tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61802701618449808282024-03-13T07:31:38.094-04:00GAL Noveltyanother book blog on whatever fictional prose I'm reading ATMyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.comBlogger117125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-29414417575867697862011-10-14T18:04:00.001-04:002011-10-14T18:04:35.207-04:00This is not quite a goodbye postHey. There are a few things this blog post is not about<br /><br />1) This is not the post wherein I say goodbye to the blogsphere all together.<br /><br />2) Nor, is this the blog post announcing a renewed vigour of blogging... at least on this particular blog.<br /><br />Over the last year in France, I felt myself change and grow in ways that are not reflected in the self that used to blog here, before I left for exchange. I was feeling a fatigue, and I thought of quitting so many times, but I still find myself lurking over review pages, never quite able to give things up. I knew I needed to change though, a restart.<br /><br />So this is, I guess, a kind of table rase, a creation of a new book blog, a fresh start.<br /><br />I will not delete this blog, not just yet. But I might in the future. Or I might not. Still indecisive, always.<br /><br />My new book blog is http://aworldofpaperhearts.blogspot.com<br /><br />Perhaps I'll see some beloved familiar faces there.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-61554309791415941902010-11-11T16:39:00.003-05:002010-11-11T17:59:38.067-05:00Friday Five, or Breaking the Radio Silence1. Did anyone see the new 2011 <b>Jane Eyre</b> trailer? I think you should go and watch the Jane Eyre trailer. I mean, I don't even like the book very much (Let me qualify this: I was more or less okay with this book, but then Mr. Rochester showed up and I hate his face. And thus I hated the book. I haven't reread or touched the book since that summer eight years ago when I was vacationing in Malaysia and yelled angrily at the book for its ending.) but the trailer's suspense spookiness drew me in. It looks all properly gothic and stuff!! I'll just, I don't know, close my eyes every time Mr. Rochester does that I Am A Poor Tragic Hero crap on me or something. <br /><br /><div><object width="576" height="324"><param name="movie" value="http://d.yimg.com/nl/movies/site/player.swf"></param><param name="flashVars" value="vid=22939910&"></param><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed width="576" height="324" allowFullScreen="true" src="http://d.yimg.com/nl/movies/site/player.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars="vid=22939910&"></embed></object></div><br /><br />2. So, that reclist email I promised people who signed up for it. er, I kind of overestimated my abilities to make a personalized reclist? Ahaha, I don't know, I just kind of assumed that it'd be about as easy as reccing things to my friends, which I do more or less all the time, but I forgot to take into account that the reason why it's mostly easy for me to rec things to friends is because I know them pretty well, am familiar with their tastes and can rec things with ease. Whereas here, I'm finding myself having to hazard a guess from people's booklist from GoodReads and their blogs, if they own any. And... it's not the same? Like, I mean, two people can like the same Harry Potter book, but maybe one is all about the hero's journey whereas the other person just really likes boarding school with magic shenanigans. And it's just really tricky to tell.<br /><br />Also as I was drawing up a preliminary list of possible book recs for each person who signed up, I ended up losing the paper. *dies* That will teach me to go the paperless way more often. Save some tries. And er, not bring blog-related things to class to fiddle with... <br /><br />Don't worry I won't back out on making the reclist. I'm kind of hoping that my paper reclist is still in my room somewhere since the thought of trying to make a new list of possible recs for every person is making me die a little inside. (I am a horribly disorganized person, fyi... it's quite possible it's still here somewhere, hidden under the piles of disorderly-ness... *crosses fingers*) But if not, when winter holidays comes around I can dedicate at least 48 hours straight on working on this reclist for y'all (and I will be needing at least 48 hours since--if I remember this correctly--I spent at least 3 to 4 days straight working on that reclist before losing it and cursing the world...) <br /><br />For a sneak peak though, I think a lot of my recs ended up mentioned <b><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5103426-the-summer-of-the-ubume">The Summer of Ubume</a></b>, <b><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7064529-gullstruck-island">Gullstruck Island</a></b>, and <b><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6154327-the-lord-of-the-sands-of-time">The Lord of the Sands of Time</a></b> a lot. So if you don't want to wait around until Christmas, you can check those three titles out. <br /><br />3. Um, this blog. I don't know what to do with it? I had this Crisis wherein I looked at my reviews and was quite horrified to realize that a lot of them read like tangents more than anything. I kind of blame this on the fact that sometimes the things I want to talk about have nothing to do with critiquing the book as a whole but analyzing the novel from one perspective? For instance, no matter how many times I try to draw up a review for <b><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5287473-hex-hall">Hex Hall</a></b>, all I really want to talk about is the characterization of the lesbian vampire best friend character. Which er, is not the point of <b>Hex Hall</b>. And they're all so rambly and disorganized! It's like I just vomit out words onto a word document and paste them up online or something! *crawls into a hole in SHAME* (Note: um, this is just me showing that I'm kind of dissatisfied with the reviewer I am and that I'm thinking of changing my reviewing style. I'm not fishing for compliments here or anything.)<br /><br />And I've been having Thoughts about the whole idea behind book reviewing blogs, and what I hope to achieve with it, and I wish I kind of just knew what I want to do with it then I will know what to do? And it's very hard to organize it all in my brain because I am, in case it isn't terribly evident, one of those people who have Opinions on Everything, but this is meant to be a <i>book</i> blog it's not like I can go around spouting just every little thought that comes to mind and I'm starting to think it'd just be a whole lot easier if I just had a Blog of Opinions, wherein I could just say whatever I want on anything I want and not try to put things in boxes or worry too much about if I'm being coherent and comprehensible or being relevant or whatever. <br /><br />But I still want to keep a book blog because I kind of miss how it really challenged me to think critically about a book I loved and if I could just find a way to make this blog work for me so that I can talk to my heart's content about the books I've read, and I really do enjoy posting about books I love and particularly doing my best to do justice to books I've loved. I mean, sometimes I feel like I got the review all wrong and it's frustrating, but other times I look back and I'm like, I think I wrote something pretty good here, so yeah. I don't want to give up. Instead, I'm trying to think of a way I can make this work for me, but for now I think it'll be safer to say that I'm on a mental hiatus until I figure something out i.e. figure out my Goals.<br /><br />However, all galleys and ARC reviews will still go on. If I don't cough up that Solace on the Road review by next weekend feel free to throw stones at me or something.<br /><br />4. One of the interesting things I've noticed about my reading habit in France is that I'm reading far less books geared towards teens. This is not really a taste thing, but more of a thing of economics. As I was musing with my friend on an email earlier:<br /><br /><blockquote>I'm kinda amused by my book selection in France. Like, I never really touch the YA section because the prices are like inverse to what happens in Canada. There is only trade paperback and it's frickin expensive, like 25 bucks if we convert to canadian dollars and they don't have a 'poche' edition to them (the french version of a mass bound paperback aka the cheaper books) whereas all the adult books have 'poche' editions and it's actually cheaper to read High Literature of Serious Business than teen lit. Soooooooo I end up reading a lot of very serious novels about war or something, lol. Mostly from WWII and Holocaust related stuff.</blockquote><br /><br />And then, you know, I started having these thoughts about how people's reading decisions are limited what is available to them and the way it interacts with all these -isms and ladida all sorts of stuff my brain came up with that is very incoherent and probably of no interest to anyone here. ^^;<br /><br />5. Hmm, I suppose I should save this for the WoW meme, but I am a very lazy meme-er so~ la. Also i just saw this today and was very excited for it and thought I'd spread my happiness around or something. <strike>Yes I know this post is also a meme too, but indulge me, why don't you?)</strike><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TNx0AigzLVI/AAAAAAAAAos/yLjALKBFzgE/s1600/luminuous.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 265px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TNx0AigzLVI/AAAAAAAAAos/yLjALKBFzgE/s400/luminuous.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5538429194372066642" /></a><br /><br />Isn't it gorgeous? YA Fantasy with Latina lead, and while I can't vouch for the contents at all since I haven't read it, at least we can all admire the cover's beauty and non-whitewashed-ness. <br /><br />Summary: Consuela is a typical suburban Latina teen until she unwittingly slips into the world of the Flow. Discovering that she has paranormal powers and a mission to save people from dying before their time, Consuela—who has the power to slip out of her worldly skin and cloak herself in elemental skins including water, fire, and air—joins other teens with extraordinary abilities, bound together to safeguard a world they can affect, but where they can no longer belong. Yet when murder threatens to undo the Flow, the Watcher charges Consuela and elusive, and attractive, V (who might prove more than an ally in battle) to find and stop the killer.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-89643414558106805212010-10-11T08:02:00.002-04:002010-10-12T07:00:41.281-04:00Readathon WrapupA couple days late, but I've been feeling worn out post-readathon. Is anyone else feeling the same thing?<br /><br />Instead of doing the final meme, I'll just give brief impressions of the book I read.<br /><br />1) <i>La prochaine fois</i> - Still don't like it after I've had some distance with that book, and I'm pretty sure Marc Levy is not the author for me. Actually he kind of reminds me of Nicholas Sparks in terms of the romance but with a dash of fantastical elements in it? Slow, meandering, and the chemistry lacklustre... Yeah, just didn't do it for me. Interestingly enough I was quite amused by the banter of Jonathan and Peter, the two main male characters, and I'm pretty sure they had a gazillion times more chemistry with each other than Jonathan ever had with Clara. It's like, with Clara Jonathan is all doom and gloom Tragic Hero, but with Peter he suddenly develops a sense of humour. It's quite disconcerting, actually.<br /><br />2) <i>Coeur de Jade</i> - I think, my problem with this book was the fact that I walked in with expectations for a heroine's journey with tons of character development, and lots of fantasy elements in a historical backdrop, and instead it gave me a historical epic with a large multicast with minimal fantasy and lots of action and sword fights? Which is not to say that the latter wasn't good (the sword fights were most excellent), just that it wasn't at all what I expected. I still wish that they developed Jade Heart more, and had more explorations of the dynamic between her and the dragon, but I suppose I'll have to read the rest of the trilogy to find out more. At the end of the day, while I didn't enjoy this Chinese historical fantasy epic as much as I wanted to, I'm interested and invested enough to plan on reading the rest of the trilogy. The development of the settings was pretty solid, though I thought the author could have handled the transliteration stuff better (footnotes > glossary - it's the Truth), and if this book ever became available in English, I totally would recommend others to read it.<br /><br />3) Perrault's fairy tales - Some fairy tales were more disturbing than I remembered them to be (Donkeyskin and Little Red Riding Hood, for example) but I really enjoyed Diamonds and Toads, and Blue Beard. Though, wtf at the translation of the Diamonds and Toads title, the original was "Les Fées", aka The fairies, and I was very confused when I read it and thought to myself that they sounded very familiar... Interestingly enough, most of the romances have the couple actually talking to each other before marrying, and it's an interesting clue-in on the emerging feminist thoughts in Perrault's time. Of course, there were still some stuff I thought could be construed as rather genderfail-y (me and Little Red Riding Hood, we must have Words) but still, very interesting.<br /><br />4) <i>La Treve</i> - I totally wouldn't have thought of starting off this memoir if it wasn't for the non-fiction meme, so I owe RAT for this awesome read. Primo Levi has a lovely way with words. I only barely started reading this before the whole readathon thing was over, but I plan on finishing this off sometime in the near future.<br /><br /><b>Thoughts:</b><br /><br />Damn, reading so much French was damn hard. I can't read as fast as I want to, and I'm always deciphering words before I see the story beneath it all, and it's very frustrating and there's always that temptation to take constant breaks because my level of focus I have to employ reading in French is sooooooo draining and there's this disconnect I have when I'm reading in French than I do when I read in English. Probably because I can't sink into the story when I'm busy puzzling out the meaning. Hopefully if I just read more I'll get to a point wherein I'll be able to sink into the story instead of always floundering over elusive words, but I confess, the moment the readathon was over, I dashed off to NetGalley and read like, 3 English novels (<i>Butterfly Swords, A Long Walk To Water, Hunger</i>) in a day. I just miss reading novels and not having to second guess my level of understanding. I kind of feel guilty about it though, and will push myself to read more in French. <br /><br />You know, maybe when I'm back in Canada or something I'll try the marathon with English novels. I've always read really quickly in English, and I'm curious to see how much I can do in 24 hours.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-77752203715974424912010-10-08T15:57:00.006-04:002010-10-10T06:34:55.442-04:00Dewey's Readathon: My Booklist<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TK-Ap7OT0TI/AAAAAAAAAok/0e-GeemfBdk/s1600/deweys-readathonbutton.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 108px; height: 144px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TK-Ap7OT0TI/AAAAAAAAAok/0e-GeemfBdk/s400/deweys-readathonbutton.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525776725567590706" /></a><br />So, I'm going to participate in this for the first time! <br /><br /><b>Priority Book List</b> (aka I will finish them this readathon EVEN IF IT KILLS ME *_*):<br /><i>Coeur de Jade, lame du dragon : Tome 1 - Le secret des masques</i> par Kristoff Valla (trans. Jade Heart, The Dragon's Blade: Book 1 - The Secret of the Masks)<br /><i>La prochaine fois</i> par Marc Levy (trans. Next Time)<br /><br /><b>Other French Language Long Narratives</b>:<br /><i>La traversée du continent</i> par Michel Tremblay (The Crossing of the Continent)<br /><i>Les liaisons dangereuses</i> par Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (Dangerous Liaisons)<br /><i>The Sky Crawlers</i> par Hiroshi Mori (A Japanese-to-French translated novel)<br /><i>La Trêve</i> par Primo Levi (The Truce - An Italian-to-French translated memoir)<br /><br /><b>Short French Language fictive works</b>:<br /><i>Contes</i> par Charles Perrault ([Fairy] Tales)<br /><i>Boys Next Door</i> par Kaori Yuki (manga)<br /><i>Kaine</i> par Kaori Yuki (manga)<br /><i>Neji</i> par Kaori Yuki (manga)<br /><i>The Royal Doll Orchestra - Tome 1 + 2</i> par Kaori Yuki (manga)<br /><br /><b>English Novels:</b><br /><i>A Reluctant Cinderella</i> by Alison Bond<br /><i>Agnes Grey</i> by Anne Bronte<br />Other possible netgalleys I've received from publishers, etc.<br /><br />The plan for this readathon is for me to read as much of my french novels as possible. The English novels are really just there for a placeholder in case I actually finish all these books before the 24 hours period (not likely, but you never know). Or, if, you know, I hit a certain point in my readathon wherein I start thinking I CAN'T READ ANOTHER DAMN FRENCH WORD, I have other options open to me, like the healing sight of the English word and its soothing presence of comprehensibility, or something.<br /><br />Also, I may possible cheat on this 24 hour readathon, because well, this weekend the weather happens to be nice, and considering I've been living over a week of dreary rain, I fully intend on being out in the warm sun as much as possible. That would most evidently cut down on my reading time, so I may start before dawn and basically squeeze in reading time when it's dark out. Also, I intend on reading literally 24 hours, even if it isn't consecutive. Which means, let say I read for 3 hours and then took an hour's break - I won't count that one hour and consider what I've read as 3 hours in the 24 hours readathon scheme. <br /><br />I will probably update this post with my reading updates on this readathon journey, so as not to bother those who have me on their feeds or google reader with a bombardment of spam. <br /><br />Anyhow, is anyone else participating in this readathon? Are there any other participants planning on reading in their non-native tongue? I'd love to hear from everyone and good luck to all the participants! =D<br /><br /><b>Update 1</b><br /><br />So it's Hour 11 in this readathon and I think I'm going to have to take back what I said about reading literally 24 hours and just count whatever I read during this 24 hour period as what I'll end up with for the challenge. <br /><br />I've finished my copy of <i>La prochaine fois</i>, which took me 2 hours and 41 minutes, not counting all the loooooong breaks I took in between reading this. (It got to a point wherein I basically welcomed distractions from my roommates. This book! So mind-numbing!) It was such a slow read for me, considering its tiny page number. (less than 300 pages) I'm not understanding the great popularity of this Marc Levy author? The Eternal Tragic Love romance mostly induced eye-rolling reactions the whole time I spent reading this book (I do like reincarnation stories, but the way it was handled here was just so CHEESY and ughhhhhh), and I suspect if I let my brain think harder about the roles of women in this book, I'd be enraged. (Women are manipulative evil crones! Unless they're your love interest-in which case she will sigh and pine away at hero's awesomeness and then waste tragically away and die in your arms as the narrative continues to focus about how this is so Tragic For Our Male Hero! The faaaaaaaail, and the whole treatment of justifying cheating fiancee's actions, blaaaaaaaaaaaaah) But as such, I'm more mildly annoyed than anything and try not to think too much about it while I was reading. Ah well, this was a book a friend lent me, so at least I can 1) finally return it 2) honestly say I've finally given Marc Levy a shot (and will probably never read anything else by him) and 3) practiced my french.<br /><br />Was 50 minutes into reading <i>Coeur de Jade</i> and I've reached a point wherein I'm reading the words and not even understand what it's saying. Probably because it's like, 12 am as I write this. Also this being an action thriller, a lot of the fight scenes require that mental visualization thing that I've never been really good at, and it being in french just sucks out all my brain effort into this gooey mush. <br /><br />Haha, so basically out of the 11 hours so far I only spent about 4 hours reading. Honestly the rest of the time I spent either eating or hanging around outside because YAY FINALLY GOOD WEATHER. <br /><br />Will now go back to see if I can read <i>Coeur de Jade</i> but if now I'll pop open my Perrault's fairy tale collection or the manga I have lying around.<br /><br /><b>Update 2: Hour 12</b><br /><br /><b>Mid-Event Survey:</b><br />1. What are you reading right now?<br />- I'm on Contes de Perrault.<br />2. How many books have you read so far?<br />- Well, I finished Marc Levy's <i>La prochaine fois</i>, was in the middle of reading <i>Coeur de Jade</i> until I decided to drop it for something lighter. Hopefully I'll get back to finishing it before this readathon is over. <br />3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?<br />- Honestly if I manage to finish <i>Coeur de Jade</i> by the end of this I'll be quite content.<br />4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?<br />- ... Actually I... kinda allowed myself distractions? Ironically this Saturday was the first sign of nice weather in a week and I couldn't say no to going out to the park. Also the first book I trudged through was such a painfully slow read that everytime someone knocked on my door I'd be like 'Why yes, dear roomate, come in and tell me more about distraction things! Anything if it means I don't have to read this book!' So... yeah. 8D ^^;;;;;;;<br />5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?<br />- Kind of covered it in #4 but basically I just let them happen. When I found out today was going to be good weather though I did make an attempt to read before the start time to make up for the time I knew I was going to spend outside, but I didn't get far due to not liking my book, etc.<br />6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?<br />- Actually, I was surprised to hear that there is a <a href="http://readathon.over-blog.com/">French Readathon</a>? I didn't know and if I did, I probably would have registered for that one instead. But oh well. Also the whole cheerleading business is very nice. I didn't expect it so when I saw all the nice comments on this post I was real happy. =d<br />7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?<br />- lol not really? It's been good so far.<br />8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?<br />- Choose less novels, more short stories. <br />9. Are you getting tired yet?<br />- sooooooooooo tired. I'm thinking of napping a little after this meme.<br />10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?<br />- haha actually I think I'm really not in the position of giving others advice this time around? Perhaps when I'm a more "seasoned" readathon-er, I'll have something to contribute here.<br /><br /><b>Update 3: Hour 23</b><br /><br />The final stretch. I finished <i>Coeur de Jade</i> about an hour ago, so I got everything I wanted finished on my Priority List! Yay! <br /><br />At first I thought of using the time left (besides taking the time to shower/eat/daily necessity things) to just finish off my <i>Contes</i> collection or maybe start a manga, but at around Hour 19 there was a Non-fiction challenge and I thought I'd crack open my copy of <i>La Trêve</i>. Man, I forgot how eloquent Primo Levi was. Thoughtful, and humble with his select word choice and cuts through all flowery language and is deeply moving. This is the kind of book I'd like to read through slowly. <br /><br />Anyhow, meme:<br /><br />1. Have you ever read a memoir/true story (Or book 'based on true events'?) <br />-I've read a couple, both for an outside of class.<br /><br />2. If so, what was the title/author? <br />- <i>Si c'est un homme</i> by Primo Levi was the most recent one that comes to mind (I read this for class). It was about the author's experience in a concentration camp. I loved it so much I bought the sequel to it on my own time. For non-class readings, there was a time when I scoured my library for every Genghis Kan biography available. I especially liked the ones that focused on his years as Temujin. I read <i>Rape of Nanking</i> about two years ago and am still haunted by that book till this day.<br /><br />3. What what it about?<br />-lol kind of answered this already in #2<br /><br />4. Did you like it? Would you recommend it?<br />-See #2<br /><br />5. How many have you read?<br />- *shrugs* I think I read memoirs about once every one or two years? I'm usually more of the documenting historical events non0fiction reader.<br /><br />6. Why or what made you want to read it?<br />-For <i>Si c'est un homme</i>, well, it was for class. I can't quite explain my fascination with Genghis Khan. Like all conquerors he committed terrible atrocities, but he had like, this grand vision, the way he thought about himself and his place in the world and I was just lured in by his story. I mean, you know how some people are like, fascinated by Napoleon (my dad is one of those people, lol) or Alexander the Great or something? Genghis Khan was that kind of person for me. Also I read <i>The Rape of Nanking</i> because it was the summer and I found a copy lying around my house. <br /><br />7. What was the saddest/scariest one you read? <br />The Rape of Nanking for sure. EVERYONE, READ IT.<br /><br />8. Did it have a 'happy ending'?<br />- No<br /><br />9. When choosing a memoir/true story, do you look for a certain kind? ( i.e. historical diary, inspirational like The Freedom Writer's Diary, Christian, non Christian)<br />- Not particularly. With memoirs I mostly go by recommendations from others.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-2500107756991567832010-10-03T08:20:00.002-04:002010-10-03T08:49:20.929-04:00My Reading Journey In France: Reflections on Choice and Accessibility<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/W9QtJERu_2E?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/W9QtJERu_2E?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><i>A MV of a French book I just recently finished</i> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9QtJERu_2E">direct link in case embed vid doesn't work</a><br /><br />Looking back, I can't believe so much time passed by since I last posted. My Blogoversary went by without any comment from me, my birthday shortly afterwards, and now, it's October. *guiltyface* My apologies. <br /><br /><b>My Reading Journey In France: Reflections on Choice and Accessibility</b><br /><br />When my Blogoversary was coming up, I had a hard time figuring out what I would say for it, mostly because I have no idea how my reading experience would be like in a different country. Because, you know, crossing an ocean to a country that predominantly speaks a non-English language really changes my reading habits. I don't have those shiny ereader things so I must rely solely on the local bookstores for books, and... You guessed it, it's hard to find English books in their original English text. Well, the ones that aren't top bestsellers or classics, at any rate. That, combined with the fact that I'm basically in France to <i>improve</i> my French, means that I will be doing my best to read almost exclusively in French. (This also means I'll be reading less books in general since, as I've discussed before, <a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/03/discussion-post-reading-in-second.html">I read slower in French</a>.)<br /><br />I had a feeling this would impact my blogging, and, you know, it does. I'm still struggling over how I'd review a French book in an English review when 1) the book may not be available in English and thus my readers will probably not care about what I'm reviewing, and 2) I'm actually not at all well-versed in the French literary canon, (I used to not really read more than 3-5 French novels in a year, and most of that - if not all - comes from those compulsory reading materials in my French classes.) and I feel like I'm not quite at the point wherein I can fairly gauge how well the book was written on a word-by-word scale. <br /><br />I'm looking at my book buying habits here over last month, and I believe that I'm buying more translated into French texts than works written originally in the French language. To be honest, this mostly has to do with the fact that manga here is cheaper than back home, and France licenses quite a number of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shojo_manga">shoujo manga</a> I can't find in English, or they're releasing the volumes here faster, etc. Aside from manga, I'm also buying more translated novels because... Well, I find that the US publishing industry is not really up in the forefront on translating novels from other places into English. For instance, I've always wanted to read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Crawlers">The Sky Crawlers</a> because the movie that was based on this book was simply stunning, but so far there's no trace of a translation in English project in the works. When I found it in the local bookstore here in French I possibly may have made a public display of myself and paid 14.99 euros without so much as blinking. Also, when the book is translated from a language I am not fluent enough to read in its original language like Japanese or Korean or Chinese or Italian or German, etc etc, I feel like whatever language I read it in won't matter since things will be lost-in-translation either way and if I choose to read it in French, my French reading materials also increase. <a name='more'></a><br /><br />Also, a side effect of not having read much from the French literary scene is that I'm walking into the bookstore more or less clueless and not quite sure what to buy. I'm one of those really cautious book buyers, wherein every time I pick up a book, I try to think, will it be worth it? What if this book ends up not being my thing? (Aaaaaaaaand I also look for the cheapest book prices possible, lol.) I'm picking up less reading material, and the fewer books I read, the less book reviewing materials I have. However, I suppose this factor can change once I read more and get a feel for what kind of French book I like. <br /><br />Another factor in my book selections is that recently I'm much less willing to accept novels that depict a white-washed world. (Please note that I'm saying 'less willing', not completely unwilling.) I do like to see at least a <i>hint</i> of diversity in what I read, and, well, when I scanned the 'jeunesse' section (mostly the equivalent of the Teen's and MG section in Canada/US if the two subcategories were meshed into one) of the bookstore and trying to gleam out the novels written originally in French from the translated novels (So many translated novels!! Almost all coming from the US publishing industry! They practically take up 80% of bookshelve space! This is so strange for me... And, you know, kind of visibly showed me the clout of the US publishing hand has on a more global scale.), it is all very overwhelmingly white European. This is not to say that they don't <i>exist</i>, just that the ones I see on the shelf can't be more than what I can count on one hand. So, I'm basically having trouble mustering up enough enthusiasm about the jeunesse titles I see to fork out the cash and buy them.<br /><br />Besides the whole book buying scenario I have, I'd like to say that I am aware that there are other ways to get English books from the online community. It's a bit limiting for me however since I'm actively avoiding book giveaways available to me from the YA book blogging world (also even if I were to rely on these giveaways not many are international) and refusing ARCS unless I can, you know, pass them along to someone else afterwards in a tour thing. Why, you might ask? Well, as much as I'd like to read all the shiny books being given out, I'm returning to Canada in a year, and the idea of lugging around a pile of ARCS back home next summer makes me wither and die a little inside, lol. I suppose the perfect fit for me then would be to sign up for those blog tours wherein I get to pass along the ARC to the next reviewer when I'm done, but the big YA blog tour sign up requires me to hand out stats info and I don't keep stats on this blog. Seriously, if I did, it'd drive me nuts. I did that once for an old defunct non-book blog I had and I constantly refreshed the page and would curl up into a ball muttering 'omg no one read that post, NO ONE LOVES ME' and I basically became a crazy person. NEVER AGAIN, people. (Okay, I admit that maybe getting that stat thing that links you to whoever links to your post or blog is useful, but I haven't gotten around to installing it yet...) When I started this book blog I told myself that this blog with first and foremost be about ME ME ME and a place for MY thoughts and I will not care if my posts are not widely circulated, how many people visit, how popular this blog is, etc. (That is not to say I don't love each and every single reader that drops by, and special love to all who decide to follow and drop a comment once in a while. It's just that I refuse to be stressed out about how 'popular' this blog is.)<br /><br />An easy solution for acquiring more English reading material would be to read those NetGalley books, but I'm really bad with reading novels or other long narrative works online. I'm much better at going about reading short stories stuff online from those SFF anthology magazines (did anyone read the latest Yoon Ha Lee work <a href="http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/flower-mercy-needle-chain/">Flower, Mercy, Needle, Chain</a>? It's BRILLIANT.) or fanfiction or fanzines of original works written by fandom people (my latest favourite from a pretty popular gay anthology called <i>Shousetsu Bang*Bang</i>: <a href="http://s2b2.livejournal.com/147451.html">Strength, Gallantry, and Other Useless Bits</a> - it's in two parts, set in an all-boys Chinese boarding martial arts school AND ITS HILARIOUS.) Haha, now that I think about it, online short stories are probably the only fiction pieces I've read in English in over a month...<br /><br />(And I refuse to get a library card here. Apparently I have to <i>buy</i> a library card?! The cheapskate in me finds this an absolute scandal.)<br /><br />Okay, so I'm going on and on retrospectively about my reading situation here, and you're all probably wondering, what exactly am I getting at? Well, looking at what I'm reading, I suspect that any books I will review in the future will probably be translated French books. And, you know, my ponderings over how one is limited to what they read by the resources that's available to them, book choices are shaped by one's environment etc. This is a terribly self-indulgent rambling blog spot wherein I'm thinking aloud through typing, which was helpful for me, and also is hopefully of interest to a handful of my readers.<br /><br />Anyhow <b>Question to my Readers?</b> Do you find your reading habits or book buying choices changes? I'd be interested in hearing any stories anyone has to say about their experiences in the comments. Of course I'm not addressing just those readers who've undergone a similar going-off-to-live-in-a-foreign-country situation, but little changes, like if the seasons changes your taste in books, or a new school, etc. =Dyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-54479180423960924112010-10-02T10:06:00.010-04:002010-10-02T10:34:06.130-04:00My 150 Followers Personalized Reclist Gift Giveaway<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TKc-88vblbI/AAAAAAAAAoc/XNac7KPVxeM/s1600/100506043113454325978026.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TKc-88vblbI/AAAAAAAAAoc/XNac7KPVxeM/s400/100506043113454325978026.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523452684811343282" /></a><center><i>IT'S PARTY TIME!</i> <a href="http://hairspiration.blogspot.com/2010/09/atong-ajork.html">source</a></center><br /><br />Once again, sorry for my absence. I actually have lots of blog post ideas I want to put in, but I haven't gotten around to really focus on this book blog until this weekend. I'm working on scheduled posts as we speak and I can AT LEAST guarantee you one blog post tomorrow. My plan is to have the following week fully of blog posts up for y'all, but as I'm terrible with promises, I'll just shut up now. Actions speak louder than words and we'll just have to see if I actually stick to this, lol<br /><br />Okay, so judging from my poll and comments on the last post, only a small number of people are interested in this reclist idea of mine. However, no one said they hated the idea, so I think I'll proceed with it anyways as a gift to all those who are even slightly interested. It's just that no one will be winning a personalized snail mail reclist from a draw. Basically, anyone who fills out the form at the bottom who's a follower of my blog will definitely receive an emailed reclist from me, ie EVERYONE'S A WINNER. =D <br /><br />More details:<br /><br />Your personalized reclist should arrive in your mailbox within 5 to 10 business days of having filled out this form. The reclist will consist of a minimum of 3 novels with a short summary and my pitch about why I think this book would be perfect for you. Any additional title mentions will come as honourable mentions without details/specifications on why I think the book is a good fit and will only come with a title + author mention. Please note that there is no real deadline to filling out this form, except that my followers giveaway will change the moment I hit 200+ followers. Please only fill out this form once.<br /><br />Optional: If you wish to get a more detailed email on any of the honourable book title mentions for what I think you will enjoy the book, please reply to the reclist I send you with 'BONUS MATERIAL' mentioned somewhere in the subject line or the body message. As the first time, this next reclist within 5 to 10 business days of having received the replied message.<br /><br />Please remember that this is specifically a gift to my followers, so, in other words, you do have to be a follower to enter for this reclist giveaway. <a name='more'></a><br /><iframe src="https://spreadsheets.google.com/embeddedform?formkey=dHl1N3NhQUp6bzNrNzNOamNMN1NJRUE6MQ" width="650" height="1760" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe>yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-20022379570067180752010-08-29T02:16:00.004-04:002010-08-29T03:08:10.211-04:00AM IN FRANCE + 150 Followers w00t! + Linky Guest Posts + Upcoming Blogoversary<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/THoGMJ4zarI/AAAAAAAAAoE/BjNYJ0IDkGA/s1600/chateaudangers.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/THoGMJ4zarI/AAAAAAAAAoE/BjNYJ0IDkGA/s400/chateaudangers.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5510723899923589810" /></a><br />HEY FOLKS. Long time no... exist?! I truly apologize, it's just that this year I'm on a France exchange (aka I'm studying this year in France. In a French University. FOR A YEAR. AHHHHHHHH) and August was this mad dash to get all my papers sorted out and you know, getting together my living expenses and making myself familiar with the town I'm in... Okay, basically it's been deathly busy, my month of August, and I'm sorry for the lack of comments/replies/posts/etc etc. But I thinkkkkkk by next week, it will be less hectic for me and I can start making posts again! Because I have a lot of posts I want to make! 8D (but NOT until the end of tuesday, because right now I have to study for my language test, holy shit I knew I should have opened my grammar book this summer but nooooooooooooo)<br /><br />Like this whole 150 followers thing! THANK YOU for choosing to follow me!! Unfortunately I won't be able to do any giveaways to celebrate because I kind of really need to conserve my money, especially this first stretch of settling myself down in a new place, and also I didn't lug any books across the ocean with me to giveaway. Well, unless you're including my copy of Anne Bronte's <b>Agnes Grey</b>. BUT YOU CAN'T HAVE IT, IT'S MINE MINE MINE. (You may read <b>Agnes Grey</b> on Gutenberg for free though, YOU SHOULD ALL READ IT, I HAVE SUCH LOVE FOR THIS BOOK, OMG.) Buuuuuuuut, I was thinking I could send people a mail of a personalized booklist recs! <br /><br />Basically you tell me your likes/dislikes in a novel, and I'll put together a list of minimum 3 novels I think you'll enjoy. Everyone who asks for this will get an email from me, but there will be a draw for a customized, snail mailed booklist letter to the one lucky winner by moi at the end. But I'm not sure if anyone wants this, so I'd just like to take a poll to gauge the interest. If there's more no's than yes's then I won't bother with mailing anything out, but for the people who are interested, I'll set up a post where you can leave me your email and I'll fire away some recs at you. =D<br /><br />Ahaha, I know this isn't much of a post, but I'll link to a guest post I made for Ari here: <a href="http://blackteensread2.blogspot.com/2010/08/guest-post-let-us-write-our-history.html">Let Us Write Our History</a>, in which I talked about the fictional depiction of (sourlander) Asians in history through the English language canon, pulling from novels to movies to musical examples. Though, I do want to make a note that I really DO NOT think the solution is as simple as just getting more Asians to writing Asian historicals as the title might imply, but really I suck at making titles and I suppose it will have to do. This was er, actually the guest post I meant to write for Ari back then for her blogoversary but I am REALLY REALLY SLOW and thus ended up finishing it later than I wanted to. <br /><br />Shoutout to <a href="http://bookingthrough365.blogspot.com/">Emma</a>, I swear your guest post is coming! I'm just, really really slow. But it'll most likely end up being the usual very long guest posts I tend to end up writing, so maybe its length will make it worth it?! So sorry.<br /><br />Note to self: Stop accepting to do guest posts unless I have up to 2 months to prepare or it comes with a prompt that I can more or else easily manage to brainstorm ideas for a post. <br /><br />Blogoversary - it's coming up! I'm still trying to figure out what exactly I will do to celebrate, but er there will of course definitely not be any giveaways this round, ahaha... But I was wondering if anyone would be interested in doing guest posts for me here? If you are please drop a comment here with some means to contact you and we'll talk! =Dyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-61789413241428484642010-07-29T21:05:00.003-04:002010-07-29T21:10:45.639-04:00My Strange Angels hate, lemme show it to you<i>[Note: Normally I save my book hates on Never Gonna Be Finished Books for my <a href="http://wingstodust.dreamwidth.org/">dreamwidth</a> blog, but I figured since I haven't posted here in forever and I had a bookish related post all readily typed up, I'd just repost it here too. Also this Anti-Rec at least has some general concluding thoughts I had that I think go just beyond this novel, so it isn't just hating. =D]</i><br /><br />So, there's this YA novel plaguing the shelves right now called <b>Strange Angels</b> by Lili St. Crow. I've read about three chapters of it.<br /><br />I hate it.<br /><br />I really, really, <i>really</i> hate it.<br /><br />There are three basic reasons why I could not read beyond the 3rd chapter of this horrendous book. <br /><br /><center>1) THE WRITING</center><br /><br />omg so atrocious. St. Crow really likes to use similes and metaphors. The problem? She kind of sucks at them. THEY DON'T EVEN MAKE SENSE!! Like, I could barely concentrate on the story because she'd throw in a line like <br /><br />"my head hurts like a bowling ball being squeezed by a giant's fingers" (paraphrased, but it's in the first paragraph of the 3rd chapter if you don't believe me) <br /><br />And I couldn't even pay attention to what's actually happening in the story because all I can think is WTF DO YOU MEAN YOUR HEAD HURTS LIKE A GIANT'S FINGERS LIKE WTF I CAN'T EVEN SAY THIS STRAIGHT WITHOUT IT SOUNDING STUPID OMG WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST SAID YOUR HEAD HURTS PERIOD?!?!?!?!?!?! <br /><br />DON'T USE A SIMILE IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE IT PROPERLY, DAMNIT.<br /><br />Some people should just never ever write a metaphor or simile ever. St. Crow is one of those people.<br /><br /><center>2) IT'S SO RACIST</center><br /><br />Lili St. Crow thinks it's perfectly okay to describe a Half-Asian character as a "half-breed" Multiple times within one chapter.<br /><br />I... don't know what to say to this. EXCEPT THAT IT IS A RACIST, RACIST, RACIST PIECE OF FAIL!!!!<br /><br /><center>3) PRETTY GIRLS CAN BE COOL TOO, OKAY?!</center><br /><br />Gawd, the narration just can't seem to get through a single chapter without some cheerleader hating. Why is it that pretty = stupid = useless?! ugh, I mean, cheerleader hating is widespread all over YA, but this book just sent me over the edge.<br /><br />Quote~ "Better to be strong than pretty and useless. I’ll take a plain girl with her head screwed on right over a cheerleader any day."<br /><br />Everything I am quoting happens before chapter 3 is over, btw.<br /><br />+<br /><br />So I chucked this book soundly against a wall <strike>like it deserves</strike> and proceeded to loudly anti-rec this book whenever I get the chance or remember when talking to friends.<br /><br />You know what's sad though? Is that while people might try to argue with me that I should still keep going with the "half-breed" line or the cheerleader crap, but 100% of the time when I mention the atrocious writing then they would concede that my dropping of the book was a good idea. Like, hating on a book because the writing sucks is okay, but hating on a book because it was racist or has some misogynistic shit in it is not?<br /><br />I mean, I'm not surprised or anything by these kinds of reaction, but it still makes me HEADDESK all the same.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-31718542172378081622010-07-29T15:06:00.004-04:002010-07-29T15:45:52.052-04:00I AM ALIVEA thousand apologies for being so very absent from the online stage. I guess you could say I was feeling a sort of fatigue? Not just from blogging, but even my reading seems to be affected. While I was not posting reviews I was still making my way through plenty of novels, but lately I haven't been able to concentrate on reading the written word. My eyes glaze over, and I'd drop said book to make way for eating or TV or something. (Like, I couldn't even focus on a Cynthia Kadohata book! *sobs*)<br /><br />You might be thinking, but Yuan! You claim to have read a bunch of books before you hit this recent reader's block development! Why don't you just spend this time during your reading slump to like, type up your reviews?<br /><br />Which... I would, but I've also been hit with a reviewing slump too (hence my shame in not posting). No, seriously, I'd type a review, and it'd be like this:<br /><br /><blockquote>'This book reminds me of a mecha anime series, with delicious star-crossed romance and time-loop amazing-ness and a whole lot more swearing than your typical mecha fare but sadly no melodramatic music accompaniment to go with it. Still, AWESOME' (see: <b>All You Need is Kill</b> by Hiroshi Sakurazaka)</blockquote> <br />Which... 1) No one but people who know about anime or gundam stuff will understand and 2) it's like, a sentence long.<br /><br />The only time I managed to write more than one paragraph about a novel I read was when I'm talking about them in the context trying desperately to convert someone to reading a novel mixed in with fangirl screaming through caplocks. (In other words, my version of a book recommendation)<br /><br />For example, <b>Standing in the Wind</b> by Traci L. Jones. (Note: this was literally copy+paste from an email I sent to a friend)<br /><br /><blockquote>omg okay so there's this book called Standing Against the Wind by Traci L. Jones AND YOU HAVE TO HAVE TO READ IT. SO ADORABLE LIKE I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN OMG. <br /><br />Okay so it's middle grade school and Patrice is like this super nerdy girl who moved to this deadbeat school for lalalla family reasons that involve her mom being in jail and having to stay with her aunt who lived in a poor neighbourhood. She's like super quiet and stuff and has puffy hair so everyone makes fun of her at school but there's this one guy who lives in her neighbourhood who's popular that treats her okay, and tells people to knock it off if he catches ppl teasing her to the point of tears. ANYHOW, so one day popular guy approaches her and asks her to help tutor his little brother who's struggling in school and then they meet up at each other's place or at the library and BOND OVER HOMEWORKING AND SIBLINGS AND GAHHHHHHHHHH SO CUTE YOU HAVE TO READ IT!!!<br /><br />And it's so so adorable because clearly the guy is interested and uses his brother as a pretext to hang out with her, and is such a joker and very nice, and she's all like 'guh, why does he want to hang out with me in the library instead of going to the park with friends?!' and it's so obvious that the guy thinks the world of her (he is always like 'you're the smartest person I know!' with a kind of awe and is just really proud of her and stuff) and he starts working at schoolwork and stuff just so he can have an excuse to hang out with her, and even if Patrice had no confidence in her looks the guy thinks she's totally fine and he does everything he knows how to make her happy and I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH LIKE YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE OMG.<br /><br />SERIOUSLY READ IT READ ITTTTTT<br /><br />Also! I dont' put much stock in the whole awards winning thing, but this book won the same award that Angela Johnson (author of The First Part Last) so you know it has to be at least halfway awesome.<br /><br />THINK OF THE MIDDLE GRADE CUTENESS AND BONDING IN LIBRARIES. IT'S SO NERDY AND CUTE AND EVERYTHING I LOVE AND OMG I WANT A SEQUEL AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH</blockquote><br />... wait readers! DON'T RUN AWAY. I will never inflict this kind of madness on the public again, I swear!<br /><br />*coughs* But anyways, I seem to have momentarily lost my ability to think critically about the books I've read and enjoyed lately. And on the complete opposite side I'm also developing even less patience than before with books that tick me off and end up not finishing them, thus not leaving reviews for y'all about the atrocious-ness I suffered through. <br /><br />Sooooooo, I've been thinking about ways in which I can still maintain this blog even if I have this review and reading slump, and then it hit me: MANGA REVIEWS. See, I might not be able to sift through text these days, but my abilities to wade my way through manga and reading visual text haven't been hindered in the slightest. This is perhaps a little bit problematic since I suspect my readers here are more into the whole novel thing, and not many visitors here are familiar with the sequential art reading ways. But whatever. It's what I feel capable of discussing these days, so I guess I'll just go forward with it. <br /><br />(But I do promise a book review for Siobhan Dowd's <b>Solace on the Road</b> sometime very soon, as I got it for a review copy and I will FORCE WORDS OUT OF MY FINGERS to write it if I have to! =D)<br /><br />And don't anyone think I forgot about the whole Asians-on-Covers matter. I have been working on this one post and it should be up within the coming week. I'll also try to promote more meta-like discussions here as well. A soapbox post on critiquing reviews is probably coming up soon as well.<br /><br />So basically, I'M NOT DEAD, I SWEAR. AND I WILL MAKE A COMEBACK. *pumps fist in air*yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-56043470808392281102010-07-06T23:38:00.002-04:002010-07-07T00:05:12.166-04:00BBAW RegistrationAs usual, I'm signing up for all this last minute, but better last minute than late, right? (... at least, I hope I'm not too late?!?!)<br /><br />So, I decided to go for the "Best Cultural Blog" category, because while I don't really see this book blog as one culture specific or whatever, I identify very strongly with the Asian diaspora identity and often talk about this in my reviews and other related posts. Also I do try to be mindful of people coming from different cultural backgrounds from myself, but who knows if I'm actually successful? lol.<br /><br /><b>Best Cultural Blog:</b><br /><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2009/11/throwback-thursday-child-of-owl-by.html">Child of the Owl by Laurence Yep</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/06/review-wait-for-me-by-na.html">Wait for Me by An Na</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/04/review-crossing-by-andrew-xia-fukuda.html">Crossing by Andrew Xia Fukuda</a> <br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/01/faces-of-covers-on-whitewashing-and.html">The Faces of Covers: On Whitewashing and Fantasy</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-many-feelings-on-new-silver-phoenix.html">My many feelings on the new Silver Phoenix covers</a><br /><br />Just for fun, entering for "Best YA Book Blog" because while I do review MG and the rare rare occasional adult (mostly SFF) title, my passion is YA and the majority of the books I read and ultimately discuss are YA as well.<br /><br /><b>Best Young Adult Book Blog:</b><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/05/second-childhood-review-of-katherine.html">Second Childhood: Review of Song Quest by Katherine Roberts</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/06/triple-snapshots-ya-faerie-romance.html">Triple Snapshots: YA Faerie Romance</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/03/review-spy-in-house-by-ys-lee.html">Review: A Spy in the House by Y. S. Lee</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/01/review-shine-coconut-moon-by-neesha.html">Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2009/11/review-give-up-ghost-by-megan-crewe.html">Give Up the Ghost by Megan Crewe</a> <br /><br />Also entering for "Best New Blog" category.<br /><br /><b>Best New Blog</b><br /><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/06/sequential-art-review-le-pacte-des.html">Sequential Art Review: Le pacte des yokai by Yuki Midorikawa - Vol. 1</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/01/review-girl-made-of-dust-by-nathalie.html">A Girl Made of Dust by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/06/blog-updates-discussion-post-on-minor.html">Discussion Post: On Minor Characters</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/03/discussion-post-reading-in-second.html">Discussion Post: Reading in a Second Language</a><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/06/triple-snapshots-cynthia-kadohata.html">Triple Snapshots: Cynthia Kadohata</a>yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-65905687736355077122010-07-06T10:40:00.005-04:002010-07-06T11:17:26.864-04:00My many feelings on the new Silver Phoenix CoversOh, where to begin? Please read inkstone's <a href="http://inkstone.dreamwidth.org/105450.html">post</a> on this, dear readers of this blog, even if you don't want to go through my own post on this topic. It's important. And if you'd like to read more, inkstone is also collecting a <a href="http://inkstone.dreamwidth.org/105702.html">linkspam</a> on this issue.<br /><br />On the eve (just a couple hours before, in fact) of The Last Airbender opening night, I saw <a href="http://cindypon.com/2010/fury-of-the-phoenix-cover-revealed/">a new blog post by Cindy Pon</a>, author of the fabulous fantasy <b>Silver Phoenix</b>. It broke my heart. I refrained from commenting anywhere that night and literally turned off my computer so I could just, you know, take that time for some indulgent self pity. And also write a private journal entry to myself about this + TLA that I refrained from posting up publicly because I basically keysmashed expletives for about 10,000+++ words in capslock. <br /><br />In other words, I was too distraught to be coherent enough to offer anything meaningful or constructive to add into the conversation. Having given this a couple of days to calm down enough to write something beyond FUCK and HATE though, I think I am reading to put in my own two cents about this situation.<br /><br />*deep breaths*<br /><br />This was the original cover of <b>Silver Phoenix</b> in hardback:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TDNDyXvsd9I/AAAAAAAAAns/U3wbg8EIaWs/s1600/silverphoenixoriginal.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 264px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TDNDyXvsd9I/AAAAAAAAAns/U3wbg8EIaWs/s400/silverphoenixoriginal.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5490806903341348818" /></a><br /><br />THESE are the new repacked covers for the first book and its sequel:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TDNEEH9qRvI/AAAAAAAAAn0/xf4wlSP-IIg/s1600/silverrepackage.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 265px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TDNEEH9qRvI/AAAAAAAAAn0/xf4wlSP-IIg/s400/silverrepackage.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5490807208342603506" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TDNETC8l8OI/AAAAAAAAAn8/TTBlX2rHxv8/s1600/fury.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 265px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TDNETC8l8OI/AAAAAAAAAn8/TTBlX2rHxv8/s400/fury.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5490807464693985506" /></a><br /><br />Many people have contributed in blog posts and/or comments on how they felt about these covers. I too have many many feeeeeeeeeeelings on this matter, and there will probably be a series of posts regarding <b>Silver Phoenix</b> and Asians-on-covers related things, but for this post in particular I wish to simply address the covers on their own. I will speak about these covers in 3 parts. <br /><br /><b><center>1) Blaming Lack of Title Success Because of Asian Cover Model = Ridiculous. Whitewashing the Cover Repackaging As the Answer? THAT'S RACIST.</b></center><br /><br />Make no mistake, these covers were clearly repackaged to remove any traces of "racial markers" that would give away the protagonist's "Asian-ness", to make it “less ethnic” to reach a “broader (white) audience”. I, and many people who have posted on this, find this a disgrace. Please do not bring up the fact that these new covers are ambiguous enough to be a person of Asian descent, the fact that they tried so hard to make these covers look ~*racially ambiguous*~ (i.e. can pass for white) speaks for itself. The novel <b>Silver Phoenix</b> is a fantasy deeply steeped in Chinese culture and folklore, and to advertise the story with a cover that tries to obscure this fact is dishonest and downright wrong. As bookshop has put it, <a href="http://bookshop.dreamwidth.org/1007281.html">it robs this novel of its integrity.</a><br /><br />The reasoning given behind these cover repackaging move was because the first book didn’t sell well. A large part of this had to do with the fact that the book buyers who decide what will be stocked in shelves choose not to include this title. Now, we may never know whether or not the book buyers skipped this title because it had a clearly Asian face on the cover, but the undeniable fact is that the PUBLISHERS decided that THAT HAVING AN ASIAN FACE ON THE COVER MUST HAVE BEEN THE REASON BEHIND THIS TITLE NOT GETTING PICKED UP. It upsets me, really really upsets me that this was the reasoning given, because it’s SO NONSENSICAL. Think of it this way if for some reason anyone reading this still think this is a logical conclusion: no one ever goes ‘gee this fantasy title about a Caucasian girl going to magic school didn’t sell well, it must have been because we had a white girl on the cover.’ THIS ONLY HAPPENS WHEN WE HAVE A POC ON THE COVER. If a POC title doesn’t sell well, having a POC protagonist is always to blame. FAIL FAIL FAIL RACIST SHIT FAIL I’M SICK OF THIS CRAP. <br /><br />I understand the need for a cover repackaging due to the first hardcover editions poor sales. Repackaging the cover makes sense. But whitewashing the cover as a marketing strategy? <i>Is wrong.</i> And most likely has far more to do with the prevalent systematic racism type mentality rampant all over the YA (and probably other genres/categories) book industry than any type of reality in the actual success of a novel. <br /><br />This is all I have to say about this stupid, stupid matter, but if you want to hear in more detail about why this kind of marketing mentality is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS, megwrites wrote up a long post detailing and explaining why this is such a logic!fail <a href="http://megwrites.dreamwidth.org/184404.html">Attack of the Whitewashing Strikes Back Again!</a><br /><br /><b><center>2) No One Needs More Passive Agency-Removed Female Cover Models</b></center><br /><br />These covers not only were repackaged to obscure Ai Ling's race, but they were also repackaged to imitate all the Melissa Marr/Alyson Noel/Kelley Armstrong/etc look. This was presumably done as a business tactic, to imitate covers of successfully sold fantasy/paranormal titles so that the book buyers of the large retail bookselling industry will decide to actually stock this book in its shelves. Besides calling into this sketchy business tactic rationalizing the whitewashing of <i>Silver Phoenix</i>, don't people just find the fact that publishers are actively putting out more of these same-old covers grating? I honestly probably would have swallowed a new cover repackaging of Silver Phoenix a whole lot better if they just went for a pure object cover or something, since the cover also besides the whitewash seems to like to emphasize the ~*glowing*~ object, but no, we get these types of passive!white girls holding shiny object crap that <i>takes away the woman's agency</i>. When you cut off the eyes, the face, the body parts of the cover model in the cover frame to maximize the focus on <i>an inanimate object</i>, you RENDER THE PERSON IN THE COVER, A WOMAN, INTO A PROP, A BACKGROUND. <br /><br />THAT. IS. WRONG. <br /><br />And, okay, you know what? I get it, shiny objects are pretty, yaddyadda, but honestly I think you can achieve the same shiny!object with the whole ~*dark urban*~ kind of cover just as effectively with those purely object covers a la <a href="http://books.simonandschuster.com/Ironside/Holly-Black/9780689868207">Holly</a> <a href="http://books.simonandschuster.com/Valiant/Holly-Black/9780689868221">Black</a>. If the cover is just the shiny object then it's symbolism without the skeevy cut-up woman agency-removal stuff (and also sans the whitewashing problem! YOU COULD HAVE KILLED TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE, GREENWILLOW). Judging by the fact that publishers are repacking covers to <i>imitate this look</i> in order to get more sales is basically a horrifying alarm bell sounding on what our future shelves. Just one or two of these covers are fine and are less problematic so long as we still have covers featuring active!woman with a full face and/or showing the eyes looking out towards the reader, but I am not cool with seeing these kinds of agency-removal covers DOMINATING the YA paranormal romance section for the next 10++ years of YA lit. *SHUDDERS*<br /><br />I understand that these covers are a norm, but it's a norm I'm not willing to embrace, and I ask for those who care at all about the portrayal of postive women in teen fiction and women with agency on their covers to please listen and let's work together to stop feeding the YA book industry in churning out sales that promote these kinds of cover marketing. Please. Let's ask for change. We deserve better.<br /><br /><b><center>3) Because Asian Girls are All Passive Demure China Dolls…?!?!</b></center><br /><br />Okay okay, seriously, WHO THE FUCK DO I HAVE TO BLOW IN ORDER TO GET A DAMN FULL FACE OF AN ASIAN GIRL <i>WITH HER EYES TOWARDS THE AUDIENCE</i> ON THE DAMN COVER?!?!?!?!<br /><br />For white teenage girls, the covers a la Melissa Marr/Kelley Armstrong/Alyson Noel are not, as of yet, all they get for cover models on their YA books. We have white women cover modeling their full faces, a full figure, their back figure, their side profile, a close up of their eyes ETC. And sure not all YA books about white teenage girls make it on the shelves but YA books featuring white female protagonists do dominate the YA shelves and even if we weren't happy with the way one type of cover featured (white) women, we could just move to the next shelf and more or less easily find another one that will have active women looking head on at her audience. <br /><br />Let me tell you something about the likelihood of getting a FULL, eyes-looking-out-at-the-audience distinctly Asian face on the foreground of the cover for YA books: Maybe 1 or 2 covers from 1 publishing house, every one or two years. Probably 3 years if we're only including these types of covers with Asian authors.*<br /><br />Do you see - do you understand, how amazing and incredible it was to have the <i>Silver Phoenix</i> original cover the way it was? Nevermind just YA books, across all genres and categories of the US publishing industry, fiction featuring Asian females almost never ever show a full face like that, the EYES so clearly shown. It's not that these covers never happen, but that they come so rarely I could probably count them on my fingers and they always grab my eyes because they're like crumbs to me, to those starving for Asian representation I can get behind on fully. <br /><br /><br />If ever I get an Asian female protagonist's FACE on my cover it's usually with her head bent a little forward, eyes lowered and showing the eyelashes. Because the face of Asian women is a demure and quiet one, see?!?!?!?!<br /><br />The fact that the book buyers refused to have this face on their shelves, the fact that now we have another cover of a teenage girl who is of Asian descent displayed as being <i>passive</i> and <i>demure</i> is like ten steps back from where the original book packaging has gone. And I won't lie: this hurts me. As a teenage girl of Chinese ethnicity, this hurts like burning. <br /><br />What will it take for active!Asian protagonists to be fairly portrayed on covers AND be shelved in bookstores faced-out for readers to buy? WHAT WILL IT TAKE?!<br /><br /><b><u>A Post Script:</b></u><br /><br />My father once cautioned me against hoping for so much. Don't look for Asian faces in Hollywood, don't look for Asian faces in this white-dominated world, if I really needed one watch a Mainland China film, a Hong Kong drama, a Taiwanese rock concert -- but I'm still here. I'm still asking. And maybe my dad is right, maybe this path can only lead to disappointment and heartbreak as this book making industry keeps making all the signs that they just don't give a damn about what I want, but I have met some good people on this blog, and I'm still young (maybe childish?) enough to believe in change. <br /><br />Thank you to all who read this post to the end. Thank you for listening. If you care at all about this, as a YA reader, as a believer in rightful Asian representation in fiction, whatever, please consider spreading the word, speaking up. Words are the start of change, and silence only reinforces the status quo. (Disclaimer: I cannot and am not obliging anyone to speak out! If you don't care, then you don't care, I can't make you change your mind.)<br /><br />Finally, an embed video of <b>Silver Phoenix</b>'s book trailer. Because Cindy Pon wrote a beautiful story, and everyone should give it shot:<br /><br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ihJ1xy009bk&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ihJ1xy009bk&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />(If you liked the trailer and wish to read a few sample pages, you can find the first <b>70 pages</b> of <b>Silver Phoenix</b> <a href="http://browseinside.harperteen.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061730214">here</a>.)<br /><br /><font size=1>*Not sure how empirically I can prove this, but I find that most of the full Asian faces I see on covers have a white author attached to writing it. If you want to prove me wrong and that the cover treatment on Asian content for white and Asian authors are completely level and exactly the same, go ahead. I'll listen.</font>yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-5519702425728574512010-06-27T10:21:00.003-04:002010-06-27T10:45:00.242-04:00Review: Wait For Me by An Na<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TCdj02X-yaI/AAAAAAAAAnk/HzpxJnvqmIw/s1600/waitforme.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TCdj02X-yaI/AAAAAAAAAnk/HzpxJnvqmIw/s200/waitforme.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5487464430574684578" /></a><br /><b>Title:</b> Wait for Me<br /><b>Author(s):</b> An Na<br /><b>Genre:</b> YA Contemporary, family, romance<br /><b>Page Count:</b> 192<br /><b>Publisher:</b> Speak<br /><br /><b>The Summary:</b> Teenager Mina plays the Perfect Straight-A Model Asian daughter, but she knows more than anyone that this is a lie, and her chances at getting into Harvard are basically nil. Suna is Mina's deaf sister, dependent on her sister and starving for a glimpse of any affection from her mother, who leaves her in neglect. The presence of Ysrael, a new employee into their family's laundromat brings about a whole new chain of events as the two start cracking the mold they fit into their lives...<br /><br /><b>The Review:</b> Wow, this is a complicated book to review. Let me say first that above all else, this novel haunted me. Having read An Na’s <i>The Fold</i> before, I came into this book not quite prepared for this much darker tone presented in this novel. I’m not sure whether my emotional response had more to do with Na’s writing or simply her subject matter, but the story and Mina’s voice lingered long after I put down the book, always at the back of my mind. <a name='more'></a><br /><br />This book wasn’t an easy read for me. I must have walked away from this book over ten times within its rather short 200-ish pages. And I suspect it has a lot to do with An Na’s take on the Model Minority Myth: because that was what it was. A myth. A lie. And how damaging keeping up pretences can be. I was so struck by Mina and Jonathon, the lengths they would go to put up that Model Minority front even as they wanted to be something, <i>someone</i>more, because this is such a reality, people. I know it seems extreme, the lengths these characters go in trying to keep the image of the Perfect A Asian student who does well at school, but I’ve seen this happen, to my Asian classmates, my cousins, my <i>friends</i>, those close and around me. I know that it could be easy to respond to these issues brought up by simply saying “follow your dream” and I can see readers being frustrated at Mina for lying and not doing the things she wants for herself, but for me these kinds of things have never been a straight-cut easy choice, and I believe An Na’s depictions of these moments as muddied and tied up was very intentional penned out. It was rather uneasy reading experience for me because of it--because Mina’s story is an all-too-familiar story I recognize--but I commend An Na’s depiction, for refusing to simplify these moments, for portraying Mina not as someone who necessarily does everything “right”, but as someone tied up in her circumstances and wrestling with every step, every decision she makes. In fact, the relationship between Mina and Jonathon was the most convincing and the most heartsearing for me, and it’s this relationship that I took the most away from out of this reading experience. <br /><br />I liked how An Na depicted their friendship gone awry and twisted to the point beyond repair, and how she didn’t pull brakes to make their actions sympathetic. This relationship was not a healthy one, and An Na does not try to make it come across as so, which I appreciated. While sometimes I worry that An Na is letting Jonathon’s actions get off the hook too easily, it became clearer and clearer to me than the excuses he spouts are meant to be exactly that: excuses that don’t stand when their relationship is called into light. Their manipulations of one another was their ruination, and it worked so well for me because Mina’s immediate fear of Jonathon felt palpable in her immediate first person narration, and Jonathon’s clinging onto Mina and his frustration came across strongly through their scenes together, and all that combined with the complication of having grown up together, of their memories before things went wrong, it was all so immediate and arresting for me. Any relationship between Jonathon and Mina would have been beyond broken, and every scene they had was filled with tension, things said/unsaid, and I bought into their characterization and interactions so completely. It was mesmerizing, reading them. It was like a train wreck. I wanted to walk away, but I couldn’t. I just watched. <br /><br />Another theme An Na dealt with, albeit with less (imo) success, is her duality on what others want versus what the self wants. In this story, Mina, who has always lived for others, is starting to confront the things she wants for herself. Usually when this kind of theme pops up we are often told that what the Self wants is far more important than the considerations of others, and it’s all very tidy and clean and simply portrayed. This is not a motif I personally buy, because this kind of motif does not acknowledge the points of the other side, how sometimes in doing things for others you feel happy 1) for making another person happy and 2) for being happy that you could give happiness to others. (ex. Don’t you feel happy when you think of the perfect gift for a person you care about, and then find out that your friend loved your gift? Doing things for others is not as insufferable or oppressive or harmful as “Western” fictional mediums like to depict it to be.) I do not believe that An Na intended for this to be the usual Self triumphing over Other’s Desires thing I’m used to seeing in these Asian-American stories, if the Suna ending is anything to go by, but I thought An Na’s development of this theme was inadequate and left her conclusion missing the impact it needed. In Mina’s case, the line between doing things for others for love and doing things for others is bringing the Self suffering is crossed, and this struggle to re-negotiate these boundaries are tentatively put up into play. The problem with the depiction of this theme was that one side was too strong over the other; the mother’s desires are almost caricatures of oppressive harm, and on the other side, Mina’s love for Suna was unconvincing. They’re too didactic, and it makes this theme come across as inadequate.<br /><br />This, I think, was largely a byproduct of the depiction of the dynamics between the two sisters in general. For one thing Mina’s voice was just far more immediate and convincing than Suna’s, hence already one side of the relationship looks weaker in comparison. Suna’s chapters weren’t convincing in the slightest. The third person present tense had this dreamy quality that, while on rare occasions managed a lyricism that drew me (The part wherein Suna wore the dress? Beautiful, and probably the only truly empowering scene Suna had in the whole novel.), most of the times made Suna to seem like an infantile preteen stuck in her own head. She sounded simply way too young and naïve, and I find this childlike depiction of Suna and the connection between her disability leading to her mother’s rejection and her sister’s fierce protection disingenuous and terribly problematic. Also this dreamlike quality made her interactions with her mother and her sister never quite believable to the reader, which definitely hindered the reading experience. It is too bad that An Na was not quite able to depict a believable sisterly relationship between Mina and Suna, because so much of this book rests on the results of their sisterly bond, but none of the story’s climax and ultimate conclusion had the desirable effect it needed to pack its strongest punch. The caricature of the mother and almost non-existent father did nothing to help matters.<br /><br />I also am ambivalent about Ysrael’s role in the story. The tension he supposedly brought between the two sisters felt overwrought to the point of ridiculousness, and I was never convinced of Ysrael as a person. For me, he never broke out of that love interest role he was designated and failed to come across as anything beyond a two-dimensional typical love interest boy in these YA contemporary romances. (You know, the whole perfect considerate boy walking in and changing the heroine’s life for the better.) I’m tired of having The Man being a catalyst for all of the heroine’s major changes in her life. Their whole shared music passion also failed to be believable for me as well, since their interest in music was portrayed vaguely at best and I’ve seen other YA books wherein two characters bond over music done much better than here. And also I just didn’t really buy the part wherein Ysrael supposedly opened Mina’s eyes to different future possibilities. The scene played out as if Mina never even heard of the possibility of doing what she wanted, which I found utterly unbelievable. I bought the ties between Ysrael and Suna even less. (Basically, comparing Ysrael's scar to Suna's hearing aid just did not fly for me, and was a very superficial tie at best. Also they had no romantic tension whatsoever.) Finally, I thought that in spending all that time developing a connection between Ysrael and Mina, the development of Mina and Suna’s relationship suffered because of it, focusing too much on the love triangle dynamic instead of the sisterly bond. It would have been fine if An Na intended the novel to be primarily about the budding romance, but it’s clear to me from its premise and execution that the family was and should have been the dominating storyline. I mean, I did like some scenes with Ysrael in it, (the kiss scene was simply beautiful) and certainly it’s nice to have at least one healthy relationship depicted in a novel (because Mina’s relationship with everyone else in this novel – Jonathon, Suna, Uhmma – were so incredibly dysfunctional) but this subplot just didn’t intertwine convincingly into the main story. <br /><br /><b>The Verdict:</b> Reading this book wasn’t an easy experience for the subject matters, but also because I found the structure/pacing/unfolding chain of events unfortunately uneven as well. I enjoyed the premise, but the execution, the imbalanced two person narrations and the abrupt ending took away from what could have been a brilliant novel. I was drawn to many elements of this novel, like the exploration of the Model Minority Myth here, and it’s good to see a novel with inter-POC romance and POC characters with a disability as well. The scarcity of inter-POC romance and disabled POC characters in YA fiction (and I suspect across all genres/age categories) is disappointing enough to make these aspects of <b>Wait for Me</b> to stand out. There are all types of people from all walks of life interacting with each other: the fact that these books are rarely told sends a sublime signal that <i>their stories don’t matter/aren’t worth telling</i>, and that is wrong. We should, and <i>can</i> do better. I also suspect I would have had fewer problems with Suna and her characterization as childish if only we had a variety of differently abled characters presented in Fiction, but this prevalence of infantilizing disabled characters rubs me in all the wrong places and the fact that Suna fits and continues this trend is disheartening. Not my favourite of reads, but as I said in the beginning, above all else this novel haunted me, the scenes between Mina and Jonathon arrested me, and despite my scruples, I definitely will remember the name of this novel long into the future.<br /><br /><b>Rating:</b> 3/5<br /><b>Enjoyment:</b> N/A - I didn’t enjoy myself reading this novel, but I couldn’t walk away from or stop reading this novel for the life of me. Make of that what you will.<br /><br /><b>Title and Cover Discussion:</b> You know, this title does fit, but I don’t like the message it sends? Also I thought the cover was hideous, fade into the background type. I could never notice this book passing by it on the shelves. In fact, I <i>have</i> by passed this novel multiple times in the library. <br /><br /><i>Aside: Does anyone else find An Na's romanization of Korean strange? I mean, I'm not nitpicking the way she spells out the words into English letters since I'm not the most familiar with the romanization systems for the Korean language. I just find her insertion of a hyphen in between every syllable jarring. It makes reading the romanized Korean sound stilted and stiff, and Korean doesn't really sound like that, imo. I'm speaking as a person who doesn't speak Korean personally and mostly hears the language through friends or kdramas or just people talking in public areas, FYI. (Opinions of Korean speakers are welcome.)</i>yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-14624214983308366802010-06-23T12:43:00.004-04:002010-06-23T12:58:08.542-04:00Winner of Vampire Academy + Waiting on Wednesday: Keys to the RepositoryThank you to all entrants to submitted to my 100 Followers Giveaway. The entrants for this round of giveaways about doubled the entries for my previous giveaways combined, lol. I... did not quite realize how popular <b>Vampire Academy</b> was? *amused*<br /><br />Also according to my comments a majority prefer series to standalones, lol. Fascinating. <br /><br />Anyhow, the winner of the giveaway is~<br /><br /><font size=5>Misha Mathew</font><br /><br />I have sent you an email, please reply within 48 hours or I'll have to pick a new winner.<br /><br />+<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TCI7mYUjs6I/AAAAAAAAAnc/ZNuAj7W75wY/s1600/melissa_de_la_cruz-keystotherepository.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 138px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TCI7mYUjs6I/AAAAAAAAAnc/ZNuAj7W75wY/s200/melissa_de_la_cruz-keystotherepository.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5486012826640429986" /></a><b><i>Blue Bloods: Keys to the Repository</i> by Melissa de la Cruz</b><br /><br />The school year at Duchesne is always packed with drama, mystery, murder, and midterms for Schuyler Van Alen and her friends (and enemies). But what about that glorious patch of time from June to August? In this collection of short stories, New York Times bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz reveals how the stunningly gorgeous, ridiculously wealthy, and completely undead members of the Blue Bloods spend their summer holidays. Hamptons, anyone?<br /><br />My thoughts: omfg you guys have no idea how excited I am about this. Basically my favouritest YA Vampire Romance guilty pleasure evaaaaaaar. Her world is sprawling and epic and all things wondrous, and I wolf down each new <b>Blue Bloods</b> title with glee. IS IT JULY YET?! (Also, to all those who are clamouring about how fallen angels are the next big thing, well, guess what? In Blue Bloods - VAMPIRES = FALLEN ANGELS. LAWL.)<br /><br />Any new YA Vampire titles you're excited about? Or just upcoming books in general? I'm all ears. =Dyuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-90261574022975689662010-06-15T10:35:00.002-04:002010-06-15T11:15:35.607-04:00Blog Updates! + Discussion Post: On Minor CharactersSooooo, I have done some cleanup on this blog. For one thing, I actually TAGGED everything for once! And I made pages! <br /><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/p/about-blog-and-i.html">About the Blog and I</a> is where you should go if you want to know more about this blog and myself. <br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/p/what-i-read.html">What I Read</a> gives a list of the types of stories I like/dislike. Am slightly amused that my dislike list looks longer than than my likes... ^^;;;<br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/p/review-by-title.html">Review by Title</a> in which all my reviews in this book blog are listed and linked to. <br /><br />Now all I need to do is make a Contact Page (the email is galnovelty AT gmail DOT com if anyone wishes to speak to me about anything) and maybe a Links Page so that people know where to find me and organizing my Challenge post... <br /><br />Speaking of which - Anyone want to help explain to me how to make those contact form thingers? I'd normally bug <a href="http://angeltyuan.blogspot.com/">Ninefly</a> for all my tech-y blogging needs, but she's currently busy traipsing around the grasslands of Mainland China, the minx. *IS NOT JEALOUS, NOT AT ALL*<br /><br />And please feel free to tell me what other pages you think I should consider putting up, etc.<br /><br />+<br /><br /><center><b>My Minor Character Problem</b></center><br />Folks, I have a confession to make. I have a problem. One that my RL friends like to make fun of me for doing all the time. See, I have this habit of falling in love with the Minor Character. Which is okay if I still like the main story but then, I would sometimes like the Minor Characters <i>more</i> than the main characters. And then, they die. Or disappear. And they make me sad. <br /><br />They also make me incapable of talking about the books properly.<br /><br />Let's use the <b>Time Traveller's Wife</b> example.<br /><br />FRIEND A: So have you read that really good book <b>Time Traveller's Wife</b>?<br />ME: OH GAWD THAT BOOK I WAS SO SAD. IT WAS A TRAGEDY. A TRAVESTY.<br />FRIEND A: Well, I suppose the romance was a bit on the tragic level - <br />ME: SHE DIED.<br />FRIEND A: ... What? Claire didn't die!<br />ME: NOT HER. <i>Ingrid.</i> <br />FRIEND A: Ingrid who?<br />ME: The girlfriend who loved him and said fuck you to the whole destiny crap and we had to see her die OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND IT WAS SO SAD.<br />Friend A: Oh I kind of remember something like that - wait a minute, Yuan, SHE APPEARED FOR LIKE, <i>TWO PAGES</i>.<br />ME: *sniffs* The most tragic two pages <i>of my life.</i><br /><br />Even the most optimistic of situations, liking the side minor character is a frustrating experience. You'd read the whole book, but you are left feeling unsatisfied because that book wasn't the story you WANTED to read. Like John Green's <b>An Abundance of Katherines</b>. I don't care how many times our MC got dumped and his stupid math theorem! I JUST WANT HASSAN GOING AROUND BEING A LOVABLE LOSER AND MAKING STAR TREK REFERENCES AND WATCH JUDGE JUDY FOREVER. <br /><br />You'd think a good solution would be to pick out a favourite character who's one of the main leads (usually the MC or the Love Interest in YA is a pretty good shot) as a favourite character, BUT THEN, A BOOK LIKE <b>WHITE CAT</b> COMES ALONG.<br /><br />ME: So I read this book called <b>White Cat</b> wherein I actually liked the love interest for once AND THEN I WAS SCREWED.<br />FRIEND Y: Why? What happened? What's this character's name?<br />ME: LILA. OH, DEAR, DEAR LILA. <br />FRIEND Y: *reads WC summary* Yuan... it says in the very summary that <i>Lila is dead</i>. How the hell did you think picking out <i>her</i> as a favourite character would be a good idea?<br />ME: Sometimes, I hate myself. *sobs* LILAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA<br /><br />I can't help it! Something about these characters just draw me in and I've always read my books with character love as the foremost priority. And then I would read this books and be all crushed and no one has sympathy for my loss. *wallows* And I also can't even give proper reviews for these books because ALL I WANT TO DO IS SPEND THAT TIME TALKING ABOUT THAT MINOR CHARACTER, and talking about things that isn't really relevant to the main story is not good review-ing material.<br /><br />Surely I'm not the only one afflicted with this problem? <b>Tell me about your minor character loves</b>. Or, if you always like the main characters and do not understand my problem, tell me how silly I'm being and show me ways to get over this problem of mine. Or just talk to me about characters you like in general!yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-28650614846943389902010-06-13T09:56:00.001-04:002010-06-14T11:26:00.906-04:00Triple Snapshots: Cynthia Kadohata<b>Triple Snapshots</b> is when I give a paragraph description on the impressions of books I get. Today’s theme for my Triple Snapshot feature is exactly as the title indicates. Now with an added <b>3-Sentence Summary</b> feature in which I summarize the book.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBJD7zRAWFI/AAAAAAAAAnE/cSbXtPsCWD4/s1600/kirakira.jpeg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBJD7zRAWFI/AAAAAAAAAnE/cSbXtPsCWD4/s200/kirakira.jpeg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481518391116191826" /></a><b><i>Kira-Kira</i> by Cynthia Kadohata</b><br /><br /><i>3SS: It's the 1950s and the Takeshimas are moving into the US South. The core of the story is that between two sisters, as they grow and make sense of their world. What will Katie do when tragedy strikes her family?</i><br /> <br />Kira-Kira is a wonderful tale of the bond between two sisters, and growing up. Katie was a wonder of a protagonist to be with, and I simply fell in love with Kadohata’s voice in this book. Kadohata has that ability to capture young pre-adolescent voice perfectly without ever oversimplifying or sounding fake, and I was thoroughly charmed. As with all Kadohata books, she leaves you crushed and heartbroken as she brings her cast through tremendous trials, so I do warn for those especially teary-eyed to keep a box of tissue at hand, but the experience of reading such a fine MG novel will be well worth all the tears. I recommend this book to anyone across all ages. I freely admit I lent this book out to my young little sister and she does not seemed scarred by the experience besides wailing at the ending, and she told me she loved it, so there you go. Even non Kadohata-biased people liked it, so EVERYONE JUST READ IT NOW.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBJEOwHz8uI/AAAAAAAAAnM/sdCUgQZbpnA/s1600/cracker.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 132px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBJEOwHz8uI/AAAAAAAAAnM/sdCUgQZbpnA/s200/cracker.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481518716689838818" /></a><b><i>Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam</i> by Cynthia Kadohata</b><br /><br /><i>3SS: Cracker, our doggy protagonist, becomes separated from her boy and is sent to the army to be trained as a military dog to scout out bombs and other artilleries. She forms a strong and lasting bond with her soldier companion as they warm up to each other through the training. And then, the two of them get set to the front lines for war... </i><br /><br />If anyone could make me a believer of animal companionship tales, Kadohata can. I never cared for stories like Watership Down or Redwall or what you will, but Kadohata’s voice, once again, charmed my socks off. You’re reading this and you feel like this author just gets dogs <i>completely</i>, so convincing is her voice. The war in Vietnam was indeed rather sterilized in this novel, which I admit is problematic, (I’m still waiting for that future novel Kadohata will HOPEFULLY write that does the Vietnamese people who fought on the other side of the war justice, but if this glossed over war aspect bothers you, she does better in her latest novel <b>A Million Shades of Grey</b>) but I say give it a go anyways, especially if you’re a dog lover. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBJEYfrC42I/AAAAAAAAAnU/HKyBgkHVGXg/s1600/outsidebeauty.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 126px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBJEYfrC42I/AAAAAAAAAnU/HKyBgkHVGXg/s200/outsidebeauty.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5481518884072907618" /></a><b><i>Outside Beauty</i> by Cynthia Kadohata</b><br /><br /><i>3SS: Shelby lives with her gorgeous mother and many half-sisters. She cannot imagine life outside of her family, but one day her mother is admitted to the hospital and the sisters get separated as they're all sent packing to live with their biological fathers. How will the sisters reunite to become a family once more?</i><br /><br />Oh, Outside Beauty. How much I wanted to like you, and how much did you just not succeed for me. It’s my only Kadohata read so far that turned up disappointing. I suspect it didn’t work because Kadohata didn’t quite manage to balance out together all the elements of this book into the story coherently? Certainly this book has a larger main cast than her other books, and I felt like the depiction of the relationship between all the sisters ended up faltering, and because her character interactions were not quite on par, her message on beauty and family fell short. Also, this is the one book wherein she did not quite manage to grasp at her protagonist’s voice quite right… And I’m not sure if it’s because she’s better at the MG-style voice than YA-voice, or if it’s just because the protagonist wasn’t as well rounded as she could have been. There were elements that I liked, and moments where Kadohata’s voice shines out (Coffee scene! *giggles*) but on a whole this book didn’t work for me. Perhaps die hard Kadohata fans should give this a go to complete their Kadohata book reads, but for newcomers to Kadohata’s novels I suggest you set this one aside and pick up any of her other titles instead.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-39135099894722992232010-06-12T09:21:00.002-04:002010-06-27T19:41:53.349-04:00Review: Boys Without Names by Kashmira Sheth<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBBDb3Ua4BI/AAAAAAAAAm8/MvX29Y8kw9M/s1600/boyswithoutnames.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 212px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBBDb3Ua4BI/AAAAAAAAAm8/MvX29Y8kw9M/s320/boyswithoutnames.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480954892495020050" /></a><br /><b>Title:</b> Boys Without Names<br /><b>Author(s):</b> Kashmira Sheth<br /><b>Genre:</b> MG Contemporary, India, Child slavery<br /><b>Page Count:</b> 318<br /><b>Publisher:</b> Balzer + Bray<br /><br /><center><i>I received an Uncorrected Proof copy from <a href="http://campbele.wordpress.com/">Edi</a></i></center><br /><b>The Summary:</b>For eleven-year-old Gopal and his family, life in their rural Indian village is over. <i>We stay, we starve,</i> his baba has warned. So they flee to the big city of Mumbai in hopes of finding work and a brighter future. Goal is eager to help support his struggling family until school starts, so when a stranger approaches him with the promise of a factor job, he jumps at the offer...<br /><br />-Summary taken from 1st paragraph of Backcover<br /><br /><b>The Review:</b> After reading <i>Boys Without Names</i>, I do believe that Kashmira Sheth is now firmly solidified as my new must-read MG author. She reminds me of Cynthia Kadohata, actually, and that is no small praise on my part because I practically worship the ground Kadohata walks on. Except, you know, Sheth would be a South Asian version, and her stories more… uplifting in tone. Less painful moments wherein I feel like my heart is being wrenched out of my chest as I stare desolately at the page with the text blurring as my eyes well up. I wouldn’t say <i>happier</i> because the two books I’ve read by Sheth (<i>Keeping Corner</i> and this book, respectively) deal with serious matters, but I can trust that unlike Kadohata’s works, no one is going to die, no one is going to have to be severed permanently from a loved one – in short, at the end of the Sheth novel, I probably won’t be a sobbing mess. If I’m crying, I’m crying tears of joy over the triumph of our beloved protagonists. They’re very similar in style (close 1st person narration, simple free-of-flowery-language and evocative lines that cut straight to the matter and grab you by the heart, but Kadohata has a stronger voice whereas Sheth’s narration is cleaner and almost lyrical in its simplicity) but diverge more drastically on their tone (Kadohata – sadder, Sheth – happier). I don’t prefer one style over the other, just that I find the comparison interesting and that now I know which MG author to go to if I want to read about a charming protagonist going through life’s hardships, but do not want to cry my eyes out. <br /><br />Anyhow, on the actual novel itself, I am simply in love with Sheth’s writing style. It’s just so <i>clean</i>. When you take a sentence out of the context, they are almost deceptively dull and simplistic, a basic noun-and-verb sentence construction with the occasional adjective. But put her sentence structures <i>together</i> and then you see Sheth’s full mastery of the English language, how her words are carefully chosen to make the most out of what she wants to say. I felt like there was not a word used that was wasted, that her phrases were carefully weighed to produce the fullest effect possible. Everything was just so smooth and clean and flowed so nicely, you can’t help but sink into the story, time passing you by as you leaf your way through the pages.<a name='more'></a><br /><br />And the cast was absolutely darling! I loved everyone I was supposed to love, and hated the ones I was supposed to hate. I was totally charmed by Gopal, our narrator, and his deep attachment with his family. He was so full of optimism and hardworking, and very sweet all around. All the family scenes with his concerns over his parents and his entertaining of his younger siblings charmed my socks off. I’m a total sucker for family scenes, and I really loved seeing the family love without, you know, the parental angst or sibling jealousy that dominates the YA novels I typically read. I really liked how Sheth took the time to show Gopal and his life in Mumbai before he was captured too, because it made all his longings for home that much more effective. Honestly, when we got to the point wherein Gopal got caught, I actually had to put down the pages because the very thought of Gopal being separated from his family crushed me. I knew it was coming, it implies so in the summary, but we readers become invested in Gopal and how important it was to be together with his family, and become simply crushed by this rude severing of family ties.<br /><br />This is of course, not to say that the first half was at all filled with happy go-lucky times. Sheth is telling us a story of a family from a poor class, and the struggles and indignities they go through from being in want of money, the desperation as they run out of money to even make basic needs such as paying for their next meal, and even a place just to sleep. Sheth does not shy away from any of these depictions, but she also paints a loving family willing to stick it out together, so when the family separation occurs it is just that much more devastating. <br /><br />The second half becomes darker in tone, with child slavery on top of poverty and homesickness, and gritty unhealthy living conditions. Sheth does not sugarcoat, nor does she excessively dishes out the horror for shock factor. Rather, with her clean and simple prose she states the conditions as is, an honesty in the writing that makes the viewing of our protagonist’s experience that much more heartbreaking. His frustrations, his despair, all of it evoked sympathy without it ever feeling like the author was purposely trying to extract these sympathetic emotions from us. The second half was also balanced out with glimpses of endurance and hope, as Gopal learns to survive, using his own character agency in a bad situation. The bonds he forms with the other boys he lives with form slowly and tenderly to make one of the most heartfelt and fragile friendships depicted in MG novels. Sheth breathes life into these boys, and makes them rounded characters that act and react to the protagonist. In other words, Sheth’s abilities in character development were a wonder to behold. <br /><br />I also liked how the theme of storytelling grew and change in significance over the course of the story. First as a way to entertain himself and his twin siblings, then told as a way of hope as his family tries to make it in the city, and ultimately as a way to connect with the other boys he worked with, they were fun and heartfelt and enriched the novel in such a way that I can’t imagine this novel without Gopal’s stories inserted meaningfully throughout the narrative. The theme of storytelling is essential to this novel, they are not pieces of whimsical fictive tales by the fireside to be forgotten. Making stories-within-a-story is a great skill that not many authors can pull off, and I’m happy to say that Sheth outdone herself in making this storytelling method work completely to her advantage. By the end of the novel I was convinced Sheth is a master storytelling, and I am eagerly looking forward to any new projects Sheth undertakes in the future.<br /><br /><b>The Verdict:</b> The journey Sheth takes us readers into Gopal’s experiences up to the grand finale is an arresting and riveting experience, with characters you’ll just fall in love for and a reading experience that will haunt you long after the story is over. I’d recommend this novel to everyone<br /><br /><b>Rating:</b> A<br /><b>Enjoyment:</b> 100%<br /><br /><b>Title and Cover Discussion:</b> The title doesn’t quite resonate until we hit the second half, but it works and is a fine, memorable title. The simple silhouette cover design is serviceable and unique enough for it to not be mistaken for another cover. Neither the cover or title is flashy, but it is also different enough from the bland similar type covers that are in shelves in order to make it stand out. <br /><br /><b>Title:</b> B<br /><b>Cover:</b> B<br /><br />Note: Kashmira Sheth has left many links and information on how one can help stop Child Labour and Child Slavery. Please consider checking out the following link if you wish to know more or take action against this social injustice: http://laborrights.org/stop-child-laboryuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-63082522026114460542010-06-10T05:45:00.004-04:002010-06-14T11:27:12.560-04:00Sequential Art Review: Le pacte des yokai (Natsume Yuujinchou) V. 1 by Yuki Midorikawa<font size=1>I've been meaning to do manga/manhwa/bédé/comics type reviews for this book blog, but finding the right approach to reviewing them proved to be difficult because I read manga/etc very differently from the way I read a novel. I’m still kind of messing around with how I’ll approach this type of review, and there’ll probably be changes in my review format before I find my footing. (For one thing, hopefully they'll become SHORTER over time. *dies x100*) Please tell me about your thoughts on this review, especially if you’re not familiar with manga and if you found any of it confusing.</font><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBAM62VB8kI/AAAAAAAAAm0/CNj2PZ2fmXQ/s1600/lepactedesyokai.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 203px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TBAM62VB8kI/AAAAAAAAAm0/CNj2PZ2fmXQ/s320/lepactedesyokai.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480894951665562178" /></a><br /><b>Title:</b> Le pacte des yokai V. 1 – trans. The Pact of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokai">Yokai</a> [1] (Original title : 夏目友人帳 Natsume Yuujinchou – trans. Natsume’s Book of Friends.)<br /><b>Creator:</b> Yuki Midorikawa trans. by Yuki Kakiichi<br /><b>Genre:</b> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shōjo_manga">Shoujo</a>[2], drama, supernatural, episodic, slice-of-life<br /><b>Serialized magazine:</b> Lala<br /><b>Publisher:</b> Hakusensha (Japanese publisher), Édition Delacourt (French publisher)<br /><br /><b>Summary:</b> Orphaned teenager Takashi Natsume has always been able to see the yokai since he was a child. His life becomes complicated when a notebook, inherited from his deceased grandmother Reiko, falls into his hands. This notebook contains all the names of the yokai his grandmother has defeated in battle, names which allows Natsume to control the yokai and determine their life or death. This powerful inherited notebook brings Natsume new friends and foes as other yokai seek the notebook either to free themselves or to possess the notebook and all the power it contains.<br /><br /><b>TL;DR:</b> A fantastic debut to a great series, with evocative art, a sweet protagonist to root for, and heartfelt stories that with grab readers by the heart, this is a manga series no one should miss out on.<a name='more'></a><br /><br /><br /><b>The Review:</b> Let me indulge in some basic manga perimetres, as this is my first attempt at a manga review and I want to make this clear. In these story mediums using sequential art, the art ITSELF is essential to the story. Art can either make or break a story – and not simply in the sense that ‘oh the art is ugly thus it sucks’ or ‘oh the art is pretty thus it’s good’. Good art in manga is not simply art that looks appealing to your eyes, though of course, like Cover Art in Novels, pretty, appealing art styles of the manga creator can be a drawing factor to get a new audience member to pick up the manga volume. But in all forms of sequential art, THE ART IS THE STORY. The story is told through art. Thus, if the art cannot convey or carry the story, then the story has no substance. The ability of the creator to correctly and smoothly transition the art through action or character contemplation or what you will is far more important than say, how detailed the outfits are, or how lovely the background is.<br /><br />The art of Natsume Yuujinchou is not one that’s immediately appealing to a new audience. Midorikawa does not use strong bold outlines or fills her manga with lush details. Rather, the art has a ‘soft’ quality, kind of like light sketches in a sketchbook that captures enough of the essence of the image the artist wants to convey, but is absent of a sharply penciled outline of the sketch to make it look more ‘finished’. I have seen accusations of this art being deemed ugly because of this ‘unfinished’ look, but if you look closer you’ll realize that Midorikawa always draws enough to convey all that is necessary to tell the story, and she never slacks on background details when they’re needed, and her art is always spaced out in a way to lend for easy art flow. Midorikawa’s art is by no means flashy, but it has substance, and great thought put into it, and I appreciate this style of art very much. Also, this sketch look in her art lends a whimsical, unassuming quality to her story, and thoroughly charmed me from page one.<br /><br />Midorikawa favours a three-way vertical split in her page outlines, and it works rather well for her. Transitions within scenes are usually done exceptionally well, and Midorikawa excels at portraying emotional moments of character insight with her minimal, deft artistic hand. She is weaker with the action scenes, but they are serviceable, and this is mostly just nitpicking on my part. Besides, you don’t read Natsume Yuujinchou for the action, lol.<br /><br />From the premise of boy getting his hands on a powerful notebook, this sounds like your typical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shōnen_manga">shounen</a> adventure fare. What is key to keep in mind is that this is Yuki Midorikawa, and that this is essentially a shoujo story, manga targeted towards teenage girls. She takes a premise normally found in manga for teenage boys, and breathes heart and soul into the story rarely found in the shounen scene. Midorikawa’s true strength in her storytelling abilities is her way of breathing human qualities and thoughtful insights into her characters, not necessarily through an indulgent soliloquy, but moreso through the glimpses of character interactions and things said/unsaid, and her way of making the art slow down or speed up at key moments for maximum effect. In short, Midorikawa is best at reeling in and evoking character sympathy, and then breaking the audience’s hearts. Reading a work by Midorikawa is heartfelt not because of melodrama, but because it is quiet and so dearly sincere.<br /><br />Instead of taking the powering/leveling up motif that is common in for this type of premise in the shounen market, Midorikawa instead focuses on the human level of what these abilities means to our main protagonist. How does it feel to be able to see things that others can’t? How does it feel to be accused of being a liar for it? Sent away from foster home to foster home because each foster parent thought you were either lying or creepy or sullen in his solitude and loneliness? How does it feel to inherit something from a family relations and discovering that maybe you aren’t so alone after all, that someone besides you had these abilities and gave you an everlasting vestige of her legacy? How is it like, despite all these obstacles, having the desire to want to belong? How do you relate to others when you know that other humans cannot see what you were born able to do? All these questions Midorikawa addresses attentively, the connection between human and yokai, Some of the most compelling sustained character relationships in this series is that between Natsume and Reiko, his deceased grandmother, how he slowly gains insight of her thoughts and feelings in this notebook of hers. This is one of the defining things that make this typical shounen sounding premise morph into an atypical shoujo story: Midorikawa does not choose to develop a story of Natsume rising up to be the king of yokai or even a top notch yokai slayer. Instead, Natsume sees this notebook as something important of his grandma’s, the only woman he knows of who might have understood his feelings and emotions. Natsume chooses to instead give back the names taken by his grandma back to the yokai in question, and through this learns more about his grandma, and the yokai that come to see and meet him. This is not a story of the underdog becoming the best. This is a story about the every day things, the desire for connection as characters interact and grow. (Also I find the compare contrast between our protag and his grandma fascinating because they have the same abilities but it shaped them very differently.)<br /><br />Midorikawa shapes this story in an episodic fashion, each chapter an equivalent of one episode wherein he would typically help out or get involved with a different yokai each chapter. In these episodic type narratives, a compelling main character is key, because why else would we continue to read an episodic series if we didn’t care about the protagonist? I’ll be upfront and say that Natsume is one of the most sincere and sweetest protagonists I’ve ever encountered in all stories across all sorts of mediums, and he charmed my heart. I understood this fictional character like he was a real person next to me, a living, breathing friend. How he keeps aloof from humans in fear of being rejected, how he has trust issues and how he wants to be kind and good to those he cares about but isn’t very good with his words, how he recklessly acts in order to help those who come to him and how he’s one of the most unselfish and kind protagonists I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering. I could literally spend all day being like this, rambling on and on about how much I love this protagonist, but let me finish off by saying that Midorikawa has created a protagonist that will make a follower out of the readers and you’ll be willing to read his adventures anywhere and wherever the author chooses to take you.<br /><br />As for the episodic stories themselves, what can I even say? Words cannot describe how beautiful these stories were. Chapter 2 and 4 especially made me teary-eyed. I found the theme of (missing) communication between yokai and human and a futile desire to connect very evocative and compelling amidst the heartbreak. The heart of these stories has an underlying message of friendship, not in the typical shounen sense of FRIENDS STICK TOGETHER kind of thing, but a desire to form ties with others that has nothing to do with romance and everything to do with wanting to be close to another being who means something to you. <br /><br />This thoughtfulness in the stories are by no means accidental, as reading the notes written into the sides and endnotes at the end reveal. One of the cool things about (re)reading these serialized manga works (fyi, usually manga is serialized in magazines wherein there is either weekly or monthly chapter updates, kind of like how Charles Dickens wrote a chapter in newspapers if we are looking for an English novelization equivalent…) in Volume form is that they usually come with commentary. I really like reading Midorikawa’s commentaries because they always make it clear how thoughtful she is when she plans out her stories, that she really thinks carefully about her craft and what ways shall she use to bring her story to life, her thoughts on how to carefully position her characters in the best manner, and her worries on using an episodic-type narrative to tell her story (fyi it’s her first time, not that anyone could tell since she mastered it so completely on her first shot.) I also liked the detail on how Nyanko-sensei/Madara/Maitre Griffou (if you read the French version) came to be, and her acknowledgments and praises towards her editor and assistants. <br /><br />As for the translations itself, I read the French version, and it was passable. They decided not to keep any of the original Japanese syntax and even completely changed the name of Nyanko-sensei, which saddens me, but I almost forgive them because this French edition gives us a lot of brilliant endnotes at the end on the folklore Midorikawa referenced and the yokai lore as well. They even had an interesting yokai overview at the back of the volume. I didn’t care for the yokai-are-the-same-as-demons, but I suppose it’s better than a sublimal message on Othering Yokai and Japanese folklore, etc. *shrugs* I have yet to read the English editions that are out, but you know, the nice thing about manga is that the art tells 80% of the story, so even if the translation was subpar, the art will convey most of the message through, so I say to all the English-speakers to get their copy ASAP! <br /><br />Quick note on the title: I can see why the French publisher changed the title because Natsume’s Book of Friends does kind of sound boring and cheesy, but I’m weirdly fond of it all the same? *shrugs* Oh well, at least it’s actually related to what’s going on within the story as well. <br /><br /><b>Art:</b> A<br /><b>Story</b>[3]: A<br /><br /> [1]Yokai is an umbrella term for supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore, demons being a rough equivalent if we want to think of a European folk creature counterpart. <br /> [2] In this context, Shoujo means manga geared towards teenage girls. For manga, there are two markets for teenagers, shoujo manga for girls and shounen manga for boys. Of course, boys can read shoujo and girls can read shounen, but the general rule is that these mangas are geared towards the specific target audience they have in mind. Shounen and Shoujo thus have very different troupes and conventions.<br /> [3]You may be wondering why I am rating these two separately, since I spent forever trying to explain that there is no story without the art, aka ART = STORY. But what I mean by rating them separately is that, for the Art, I’m rating it based on how effective was the creator in telling the story (which is always predominantly through the art, the positioning of the art, etc) and the rating for story is for the actual story events in the volume, if there was a proper beginning/middle/end, etc. I guess a novel equivalent would be that Art => Writing Style and Story => Plot?! I hope this isn’t confusing.<br /><br /><br /><i>This entry has been edited for misspellings and broken links</i>yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-71474647405402144702010-06-09T10:34:00.007-04:002010-06-14T11:27:31.878-04:00Triple Snapshots: YA Faerie Romance<b>Triple Snapshots</b> is when I give a paragraph description on the impressions of books I get. Today’s theme for my Triple Snapshot feature is exactly as the title indicates. Now with an added <b>3-Sentence Summary</b> feature in which I summarize the book <strike>snarkily</strike>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TA_RCT5aVgI/AAAAAAAAAmc/wiK_c_NMOX0/s1600/wondrousstrange.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 136px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TA_RCT5aVgI/AAAAAAAAAmc/wiK_c_NMOX0/s200/wondrousstrange.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480829109164201474" /></a><i><b>Wondrous Strange</b> by Lesley Livingston<br /><br />3-Sentence Summary: Wannabe teen actress gets role in </i>Midsummer Night's Dream<i> and meets hot faerie dude. Girl finds out she's not all what she seems. Throw in family/romance angst and some saving the world from Faerie and Human world collision into the mix of our run in the mill YA Faerie story.</i><br /><br />This book makes it on the list of one of the many books I read for All the Wrong Reasons: Minor Character Edition. That’s right, I plowed through this thing even though I didn’t care for the heroine or the romantic lead, and the romance that made me gag inside. (Can I rant about the whole “his Firecracker” thing? I don’t find that possessive colouring sweet, just… creepy. I don’t even like it when the male leads refer to the girl as “His girl” It makes me want to go, NO, SHE IS HER OWN PERSON, OKAY?! NOT YOURS.) BUT THEN A KELPIE CAME ALONG, AND HE STAYED IN THEIR BATHROOM AND WAS CALLED LUCKY. I was amused. And then the book told me Lucky the Kelpie may turn into Death Horse, and the whole irony of being called Lucky had me cackling and flipping through the pages despite my better judgment. Also Tyff was the best roommate ever. I wish this whole story was from her POV instead. Anyhow, basically what I got out of this is that I really have to stop picking up books because of pretty covers (I love this cover, why oh why did the story within didn’t match up? *sobs*) and crossed off this whole trilogy thinger off my to-read list. As further evidence of my masochistic streak, I actually already heard horrific things about the sequel having a Love Triangle of Doom, and then I skimmed the sequel <i>anyways</i> and it got into this whole Indian mortal child being kidnapped by the faerie queen for his ~*exotic*~ looks AND THEN I was like, fuck this noise. ARGH MUST BLEACH BRAIN. (Needless to say, I didn't finish the sequel) Also if I never read another fairy story that borrows heavily from <i>A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i> ever again, it’d be too damn soon.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TA_SSsbP1iI/AAAAAAAAAmk/nwFenh7B1Yw/s1600/spells.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 132px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TA_SSsbP1iI/AAAAAAAAAmk/nwFenh7B1Yw/s200/spells.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480830490138105378" /></a><i><b>Spells</b> by Aprilynne Pike<br /><br />3SS: Laurel goes to Faerie school! In which we have tourism in faerieland shenanigans for the first (awesome) half and then the second half stops going to awesome school and indulges us all with WHO WILL SHE CHOOSE love triangle drama. Just typical.</i><br /><br />I have NO IDEA why I read the sequel when I found the first book so painful. I mean, while I adored the idea of plant fairies and whatnot, the love triangle made me want to die inside and the story formula was just too generic and typical Changeling story (Girl finds out she is fairy and then something comes after her and she has tragic love triangle between a Fairy boy and Mortal boy WHATEVER SHALL WE DO?! Cry me a river.) that I have no patience for this days. Okay, I lie, I do in fact know why I read this. It’s because I found out that the heroine ends up going into fairy school and I was like OMG HARRY POTTER THE FAIRY VERSION?! I am such a sucker for magical boarding schools like you would not believe, people. And I did in fact enjoy it more than the first book. While there was not enough of the fairy school to keep me happy, I really, really enjoyed getting to know more of the fairy world. It’s evident that Pike did some amazing worldbuilding work with this series. It was interesting how we got to know the world too, with the heroine being the tourist and Tamami showing the world. It worked well for me, this way of showing a fantasy world. It’s too bad that Pike simply insists on having the Love Triangle dominate the whole storyline. Watching this whole David/Laurel/Tamami drama drove me quite mad, and made me want to shake all of them. It also made me want to quote Sarah Rees Brennan’s <b>The Demon’s Covenant</b> at them. (“It’s not some kind of tragically stupid love triangle. I’m not going to choose one guy out of two and settle down. It doesn’t have to be either of them for me, or have to be me for either of them. The world’s full of people, if you haven’t noticed.” Pg. 86) <strike>But then again I also just want to quote this everywhere whenever I see stupid love triangles in my stories, so I'm not like, singling this out. I'm just a love triangle hater.</strike> On the whole, I suggest that unless you’re All About Worldbuilding in your stories (in which case you HAVE TO HAVE TO read this story now. I love this faerie world!), I’d pass on this whole series. It’s really the only thing going for it. (I wish Pike would just write a story set in this world that had no stupid love triangles and more SCHOOLGIRL RIVALRIES and CLASS PROJECTS and stuff, because I'm a geek like that.) Or, unless you actually like the whole Epic Tragic Love Triangle of Ridiculous. In which case you should gobble this up like candy. I’ll try not to judge you. ;D<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TA_ScRwXNpI/AAAAAAAAAms/vazxPH0c6fU/s1600/theironking.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 128px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/TA_ScRwXNpI/AAAAAAAAAms/vazxPH0c6fU/s200/theironking.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480830654777603730" /></a><i><b>The Iron King</b> by Julie Kagawa<br /><br />3SS: Meaghan's bro gets kidnapped by fairies and she goes off to save him. In her saving journey readers subject themselves to a long middle of love triangle romance with creepy killer stalker and jokester best friend in which the girl typically prefers the jerk against all reason. Saving happens at end, but we have crack to entertain us along the way in the form of a cat called Grimalkin, etc.</i><br /><br /><strike>This novel made me so bipolar.</strike>* <b>ETA</b> I found this reading experience mostly a mixed bag. One second I’d be laughing over the crack (OTAKU FAIRIES LOLOLOL, and FAIRIES CLUBBING IN LEATHER and GRIMALKIN, BECAUSE HE’S A CAT WHICH WAS HIS EXCUSE FOR LIFE) and then the next second the love triangle crap made me want to die. Like, even more than in Pike's <b>Wings</b> series. Ash was the creepiest love interest ever. I mean, he tried to kill her! Literally! And has told her that he’d kill her if ever she was on the other side of the battlefield. And then, after Ash makes his speech of wanting to kill her, Meaghan gets turned on?! WTF?! (This happened SO MANY TIMES.) I came into this book HOPING it’d be about the rescuing brother thing but I think the author evidently thought a stupid love triangle would be more compelling (Um, NO) Also I didn’t care for Kagawa’s spin on the whole technology thing? It was a little too TECHNOLOGY BAD, NATURE GOOD, though she did try to complicate a little, I’ll admit. There just wasn’t enough complexity there in her spin on fairy folk lore for me. (Kinda didactic, I suppose?) I probably wouldn’t have bothered finishing it if it weren’t for the fact that 1) <a href="http://angeltyuan.blogspot.com/">ninefly</a> wanted me to do a read through to tell her my thoughts (She always uses me for a guinea pig to test out new novels.) 2) this was a debut book and would count for the Debut challenge. The random crack and Grimalkin got me through it, but there’s no way I’m touching the other books in the series. Any more Ash swooning and I just may have to kill myself.<br /><br />*<br /><br />In short, I’ve been disappointed by these faerie stories I’ve been reading lately. I know this entry makes me look like a hater, but I honestly once really enjoyed all these faerie stories, and was extremely partial to those changeling ones. I've been (masochistically?) checking out every YA faerie/fey/fairy/faery/whatever I can find in my library in hopes I'll come across one that I like, and I just read one this morning that I really enjoyed, so I'll hopefully have a happy YA faery book review for y'all soon. IN THE MEANTIME if anyone wants to rec me a YA faerie story with no love triangles of stupid, and no <i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i> references, that'd be awesome. For more specific references, I'd gobble up anything if there's an all-exclusive fairy school YA book out there (BOARDING SCHOOL SETTING IS PREFERABLY, BONUS IF IT'S ALL-FEMALES SCHOOL WITH RIVALRY NEXT TO A ALL-MALES BOARDING SCHOOL 8D) or a kelpie story wherein said kelpie lives in your bathtub. (Also, when I say fey books, I mean like, not fairy tale adaptations. Just straight-up fairy stories, please and thank you.) So yeah, recs will be great.<br /><br />* I was reading this and it struck me that I probably came across as offensive and drowning in ablist privilege. I do not deny that I have ablist privilege and wrote thoughtlessly without considering the impact my use of these words may have, but I apologize to anyone and everyone for my language, and especially to those who may have been hurt by what I have said, and I shall try to do better at unpacking the implications of privilege I have, etc. Once again, I am very sorry.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-65687357565765556112010-05-22T21:09:00.006-04:002010-06-14T11:28:03.303-04:00100 Followers Contest for Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy Giveaway! + Your Thoughts on Series/Trilogies/Standalones<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S_iLajqTQlI/AAAAAAAAAmU/zUhiX8zCAoU/s1600/vampire_academy.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S_iLajqTQlI/AAAAAAAAAmU/zUhiX8zCAoU/s320/vampire_academy.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474278635434361426" /></a><br />I haz 100 followers! Triple digits!! I'm a bit awed and super happy that people out there like this book blog enough to follow it. I was thinking what paperback book I'd be willing to giveaway, and you know, with the talk of Richelle Mead's <b>Spirit Bound</b> floating around everywhere, I was like, hey, I own a used copy of the first book, maybe people would like it??<br /><br />I think <b>Vampire Academy</b> is a most excellent book. I just read it recently as I heard so much about it and thought I'd dish out a couple dollars for a copy as I found it lying in a used bookstore. I did enjoy it, but I think hearing too much about a book can kind of skew your perception? Because like, I was led on to believe that Dmitri was going to be the hottest thing that came around the block since Casanova, but I was honestly skeeved out by Dmitri/Rose in general. Now, before Team Dmitri goes off and kills me, I'm sure that he has excellent traits! Just that whenever I see these mentor/mentee relationships they kind of make me shrivel up and die inside. It's one of my squicks, and I can't get over this bias of mine. But I think Rose is a cool narrator, and I'm totally in love with the strong friendship between her and Lissa, and I so dig Christian/Lissa like hotcakes. If the spin-off series was from their point of view I'd probably be all over it. Mmmmmm Christian.<br /><br />But the whole Dmitri thing isn't the reason why I'm willing to let go of my copy of <b>Vampire Academy</b>. As much as I enjoyed the book (no, really, I was dying for a vampire novel with girl BFF stuff and no boyfriend stealing backstabbing crap but a REAL friendship and oh how this novel delivered. ♥), the idea of following a series is making me die a little inside. It's going to be <i>six books</i>! SIX! With a possibility of a spinoff! I'm a fan of standalones, and tolerate trilogies only because of its profusion in the YA market. I almost sighed with relief when I got to the end of the book and found myself satisfied and not in the least bit curious about following the rest of the series. I mean, I do enjoy a select few long series, but as much as I love them, sometimes they leave me feeling so drained. Does anyone else get this feeling? <b>What is your preference/thoughts on series/trilogies/standalones?</b> Feel free to discuss this with me in the comments. Or, you know, talk to me about <strike>Christian FOREVAR</strike> the Vampire Academy series. Do refrain from spoilers though. While I don't personally mind being spoiled, having no intention of keeping up with the series, I don't want to risk spoiling others who may wander into the comments section here. Or talk to me about your favourite vampire book! (<i>Everyone</i> into YA has a favourite vampire book! Everyone!) Talk to me about anything! I'm all ears. 8D<br /><br />ANYHOW, to the part people actually care about: Want to win a copy of Richelle Mead's <b>Vampire Academy?</b> Please fill out the form:<br /><br /><iframe src="http://spreadsheets.google.com/embeddedform?formkey=dFZxaTRNTGdndlQyVGZ2LTdRbjdSVVE6MQ" width="760" height="1183" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">Loading...</iframe><br /><br />Yes it's open internationally. Go wild, folks~ *waves* <b>Ends June 22th, 11:59 PM ESt</b>yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-72840668493354615622010-05-17T00:47:00.004-04:002010-06-14T11:28:25.758-04:00It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 05/17/2010 + Song Quest Signal Boost + Winner of Crossing Giveaway<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S95NnFsn2QI/AAAAAAAAAjs/QHZqiLP6xZQ/s1600/IMWAYR.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 234px; height: 299px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S95NnFsn2QI/AAAAAAAAAjs/QHZqiLP6xZQ/s320/IMWAYR.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466892331613935874" /></a><br />(meme from <a href="http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/">Book Journey</a>)<br /><br />....... I feel like I've done nothing but read Demon's Covenant. Which was a great novel, but basically it ate my brain. I blame it for my unproductiveness. But I think I'll manage to pull myself together this week. Somehow.<br /><br /><b>Completed Reads:</b><br />Half a Yellow Sun<br />Marcelo in the Real World<br />Princess Ben<br />Scarlett Fever<br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/05/review-demons-covenant-by-sarah-rees.html">Demon's Covenant</a><br />Demon's Lexicon (reread)<br /><br /><b>Planning on Reading:</b><br />Crazy Diamond<br />Code Talker<br />Monstrumologist<br />Deloume Road<br /><br />+<br /><br /><b>Signal Boost:</b> Becky from <a href="http://www.thebookette.co.uk/">The Bookette</a> is hosting a <b>Song Quest Blog Tour</b> in order to get this lovely book back in print. I love this book very much and it was one of my many formative YA fantasy novel reads, and it'd be awesome to see some support! Here's my <a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/05/second-childhood-review-of-katherine.html">review</a> promoting the book, and if you're in the UK, Becky is still taking in people who may be interested in being part of the tour, so please consider checking it out or recommending the tour/book to your friends, etc. 8D<br /><br />+<br /><br />The Winner of Crossing is <font size=5>Melissa Pham</font>. I've sent you an email. Please reply within 48 hours or I'll be forced to pick another winner.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-42192074306445759642010-05-17T00:07:00.008-04:002010-06-27T19:42:15.249-04:00Review: The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S_DIHv-1NJI/AAAAAAAAAl0/-ePulk2fU_U/s1600/DemonCovenant.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 210px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S_DIHv-1NJI/AAAAAAAAAl0/-ePulk2fU_U/s320/DemonCovenant.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5472093582719792274" /></a><br /><b>Title:</b> The Demon's Covenant<br /><b>Author(s):</b> Sarah Rees Brennan<br /><b>Genre:</b> YA Supernatural, Family, Romance<br /><b>Page Count:</b> 440<br /><b>Publisher:</b> Simon & Schuster<br /><br /><b>The Summary:</b>Mae always thought she was in control, but in the past few weeks control has turned into chaos. She’s learned that her brother Jamie has magical powers and that Gerald, the new leader of the Obsidian Circle, is trying to persuade Jamie to join the magicians. The same magicians who tried to kill Mae and Jamie last month in London. The magicians who get their power by feeding people to demons.<br /><br />Mae turns to brothers Nick and Alan to help her rescue Jamie, but they are in danger themselves. Every magician in England now knows what Nick really is—and they all want him dead.<br /><br />Nick’s new power has also caused a rift between the brothers. In the weeks they were gone something terrible happened, something that haunts them both. With Nick as unreadable as ever and Alan making secret bargains with a demon, Mae finds herself attracted to both brothers—though she knows she can’t trust either of them. The magicians are closing in on one side and the dangerous, seductive Goblin Market is tempting her on the other, and Mae has to form her own plan to save them all. She's going to find that the price she must pay is more than she ever imagined.<br /><br />The covenant is binding. There is no escape.<br /><br />- From US Hardcover<br /><br /><center><i>Note:</i> This is a second book in the trilogy. I've done my best to omit spoilers for both the First and Second book in this review, but there are some hints for one of the big reveals for the first book. If you're a complete spoiler-phobe then please proceed with caution.</center><br /><br /><b>The Review:</b> Before I begin, I think I ought to confess how this book utterly ruined my week. People, I had <i>plans</i>. I was going to write up multiple reviews here, do more memes, leave comments on posts, go out into that big blue room with the giant yellow fireball in the ceiling and actually <i>socialize</i> with friends and family, but no, ever since I read <b>The Demon’s Covenant</b> last Tuesday, I could think of nothing else. I cancelled all plans, my to-read posts on google reader is at this atrocious triple digit number, and basically I’ve neglected everything just so I could read this book over a total of four times in six days and a small part of me whispers that if I didn’t have to spend a good chunk of my day going to work, the reread count would have at least been double. I even loved this book so much that I went and dug up a copy of the FIRST book to reread as well. (For the record, I reread it twice in these six days. Apparently my revelation for the week was that a day not reading SRB’s writing was a day wasted.) I harassed my family with constant squeals and sighs as I made a public spectacle of myself going all emotional over the book, roping my siblings into listening to various passages I re-enacted for them, whipped out the book from my purse (yes, I lugged that hardcover book everywhere with me) to wave its gorgeous cover in front of the faces of my friends, and even called a friend long distance the second she told me she finished the novel so that I could TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK with someone. This is the kind of sequel that makes the first book a better rereading experience. In fact, this is probably the most amazing sequel book I’ve ever read, and just a really amazing YA book overall and I love it to bits and it’s going to make it on my top 20 books I read this year, I know it, I can feel it in my bones.<br /><br />I was actually surprised that I loved this book so much, because I wasn’t wow’ed by the first book. I mean, I really enjoyed it, but it wasn’t my favourite read of the year or anything. The first book had its moments of emotional intensity, and a really fast paced plot, (It reminded me of <b>The Hunger Games</b>’ pace, but with a much more careful eye at her choice of words, and interesting metaphor usage. <strike>Yes, I am indeed implying that Sarah Rees Brennan writes better than Suzanne Collins.</strike>) but for the most part I was mostly swept by apathy towards all the characters unless their name was Alan or Nick (For the record, I liked Jamie’s lines, but I didn’t get attached to his character like the way I did with Alan or Nick.). In many ways, Nick’s world was very small, with very few people he considered important in his life, and this apathy towards anyone who wasn’t his brother was reflected throughout the writing of the first book and ended up generating a lack of story connectivity for me unless it was an emotional moment between the brothers. I also found the dialogue rather forced, with Nick’s lines trying a little too hard to be sarcastically funny (which looking back, I think was on purpose as it was Nick’s way to try to make Alan happy, but I didn’t see it this way a year ago) and the worldbuilding wasn’t to my taste. (Briefly, I prefer my fantasy based <i>strongly</i> on a body of related folklore/mythology instead of a mishmash of different myths/stories mixed together, and the magic here, while neatly laid out, feels a little flat in its tidiness and simplicity.)<br /><br />The world building still isn’t to my taste, to be honest, but I don’t care about any of that because, my gawd, the characters just blew me away here. I was doubtful about this character POV change to Mae, whom I had a mostly reserved reaction to in the first book, but this story from Mae’s POV was <i>so good</i> . It gave me all the very human moments that neither Nick nor Gerald (who was also considered as a possible narrator for Book 2 <strike>and I praise the heavens that this didn’t happen</strike>) could have provided, and I <i>got</i> her now, understood her in the ways I couldn’t gleam out of Nick’s narration in Book 1. Mae is totally a female protagonist you can root for, determined and good hearted and funny and all-around fun, and how she doesn’t sit around being a passive narrator and takes measures into her own hands. I’m sorry I doubted the strength of Mae as a narrator for even a second, or Sarah Rees Brennan’s ability to make her sympathetic. Because if there is only one thing I could name in terms of the author’s strengths in her writing abilities, the first and foremost thing that comes to mind is her way of drawing her characters so vividly, through amazing interpersonal character interaction that not only brings out the protagonist’s characteristics, but the other person she’s interacting with as well. Mae’s POV illuminated the very raw and achingly beautiful brother relationship between Alan and Nick that was different from the first book, but in no way less powerful. I love how we got to really know a good slew of people in this novel that we didn’t get in the first book, and there was none of that character disconnection I felt in the first book, which I believe probably stems from the fact that Mae herself is anything but apathetic towards the people she meets and interacts with around her. The experience of reading this novel was just so <i>intense</i>, because you feel like you really got these characters, and you care so much and there’s so much stuff happening and thrown at the character’s way, and you want everything to work out so bad. I wish I could explain this ability of Sarah Rees Brennan’s more clearly, but I’m not skilled enough with my words to do so, and instead I’m going to direct you <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/marmalade_fish/67894.html">this reaction post</a> to <b>The Demon’s Covenant</b> that explains the character interaction thing in this novel much better than I have done here.<br /><br />A large part of <b>The Demon’s Covenant</b> dealt with the idea of consequences. To the best of my abilities in talking about this without spoiling, in the first book people were willing to do the “wrong” thing to “protect” the important person in their lives, and in the second book, it deals with what happens after you do the unforgivable thing. Sarah Rees Brennan doesn’t hesitate to blur the line between Good and Bad, complicating her characters with varying shades of grey, and I really enjoy that, how not only does she challenge the rights and wrongs but is willing to take this a step further and examine the good/bad decisions her characters have made.<br /><br />I really, really love the theme of family in this trilogy. Of course Nick and Alan was very lovely, and my fondness towards darling lying Alan continues to grow. I really enjoyed seeing the sibling interaction between Mae and Jamie, as a lovely contrast to Nick and Alan, and of course on its own right. It’s nice to see siblings in YA novels who don’t hate each other or the stereotypical Annoying Younger Sibling vs. Distant Older Sibling. I mean, they fight, but they love each other, the kind of family bond siblings share, and they always come through for each other no matter what. I'm so glad we got a better handle of Jamie in this book, because while I liked his lines in the first book, I didn't feel like I really got to know him. All that is rectified in this book. I loved how he was gay without making the whole coming out and what not stuff a Big Issue and he gets a love story and everything, and it was just really, really well done and I want him to be happy. I also enjoyed Mae’s interactions with her mother. Mae’s mom is seriously badass. I may have been a little in love. Actually all the women were rather badass in this novel. No helpless damsels as victims here. Sin in particular was my favourite. (Who is gorgeous and a dancer and an older sister and good with knives and incidentally biracial in the Not Making Race A Dominant Part of Her Identity way and will be the narrator of the third book! So excited!)<br /><br />I also loved the string of makeout scenes in this novel, but that may be influenced by the fact that I am shallow. Also these kissing scenes were just really hot and sizzling in general. Mmmmmm... *coughs* Er, the fight scene was brilliant too! Very intense, especially the one on the bridge. The dialogue here was much smoother and flowed well to boot, and this book made me laugh and gush sniff and broke my heart and brought it back together all at once. I honestly can’t recommend it enough.<br /><br /><b>The Verdict:</b> If you’ve read the first book and haven’t put the second book on your to-read this 1) there is something very wrong with you and 2) RECTIFY THIS TERRIBLE AND HEINUOUS ERROR OF YOURS NOW. If you’ve haven’t read the first book, read that first, and then run immediately to grab a copy of the second book. Theorectically I suppose you could read the second book without having read the first, since there’s enough context to pick up what’s going on without getting too lost, but it spoils the first book terribly and the experience of reading the first book would be utterly ruined, so I don’t suggest this. This is one of those rare special sequels that not only tops the first book in every way, but makes the first book <i>better</i> by proxy, and you’d be missing out if you skip out on reading covenant. Plus, the US version is all repackaged with a new gorgeous look with some amazingly beautiful cover models, and HOW CAN YOU RESIST THAT. Dark, intense, funny, and heartwrenching, the story will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading it. <strike>And it'll also make you want to commit ritual sacrifices to get your hands on the third book.</strike><br /><br /><b>Rating:</b> 5/5<br /><b>Enjoyment:</b> Look, I’ve read this over FOUR TIMES already since having bought it less than a week ago. If this doesn’t make it obvious that this is the book I enjoyed reading the most so far this year, I don’t know what will.<br /><br /><b>Title and Cover Discussion:</b> EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS IS BEAUTIFUL. EVERYTHING. I’M SO HAPPY THE US COVERS GOT REDESIGNED. I am in love with the font style and colour choice, the dynamic movement of the models, the beautiful blue flames of beauty, the twirling white dress. I am no longer jealous of the UK covers, as this beats the UK version, hands down. I loved it enough to pay full price for the hardcover, which I wasn’t supposed to do since I’m making an attempt to “save money” but I couldn’t let the precious book out of my hands. (I do miss the secret cover of the first US hardback though, as I was kind of hoping for the same thing with the second book, but blue flames make up for everything.) Although now I’m all ~*conflicted*~ since I don’t have matching covers and I want a matching set for this trilogy and don’t know whether or not I should go and collect this trilogy with the UK covers or US, but I am thoroughly off topic by now so I’m just gonna shut up and give this whole package an A<br /><br /><b>Title:</b> A<br /><b>Cover:</b> A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-82970252054532458312010-05-10T00:15:00.001-04:002010-06-14T11:29:17.668-04:00It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 05/10/2010<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S95NnFsn2QI/AAAAAAAAAjs/QHZqiLP6xZQ/s1600/IMWAYR.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 234px; height: 299px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S95NnFsn2QI/AAAAAAAAAjs/QHZqiLP6xZQ/s320/IMWAYR.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466892331613935874" /></a><br />(meme from <a href="http://bookjourney.wordpress.com/">Book Journey</a>)<br /><br />So... my catching up on reviews is not quite going as I planned, as I slacked off majorly halfway through last week. lol in other words I don't think I'll get 30 reviews done this month, but how about I promise getting a <i>good chunk</i> of it done by this month? The vague numbers makes all this feel more manageable, lol.<br /><br /><b>Finished Books</b><br /><i>Song Quest</i> by Katherine Roberts<br /><i>In a Heartbeat</i> by Loretta Ellsworth<br /><i>Boys Without Names</i> by Kashmira Sheth<br /><i>Front and Center</i> by Catherine Gilbert Murdock<br /><i>Hearts at Stake</i> by Alyxandra Harvey<br /><i>The Clearing</i> by Heather Davis<br /><i>La joueuse de go</i> by Shan Sa<br /><i>The Color of Earthy</i> by Dong Hwa Kim<br /><i>Water Baby</i> by Ross Campbell<br /><br /><b>Still Reading</b><br /><i>Half a Yellow Sun</i> by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie<br /><i>The Darkness Under Water</i> by Beth Kanell<br /><i>The Vast Fields of Ordinary</i> by Nick Burd<br /><br /><b>Planning on Reading</b><br /><i>Fingersmith</i> by Sarah Waters<br /><i>Marcelo in the Real World</i> by Francisco X. Stork<br /><i>Wait for Me</i> by An Na<br /><i>Princess Ben</i> by Catherine Gilbert Murdock<br /><i>Scarlett Fever</i> by Maureen Johnson<br /><i>La Traversée du continent</i> by Michel Tremblay<br /><br /><b>Reviews Completed</b><br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/05/review-freak-show-by-james-st-james.html">Freak Show</a> by James St. James<br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/05/triple-snapshots-asian-matters.html">The Year of the Horse</a> by Justin Allen - TS<br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/05/triple-snapshots-asian-matters.html">Skunk Girl</a> by Sheba Karim - TS<br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/05/triple-snapshots-asian-matters.html">North of Beautiful</a> by Justina Chen Headley<br /><a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/05/second-childhood-review-of-katherine.html">Song Quest</a> by Katherine Roberts - SC<br /><br /><b>Upcoming (potential) Reviews</b><br /><i>Boys Without Names</i> by Kashmira Sheth<br /><i>Hundred Thousand Kingdoms</i> by N. K. Jemisin<br /><i>Soulless</i> by Gail Carriger<br /><i>The Boneshaker</i> by Cherie Priest<br /><i>The Thirteenth Tale</i> by Diane Setterfield<br /><i>Deadtown</i> by Nancy Holzner<br /><i>Dairy Queen, The Off Season,</i> and <i>Front and Center</i> by Catherine Gilbert Murdock<br /><i>Hearts at Stake</i> by Alyxandra Harvey<br /><i>In a Heartbeat</i> by Loretta Ellsworth<br /><i>The Clearing</i> by Heather Davis? <- may wait till I own a copy before I review<br /><br />+<br /><br /><b>Reminder:</b> There's still time to enter my <a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/2010/04/sing-boys-sing-chinese-version-crossing.html">Crossing Book Giveaway</a>! Opens internationally, and ends May 14th.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-47839868974955684702010-05-09T22:50:00.011-04:002010-06-14T11:29:49.154-04:00Second Childhood: Review of Song Quest by Katherine Roberts<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S-d7sHZ5ErI/AAAAAAAAAlU/kNu9ozrdOMw/s1600/SQcampaign.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S-d7sHZ5ErI/AAAAAAAAAlU/kNu9ozrdOMw/s200/SQcampaign.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5469476270296863410" border="0" /></a><br /><b>About the Song Quest Campaign:</b><br /><br />As some of you may or may not know, <a href="http://www.thebookette.co.uk/">The Bookette</a> is hosting a Blog Tour to help get this awesome book back in print. I am very fond of this novel and am sad to see that it’s no longer being put out there for new readers in bookstores, so here’s my contribution to the cause. For more details, please go <a href="http://www.thebookette.co.uk/p/song-quest-campaign.html">here</a>, or follow the Bookette's blog for more updates and new reviews of <i>Song Quest</i>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S-d8SRmCYhI/AAAAAAAAAlc/Yz1P0O9C_8o/s1600/SQ.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 278px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S-d8SRmCYhI/AAAAAAAAAlc/Yz1P0O9C_8o/s400/SQ.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5469476925867188754" border="0" /></a><blockquote><i>Summary (From Backcover of US 1st Edition paperback):</i> Far from the purple plains and the mountains of midnight, nestled in the crystal-blue waters of the Western Sea, lies the Isle of Echoes, where the forces of good and evil are held in harmony by strange and mysterious people: the Singers. The Singers can hear the silent voices of magical half-creatures and can speak over great distances using only their minds. Safely hidden away on the enchanting Isle of Echoes, they use their unearthly songs to keep peace in their world.<br /><br />But a great evil threatens to destroy their isle and all that is good in the world. Now, only two young Singers can defeat the forces of darkness: kind Rialle, her voice as sweet as sunlight, and rebellious Kherron, whose longing for freedom may thrust him into the arms of the enemy.<br /><br />Alone, stranded far from home, Rialle and Kherron are caught up in a dangerous and sinister web, struggling against the powers of darkness that threaten to destroy their world.</blockquote><br /><br /><i>Note: As this was a book I read when I was a kid, I have pretty deep emotional responses in the re-read that colours my perception and how I interact with the book. For this reason my review format will be different from my usual reviews, and I’ll be using the format I previously utilized for my old <a href="http://galnovelty.blogspot.com/search/label/throwback%20thursday">Throwback Thursday posts</a>, which I’ve stopped because 1) I got lazy, and 2) my approach is less review-heavy and more about my personal experiences of a reread, ie. very different from the TT meme going around. I decided to call these types of reviews Second Childhood as a tentatively new feature on my blog, but as I'm not the greatest with keeping to schedule, I'll hesitate to make any promises on this being a regular feature... For now.</i><br /><br /><b>Blast From the Past:</b> Growing up, I did not own many books, let alone new ones. For one thing, we had a strict budget on what we could buy because we were new immigrants trying to make it in the city, and had various mortgages to pay off. (Of course my younger self never quite understood the details of our financial situation and all this just translated to me growing up knowing I can’t ask for gratuitous toys like tamogotchi even if I really wanted it because everyone else had it.) Also, no one in my family was a really keen book reader besides me, so book buying was not the biggest priority on their list of things our family Must Need. I mean, they bought all the basic early learner books to try and help boost our English reading abilities to acceptable levels, but buying novels for leisure? Hardly ever. The only new, non-used novels I ever got were three of those Princess Diaries from around the world books one Christmas, Brian James’ <i>Tomorrow Maybe</i>, Deborah Ellis’ <i>The Breadwinner</i>, L.M. Montgomery’s Anne series, and the Harry Potter series. (I also smuggled some <i>Artemis Fowl</i> books into our cart when we shopped around Costco.) An overwhelming majority of the books I read growing up were checked out lovingly with the library card my dad helped me get.<br /><br />One of the many reasons why Katherine Roberts’ novel <b>Song Quest</b> was so special to me was that it was one of the four used books I got to pick out during that one time my parents decided to indulge me when we were roaming the flea market. (FYI, All of them fantasy titles, lol.) It was one of the few books I actually <i>owned</i> and loved, and the fact that I picked it out for myself made it that much more special. I think I was really in love with the idea of wielding magic through song. I remember my younger self reading the Echorium Anthem displayed just after the map splash page, imagining a song in my head and giddy over the idea that a singing voice can have a magical power. Also, I was simply charmed by Kherron, one of the two protagonists, which I’ll explore and elaborate on in the Re-visiting experience section. All my favourite scenes happened in Kherron’s storyline, and I was very fond of his new Mainlander friend Lazim. Him and Lazim were my two favourite characters back then. Finally, it was just an amazing yarn of a story, a world familiar enough to identify with but with enough magic infused into it to make the world special, with doses of high stakes and how it’s up to the kids to save the day. I reread this book so many times as a kid that you can see how worn the cover is around the edges, the creases. I always considered <b>Song Quest</b> one of my formative childhood books and first few fantasy loves.<br /><br /><br /><center style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">WARNING: A few spoilers in this section below</center><br /><br /><b>The Re-visiting Experience:</b> I actually haven’t reread this book since I started high school (… wow, so long ago), so rereading this book really took me back. It was really fun like the first time around when I read this novel, and I’m so happy that the whole singing aspect was just as captivating as I remembered it. I still love Kherron’s storyline, but I confess that I’m kind of shocked at my younger self for liking him so much. As enjoyable as he was, he was honestly not a nice person and had a bit of a mean bully streak. His charisma still took over the stage and he was always quick on his feet with savvy smarts, poking his nose all around trying to untangle the big secret of the Mainlanders, and at the end of the day I still picked Kherron’s story over Rialle, lol. Perhaps I liked him so much because lots of action takes place in his storyline, especially compare to Rialle’s tale. And honestly, I do still like him. How he was a bit vain and selfish, and terribly jealous of the girl who always beat him for the #1 spot in class, and how behind his show of arrogance is a boy desperately wishing for the recognition he wants, how behind everything he does is a show to try and prove himself. (Actually, thinking about this carefully, I think I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for the selfish, ambitious types, so I guess I shouldn’t have been this surprised that I liked, and <i>still</i> like Kherron.) Also, I think with these flawed characters, we get more room for great character development, which always makes their transformative journey very interesting to see. This is not to say that Kherron is a totally nice person by the end of the story, but he’s humbled by the end of the journey, and does some growing up, while still being the believable hothead impatient boy he was at the beginning of the novel. <a name='more'></a><br /><br />The thing I was really shocked by though? Was my younger self’s love of Kherron/Rialle. I mean, as much as I like Kherron, he totally does NOT deserve Rialle. She’s just too good for him. Also, I wouldn’t wish Rialle on someone who's hotheaded and selfish. A relationship between the two of them will just go badly, with Rialle going into tears and Kherron yelling his frustration. I think I liked Kherron/Rialle because I liked Kherron, and of course the Big Damn Hero of the day should get the girl. Also somewhere in my mind I was just used to the idea that Nice Guys Never Win, so when the Nice Guy <i>did</i>, I was taken by surprise. I guess that’s why I was so shocked when it didn’t quite work out like that when I was young. It didn’t fall into usual formula I was used to! It was <i>weird</i>! But rereading this again, I’m really glad Rialle ended up with Frenn. (Okay I guess this was a spoiler, but come on, they were making eyes at each other since page one at the beach, it was so obvious, even if my twelve year old self couldn’t see it.) They’re just really sweet on each other and adorable, and I love how Frenn worships the ground Rialle walks on and thinks she’s brilliant, lopsided smiles and jokes always at hand. The biggest change when I reread this novel was that I utterly and completely fell in love with Frenn 50 pages in. I never liked him when I was young because I was so Kherron-biased and the two boys didn’t get along, but now that I’m older I see all of Frenn’s charms. Rialle and Frenn just fit each other to a T. They’re just two really kind people, one who would do anything to help others and the other who would do anything to stay by the side of the love of his life. I think we need more romances like this in YA, wherein the bad boy does NOT get the girl for a change, and the main romance is just very sweet and beautiful and heartwarming.<br /><br />I also appreciated Rialle’s storyline a lot more in this reread. I mean, it wasn’t that I hated Rialle back when I was young. I just thought she wasn’t half as interesting as Kherron. I do still think her storyline doesn’t have that zing like in Kherron’s that drew me in so much, but I do appreciate the thoughtful, emotional, close introspect we got from Rialle’s perspective. While Kherron’s story has more action, Rialle’s has more heart, and they balance each other out very nicely. Also it’s topped with that sweet love story of cuteness, and I aww’ed too many times in this reread to count. I also like Rialle much more as a person now. I used to think she was boring and too weepy, but I see and appreciate her shy kindness, the way she would try so hard for others she loves, and the way she fights back not with action like Kherron, but with her <i>singing abilities</i>, showing time and again that her spot as #1 in her class isn’t for nothing.<br /><br />I’ll confess that a plotline that fell flat for me was the manipulated king storyline. The novel basically erased Lord Azri of responsibility for the Half-Creatures massacre. I don’t really buy a “good” king who was so easily tricked and used to justify the killings, and he comes across more as a weak leader and a naïve fool to me more than anything. I mean, you never once checked to see how you were getting your medicine? Never did the rounds on the priests? A king like that, I kind of expect the whole kingdom of Karch to just crumble in its foundation. But this is honestly a minor quibble in relation to the rest of the very enjoyable story. <b>ETA</b> The book also suffers from an Evil Villain of Irredeemable Evil, but this villain figure is familiar enough to me in MG/YA fantasy for me to not really get hung up over it.<br /><br />And finally, a thing struck me about this novel while I was reading it. This is one of those fantasy worlds that didn’t read as exclusively European medieval fantasy social infrastructure to me. The description of the people’s features were left vague enough for me to fill in any face I want, and there’s no emphasis on Awesomely Coloured Eyes, or Golden Locks of Luscious Hair or the beauty of pale pale pale white skin. And yet, when I was young, I always thought of the characters as ‘white’. This mentality of white-as-default is a pervasive and problematic reader’s response that’s outside of this novel though, and not much to do with the actual story itself. I just thought it’d be interesting to note.<br /><br />All in all, an awesome reread experience, and I encourage everyone who’s keen on a different kind of fantasy to give this a shot.<br /><br /><b>Passage Quotes:</b> (because I can. =P)<br /><br />Some Frenn/Rialle cuteness-<br /><br /><blockquote>"I don't want <i>Challa.</i> It makes me forget things. What if you're not around when Eliya's finished with me? I might forget you."<br />"Why wouldn't I be around?" Frenn stared at her for a moment, then pulled off the red bracelet he'd found on the beach, took her hand, and slid the thick metal up her arm. It went all the way past her elbow, and was still warm from his body. "You won't forget me now," he said, giving her that familiar lopsided grin as he scrambled to his feet. "I'd better go now. It'll be my turn soon."<br />Rialle fingered the bracelet, a lump in her throat. "But what if she gives <i>you</i> a Song?"<br /><i>"Challa makes you dream, Shi makes you cry, Kashe makes you laugh, Aushan makes you scream, Yehn makes you die."</i> Frenn repeated the pallet-ditty, still grinning. "She'll have to give me <i>Yehn</i> before I forgot you, Rialle! (pg. 28)</blockquote><br /><br />Kherron, being Kherron-<br /><br /><blockquote>The caves have been a stroke of luck, but he'd been right about the tide. It had been far enough out for him to splash around three headlands without getting much more than the hem of his tunic and the bottom of his leggings wet. No one had come after him. Kherron smiled again. Ha, the others were pathetic. Follow meekly where Graia led, getting all excited over a few moldy old timbers and broken lanterns, when it was perfectly obvious the best treasure would be found where there weren't any people. And when he found it, even old misery-guts Eliya would have to recognize he was no longer a child and let him sing. (pg. 20)</blockquote><br /><br /><i>Like my review? Think the book sounds interesting? Please consider buying one (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Song-Quest-Echorium-Sequence-Book/dp/0439338921/">Amazon.Com</a> has a few copies left) or ordering it from your local library. I need people to talk to about this book! And maybe get more people on Team Kherron while I’m at it. Surely I’m not the only one who’s a sucker for those selfish, arrogant, ambitious types? Also please follow The Bookette for more <a href="http://www.thebookette.co.uk/search/label/Song%20Quest">updates on this Song Quest Blog Tour</a>.</i>yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-4376400611293153942010-05-06T10:05:00.001-04:002010-06-14T11:30:28.031-04:00Triple Snapshots: Asian Matters<b>Triple Snapshots</b> is a (hopefully) weekly feature on my blog wherein I take a break from my typical overly long reviews to post short one-paragraph impressions on the books I've read. For this week's theme, the three books have at least one Asian character in the main cast (Two Chinese, One Pakistani)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S98NTvEa1ZI/AAAAAAAAAkE/QhOzaFWzJAY/s1600/yearofthehorse.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S98NTvEa1ZI/AAAAAAAAAkE/QhOzaFWzJAY/s200/yearofthehorse.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467103105354749330" /></a><b><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6550075-year-of-the-horse">The Year of the Horse</a> by Justin Allen</b><br />Ah, <b>The Year of the Horse</b>. A fascinating concept that failed to deliver for me. This was mainly because I couldn’t connect to any of the main characters and in turn couldn’t care less about their adventures. I wanted to like Lu because, hey, Asian-American protagonist in a Western, yay! But he was the passive narrator type, and I don’t care for those. Couple that with his incessant hero-worship of Jack (whom I was thoroughly sick of by the time Chapter two came along, and spent half the time during the reading discussions I had with <a href="http://angeltyuan.blogspot.com/">ninefly</a> and <a href="http://blackteensread2.blogspot.com/">Ari</a> complaining about Jack, and wanting him to get off the stage) and our protagonist elicited feelings of complete apathy on my part. I didn’t care about the characters, I didn’t care about their adventures, I didn’t care about the plot direction, I found the writing uninspiring and I suspect that I wouldn’t have stuck to this book so long if it weren’t for the fact that I was reading this along with others, and that their reactions to the story were far more interesting and enjoyable than the reading experience itself. (For instance, we had a bit of a running joke over Lu’s horrible nicknaming abilities, and I personally think that if ever Lu and Sadie hook up, he should leave all the children’s naming decisions to the lady.) I did, however, fall madly in love with this total minor character called Bill. Mostly because he keeps dangerous animals as pets (He calls his mountain lion Sweetheart! And his snake Hank! Squee~) and names a gun after his wife, lawl. And got all emotionally invested yet another minor character Goklayeh, and his non-existent’s backstory (I’m <i>convined</i> that he and the unnamed scarred girl had a torrid tragic love story and it was all very epic and things of melodrama and tearjerkers.). I think my biggest personal problem that hindered my reading enjoyment was that I kept on wishing that the story was about anyone else but the main characters. I suppose next time if ever I crave a Western setting storyline featuring Asian protagonists, I’ll just watch some East Asian films with a 'Western-esque' troupe. In fact, my Asian entertainment-viewing friends have been badgering me to get on with watching South Korean film <b>The Good, The Bad, The Weird</b> for the longest time, perhaps I’ll get around to finally watching it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S98OTBmZOPI/AAAAAAAAAkM/YTikOgKUiTo/s1600/skunkgirl.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S98OTBmZOPI/AAAAAAAAAkM/YTikOgKUiTo/s200/skunkgirl.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467104192660846834" /></a><b><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3873259.Skunk_Girl">Skunk Girl</a> by Sheba Karim</b><br />I really enjoyed this YA novel. It had a lot of heart. Nina was a perfectly lovable protagonist, and I love seeing her navigate through her life experiences, from family setting to school life to love life. This book was all about character growth, not just in the protagonist, but with other characters that surround and make up Nina’s life. In other words, my favourite aspect of the novel was the characterization. Everyone was so wonderfully fleshed out, and the interactions were all very genuine. I liked how her interactions were varied too, and not totally dominated by only one type of interaction (I'm thinking romantic interactions, a phenomenon that’s pretty prevalent in YA books, unfortunately.), and that she has pretty significant, sustained interactions with her family members and friends along with her crush. The voice was charmingly funny and witty in the understated way rather than the outrageous laugh-until-there’s-no-air-in-your-lungs way, and I think this tone suits the narrative of this novel very well. Highly recommended, and I keep hoping that this novel will either be optioned for a movie or a tv series. For this type of slice-of-life genre, I like seeing the story unfold in a motion picture medium, and I think it’d make a great show with lots of hilarity and heart, y/y? I’d vote for <b>Zarqa Nawaz</b> (creator of <b>Little Mosque on the Prairie</b> sitcom) to adapt this novel. 8D<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S98PLQteG3I/AAAAAAAAAkU/ldv0zwzhDt4/s1600/northofbeautiful.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 132px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S98PLQteG3I/AAAAAAAAAkU/ldv0zwzhDt4/s200/northofbeautiful.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467105158789733234" /></a><b><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3238153.North_of_Beautiful">North of Beautiful</a> by Justina Chen Headley</b><br />Justina Chen Headley has, after reading and falling in love with her first two books, become an instant must-read author for me. So of course when <b>North of Beautiful came out</b>, I had to hunt it down as fast as possible. Writing an objective review on this novel though, was rather difficult for me. Because while I enjoyed and loved the book, a part of me realized upon finishing it that I mostly liked it for the familiar Headley <i>style</i> in this novel. I enjoyed it because I liked Headley’s writing and the <b>Girl Overboard</b> cameo moment, and not so much the story itself. Because, truth be told, when I had time to step away from the afterglow of being all giddy over Headley’s words, I realized that I enjoyed the actual storyline far less in comparison to her previous works. I’m a bit ambivalent about the message of beauty in this novel. It’s a good message, to be sure - I just wasn’t too fond of the way that orphanage scene unfolded when Terra meets her so called Chinese girl counterpart, and how beauty and race intersected there... I found the family drama rather weak in the first half as well. (The mother-daughter develops improved tenfold when we hit the second half though, to be fair.) The pacing was off and the story doesn’t really take flight until the second half when they go to Mainland China. I was actually surprised that this was my favourite part, as I really despise the whole white-tourist-in-exotic-locale type stories. But it was more or less done right, and most importantly, the romance between Jacob and Terra blossoms. I think I’ll be forever fond of this novel as Headley’s first truly romantic story, aka with the romantic storyline dominating. (As much as I liked her first two novels of young girls empowering themselves and finding their place in the world, I was totally ready for a Headley style romance, and this novel delivered.) Also because I am extremely fond of Jacob. He’s so boyfriend material. I wish that we got to know more about him actually because his role in the novel was predominantly that of a love interest, and we only see glimpses of other facets to his persona.<strike> Also the description of a scar on his upper lip is totally hot.</strike> I do think however, that he has quite a lot of baggage issues that have yet to be unpacked by the end of the novel. He never really does reconcile with his Chinese heritage and his whole background as a transnational adoptee. His declarations about how his mom and Terra’s mom were “More Chinese than the Chinese” nonsense didn’t sit well with me either, <i>especially</i> since this claim goes unchallenged. But as Headley has handled race much better in her previous books, I’m willing to overlook this factoid. ANYHOW, I think fans of Headley’s works will be slightly disappointed but get a kick out of this novel anyways if you’re fond of her writing, and I think this novel will convert new readers to Headley’s works, so it’s a win situation overall.yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6180270161844980828.post-23543967826110415822010-05-05T00:05:00.001-04:002010-06-14T11:31:04.288-04:00Waiting on Wednesday: Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime by Mizuki Nomura(Meme from <a href="http://breakingthespine.blogspot.com/">Breaking the Spine</a>)<br /><br />This week I'm waiting on the U.S./Canadian release of Japanese light novel <b>Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime</b><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S-DOwVmmL7I/AAAAAAAAAlE/bRo--hoPTFQ/s1600/bookgirl.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 271px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_vr7bdIOcIDg/S-DOwVmmL7I/AAAAAAAAAlE/bRo--hoPTFQ/s400/bookgirl.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5467597277455855538" /></a><b><i>Book Girl and the Suicidal Mime</i> by Mizuki Nomura</b><br /><blockquote>For self-styled "book girl," third-year high school student Tohko Amano, being the head of the literary club is more than just an extracurricular activity with minor perks. It's her bread and butter . . . literally! Tohko is actually a literature-gobbling demon, and instead of the less palatable option of water-soaked bread, she opts to munch on torn out pages from all kinds of stories. But for Tohko, the real delicacies are handwritten stories. And to satisfy her gourmet tastes, she's employed (aka. browbeaten) one Konoha Inoue, an underclassman who has retreated from writing novels after his experiences with getting published at an early age. So day in and day out, Konoha scribbles away to satisfy Tohko's appetite. But when, one day, another student comes knocking on the literary club door to seek advice on writing love letters, will Tohko discover a new kind of delicacy to whet her voracious appetite?</blockquote><br /><br />Release Date: July 27, 2010<br /><br />I've been hearing about this title on and off for the last year. Or, to be more specific, I've been hearing about the buzz for the anime film adaptation <b>Bungaku Shoujo</b>, which was going to be produced by <b>Production I.G.</b>, whose company is known for producing quality shows/movies/<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_video_animation">OVA</a>s. (I concede that there is also a 3-part OVA adaptation for this novel as well, but I've heard less buzz over that, and wasn't aware of it until recently) So when I found out that the novel was getting translated into English, my interest was piqued because I always like to try reading the original novel source before watching the film adaptation, you know? Also finding this <a href="http://ofblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/mizuki-nomura-book-girl-and-suicidal.html">review</a> for the novel made me even more curious about this title. From the summary I thought it was going to be a straight-up comedy, but it seems to be going down a slice-of-life wistful tone which can be an interesting handle on playing out this premise. With translated books though, often the quality of the translator's work will make or break the book. A lot of light novels that get translated have pretty shoddy to mediocre translations at best (Though I do tend to like the translations provided by <b>VIZ company</b>, they're pretty reliable. This book however, is done by <b>YEN Press</b>, and while I like their manga/manhwa translations, the translation of the Haruhi novels on the other hand, were awkward). Oh well, guess we'll have to wait for July to see.<br /><br />I will hopefully get to this novel and finish reading it in time for the <b>Debut Author Challenge</b>, as this U.S./Canadian release is Mizuki Nomura's debut on this side of the ocean. I'm being flexible with my interpretation of the YA/MG qualifications of this challenge here, as I'm interpreting this as any novel that is marketed towards a teenage audience, nevermind that the original language it was written in wasn't in English and the target audience isn't based in the US or UK. While I see that international blogger participation is encouraged in this challenge, I think non-English-language titles are far less promoted for this Challenge. In fact, I have yet to see one review for a non-English debut YA title. (Please correct me if I'm wrong about this.) And I see no reason why this should be the case. <br /><br />Movie Trailer:<br /><br /><object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/X0GkRq7iN5o&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/X0GkRq7iN5o&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object><br /><br />OVA Trailer:<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-d-OWfOL47w&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-d-OWfOL47w&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>yuanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13106464795070487558noreply@blogger.com10