friendships is laid out throughout the story, and the reader is catches glimpses of how well they know each other: when Lindsay is upset she’s known to take it out on whoever is nearby, Erin can’t stand disappointing authority, and Samantha knows how to get the girls to follow her lead.
This attention to detail extended to the plot. With a magic ball, the story could have become something that conveniently took shortcuts and relied on suspension of disbelief, but it doesn’t. There are always consequences or reasons for what happens. The main focus of course is on Erin’s problems, and on how the pink plastic ball from her dead aunt begins to affect her life, but she is loyal to her best friends and tries to help them. These leads to consequences that the girls don’t expect. I liked that this story eventually led to some growth for everyone, rather than the it being just a entertaining romp involving magic. The ending left us with the possibility of a continuation, perhaps from Samantha’s point of view, and I’d love to find out what happens next.
Overall: Before reading this book, I think I had expectations that matched the cover – a story that’s young, a little girly, cute and fun. You know: a Disney movie aimed at teens with three best friends who discuss boys and do somewhat silly things and then work together to fix some problem. This book takes that formula but produces something with much more depth. I thought I would like this book, but I ended up being very pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it when I was done. It left me feeling much like I felt about Polly Shulman’s Enthusiasm: like I’d read something sweet but not fluff.
Buy: Amazon | Powell’s | The Book Depository
Other reviews:
Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell – 3.75
(please let me know if you’ve reviewed this and I’ll add it to my list)
GIVEAWAY:
I have ONE extra copy of this book to giveaway (generously sent to me by a publicist). For a chance to win it:
1. Email janicu[at]gmail[dot]com with the subject PINK CRYSTAL BALL GIVEAWAY, and with “please enter me” or something like that, and that should be it.
2. One email per person please.
3. This giveaway is INTERNATIONAL
4. This contest ends midnight EST December 9th. — that’s three days from now!
specficromantic 