I am sad to say that this blog has come to its end. It will stay as it is—I will leave the posts up for the sake of posterity—but it will not be updated any longer. I simply don't have the heart to continue it. My dear friend, and co-founder of this blog, Aurora, died on December 12, 2011. This is a blog we created, maintained, and loved together. Without her, it can't be the same, and frankly, I can hardly bear to look at it, let alone write for it.

So this is it. To the (entirely theoretical) readers who might stumble upon this blog by accident or boredom or serendipity, I hope you enjoy what's here.

Blood Red Road by Moira Young

There are several things that pop in my mind when I think dystopia. First thing of course, is government control. Second thing that runs through my head is a list of dystopian novels: 1984, Brave New World, Little Brother, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid's Tale etc. etc.

You may have noticed my version of dystopias most always involve government control and the fight to overturn it. That's because I like a good intellectual fight of average man versus the greater powers! Yet, there is the other side of dystopias. The Mad Max's' of dystopias. The Cormac McCarthy dystopia.

This is one of those. Blood Red Road has a wonderful post apocalyptic setting. Even better, you don't know why there was a grand destruction of civilization! You just know that the technologically advanced are referred to as Wreckers. Which seems to rather point to who is at fault.

Saba lives with her twin brother Lugh, little sister Emmi, and her Pa on the edge of a dried up lake. They've always lived there. Interaction with other humans is limited to a handful of people. Pa says that the world outside is a bad place, and it's better to avoid it. Then the worst happens and Saba is thrown into the unknown in order to try and save her brother.


“Lugh goes first always first an I follow on behind. An that's fine. That's right. That's how it's meant to be.” 


I think this is a great read for people who enjoyed the main character Katniss from The Hunger Games. Saba is irascible and almost heartless at times. Almost. Which leaves plenty of room for character development. Which is always nice to have! Flat characteristics are totally for male protagonists. 


I  picked this up because someone recommended it if you had a fondness for The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley. I can see why that may be. There's overwhelming odds, fantasy, and a fight for the right and good!


Fans of YA fantasy, dystopians, or just good characters should pick this up and give it a read. 

The Wolves of Mercy Falls

I read The Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy over the summer holiday in a last desperate grab of pointless fiction before the school term started. They are, if you must know, shamelessly genre typed into paranormal romance.  The paranormal factor here being Werewolves.

Alas, I did know this before I read them. The genre paranormal romance has always been sketchy, but it hasn't always rang bells of warning. Thanks to Twilight,  I now associate the genre with bad writing and corny characters. Which isn't true of EVERY book to the genre...These weren't absolutely dreadful. I read all THREE books. (They're decently short lengthed.)

General Overview: These are books set in Mercy Falls; a gloomy town in the north where it's super cold and there's a dark wood. There are also Werewolves. The general populous only knows that there is  a wolf problem and every few years there is an attack.

The main character, Grace, was attacked when she was younger, but still loves the wolves. One especial wolf that she looks forward to seeing every winter....

The wolves are changed by the weather, not the full moon. Prompting a strangely irritating avoidance of cooler temperatures throughout the book.




Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Enough depth of character and plot to keep you reading til the end. Though, there is definitely some creepiness there that borders bestiality/stalking. Is an okay read if you enjoy emo-ness, near bestiality, or stalking.

Linger

Was a better read than Shiver and the best book of the three. There's several point of views, and those point of views are from significantly different characters.  I'd recommend this to someone if they asked me  for a good fluff read about werewolves.

Forever

This one boils down to the author saying, "....Oh look I'm going to try and scientifically explain werewolves!! I FAILED!!! Do readers want resolution?! TOO BAD, LOSERZZZZZ!!!!"


 PROS: The version of Forever I read had red lettering. That's pretty awesome. You CAN tell that the author tried really hard to get good characterization, and it shows.

CONS: I've read better fanfictions.

Why I will probably never own an e-reader.

(You can blame both the spiel and the double whammy!post on Aurora. She started it.)

Don't get me wrong. I can see why e-readers are popular: convenient for traveling and storing multiple (hundreds of) e-books, reduced prices on those e-books, and for those of us in the Northwest (the hippie capital of the country), it's generally a "greener" way to read -- with the added bonus of being sleek and shiny technology. I get why people buy them.

I just don't see myself ever owning one. Can't say for certain, of course, but I have a hard time imagining it. Because the thing is: I like books. I like the musk of the pages (whether old or new), and the texture against my fingers. I like the shape and heft of a book in my hand. I like to underline my favorite passages and write in the margins. There's even something strangely pleasing about certain font types, and the arrangement of words on the page -- particularly when it comes to poetry. I like to look at the covers of books. The old truism about never judging a book by its cover? I do. Always. The cover art of a book is a huge draw to me. It's one of the things I love about aimlessly perusing bookstores -- seeing all the books lined on the shelves, just waiting to be picked up, flipped through, seen and handled in a way that has no equivalent in an e-book. I also like the fact that reading a book is not reading a screen. As someone who works on a computer for eight hours a day, five days a week, I don't want to look at yet another screen to read for pleasure.

And if we want to talk about practicality for a moment, books still one-up e-readers in several ways: I don't have to worry about dropping a book too hard. It's okay if I accidentally spill a drink on it; it might be water-stained afterward, but it will probably still be legible (and even if it's not, I don't have to drop $200 to replace it). A paperback is probably not an object of interest to a thief, and again, if it does get stolen, I can re-buy it for less than $200. A book can last you a lifetime; you can pass it down from one generation to the next (I own an old, musty copy of a Hardy Boys book given to my dad when he turned 10 years old -- there's still a note from his aunt on the front flap). E-readers, like all other forms of technology, will constantly be outdated -- there will always be new versions to buy. Sleek and shiny though they are, they are costly bits of programming that are not made to last.

So, while I hope that people with e-readers enjoy them and use them, I'll stick to my paperbacks with the notes in the margins.

E-Readers are Grey

Oh, books. How can technology be causing people to abandon you? Video games have torn at your fan base, but really, they weren't reading the good ones anyway. Of course, there will be no reference to how much television has diminished the imaginative capacity of the mind. It's too obvious to be worth mentioning.

It is an unfortunate truth that technology has diminished the appreciation of literature in favor of other more controller involved hobbies, yet....Would those who have taken up games have been readers in the first place? I don't know. I have absolutely no idea, but it's a thought. Quite obviously, my stance on books is everyone should and to hell with all other forms of entertainment! Well, perhaps slightly milder.
But only just! The It Crowd and misc. cute iPod apps. have swayed me towards more electronic entertainment than I once partook in.

Which brings us to the new technology that relates to the written word. Well, not NEW, but it's so overwhelmingly in the press it's completely impossible to know that e-readers do not exist. At first, I was absolutely appalled at the idea. How dare anyone lessen the whole idea of a book! How dare they!

Yet, my boyfriend Tyler has a kindle, and reads on it when he probably wouldn't read the physical thing. He says it's more convenient to read in bed and less of a hassle to carry around.

Which is something I don't completely understand because I appreciate the presence of a book....The smell, the texture, the weight, and the way the sunshine reflects off the off white of paper and black ink. Books have made me appreciate the work that goes into fonts and the layout and structure of  a page. If you bother to read the last few pages of plot-less info in a book, you oft times can find a story about the font and who made it.

My opinion on physical books is that books are the equivalent to sunshine. I can read one in a hospital or a terrible storm while I'm stuck in my car, and there's light and happiness!

But then I think of ideas and rationalism... What is a physical book, but an idea? What does it matter what it's read? The idea of the story exists more really than the physical book does. (DOWN WITH EMPIRICISM!!)

Then,  I received one as a gift. A 114$ version of the Kindle. So now I can critique without the pang of guilt that troubles me when I haven't done the opposing!

I like my Kindle a lot. It's pretty durable, and if you buy books from Amazon you can break your Kindle and then re-download those books. Amazon has EXCELLENT customer service if your kindle has any issues. Biggest pro: You can download tons of expired copy righted books for free and read them on your impressive ink technology screen. This, will eventually save me the $114 my family spent on it.

Then you have other ways of procuring books for free (I don't give an opinion either way here), but I think everyone should familiarize themselves with the concept of intellectual property. An interesting article in the rise of e-book pirating can be found HERE.

Yet, you can't lend a physical book out to someone with notes written in them. You can't run your fingers over notes made in book eighty years ago. You can't pass an e-reader down as a beloved family heirloom. I've read several books on my Kindle that I want to show someone a line in or read a page to my family, but it's not worth flipping through a ton of pages. (Though, there's a highlighting tool that I should probably learn to use.) If I read a book on it that I really like, then I want the physical book on my shelf regardless of if it's the same idea. Tamora Pierce's Mastiff is coming out on October 25 and I've already pre-ordered. In hardback. So that way it can stand in a place of pride next to the other dozens of Pierce books I have.

Final Word: 


I like my Kindle, but I prefer paper and glue books. I will appreciate any device that gets literature into more people's hands. Even if that device was a obnoxious man wearing spandex. You give him a book canon and he's my friend.

Yet, if the e-reader is going to put public libraries out of business then I will gladly crunch it under my foot to save ONE library.

Afterthought After the Final Word:

Speaking of book technology, everyone should check out Goodreads.com.

Tortall and Other Lands by Tamora Pierce

I've recently become a pretty large fan of short story anthologies. It's bits of awesomeness that you can enjoy in fifteen-ish minute intervals. It's great for those who don't relish long ventures into fantasy worlds and like a tiny bon bon for those of us who live on them.

Tortall and Other Lands is a collection of short stories done by one of the best young adult fantasy authors of all time, Tamora Pierce (See title!). Which was overall pretty enjoyable, but I was strongly disappointed by the lack of Keladry. If you liked Nawat and Kitten, you'll still be decently happy.

"Elder Brother" was worth the $11 I paid for it. It explains the repercussions of Numar using the word of power to turn whats-his-face into the apple tree. What happened to the tree that turned into a man? Read and find out!

To seal the deal it also had "Dragon's Tale". The story which shows into the mind of Kitten while on a tour of Carthak with Numair and Daine post Trickster's Choice.

I don't know if I would highly recommend it to those who hadn't read some of her previous Tortall books. First, I would recommend reading those. If you haven't read them you are being grievously wounded by the great stories you are missing.

Hilarity: Not My Norm, But Could Be Yours!

If you enjoy Facebook, and Classic Literature, you should read this. The layout is unique, done in the form of classic pieces of literature (Hamlet, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Alice in Wonderland) being posted about while they're happening on Facebook. Then to break up the monotony you have the authors interacting on each others pages, and when you think about James Joyce trying to interact with Charles Dickens, can you NOT read this? I thought as much.
I bought this at a Barnes and Noble tent sale for five dollars, and it was worth so much more. I read some of the books mentioned in it just so I could get the jokes. Really! (Okay, fine, it still could not compel me to read Finnegan's Wake.) Pick this up if you want a good laugh at some of your favorite authors, Sarah Schmelling has done a very good job with Classic Lit Signs On To Facebook.