January: month in review

I can't believe January is almost over. I've read lots for my challenges and am right on target, I think.

This month I read...

1. Zombies vs. Unicorns ed. Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (****)
2. The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson (for the grown-up book challenge) (****)
3. The Death of Joan of Arc by Michael Scott (companion e-book to the Alchemyst series) (****)
4. Not That Kind of Girl by Siobhan Vivian (***)
5. Lola: A Ghost Story by J. Torres (read for the POC challenge) (****)
6. Across the Universe by Beth Revis (read for the debut author challenge) (*****)
7. A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (*****)
8. All You Get Is Me by Yvonne Prinz (read for the Canadian Challenge) (****)
9. Matched by Ally Condie (***)
10. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood (****)
11. Mail Order Ninja: Vol 2 by Joshua Elder (***)
12. The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan (read for the POC challenge) (****)
13. Gravity Brings Me Down by Natale Ghent (read for the Canadian Challenge) (****)
14. I Know It's Over by C. K. Kelly Martin (read for the Canadian Challenge. Review coming) (****)

(links go to my reviews)

favourite book of the month: Probably A Conspiracy of Kings. Megan Whalen Turner's whole Queen's Thief series just steals my heart every time. I also really really loved Across the Universe. That was a pleasant surprise.

disappointment of the month: Matched. I was so hoping it was going to be amazing.

reading right now: Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton. So far not bad.

what were your favourite reads of last month? Link me to your round-up posts if you do them :)

Review: Gravity Brings Me Down by Natale Ghent

When I found out that Natale Ghent was visiting my library, I thought I'd read one of her books so I'd have something to chat with her about. Little did I know that I would love Gravity Brings Me Down so much. 

A smart and thoughtful story about self-discovery, acceptance, and finding friendship — all in the places you’d least expect.

Sioux Smith is sharp, funny, and wry, and is pretty certain that she sees the world of high school differently from everyone else — a belief that is cemented when she makes an uneasy discovery about one of her school’s “popular” teachers. And while she feels alone at her high school and in her unique slant on small-town life, Sioux finds a kindred spirit in the most unlikely of people: an elderly stranger, who has more insight despite her progressing dementia than anyone else in Sioux’s life. What Sioux and “Miss Marple” learn about each other over tea, illicitly secreted wine, and Coronation Street, makes for a novel with heart and grit in equal measure.

-Goodreads.com 

I love books with quirky teens who don't quiiite fit in. They're harder to find than you might think, given that most authors are probably at least a little quirky. Natale succeeds in making Sioux a fully believable, snarky, quirky teen. I enjoyed being in Sioux's head so much that I actually finished this in one sitting. It's packed full of doodles and illustrations that really add to Sioux's already strong personality. 

I think this one is a bit hard to sell to teens, only because there is no 'hook'. There's no short summary like, "teens get thrown into an arena and have to kill each other!" ba-dum ching! That being said, I think if teens pick this one up they'll really be able to relate to it and find themselves in it, so I hope they do. It's been nominated for the 2011 White Pine Award so I hope this will gain it a wider audience. 

Recommended to outsiders, oddballs, and those who don't quiiiite fit in.

(reviewed from a purchased copy)

Day in the Life...

Every once in a while I thought I'd post about what it's like being a teen librarian in case you were thinking of becoming one, or just curious. Today was fairly atypical and ridiculously busy but also really fun. 

I arrived at work, packed my car full of Wii equipment and headed out to a branch to meet Natale Ghent who was doing two author visits - at two different branches. I had just finished Gravity Brings Me Down on Tuesday and loved it (watch for a review soon!) so was attempting not to fangirl too hard. I think I succeeded. 

After her fantastic talk, I left the Wii stuff there (we're coming back to it) and we headed out to lunch which was fantastic. It was so fantastic that we were almost late to her next talk but we made it just in time. Cue technical difficulties and now we are running behind. Didn't get the projector up and running but Natale took it in stride. Canadian librarians, if you can get her for your library, she's completely lovely. 

After her talk, I headed back to the first branch to set up for a gaming program for that afternoon. Teens are in the middle of exams so the stress relief of beating stuff up in Super Smash Bros. was intensely needed. Once everything was set up - and this involved running around trying to find an extra extension cord, etc. etc. - and teens were happily either rocking out with Rock Band or smashing stuff in SSB, I left the staff member to handle the program and went back to my home branch where I was helping to run our first ever BYOB club. No, not bring your own booze - bring your own book! 

We only had a couple teens but considering it's the middle of exams, I wasn't surprised. We chatted about manga, k-pop, school cliques, and gangs. Gave my card to both boys and told them to e-mail me if they thought of a manga we should order. While we do have an ARP, sometimes we miss things. 

At that point it was just about 5pm and it was time to go upstairs to my desk and figure out what I was doing tomorrow for Family Literacy Day. My colleague and I worked out what puppet shows we were doing and when we were going to load up my car with the puppet stage, sound system and puppets. 

Time to go home and collapse! Phew! 

Waiting on Wednesday...

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme where we basically whine about the books we want to read NOW. It's hosted by Breaking the Spine

I was flipping through catalogs at work and gave a literal squee when I saw the cover of The Time Traveling Fashionista. Isn't it so pretty?

the premise: okay, so it's a bit out there. Louise visits a vintage fashion sale and meets two witchy saleswomen. She tries on a vintage dress that belonged to a film star and suddenly she's aboard a luxurious cruise ship in 1912. As the film star, she gets all sorts of perks and is having a great time until she realizes she's aboard a certain cruise ship - The Titanic. Yikes. Can she save herself and risk changing history?

why I'm dying to read it: Um, time travel and fashion? Yes please! I don't care that the premise is ridiculous, I think it sounds really fun and like the great premise for a series. Try on vintage jeans - go back to Woodstock!

how long I have to wait: Until April 5, 2011

while you're waiting check out: Get a taste for vintage with Vintage Veronica by Erica S. Perl about a girl who works at a consignment shop.

Review: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

I wasn't planning on reading Lost Hero for the POC challenge but then I realized that two of the protagonists were visible minorities - hispanic and aboriginal - so there you go!

Five things I loved about Lost Hero

• awesome girls - I loved how he writes female characters. The heroines kick ass, the female villains are super powerful, and you DO NOT mess with these goddesses. (I also love Leo's mom, what we saw of her. As a Hispanic shop mechanic, she defies stereotypes)
• awesome boys - Okay, I have to say it, I loved how Jason respected Piper. He could have easily taken advantage of how Piper thought they used to date, but he didn't (to the point where you, and Piper, were like, 'you could take a little advantage. A kiss would be okay). I also loved Leo and his ridic crushes on demigods (not to mention all his ~issues. What a complex character)
• mythology - He always makes me want to get out a mythology book and look stuff up and geek out over mythology all day.
• diversity - not only were our heroes dealing with their demi-god identities, they were also dealing with cultural identities. For Piper, daughter of Aphrodite, being Cherokee is a big part of her identity but her father is often at odds with his two identities as a Cherokee and a Hollywood actor which sends mixed messages to Piper. I really liked how a lot of the heroes were visible minorities.
• setting - you guys, they came to Canada! :D They were also all over the USA, but Canada doesn't often make a cameo in big blockbuster American books so that made me super happy.

So who cares that it was like 200 pages too long. It was an awesome ride!

(reviewed from a library copy)

In My Mailbox #2

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi at the Story Siren :)

This week I got from the library:

Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers - a Canadian YA read nominated for the White Pine award.

Swim the Fly by Don Calame - another White Pine nominee. I have to type out an excerpt from the back of this one...

Matt Gratton and his two best friends, Sean and Coop, always set themselves a summer-time goal. This year's? To see a real-live naked girl for the first time. As far as Matt is concerned, they'd have better luck finding the lost city of Atlantis.

lol! This sounds like a fun boy read.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson - Yes, I still haven't read this one.

White Cat by Holly Black - I tried to read this when it first came out and it just didn't do it for me at the time. I have Red Glove as an ARC so I thought I'd try White Cat again. I do love everything else Holly Black has done, so she's worth another shot.

I also got some lovely books from Scholastic but as I am at home, I can't quite remember what they were. Still, looking forward to reading those.

Didn't buy a single book this week - I have plenty to be getting on with (though I am rather tempted by Other Words for Love... 80s romance in Brooklyn? So there!)

Review: Matched by Ally Condie

(so much for posting Tues & Thurs! Oh well. Figuring things out as I go!)

I've been looking forward to this book for a long while. The premise is fantastic:

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

- Goodreads.com

I just wish it had been executed better. The thing about writing things in another universe or in the future, or the past, is that we, as the reader in the here and now, get to play anthropologist. If it's written well, we have to sort of muddle around and figure things out. It's part of the fun. Think of A Clockwork Orange. There's lots of strange and new vocabulary but through Burgess' clever use of words, we're able to figure it out.

With Matched, I felt like we were constantly being told, 'this is different than what you know' by the characters who shouldn't know that it's different. It should be normal to them.

For instance, one character says to another something like, 'I hope the train is on time!' and the other character laughs because the train is always on time. Then why even mention it? If it's totally normal, why bring it up? It would be like me going into a movie theatre and saying the same thing even though movies are programmed to start on time. It would be odd. There were other little things too that pulled me out of the story - the characters complain about not having much to do in their leisure time but they've never known anything more. I wouldn't complain about only having 5 movie theatres in my town - unless I used to have ten.

I also find it hard to believe that everyone in this world goes along with the weird restrictions. In Across the Universe by Beth Revis, the people have a good reason for going along with it (which I won't tell you about - read the book) and in Delirium by Lauren Oliver, there IS rebellion but society is trying to cover it up. Maybe there is rebellion that we're not seeing? I don't really buy the whole complacency of the people.

If you can get past the odd world building (another thing - they still use paper for some things even though it's all super futuristic), you might enjoy this book. I genuinely did enjoy the characters and Cassia and Ky's growing friendship, and then romance. I wish Xander had had more screen time. His character fell a bit flat for me. We're constantly being told that all the girls want him but I had a hard time seeing why. I felt that if I had more dialog with him, I might have been Team Xander. As it is, I'm definitely Team Ky.

I don't know if I'll read the next one in this series or not. I like the premise - of being matched with someone but falling for someone else but I feel that this could have easily been written as an arranged marriage novel and skipped on the futuristic premise altogether. I think the strength of the book is in the relationships between the characters.

So in conclusion: Sort of recommended. I imagine that if you're into the dystopian genre, you're going to pick this one up. If you only want to read one dystopian book this year, however, make it Delirium by Lauren Oliver.

(but seriously, how pretty is that cover? Cover love!)

reviewed from library copy

Waiting on Wednesday...

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme where we basically whine about the books we want to read NOW. It's hosted by Breaking the Spine. Today's Waiting on Wednesday is one of my favourite genres - contemporary romance.

the premise: Do you ever wonder if the celebrity couples you see in the tabloids are actually real? Well, in Jenna and Jonah's Fauxmance, the romance between Charlie and Fielding, who play Jenna and Jonah on television, is definitely made up in order to raise ratings on their TV show. When the paparazzi exposes their scam, Charlie and Fielding disappear to get off the radar for a little bit. Naturally, they soon discover that there is more to their costar than they had first assumed.

why I'm dying to read it: I think it'll be a super fun, light read and I also love the trope when people pretend to date and then realize that they're not pretending after all. This seems to be the opposite though - they only realize they're head over heels once they stop pretending. Still, it should be a fun romance in amongst all the heavy dystopian releases this winter.

how long I have to wait: This one is being released February 1st.

while you're waiting check out: If you want to get a feel for the writing style, Emily Franklin and Brendan Halpin also wrote Half-Life of Planets. If you're looking for other romances trying to stay out of the paparazzi, I'd recommend Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway about a girl whose ex-boyfriend writes a song about her. Suddenly Audrey is in the public eye and her every move is being scrutinized. I also love the romance in this one!

Blog Schedule

Am trying to settle into a pattern of posting on the blog. I like the idea of posting two reviews a week - On Tuesday and Thursday but don't know if I'll always be able to read two books a week. I did happen to read four books over the weekend, three of which were YA and one that I've posted (All You've Got Is Me). So theoretically I could write up those other reviews and save them for a rainy day...

My ideal posting schedule would be comme ca:

Sunday: In My Mailbox (recap of what books I've bought/borrowed/been given)

Tuesday: Review

Weds: Waiting On Wednesday (What books I'm looking forward to)

Thursday: Review

and then possibly a Friday or Saturday post. Maybe a themed post? Like top 5 whatevers. Or maybe a guest post. Or maybe a book trailer or movie news or whatever. We'll see how it goes.

What do you think, is twice-weekly reviews too ambitious?

Review: Lola: A Ghost Story by J. Torres

Jesse sees dead people, monsters, demons, and lots of other things that go bump in the night that no one else can see. No one except his ailing grandmother - a woman who used her visions to help those living in her small town... the same rural community in all the scary stories Jesse's heard as a child. Man-eating ogres in trees. Farmhouses haunted by wraiths. Even pigs possessed by the devil. Upon his grandmother's passing, Jesse has no choice but to face his demons and whatever else might be awaiting him at grandma's house.

-from Goodreads.com

What the summary doesn't mention is that Jesse's grandma's house is in the Philippines. A lot of what makes this story so rich is the folklore from the community that Jesse's family passes onto him. It's through these folktales that Jesse begins to see the gift in what he has always thought of as a burden.

What also makes this story unique are the gorgeous illustrations. They're monochromatic and simple but really effective. The story itself, of Jesse gradually accepting his 'gift', was really moving and interesting too - a good story of family and the things that you may or may not want to come to terms with.

It's classified as a children's graphic novel, but I think it's a good read for anyone. The ghost story part is creepy enough to keep kids entranced but it was the parts with Jesse's family that really moved me. Recommended!

review from library copy