Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Local Bookstore

So I've been going through a reading slump, and this book was the root of it. I've been meaning to read it ever since it came out, but it wasn't until my friend Christine begged me to read it that I finally eventually did. I know, I know, a movie is in the works and all that. I knew I'd get around to it, but there's so many other books I wanted to read and... sigh, okay. My heart wasn't in it. But why? This seems like everything I could possibly want in a book! Creepy Victorian children? Check. Weird vintage photography? Check. (I have a folder dedicated to them on my desk top, and a Pinterest board too) So why was I resistant?
Okay, I loved the idea for this - a guy has a collection of weird old pictures so he makes up stories about them? That's pretty cool. But the story... Well, let's start the review.
I'm a completionist. I have the rest of the series sitting on my bookshelf right now, so I have to finish the whole thing. Even if... I wasn't particularly feeling it. I thought the book moved far too slowly for my taste, but luckily there are two books I haven't read. This, too me, feels like a set-up. A trap. Even worse because this book ends with a cliff-hanger. Can I even tell you want this was even about? It took incredibly long for us to learn that it might be best if I don't. Screw it. So this kid from Florida, Jacob, watches helplessly as a monster kills his beloved grandfather. But no one believes him because he is a dirt-bag teen and teens suck obviously monsters aren't real and it was probably wolves or something. But Jacob is adamant and he's sent to a therapist who convinces him to research some of the stories his grandfather told him growing up, you know, to prove to himself that he hadn't seen an actual monster kill his grandfather.
Jacob's research sends him to a tiny fishing island off the coast of Wales. After a lot of bullshit (no one likes this American Dirt-Bag Teen in Wales. No One.) Jacob finds the actual children his grandfather grew up with before WWII - the Peculiar children who have unique abilities.
Jacob is alright, but Emma, the girl who once loved his grandfather and now is falling for him, a bit of a fire brand (literally), irritates me to no end. She's some embodiment of a male fantasy that in real life no man could deal with for very long.
In the end that may be the thing that urks me most about this book - the subtle pretentiousness of a hip, edgy male author and his Gary-Sue hero.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Library Copy

Right out the gate, I loved this book. I'm a little surprised at myself - I didn't expect to like it this much. Without beating around the bush, I'm going to throw down these words to describe it: gratuitous, shojo, shirtless tough-guys. I hope it never reaches Twilight or Hunger Games level of fame, because that opens it up for as much ridicule. (Women just can't have nice things, now can we?) Not that it matters: hate on, haters. I really loved it - I don't want to think too deeply as to why, it was just pure fun and thrill.

I still tend to shy away from a lot of YA novels, even if I enjoy them more than the usual fiction because I don't like to put a lot of faith in books with amazing covers. Okay, we've all done it. We'll see a stunning cover that really strikes our fancy, buy it immediately, and when we're halfway through with reading it... ugh. Plot holes, cliches, grating & whiny dialog. We learn that the publishers totally just Febrezed the book by giving it a nice cover to disguise how crappy the content is. Once bitten, twice shy I say. So now I wait until I see that it's worth the effort. I know. That's, like, the opposite of what a book reviewer's job is. But hear me out - this time I just went after the pretty book, caution to the wind, so that I could let you know wither or not it's worth your time.
Gentle readers, it is very much worth your time. Okay, it was sexy and edgy. I didn't expect to really like that. But golly gee, did I ever! I guess my tastes are changing.

A Court of Thorns and Roses is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Early on, this seems obvious, but somewhere in there it becomes entirely it's own thing. Feyre is a poor daughter of a once wealthy merchant. She shoulders the burden of caring for the family, and they don't do much to show their appreciation for it. One very bitter winter's day, while hunting in the forest for food before her family starves to death, she kills a wolf without realizing that it was a fairy in disguise. As punishment, she is taken from her family to live with a High Fae named Tamlin.
There's a bit of a slow start, but honest to Gosh, this isn't a simple re-telling of Beauty in the Beast (my favorite fairy tell and one that I can have told to me in as many variations as possible) because by the end it developed into it's own thing and I didn't even recognize it anymore. That alone is reason to recommend it. The end doesn't even resemble it's beginning and that is a rare sign of a great book.
I was totally into it almost the whole time. I think Maas has the go ahead from the publishers for 2 more books (which seems excessive, but hey - that's good news for her!) The 2nd book drops next May, and honestly? The wait will kill me.

Some Comics I made while reading this book

SuperMutant Magic Academy: A Graphic Novel by Jillian Tamaki

Library Copy

It's been long enough since I've written about a graphic novel, and that's not because I haven't been reading them - I absolutely have. It's just challenging to write reviews for individual TP's, so I avoid doing it. But when a graphic novel is a stand-alone thing, that makes my job easier.

Jillian Tamaki is probably best known as the illustrator of the now mandatory Summer Reading assignment for some very lucky middle-school kids - This One Summer. I'd remarked in that review of how jealous I was of her ability to draw such fluid characters and stunning landscapes. SuperMutant Magic Academy was a web-comic Tamaki made, and I have to say I kind of enjoyed seeing her art improve over the course of the series.
Each comic is brief but snarky, dark, and bitingly honest. You get a good idea of Tamaki's sense of humor, but it's a good description of the modern teen & young adult. Sure, it's set in a high-school almost Hogwarts-esque or like Professor Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, but there's no acknowledgement that this school is especially special or woo-woo or anything like that. The students are all still teen-aged dirt-bags, and that's kinda refreshing.

I enjoyed this collection of comics, having read a few online over the years but never kept up with the web series as a whole, it's nice to be given the chance to read them all at once like this. It's also really refreshing to see talented illustrators I know from a web presence break into the publishing industry. (I mean, publishers would really have to be foolish to completely ignore that amount of popularity. That's what we like to call "leaving money on the table.") Now, what comic book will I read next time I'm waiting for my friends to meet me for coffee on Sunday mornings?

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Library Copy

Before I dive in, may I please rant a bit? It is 2015 and female writers of fantasy epics are still hiding behind gender-neutral pseudonyms to get recognition. Would A Darker Shade of Magic be the hit it is if her name would have been Victoria on the cover? Probably not, because I can almost promise that this book wouldn't even have such an evocative cover at all. This cover is absolutely what draws in many readers (It's very well designed, I have to say!) But if Victoria's name were on the cover, I'm pretty sure it would be a lot cheesier. That's just the tendency - but I'm no expert on it, so I'll end my rant here.

I was super stoked about reading this book! Yes, I was totally drawn to this fancy cover. Sometimes, like now, it doesn't lead me astray. I'd never even heard of Schwab before,
A Darker Shade of Magic is about a young man named Kell who has a unique ability in which he can traverse between, well, I guess 'dimensions.' Basically, there are four different versions of London, and because of his ability pretty much only he can go between them because Kell is an Antari. He's an Ambassador for "Red London" and travels between the other Londons - each one a snow flake - as a mediator. But he has a business on the side selling magical items to collectors that he's smuggled from the other Londons. His little hobby, as it were, accidentally gets him into a heap of trouble, in which Lila - a pick-pocket, cut-throat, cross-dresser, and aspiring pirate - helps him out of. Now the two are traveling between worlds somehow (very Doctor/Dr's Companion-esque) on an awfully big adventure.

I adored Kell from the start, but honestly I kind of hated Lila. I know, I should be supporting "Strong Female Characters" whenever I find them. But she just has zero chill. Still, I think there may be some interesting developments from her later in the series.

It was a lot of fun to read - my coworker might have had even more fun listening to my excited outbursts coming from my desk during our lunch breaks spent reading it. Though I thought this book wrapped up neatly, I am excited to see what happens in the next book on the series.

The Thirteenth Princess by Diane Zahler

Library eBook

This was a little book I read pretty quickly - it's intended for tween-aged girls, provided they still like princess stories (which I certainly did at that age). I read it pretty quickly, and it's obviously much, much too young for me, but it was a nice throw-back to the kinds of books I loved the best as a kid and made me feel very nostalgic.
I'll admit that I read it at all because I have a habit of reading (and adoring) any book with Kinuko Y. Craft's art gracing the cover. She largely illustrates for fantasy and some sci-fi novels, but they almost always happen to be the very specific kind of fantasy or sci-fi novel that I like, but she also does fairy tale books as well. Anyway, I'm not sure I can accurately confirm (if anyone reading this can, please leave me a message?) that this was Craft's work on the cover, but it certainly looks that way. A few years ago I read a very similar book called Wildwood Dancing in which she did illustrate, It is very, very close to this one - they're both retellings of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. It's really hard for me not to compare this book to that one. Wildwood Dancing was perfectly crafted - I would argue it's almost wasted on younger readers. While The Thirteenth Princess was well written, it wasn't the masterpiece Wildwood Dancing was, though it was cute and comforting to read.

The Thirteenth Princess is about Zita, a young girl who was raised in a castle as a servant, but only recently discovered that she is the youngest sister of the 12 princesses. Though she was kept away from her sisters her entire life, they still love her and steal away chances to spend time with her. They start a weekly tradition of allowing her to visit their massive bedroom once a week. Everything is great, until suddenly their heath begins to wane. Zita realizes that they are under a spell and as the only sister not being raised as a princess was over looked and their fore is free to rescue them.
Personally, I found Zita a trifle irritating - she's a romantic little fire brand, so I know a lot of readers will actually love her. (That's just a personal preference.) And I'm sure I'm missing a lot of information here, but I didn't dwell on this book very long to say a whole lot more. I would recommend reading Wildwood Dancing before this one, but if you know a bookish little girl (and with it being summer vacation...) this might be something good to read.

Prudence: The First Book of the Custard Protocol

Amazon Pre-Order

We know how excited I was about this book. I preordered it and I never preorder anything. I had a moral dilemma when it arrived because it clashed with my Lenten penance.

Prudence Alessandra Maccon Akeldama, or Rue to friends, is all grown up! It's really touching to see all the old crew 20 years older, even the babies which we didn't get to know really well at the end of the Parasol Protectorate books.
Rue is gifted an entire dirigible of her own by her indulgent adopted father, Lord Akeldama. However, this isn't just for joy-riding and globe trotting in. Her mission, should she choose to accept it, is to visit India and procure some very rare, very new tea plants. Because, as we all know from personal experience, tea is very important. So, along with her homies Prim, Percy, and Quesnel, she sets off, but perhaps a little too hastily. Because fairly quickly the youths discover that maybe they should have stuck around a little longer so that Akeldama could debrief them more on what to expect. Things such as werecats and an abducted Englishwoman. This causes a great deal of confusion (and as the reader it felt a little off the cuff and sloppy).

Plot-wise, the story was imperfect. Many of Carriger's series start off feeling like that, but improve after she embellishes over time. Considering that there is only projected to be one book after this one in the series, I'm a little concerned here.
But the thing that really makes this book work beautifully is the humor and the characters. I loved the banter between Rue & Percy. And Quesnel is just...

...Oh My Lanta. Mother MAY I! Etc etc

As usual, Carriger follows a formula with her cast. There's the plucky female lead, much developed since the soulless and socially cold Alexia. There's the well dressed, vain-ish, but totally loyal best friend (Ivy, Prim, and Dimity), and even that has gotten stronger. And there's the nerdy idiot brother that somehow girls adore. As I say, a little formulaic, but I really love the dynamic and it keeps me coming back for more. 

Rebel Belle

Kindle

How anyone before a certain age can read this book without thinking of Billy Idol first is probably a disparity to my supposed age. As we might have noticed, lately my taste in books is more about feminine and bad-ass ladies, and while I'll start off by saying this book doesn't touch anything I've been reading by Gail Carriger, I did really have fun with it. And at first I was disappointed with it, but it grew on me like a fungus.

Rebel Belle is about Harper Price, a pretty, popular, and loaded Southern Belle. She's a perfectionist, she's on literally every student committee in her private school, she has the perfect boyfriend, now she's the home-coming queen, yadda-yadda, you know the type. The kind of character, I'm kind of guilty to admit, is usually villainized and "mean girl'd." Actually, I expected to hate her. Until I realized she was a lot like Cordelia from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but if Cordelia was the slayer instead. Then she kind of grew on me.
So, anyway, back to where I was. Harper is an dauntingly perfect Southern Belle, and on the night she's crowned as the school's Home-Coming Queen, she's also gifted with mysterious and unlikely powers - essentially super strength. She's now a paladin and must protect a hipster boy named David Stark. She & David have been rivals since childhood and absolutely hate each other. And now that she has to spend more time with him, those feelings are getting more complicated.

Okay, so this book is silly and more appropriate for teenagers, but I had so much fun with it. I really appreciated the honesty and authenticity of all the characterization. Even the minor characters seemed like someone I might have met. Best of, I love that a lot of the gendered cliches were shot down really elegantly - actually, a lot of the cliches were handled very nicely. I may have been a little too old for this book, but I want my teenaged cousins to get their hands on this book!

Third Daughter: First book of the Dharian Affairs Trilogy

Kindle (free!)

I have to admit, I read a review for this book on SBTB that simply raved about it. Those girls don't put up with much bull, so when they rave about something you know it's legit. It's a steampunk trilogy set in a proto-India - Not England or America? How refreshing! If I wasn't sold yet, I was when I learned that the first book is free on the Kindle (or any e-reader device, including smart phones.) You really can't say no to something like that!
Okay, it took me a good deal longer to read this than I'd have liked. (I guess I'm still adjusting to reading on my replacement Kindle) But you guys might not have ever known that if I hadn't said anything.
Third Daughter is about Princess Anari, who is as the title implys, the Queen's 3rd daughter which means that she isn't as special as the first or second daughter. But it does mean that, unlike her sisters, after she reaches a certain age she's allowed to marry whomever she chooses. But this is only after she reaches a certain age. Before that her mother could very easily make her marry whoever she chooses. Anari's birthday is in a few weeks and she knows exactly who she'll choose - a handsome courtesan. But, it just happens that her mom wants to introduce her to the prince of a foreign province which is known for it's supposed barbarism, a prince who her mother wants her to marry. There are conditions: Anari can say no outright, and she really wants to, but she shouldn't because her mother (who has often with-held a lot of affection for her daughter) promises that she can still marry who she chooses by her birthday, provided she says yes now and acts as a spy for their country. Rumor has it the prince has a secret flying machine that could be used as a weapon. Anari is a very head strong fire-brand. Maybe she doesn't always make the smart decisions - sometimes she let's her heart lead when she should really let her (actually, very sound) head do the talking. I don't always like characters like her, but then again she didn't make me want to throw things either. I like a character that knows when to shut up and butt out, which. Head strong fire-brands do not have a concept of this at all. I'm not saying it has to be a defining trait, just that, you know, sometimes it isn't always appropriate to jump down your body guard's throat for being straight up with you, even if he is unpleasant about it. That's all. But i'm getting ahead of myself.
Clearly, this is a good sci-fi with a tough female lead, romance, espionage and daring-do. It's smart and well versed. The world building is unique and really exciting, to me anyway. Anari is a bit exasperating, but she develops by the end of the book. It's a great start to the triology, which being that you're able to read the first book for free, it does entice me to pay for the next two books. Sometimes that kind of tactic doesn't always work, but it did this time. But if you'd rather not read any further it's okay too. The book has a satisfactory ending (with a small cliff-hanger). I have been advised, however, that the series does not end with "him putting a million babies inside her," which for a romance reader could be a problem.

The Finishing School Series

Have you been wondering where I've been, dear readers? Wonder no more. This Christmas season I received from my bestie the entire (at press date) Finishing School series by Gail Carriger (of Parasol Protectorate fame) - and under peer pressure I read the entire thing (as quickly as my work schedule allowed). I debated on reviewing them each individually, but because I moved on from one to the next so quickly I didn't give myself time. Instead, I'm just going to review it as a whole - as I have the rare opportunity to.

Christmas Gifts from Jenee G.

Looking back at my reviews of the Parasol Protectorate books I'm a little horrified to see that I didn't love them as much as I remembered enjoying them. I guess the two feelings can mutually exclusive? I think of that series as a prototype for this one, however. I feel like Gail toyed around with some of the same ideas that she brought back in these books - and now honed them to perfection.

The Finishing School series is basically about a Victorian girls charm school, which sounds so quaint doesn't it? Well, they're also training to become assassins and spies. Picture it! Using handkerchiefs and sewing scissors for lethal weapons? Sounds pretty perfect to me. It has a beautifully droll sense of humor, which is more than enough to hook me, a series of badass girls and "evil genius" boys, foppish vampires, genteel werewolves, eccentric professors, cross-dressing, and a few more of my favorite things.
I absolutely don't want to give too much away, so at this point I just want to talk about my impressions. There aren't many characters in this series, which is fine (because once you read something like Game of Thrones you start to appreciate that) but one thing that I didn't like is that the minor characters didn't get a whole lot of chances to develop sooner. This series is going to be 4 books long and so far we have three, so that is something that stresses me out a bit. Naturally, the important characters do by the 3rd book, so that's what's important. Hopefully Carriger revisits some of them in later books. Failing that, this is ripe territory for fanfic writers - which I very much encourage. Part of the reason for this review is that this series has a very small fandom and that, to me, is so ridiculous. Please read this books and make lots of fanart and fanfics, everyone! Make all of the things, make it blow up. I want all the movies, video games, a TV series - I want this thing to never die, ya heard?
This series shares the same world (and sprinkling of some of the same characters) as the Parasol Protectorate books, but dated a few decades earlier. Like in Protectorate a lot of the names are nearly unpronounceable - something my friends and I have been debating back and fourth on. However, one of the beautiful things about Carriger's steam-punk world is that it isn't idealized and floofy like some proto-Victorian writers. One of the reasons I've been obsessed with the Victorians for most of my life is that they weren't always as genteel as we now seem to think. They were actually kind of horrifying sometimes. They may have been sexually repressed, but they compensated for it through other avenues - like a healthy obsession with what we today would consider outright macabre. These books don't include examples of this, at least nothing that high school librarians would picket against, but Carriger is aware of it. These books are anything but cutesy-poo.
Ah, now for the "shipping-wars." I'll reveal nothing of my own alignment on here, but you'll be tempted to pick sides and let me just say neither are bad choices. I made it very well known that I wasn't going to share my ships with my friends (because I didn't have one, really. It could go either way for me.) but the 3rd book ends in such a way, that... ugh... #1 whoever you choose, you'll be conflicted no matter what and #2 the 4th book isn't coming out until next November. All this tension and unresolved feelings has me like:

(too late)

Thankfully, Gail will be releasing a new book for a new series this March which I can't fuggin wait for. Maybe that will tide me over until then.

Adventure Time with Fionna & Cake: Double Feature

There are times when you need something fun and frivolous to read. Sometimes you need to give the ole' think-gut a rest, you know what I mean? I'd spent the last few weeks investing a lot of time reading a certain 800+ paged novel, only to have a it spoiled by a jerk friend. (There are some spoilers that just happen, and it can be forgiven. But this was a particularly asshole way to do it.) I'm pretty angry about it - I was just innocently reading and enjoying my book when this happens, and before you ask, no it wasn't Game of Thrones related. So I had to put it away (instead of just sitting around waiting for the axe to drop) and read something else to get my mind off of things.

Local Comic Store

Amazon Smile

So I opted to read some spin-offs of a cartoon franchise I really enjoy.
Even as a kid, I wasn't a fan of licensed books or series' that had too many sequels. I especially didn't trust books without a real author, feeling as if they were somehow illegitimate. But if they were part of a franchise I liked enough, I would want to give that franchise all of my money. Such is the way with Adventure Time's Fionna and Cake. I have been a fan of them since Natasha Allegri first posted her cute and very accurate comic strips on her Tumblr. I sure hope she's getting royalties from these spin-offs or something, because I'm going to continue buying anything Fionna and Cake related as long as they keep making them. Mainly on the grounds that actual episodes featuring them on the Adventure Time cartoon are rare, but also because I believe in supporting things that I think are awesome.

So, I read both the comic (at press time, there is only one volume - I don't know if there will be any more in the future) and a children's novella called "Queen of Rogues" - which was advertised as a romance novel, but there wasn't any romance to speak of.
First, the comic book. As it was helmed by Natasha herself (she did some writing and illustrating) it felt the most legitimate. At least, you get a more authentic feel of her original Fionna and Cake characters, which early on didn't seem like gender bent versions of Finn and Jake, but were their own things. Fionna and Cake are heavily influenced in both art and story by Japanese Shojo manga, which feels very natural with Natasha's art and story telling, as well as with the other artists and writers who wrote and illustrated for this comic.
The only issue I had was that the story telling was that it was a little too light, whimsical, and simplistic. (It started off brilliantly with the Flame Queen.) I remembered the original strips were really funny, though they might have been a little inappropriate too. I think the publishers were too afraid to go as dark as Cake leaving dead mice in Fionna's bed - maybe because that might be too intense for their little girl audiences. (I don't know, at that age I'd seen my cats do plenty of f**ked up things and I still like cats just fine.) I hope we do get further issues so that we can see more of Natasha's cutesy but still very wicked wit shine through.

Now for Queen of Rouge's - an obviously ghost-written franchise novella for younger readers. Actually, it was really well written and interesting. It was released with another book starring Jake the Dog and Lady Rainicorn, which was really romancey, but from what I saw of it, really stupid. This story was supposed to tell some of the background of how Fionna and Cake were introduced to Prince Bubblegum and Marshall Lee the Vampire King. I seriously doubt that any of it is cannon, but try convincing your kids that. I can see both young boys and girls enjoying this book, if you're a parent having a hard time getting your children to enjoy books.

Beautiful Darkness

local comic shop

I saw an article for this comic book on BuzzFeed and I knew I had to have it. The art is simple and cute, but the artist has some obvious chops, as is displayed in various points of realism. The art was something I was really excited about, so allow me to geek out over it for a bit. I feel like this book is going to be a lasting influence on me and an artist and writer. If you're familiar with the Finnish series of children's books (and cartoons) called The Moomins, this style is not dissimilar. Also, I'm personally a huge fan of water color and pencil lines in my own work, which is the predominate medium used here. Though, personally I can never quiet pull it off as effortlessly as is done here. In fact, this comic was originally published in France - this is not my first French comic, but it is enough that I can say that I love French and Belgian comics - particularly their illustration and sequential narratives (something you pay more attention to when you can't speak the language). Luckily, this book is in English now.

The story is described as an "anti-fairy tale." I would have to correct you if you would describe it as Grimm-Like, because people are under the false impression about the Brothers' Grimm fairy tales. It is dark and creepy, but largely the horrifying thing is the naivety of the cute little characters. If it's read as a fable, it can be seen as a message about our own oblivious society. But I have so many questions about this book - is Aurora (the cute little girl centered around the story) the soul of another little girl? Are her friends dying off as the body decays - do they represent other parts of the ego? Have I been doing too much research on Jungian theory in fairy tales? Am I completely over thinking this?? Probably.

This was a quick read - I finished it along with my Sunday morning coffee. But it's a delight. Though the art is cuter than a buttermilk biscuit, I still wouldn't, say, give it to a child to read. It is disturbing at times, so consider the child's maturity before handing it off to them. It can still be easily enjoyed by adults, as well.

Sleep Donation

Kindle

Sleep Donation - A novella by Karen Russel (who wrote the amazing, goose-bumping Swamplandia! and St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised by Wolves) is only available in ebook form as far as I know. I've always been a fan fan of hers, so I swept this up as soon as I saw it on the New Releases page on my Kindle. If you've never experienced a Karen Russel story yet, you should know what you're in for. One word - Surreal. Her literary fiction is so not for everyone. I really enjoy her style and crafting of plot, but I know it might well be disturbing and unsettling to some people. Take Swamplandia! for example. It was magical - like a children's birthday magic show - campy and fun make-believe at first, until suddenly Russel pulls back the curtain, shows us her bag of tricks, reveals the ugly and brutal truth. This to me speaks volumes about her ability as a writer. She's picked the right business to go into.
I enjoy Russel's stories because I can understand why they were born. I can see how, in this story for instance, wondering about what it might be like if you physically couldn't sleep. (Though, I suppose if you're an actual insomniac you might know something about this - I, most resoundingly, am not.) I can understand being curious about it's extended toll on your health. (It reminded me of something I read as a child about Napoleon having refused to sleep a full night for a long stretch of time - only to succumb after resulting poor health.) I can definitely see how insomnia seems to be more common now, one might wonder what it might be like if it had reached epidemic status. So yes. I can understand the underlying structure of thought. It does make for an enticing fictional back-drop.

As excited as I was to read this novella, it didn't have the same spark that my beloved Swamplandia! had, but honestly I'm okay with that. What can you expect from a straight-to-ebook novella, after-all? But it wasn't bad. No, nothing that sends me straight to my dictionary is bad. She had verses that had me swooning - the concept was so interesting. But the personal drama of Trish Edgewater I found less than engaging. She wasn't a very interesting lead, though her development towards the end may have resolved those issues.
I guess in conclusion, while an interesting concept, I can't help but compare it to Swamplandia! (which is one of my all time favorite books) and it doesn't compare story wise. Or if so, it's too subtle for me to see it.

The Ocean At The End of The Lane

It was a few months ago when I was visiting a friend at a local comic book shop that also sells books that no one ever - EVER - buys. (If you're a local, you know the exact one) I confessed to her one of my darkest secrets, and now I will confess it to you. I don't like Neil Gaiman's books. Not anymore. I considered myself a fan for years and years - from early on in high school after a certain teacher introduced me to his Sandman comics until college when I started reading many of his novels. But after some point I had to admit to myself that though I hadn't read all of his stories, there weren't many that I had read that just left a good impression on me. I had to be honest - Stardust is one of the best and most beautifully crafted novels I have ever read, but after that one none have ever really been truly good.
So this past week, during a lunch break visit to the library, I found myself picking up his latest novel The Ocean at The End of The Lane. It's noteworthy that not only had I all but given up on Neil Gaiman, but also the only copies my library had in stock were large print. Large print novels, while a God-send to some readers, give me headaches due to the often obnoxiously large font. So honestly the odds were stacked up against this book from the start. Now - imagine my surprise this Friday when I find myself camped out on my couch with mugs of spent coffee and tea stacking up around me as I find myself having devoured the entire novel effortlessly - even having skipped lunch. I won't hold you in suspense any longer: I really loved this book.
Neil Gaiman has redeemed himself in my eyes. The Ocean at The End of The Lane is reminiscent (although not a recreation) of his other stories that originally endeared him to me: somewhere between Coraline and Stardust, but written instead as a fairy tale for adults. Personally, that's a cue word from me that translates into "great." I love fairy tales - they remind me of what drew me into books in the first place: love, danger, magic, adventure and wisdom. All the things stale reality is void of.

The Ocean at The End of The Lane is about a man who revisits an old family from his childhood, and while there he recalls one mighty adventure he has with them. Knowing Neil Gaiman, this doesn't mean it's a simple and realistic coming of age story. Traditionally, "coming of age stories" of this sort have less magic and mayhem. It's a quick read, so cozy up with it and some tea one of these perfect fall days.

Ready Player One

This book was lent to me by a fabulous little waitress at a restaurant I visit very frequently. It was extraordinarily kind of her to do so!

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is a decidedly different novel, and a testament to all of you video game nerds out there, both young and old. Wade Owen Watts is a teenager who grew up in a dystopian America where the real world isn't worth living in, so an alternate reality in the form of an advanced MMORPG called OASIS is used for people to live with abandonment, away from the real world. Sort of like the way we use the internet today.
The creator of OASIS, an eccentric multi-billionaire who was obsessed with the 1980's (the decade he spent his teenaged years), has died and sets the world on fire when he sends everyone on a hunt for an Easter Egg he personally programmed into the game. The hunt is more or less forgotten (though always in the back of everyone's minds) when Wade finds the first clue after years.
Ready Player One is unlike anything I've ever read - that part is very true. The entire novel is one big writhing basket of fan-service. In fact, while I appreciate that as a nerd, it was often too much for my tastes. Other reviewers referred to it as an "info-dump," and that's pretty accurate. The beginning half of the novel stalled to a halt while we were flooded with information on video games, movies, and music circa the 1980's, as well as trying to get a feel for the two settings the novel occupies.
You see, while I enjoy sci-fi novels, they all invent their own unique worlds and rules, and so I think it takes a reader some time to acquaint themselves. Or maybe that's just me. Ernest Cline used a good chunk of that time to barrage us with 80's cult classic trivia. Clearly he was just super excited to be able to write a novel like this, like the true nerd he is. How do I know? Besides the fact that he's written this book, as well as the movie Fan Boys, just look at his author photo -

- the man has a Delorian. I'm sorry, but no one else on Earth could have been better qualified to write this book. 

As cool as the idea for this book was, I was sorry to have given in 2 stars on Goodreads. It was hard for me to keep myself interested in this book. Not only because of the info-dumping, but also because I didn't care for Wade's character. I have a personal issue with arrogant, nerdy boys (who are usually fedora wearing chubs) that expect no one to live up to their glorious, shining standards. I have had enough interactions with real life Wade Watts to find the fictional one a big enough jackfruit. Of course, Wade is a teenager, and that's pretty universally true for most teenaged boys. It still doesn't mean I have to fall in love with this annoying little Holden Caulfield.

I'm going to go ahead and say that if you're a male reader and you love any amount of video games, sci-fi, comic books, anime, etc, you will enjoy this book (and you may already be a fan of Cline's career). As for me, I found it "meh." And that's from a girl who once broke her bedroom ceiling fan pretending to be Aries from Final Fantasy 7.

Changeless: Book Two of the Parasol Protectorate Series

   As it so happens, the review I wrote of Book One, Soulless, is one of my most popular posts so far. That being the case, I can't let my readers down! Here's my review of the 2nd book - Changeless.
   It would be difficult to review this without spoiling it if you intend to read the first book, so I'll just try to avoid mentioning anything, you know, important. This book didn't initially heat up the series. You basically had to read on until the end of the book, the very last chapter, the very last few pages for that. And it ended on a cliff hanger. I'm not going to say that the rest of it was unbearable to read, but it was nothing really all that special, either. It was fun and entertaining to read and revisit the old characters, plus there are a few new characters, too. A mysterious French woman who ends up becoming Alexia's intellectual side-kick, and a Scottish werewolf pack. A good deal of the story takes place in an old Scottish castle.
The basic plot is that some mysterious, presumed bio-weapon that only affects supernatural beings (and only in the London area) is causing Vampire and Werewolf alike to return to their mortal states, as well as exorcizing ghosts. Without warning, Alexia's new husband (whoops! Is that a spoiler?) high tails it out of town, though not necessarily in pursuit of the cause of the blight.

As I've said... it didn't really add much interest to the series. My verdict is still out on if I liked it or not. I'll still continue to read the others in the series, because I really appreciate the author's style and sense of humor. It's refreshing to read anything Steam Punk that isn't awful, and while this is a little better than mediocre, it still isn't.... you know... awful...

A Game of Thrones: Book 1 of A Song of Ice and Fire

(Or, "Lauren is a day late and a dollar short on a world-wide phenomena, but 
not for the first time.")

So, I guess you've all been wondering what I've been up to? Well, my friends, the short answer is This. The long answer is, "So help me, if you spoil this series I will find you and I will kill you, because I have little to no faith in Nerd Culture. You're all horrible. Shut your mouths and go breathe on some other poor girl."
There now. In my defense - not that I need one - when this book was published I was in the 3rd grade, and this isn't the sort of book you would just hand over to a 9 year old girl to read. Further more, when the series was released on HBO how was I supposed to know it was actually going to be good, despite the fact that I also do not have HBO. Further-further more, the series is tremendous and the truth of the matter is I was always kind of saving it for when I would have a long stretch of "too much time." Like, say I would find myself bedridden. Realistically, I've always assumed that if I ever found myself pregnant, I would be the kind of pregnant woman - like this one cousin I have - who spent her last trimester in bed due to complications. That's the perfect amount of time to spend on reading gargantuan fantasy novels! Then suddenly, I realized I shouldn't bank on any of these things. For one thing, waiting until early motherhood is possibly the worst time to read big books. Because you will never read another book again. I have it on pretty good authority. And, well, there really isn't any time like the present after-all. So I did it anyway.

What is there to say about this book that hasn't already been said? Answer: nothing. I'm just going to be agreeing with a bunch of people no matter what side they're on.
But I did enjoy it. A lot. I would be lying if I said I hadn't had make-out dreams with dear old Jon Snow (Yes, I know he's 14. Cut me some slack though. Even at 14, he's more of a man than most of you - so, suck it!) I realized that all of my girl friends and I are Arya Stark in our own way, and that's a good way to be. No one likes Sansa. I wanted very badly not to hate Sansa, but seriously she made it impossible at times, though I do pity her tremendously and sympathize with her. I can see there will (hopefully) be a lot of character growth where she is concerned. I dare say, Sansa may be the only character Martin wrote (so far as I can tell) that you have conflicted feelings about. He's really good at manipulating how you'll feel about his characters. If he wants you to hate someone, you will damn well hate them. No excuses. You will be tempted to throw the book or remote or whatever nearby object in disgust because of them. But the characters are complicated - in fact there are a lot of aspects of this series that'sthat's a really beautiful thing. I'm really happy to see a series like this become this popular. It's got something for everyone, and that's really neat. Now I have to get my hands on the TV show, maybe. Yeah, you guys haven't heard the last from this series.

Soulless: Book One of The Parasol Protectorate Series

I hope you're all having a Spooktacular Valentines! This year we had kind of a wonky calendar, what with Lent starting exactly one day before Valentines. So if you're Catholic, like me, and gave up sweets for Lent, like me, I hope you're still able to go about enjoying Valentines day. (My advice - don't be weak! Yes, that temptation makes it very, very, very hard, but that's exactly what it's all about. Don't try to squirrel out of it.)
Mardi Gras was a very quiet, rainy affair for us. It's only natural that I camped out all week in my bed, reading and gorging myself on candy (while I still could). And the book I picked to read? Perfect for Valentine's Day. I couldn't have planned it better if I tried, and honestly I didn't.
Now, to know me is to know that I like to celebrate Valentine's Day with Buffy marathons and red velvet cake (if possible), and that "bad" Steampunk Sci-Fi is a special guilty pleasure of mine. Soulless isn't quiet Buffy, but it's in the same vein, and if the book reviews on GoodReads are to be trusted, this book is indeed bad.

Wise words of wisdom.

But since this sort of thing is my Honey Boo-Boo Child, I really enjoyed this book. A lot. I mean, since I'm a paranormal romance/steampunk loving fool, and all. And really, I wasn't too far off the mark before when I mentioned Buffy. Soulless is about a half Italian, smart-ass spinster named Alexia who lives in an alternate-past London. In this version of London, werewolves and vampires live-in with the rest of society. It's all very proper and dignified. And while werewolves and vampires are still considered dangerous, they are accepted and normal. What isn't considered normal, however, is to be preternatural like Alexia. In other words, she has no soul. In other words, she is neither human, nor supernatural, and can't be turned as you would have to have a soul first.
That's pretty cool. But most importantly, she's entertaining as hell. We here at Feast of Poetry love a strong female lead. We also do not believe that that necessarily has to take away from the fact that any romance intended for this strong, independent lady has to be dry and lacking of luster. Because there is a certain Scottish alpha werewolf (Cliche? Perhaps. Do we mind? Not really.) who has set his cap towards our little Alexia. And while the resulting trysts are only PG-13, if even that, they certainly still had me, as the expression goes, "clutching at my pearls."
I really liked the tone of this book. I loved the idea for an a-typical paranormal romance that's refreshed a little bit by adding steampunk elements, Victorian manners, and sassy mouthed heroines. It's not perfect, but it's a fun, light-hearted way to spend a rainy pre-Valentine's week.