Beautiful Creatures

I took Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl out of the library because of a blog review I read on it.  I can no longer find it so no link, but the gist of it was that Beautiful Creatures was the reviewer's new favorite book and then there was a list of all the ways it was better than the reviewer's former favorite book, Harry Potter.  Yes, the reviewer thought this book was better than Harry Potter and backed up their opinion.  So of course, I had to read it.  I trekked off to the library and took it out and sat down to read... and was glad I did, because I would have been annoyed if I had bought it.

Not that it was bad.  I enjoyed it.  It just wasn't Harry Potter.  I had high expectations and they just weren't met.  Maybe that's not fair: it's not the books fault Harry Potter is practically my religion.  I expected tons of tension and a good mix of comedy and drama.  There was tension, but it was mostly romantic and often whiney.  I couldn't really get behind the characters and things seemed to unfold too slowly for me.

One thing the book did amazingly well is to portray small town life in the South, capitalization intentional  This book is set in the South and is truly a Southern book.  That I appreciated.  It came from a place that acknowledged some of the ridiculous customs, but didn't mock them; it found the humor, but also the love.  The South is an interesting place to grow up and the book certainly got that right.  I no longer live in the South and the book felt like home.

I've got a ton of books that I'm looking forward to reading in the next few weeks and then REREAD HARRY POTTER IN NOVEMBER, but maybe I'll get to the sequel, Beautiful Darkness, one of these days.

Pre-Order Update

So I've taken a handful of books off the list to the right because... I have them... finally.  But the list is slowly growing again, which I can't decide is a good thing or a bad thing.

For now... Red Glove has made it on the list.  It's the sequel to White Cat by Holly Black and will be released on April 5, 2011.

Also... This week is banned books week.  I took The Perks of Being A Wallflower out of the library, but I probably won't get to it until next week.  Not to fear!  I celebrate banned books week every day of my life, so I'm not missing out.

JK on Oprah!

So, I admit.... I've flaked the last few weeks.  I have plenty of excuses... I mean, I write, so it's not hard...but instead of sharing them with you, I think I'll just get back into the swing of things with an update and a HARRY POTTER TUESDAY.

First... the update: I am forsaking the Sunday Showdown, because it doesn't always fit with my schedule and it has become too easy to skip.  But one thing I will be taking from it is that I no longer feel pressure to create a looooong blog for each book I read.  I liked only writing a paragraph or so discussing my overall impression of the book or really whatever was relevant at the time.  I like the flexibility and I'm going to keep it.  So from now on... one book per post, but focusing on anything from plot, character, entertainment, reactions.

And now.... HARRY POTTER....

I mentioned before that I am planning REREAD HARRY POTTER IN NOVEMBER... I am still doing it, but it will be starting in October to allow sufficient time to reread all novels before the release of the movie.  Next week I'll give you a hard date on when I'm starting and I encourage all three readers of this blog to join me.  I've also got an interesting series for Harry Potter Tuesday that will be starting October 12.

JK Rowling will be on Oprah this FRIDAY.  I'm hoping to get an answer on whether or not there will be a new Harry Potter Book.  Please. Please. Please.  So set your TIVOS and in the mean time you can read Rowling's interview in O magazine here.

Happy Harry Potter Tuesday.

Finally, the wait is over

So I've been very impatiently waiting for Cassandra Clare's Clockwork Angel to come out.  It is the first book in a new trilogy that is set in the same Shadowhunter world as her first series, The Mortal Instruments, but in Victorian London.  The writing was elegant in a way that perfectly conjured up the time period, but didn't try so hard that it was silly and off-putting to modern readers.  Like Clare's other series, the characters, even very minor ones, were real and charming and unique, while the plot was deep with the promise of even more and even darker secrets to be uncovered.  The action, suspense, romance, and mystery were all perfectly balanced and, oh man, what a love triangle.  I was especially pleased that Magnus Bane made an appearance.  He is one of my all-time favorite characters in any book and I enjoyed that his immortality allows him to play a part in both series.  It was just as good as I imagined it would be, but now I have to wait for book two... and then book three!  There's something I love about waiting for books to be released, but at the same time, it's torture.  And, as I've mentioned before, Clare is adding three books to her Mortal Instruments series, so I'll have to wait longer for each book in each series, as she alternates work on them.

Scumble is the follow up to Newbery Honor book Savvy.  This one is just as charming as the first, focusing on Mib's (from Savvy) cousin, Ledger.  His amazingly powerful Savvy--things fall apart--doesn't seem so great to him as he struggles, unsuccessfully to learn how to control it (to scumble).  And when things get even more complicated--a girl from town learns of his savvy, he destroys his uncle's barn and ruins his cousin's wedding, and his Uncle's farm is foreclosed on--it doesn't seem like he'll ever figure out how to control his emotions.  Focusing a lot on the foreclosure issue, this coming-of-age story is both relevant and easy to relate to.

Geektastic....I'm not sure what I even want to say about this except, wow.  It's a collection of short stories by some of my favorite YA writers and a few more who I've just been introduced to.  It was just... fun.  Every story was somehow about being a geek, whatever that may mean.  John Green brought a story of geeks being tortured at boarding school, that was very reminiscent of looking for Alaska, Holly Black and Cecil Castelluci a story of forbidden love at a geek convention.  I loved Scott Westerfeld's story "Definitional Chaos" that explored the good and evil / law and chaos gamer's alignment matrix in a real world setting, with plenty of the high stakes and action that you would expect from him.  Probably my favorite story was by Tracy Lynn, who I've never read before, but now I may have to borrow one of her books from the library.  The story centered on a cheerleader paying the geeks for geek lessons so that she could better relate to her boyfriend.  It was touching and funny.  I also really enjoyed reading something by Cassandra Clare that wasn't at all supernatural (and was also about my favorite drinking game... I never... which I call Never have I ever, but that's neither here nor there).  I seriously, just want to talk about every story, because each was so unique and full and touching.  I love love loved reading this book.  Also, as a bonus, there were nerd comics between each story about everything from "How To Hook Up At the Science Fair" to "The Best Ways to Stay Awake for Gaming".  I'm getting really into these YA short story collections.  If I didn't have to bring my car in for a new transmission tomorrow, I would probably pre-order Zombies Vs. Unicorns.

Lots still to read--received Halo and Paranormalcy this week--but I need to kick my writing back into gear.  I'm finishing a book on genre this afternoon, which I'll talk about next week, and I think that will help my current project a LOT.  It's a very genre piece.  Then I can finally start something new (I'm ready), while I read my books about rewriting so I'm ready to attack the second draft of my novel manuscript.