Ever Bethany

Finally got around to reading Martine Leavitt's Keturah and Lord Death.

As I'd heard, it's a book written in a lyrical style that suits historical fantasy so well. The worldbuilding is unobtrusive but fresh.

The ending wasn't surprising, but the power it carried was.


Recommended for that mood for something artistic, and with emotional weight, rather than excitement and humor. I enjoyed it very much, with that feeling.

I'm starting another discipline-season of writing poems!

Forewarned is forearmed, as they say, so my dear friends...consider yourself forearmed.

***



I finally thought to get this out of the library, though I've been following carriejones  on LJ since she came to Conestoga several years ago--she's funny and charming.

And so is this book, though with a bit, too.

I'm sure I won't be the first to draw comparisons to Twilight, (not even the first to intelligently discuss why Need is superior) but some of the tropes shared by both really struck me as I was reading.

Zara gets sent to backwater Maine because her depression at home is worrying her mother. She is befriended by two fringe kids, one super-class-president type and the fringe kids' somewhat cooler loner friend who is hot. And whose eyes telegraph "danger".
But there's this creepy guy stalking but never getting very close, she has to drive herself because Granny's an EMT and there's snow on the ground, and people are really worried about a boy disappearing....

The more grounded complexity of this book really felt like the classic *bones* of a story that make Twilight fetching, but deal with so much more artfully. And it's a great YA book. BTW. In case you were wondering.

I really like the MC, with her interests and quirks, and the people surrounding her, and the way the paranormal elements offset and relate to each other in this world.

And now I'm going to go check out the sequel...

Day 18 of the Obsessive Book-Lover's Month of Books

What books have you read where you didn't expect to like them, and then were surprised?

I guess my list got less inspired after day 17--and I know why. Let's try and think of a way to rewrite this, so it's more fun...

You're handed a book, and it looks dull. Serious. Somehow not your thing. But you read on and revelation struck--you liked it. Has this ever happened to you? Tell an unexpected love story...

This has. Books I read for school that I didn't expect to enjoy and then found just as advertised (despite my doubts) include: Hamlet, For Whom The Bell Tolls, The Heart of Darkness, Middlemarch, and Dune.

These books have a common thread: they are written more beautifully or intelligently than anything I had encountered of quite that kind...

For unexpected love story, though, I have to talk about Ender's Game.


never saw this cover in my life before, but it is genius, and needs to be on all the copies of this book

First, you need to understand that sci-fi gives me the creepy crawlies. It's not always a terrible thing, but there's something chilled, mechanical at the core of them [though I generalize, as far as I know it's true], and I like the organic warmth of other fiction better.

Don't think Ender's Game doesn't give me the chilly creeps. But like Dune, that sensation was an experience that pulled me into what was going on in the story.

This story is full of contrasts. It's about the most vicious, brilliant kids of the whole Earth in military school--and yet it is about humanity and the emotions of the most desirable of those children.
It's a story where 'xenocide' of a whole alien force is the entire goal, and they remain a complete icon of an enemy until the last pages--and yet it engages in the love of understanding an enemy, and brings home this emotional epoch with no punches pulled.

***

I don't remember why I ended up reading this book--I don't remember when I read it. This is odd, for me. And this is a book that I think may go under tomorrow's category--I only actually loved it in the second reading, because I tend to enjoy books better the second time through when I know where things are going and can savor the way there a bit more.

But it's probably one of the top ten books I love, because it takes you into the darkness and weakness of being a person as well as being about amazing, strong people.


I'm a sucker for paradox. And as far as I can tell, this is just a really, really good book.

Day 2

What characters did you read about and think, “Oh, I know what you mean”? Characters you feel you are like, inside.

This may sound really egotistical, but I really get Sophie. Her wanting to shrink away from the gorgeous creature that is Howl, and her way of fading in behind her work, and just keep thing running. Her ability to be the strong disciplinarian in the family, and her understanding of how the child's mind works, and emotional complexities.

The way she takes being turned into an old lady sort of in stride, and fully throws herself into that power of being not expected to behave, and to not have to be judged as young women are--by looks first, words second, content last.

I can't quite explain the experiences of that kind of phenomenon I've had, but I recognized it immediately.


Which makes the fact that she's seen through and appreciated all that much sweeter. They're both the Beast and both the Beauty, in a way...

 

( The Meme Complete )

I can't quite describe to you why I loved The Magician of Hoad so much.

Something in the writing takes old ideas, the bedrock epic tropes, and mints it new.
It's not just that the book feels fresh and alive, using those ideas, either. It's like they're bright coins to jangle in my hand, tossing up and catching, hearing the new notes.
I want to possess them, myself, with my own stories, because that currency still has power, which I had forgotten.

Sometimes I write because I remember that I love it.
Now is one of the rare times where it sparks up, exciting and tantalizing, on its own.
So some of the way I feel about this book is partially due to my mood.
But mostly because it is wonderful.

This book is awesome. The kind that will go on my "buy a copy for myself" list...not a very exhaustive one.

It's a changeling story. Unlike others I've read, every word of the story lent itself to the idea. The world is recognizable but just that one step sideways in description so you think, "It is...isn't it?"


Bee sat down on the dirty sand and scowled out over the gray water. She repressed an impulse to gather the chips of shell, put them in her mouth and crunch them to bits; pop seaweed pods and suck the salt; bury her body in the sand like a corpse in a sarcophagus.


Bee sees herself, a threatening self who demands her life back. Jostled somewhat by this she steps forward and makes two weird friends. They also color the slant of the world, as seen through their eyes. It's set in a beach town, not a rich one, where worries about climate change and green living are in the air.

By the time I was a good portion in, I had the feeling that the story wasn't going to end triumphantly, and I didn't mind. (That's not something I'm usually resigned to.) It ends well, in a way. It's fascinating and beautiful all the way through.

I'm not sure if I think the sections of verse added much, but they didn't detract, either.


I've heard a lot about some of Francesca Lia Block's other books (Weetzie Bat, How to (Un)Cage a Girl), she has a sort of cult following among YA readers. I'm not sure if this is her first fantasy novel or not. The impression I've gotten is that odd and interesting were her claims to fame, and in this book she definitely works that to deliver a tale of Faerie I'd put next to DeLint on my bookshelf.

...if I hadn't sent the only one I owned to a friend.




Cheers to the library system!

Two books with a sequel I grabbed as soon as I could:



I don't remember if I already reviewed The Magic Thief. Everyone who mentioned it had good things to say. I was a little hesitant, (mostly from a perverse wariness of too many people saying good things) but once I read enough of the opening, knew I'd read it to the end.

The world has intriguing dark corners, the magic is familiar, but not stale, and the hero sounds like a little boy, but not a boring one.



This book has crinkly edges of the otherworldy--in a Dr. Suess's menagerie sort of a way. It is charming not saccharine, with a sense of humor more latent than obvious. It just makes me smile. I want to have these books on the shelf for kids of my own.

I'm still reading Ottoline and the Yellow Cat and The Magic Thief: Lost. But I know they're going to be good.

I am reading Audition by Michael Shurtleff.
It's one of the books where if you are willing to think in metaphor a little, is a perfect writing book, though not about writing. Because it is about art, and about story.

"One great missing ingredient in current acting is romance. Everyone secretly wants romance, but in these harsh, "realistic" days, no one will openly admit it. ... We must be hard, to live in the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era of disillusionment.
    But what has made EQUUS such a phenomenal success? Romance. And ANNIE HALL and ...  A CHORUS LINE and  STAR WARS and PIPPIN. Shakespeare's plays retain their undiminished popularity because they are ever-lasting romances. Yet most of the creators of these shows would deny that they are romances. ...Romance has gone out the window. It is time to bring it back."


I think this is a key to the more recent culture of stories.
Twilight, Harry Potter and the Various Face of Evil, The Da Vinci Code...hey, even the goth and then emo youth cultures embraced the drama of the Romance, in a fairly reactionist way.
(Since this book is from '78, as placed fairly clearly in that snippet, I am extrapolating beyond a point the author could.)

Romance being a story that is made up, that focuses on narrative be it an adventure, a journey of maturing, or an affair of the heart.


So. I'm rewriting the ending of one of the volumes of Aolon, The Epic That I Can't Name For The Life of Me. But the bones of the story keep drawing me back, because it is fairly high-scoring in the drama and romance department.

I just need to tear down the melodramatics of its adverbs and give the characters a few better lines.

So I won a new book from the author of YA-Rita-Winning Hell Week.

It's awesome to win books!
...I went to order the first in her other series that I'd been hearing about from the library right away.
[/self humiliation]



I just read Prom Dates from Hell, which kicks off the Maggie Quinn: Girl vs. Evil series.

Devoured more like.

Definitely the kind of book that holds your head in its hands so you can't really think about anything else until you finish. I don't get that from many books anymore, it's a good thing.
(Not for getting home-work/house-work/anything productive done, though.)

Speaking of which, I loved how the heroine was shown trying to get her homework done, and her school life being a plot-point. Win!

To put my overall impression briefly:
This has the fun kind of voice that makes YA, with Buffy-paced paranormal adventures--only the heroine is more into being a Nancy Drew than her Seer abilities. Which gives a new feel to the classic story-line. I've got the next one lined up...
( More Review This Way... )

HELL WEEK: Maggie Quinn goes to college...and tries to survive evil sorority recruitment? I'm in...

In the vein of random thoughts,
at Tokyo in Tulsa, I saw a guy in a very striking costume--he looked great. I can't tell you if he was particularly good looking because his make-up was INTENSE. But he carried off the intensity very well.

But it started me thinking...though I'm not photogenic, I think I would make a pretty good costuming doll.
My coloring, particularly, would be fun to use as part of a character design.
(Sometime I'll have to show you the two shots I took of myself in which one is a self-portrait and one is a portrait of me as Tilda Swinton. Just by a slight angle change...)


Things I read Worth Reading lately:


( Why? )