Top Ten Tuesday: Luuuvvvvvvv Interests

Hellllloooooooooooooo book bloggers! It is Tuesday again. That means its Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's TTT is dedicated to our fav hunky male love interests. Now, we love a good romance. (Remember the time I word-searched for kisses on my Nook? It happened. I needed to know I could depend on some budding romance in my read). Here we go!

Is that Tim Riggins cast by fans as Dimitri? 

Crazy Camper:

• Hunter from Mystic City by Theo Lawrence. He is dark and mysterious while at once FULL of emotions. My kind of guy.
• Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Always and forever. I am anxious to see who they cast for the movie version of this book!
• Dimitri from the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead. Preferably before he becomes a vampire/post-vampire moody goon.

Tim Riggins also hows up when
you image search Kaleb.
Ha!
(PS, I can support this).

Grad Student:

• Ben from Texas Gothic by Rosemary Clement-Moore. "hot neighbor cowboy" ENOUGH SAID.
• Tucker from the Unearthly series by Cynthia Hand. Again, he is a cowboy. I love country music, and I particularly love country music in the summer, so this tendency should come as no surprise as I look forward to spring and summer.
• Kaleb from the Hourglass series by Myra McEntire. He likes to cook, knows he is a slice of sexy, and has tattoos for extra appeal. 
• George Cooper from The Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce. THE ORIGINAL roguish charmer.
• The Hudson Boys from Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent. Both Nash and Todd have made me swoon, and I still don't know who I love best.
• Sean from The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvadter. I like how he is the strong silent type.

A cheers of our whiskey sour to The Broke and the Bookish for hosting such an awesome weekly meme! 

Want to hear more from us on these reads? Check out our reviews of Texas Gothic, Hallowed, aka book two of the Unearthly Series, Timepiece aka the Kaleb show, aka book two of the Hourglass series, The Scorpio Races, our review of both the Soul Singers series and My Soul to Take, and of course Vampire Academy, Frostbite, and Crazy Camper's lovefest of the Vampire Academy series.

Top Ten Tuesday: Best Names

PEOPLE Goosie Mama had a Brilliant Idea for this week's freebie Top Ten Tuesday.We are going with Top Ten Favorite character names. I got a big kick out of this, and laughed out loud at CC's choices.

Crazy Camper:

1. F'lar from Dragonflight by Ann McCaffery, any book that includes apostrophes in the names is pure fantasy.
2. Peeta from the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which I always imagine said in the "Wall-e!" voice.
3. Legolas from The Lord of the Rings: it is hard to imagine a more elfish sounding name.

Grad Student:

1. TOTALLY Nash Hudson in the Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent. Dreamy name.
2. Richard "Dick" Gansey  (he goes by his last name) in The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. 
3. Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Which, Mrs.Who from A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. Clever.



MS's artwork of Gansey. TALENT. via

4. The One Who Is The One from Witch and Wizard by James Paterson. What a great/funny name for a dictator to proclaim for himself!  

(Please note that the boy names I pick are straight from a Ralph Lauren fantasy. Who knew I loved the preppy names so much? Everyone should be fearful if I ever have a son, he will probably end up named Chadwick or something)

Bod, from the book's lovely
illustrations.

Goosie Mama:

1. Nobody "Bod" Owens from The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman- Mrs. Owens declares "He looks like nobody except himself" 
2. Kartik from A Great and Terrible Beauty The Gemma Doyle series by Libba Bray. - 2 K's in one name? I know 2 bloggers that will really like this!
3. Charlaine Harris is the champion of great character names (thank you, Luuuuusiana): a cop name Alsee (Al-say), Bill (no comment!!), Alcide Herveaux - what's not to love?!

As always, a toast of our whiskey sours to The Broke and the Bookish for hosting TTT. Salute!

Review: My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent

Gosh, when the handsomest, most popular guy in school is both a banshee AND named Nash Hudson, you know you're in for a doozie of a YAF novel (just LOOK at that cover, for Pete's sake...). In Rachel Vincent's first novel of her Soul Screamer series My Soul to Take:


She doesn't see dead people, but…

She senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally.

Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about her need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who'll be next…

It's pretty hard to take this book too seriously, when the first review on Amazon is "Twilight fans will love it." This is what YAF is striving for now? Yikes. Somebody call John Green, stat.

• Originality: 6 - I haven't met too many folks, in literature or real life, who a) knows when people will die, b) screams for upwards of 20 minutes about it or c) has figured out how to swap out one soul for another if they think the Reapers have made a mistake and taken the wrong person. So this one will receive a solid 6.
• Absurdity: 8 - I don't know, this book kicks right off with Kalee and Nash meeting in a club and there's all sorts of insta-attraction, blah blah, oh yeah and then someone dies (Kalee of course both knew this and screamed about it - you know, cuz she's a banshee and all). From the get go the whole plot is somewhat of a "yeah, just go with it," type of feel and luckily I was feeling like going with it for the couple of nights I read this book.
• Level of Paranormal Romance: 5 - Rachel Vincent really tries to make this book romantic, even trying to introduce a love triangle with the mysterious Tod, but I just never really felt it. That being said, I never felt the (G-rated) heat between Edward and Bella either, so yes, Twilight fans really may love this book.
• Level of Harry Potterness: 3 - No, just no. That being said, I will end in a slow clap for 10-15 pages describing what a banshee scream feels like (okay, it was probably more like 2 pages, but it felt like an eternity!).

Top Ten Tuesday: Fictional Crushes

Today's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is a freebie and we have decided on Top Fictional Crushes.  I considered making a  list alternating between Joe Fontaine and Augustus Waters since Goosie Mama has jumped on the Fontaine bandwagon. Those eye lashes! But here are some other favorites we don't discuss as frequently at YAF & WS:

1. Numair from the Immortals series by Tamora Pierce. How the twins learned that manly chest hair = great-- Crazy Camper and Grad Student.*
2. Eric Northman from the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris--Crazy Camper and Grad Student.
3. Tod in the Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent (more GS's love of Tod here!)
4. Graves from the Strange Angels series by Lili St. Crow. From classmate to werewolf to friend to save-your-life-no-questions-asked-friend to love. (Ignoring the end of book 5: angry side-eye from Grad Student to St. Crow).

5. Eldric from Chime by Franny Billingsley. (see here for why you should be swooning over Eldric)--Grad Student. 

6. Kaleb from the Hourglass series by Myra McEntire. YAAAA for those tattoos and (slightly cocky) frat boy style--Grad Student.

7. Four from the Divergent series by Veronica Roth is Goosie Mama's number one pick. When I asked about fictional crushes she said: "Tobias, duh..."
8. Bram from Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel. "big time"crush--Goosie Mama (her review)
9 & 10: George vs Jonathan from Tamora Pierce's Alanna Quartet (the purple eyed Lioness, she had excellent choice in men) while my young self would have loved Jonathan, George won in the end. And I can't lie, one of my best friends from college also read these books and while on a road trip this weekend, we referenced her new relationship to our mutual best friend as a George vs. Jonathan debate, where again, the George character won-- Crazy Camper.

CC:  I bet you wish this was your
phone- Alana Quartet! - GS

Apparently the internet thinks Max Irons should be Eldric. I agree. And Ian Somerhalder does the best drunk-handsome-heart of gold guy on TV. Who cares if he is  too old to be Kaleb?! I am casting him. Its my TTT. 


Crazy Camper says: GS, remember that time you came down to visit and do research and instead we watched every episode of Vampire Diaries we could? and then spent $50 dollars to buy the rest of the season on iTunes? I blame Ian.


*Crazy Camper and I are twins. Have we mentioned this? TRUE FACT. Although Goosie-Mama tried to Talented-Mr.-Ripley CC's spot in the fam over Memorial Day Weekend.

Waiting on Wednesday: Before I Wake by Rachel Vincent

I am fully aware that this is a YA-trope-tastic cover.
And I don't care!

This week's Waiting in Wednesday is devoted to the 6th book in the Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent. In case you missed it, I had a fling with this series in January--it inspired the Crusin' Through a Series feature here at YAF and WS--(see here for why I'm not sorry to have read an entire slightly ridic series about banshees).  Before I Wake comes out June 26th! 

I died on a Thursday-killed by a monster intent on stealing my soul. The good news? He didn't get it. The bad news? Turns out not even death will get you out of high school...  Covering up her own murder was one thing, but faking life is much harder than Kaylee Cavanaugh expected. After weeks spent "recovering," she's back in school, fighting to stay visible to the human world, struggling to fit in with her friends and planning time alone with her new reaper boyfriend. But to earn her keep in the human world, Kaylee must reclaim stolen souls, and when her first assignment brings her face-to-face with an old foe, she knows the game has changed. Her immortal status won't keep her safe. And this time Kaylee isn't just gambling with her own life....(Good Reads).

Why do I want to read this book? 1. I was impressed that Vincent managed to trick me into actually changing alliances between certain brothers.......(I usually stand on the side of NOT making eyes at your boyfriend's brother).  Which leads me to reason 2: Tod.  I have a crush on this pizza-delivery-boy-grim-reaper. I mean, he casually quotes Dylan Thomas. And he is sarcastic. How great was the high school hallway showdown in book 5!? I GASPED!  Bring on the witty grim-reaper banter!

Cruisin' Through a Series: Soul Screamers by Rachel Vincent

There are some standard stories that a good portion of these books follow: vampires who love humans, or teenage girls who wake up one day to find out they are the children of evil fairy queens/kings and have a quest to go on. Not that I am against a good literary trope, but I have to say, sometimes its good to mix things up. Enter my most recent speed read, the Soul Screamers series by Rachel Vincent. Ok, look, these might not win any Pulitzers any time soon, but still. Here's the deal. The setting is boring as all get out, somwhere in Texas I never want to go. The characters are mostly banshees (spelled bean sidhes--I image to try and established some Irish-folklore-street-cred (which is a dubious thing to go for at all)) as well as living nightmares, grim reapers etc etc etc. There is also obviously an alternate universe that is a layer on top of the real world where creepy things live that like to eat people, steal their memories and so on. Don't go there. Its a bad idea.  

So there are 5 of these books so far, and to be frank, looking back on my December binge, I am not at all confident of what each separate book is about. There are some pop singers who sell their souls to the devil for fame who need rescuing, some drug addicts addicted to demon breadth (try saying that with a straight face out loud to someone) that need rescuing, and of course the main character Kaylee needs to be rescued a couple of times, as well as her studly boyfriend. and of course some witty teen banter. BUT I can say, while I was reading them, I was into it enough to actually take a paperback copy out of the library in front of my boyfriend (who judged, I am sure, as I deserved). Usually the Nook prevents me from the public humiliation caused by being twenty-something and reading this on the L train:

                                      or this     

I mean seriously. I am not 15. and people going to Lorimer and Bedford on the L train do judge you.

ANYWHO I plowed through these at breakneck speed and have to say Kaylee was alright, but I did do some laughing at Tod, the Grim Reaper, brother of Kaylee's hunky boyfriend, Nash.  Apparently the internet has a Tod v. Nash thing going on. Google it.  Will I read the one coming out this spring? Yes. Did I actually pay for If I Die and not just get it from the library? well.....

Originality: a solid 7--for finding some type of old world myth no one else wrote about yet (but was there a reason this was left alone.....?), and for the lack of vampires and star-crossed lovers.

Harry-Potterness: no magic, but she can scream and go to an alternate universe. but really, banshees just scream when people die. not a very cool magic power.
Absurdity: pretty high. can't quite put my finger on it, but at least a 6. I mean, banshees people.