Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Were Totally Deceiving

The Broke and the Bookish host this list-mania meme dedicated to sharing read lists. We love it! This week is Top Ten Books That WereTotally Deceiving-- Someof theses titles and covers seem to have been free-associated, and others were not what we were expecting (sometimes to good effect, other times, not so much).

The Cover Works Against the Book

1. The Fallen Series by Lauren Kate. Is Luce lost on some forested island where all she has is a suitcase of goth prom dresses!?! How does this relate to anything even remotely related to angels!?!

2. The Unearthly series by Cynthia Hand. Girl in a Dress is not my favorite genre. But these books are, happily, much better than their covers.The second book Hallowed in particular was moving story about loss and family, and you have no idea looking at the cover.

3. Jealousy from the Strange Angels series by Lili St. Crow. PEOPLE you need to read these books. Dru is so kick-ass it is not even funny. People get beat up, betrayed, hunted by zombies and vampires, etc. But this title, and the picture for the third book in the series. Blech. It looks like some third-rate romance novel. 

(Honorable Mentions, previously reviewed: The Girl of Fire and Thorns and The Name of the Star. YAF and WS, overcoming bad covers to read good books, one step at a time.)

Expecting a Zig and Getting a Zag

4. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I thought this book was going to be a bit too young and preciousfor my taste, but was I wrong. It is sweet, smart, and touching. I nearly choked up at the end! Whoknew, coming from a kid's book that starts with a triple-homicide.

5. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith. I thought this was going to be a send-up,since the author had also written Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which looked beyond silly. But I was  scared.GULP.

6. Swamplanda! by Karen Russell. (review!) Goosie Mama,expecting YA fiction, was surprised by the tone and subject matter of this book. The cute cartoon and exclamation mark would draw me to the wrong conclusions as well.

Books I Put On Hold at the Library But Have Waited So Long For I Can't Remember What They Are About and Thus Am Off-Base in What I Expect* (*This is an ebook issue because of a lack of book blurbs).

7. Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher. I thought,for some reason, there would be more romance involved in this. 30 pages in, I actually used the search capability of my Nook for 'kiss'. Embarrassing?Yes. Then when no kisses turned up, I was all "WHAAATTT" and stopped reading. I wanted some romance--so sue me!**

What is on your TT this week?

** PS Google Image Search Incarceron. Some pretty great fan art featuring Taylor Lautner is involved.

Review: Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

At the age of nine, Finnikin pledges to defend his kingdom of Lumatere alongside Prince Balthazar and Balthazar's cousin, Lucian.  But all safety is shattered during the "five days of the unspeakable," when the royal family is brutally murdered. An impostor seizes the throne, but a curse binds all who remain inside the country's walls  while the rest, who escape, are landless exiles constrained in deadly fever camps.  Fast forward ten years, and  Finnikin answers a summoning to meet Evanjalin who claims Balthazar, the rightful heir to the throne, is alive. Slightly arrogant and very secretive, Evanjalin claims she'll lead Finnikin and his mentor to the prince. Instead, her leadership puts them on a perilous route towards home. Can Lumatere be saved? Can the crown be restored? Evanjalin is not what she seems, and her startling visions of Lumatere will test Finnikin's faith in Evanjalin and his destiny.

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta ran hot and cold for me. Sometimes I was into it, but not consistently.  I would recommend it if you were passing it at the library, but I wouldn't run out and push old ladies down to buy it.  ( I will read the sequel, however, when it comes out).

The third section of the book is a surprisingly serious meditation on hope, broken faith, the sexual vulnerability of women, and female power.  The best part of this book is that it doesn't end with a triumphant battle, but a mediation on life and loss. I found this section moving and thought provoking. 

Originality: 6. This is a pretty basic 'kingdoms at war' plot, with the pre-rec fantasy map. BUT  I found the diplomacy between these nations boring. Snooozzze.

Absurdity:  8. Pretty high, because it is true fantasy: long-lost prince and princesses, prophecies, curses, and magic.

Level of Paranormal Romance:  I don't want to give too much away, but at the end there is a long march (emotional and physical) that Finn undertakes, and it made for a surprisingly swoon-worthy finale--so 6! I was happily surprised.

Level of Harry Potter-ness: a 5 for magical curses and 6 for writing--Marchetta is good, even if I don't totally love the world she built. It is still compelling and well done.

Dedicated to Goosie Mama

I dedicate this Hey Girl books edition to GM. 'Cause she is the best! And this will make her smile!

HAPPY FRIDAY 

Review: Wilfair by Alysia Gray Painter

Fair Finley is a hotel heiress who runs the famous Hollywood hotel the Wilfair. She dresses like a 1940s film star, but has not yet come into her own as a hotel magnate, despite her parent hopes. She tends to over-apologize via fruit baskets, and can't get the nerve to steal the neighboring motel's swimming pool. That's right. Her famous hotel, where each floor is a different design, from Rococo to Story Book, lacks a pool--a terrible oversight in Los Angeles. The problem is the motel owner's happen to be a pair of handsome cousins (with loose ties, rolled up sleeves, and distracting, attractive forearms). Fair doesn't have many friends, and these two, both named Montgomery, seem ready to be friends and have adventures, but stealing a pool from potential friends is tough. Not to mention weird things are happening at the already wacky Wilfair-- ghosts are acting strange, physical places are switching places, and the tar pit between the two hotels, a tourist attraction, has been smelling of Paris and baking bread. Something is up.

To remind you: Wilfair by Alysia Gray Painter has the best. blurb. ever. "Strange things happen, adventures are had, feelings are felt, and cheese dip is eaten."

This, my book-loving blog friends, is a Quirky Book. But, as you know, I like Quirky Books (example A, example B). I was pretty much cool with the quirky plot AND quirky narrative form (which is told from Fair's perspective). There is so much packed into this little book! Her little twin brothers run the famous 500 Dip Bar, which means we are treated to lots of discussion of dip, and they seemed to be a play on the creepy twins from The Shining (let me know if you think this, too!). I enjoyed that Fair was a person trying to find herself and learning to use her quirks to her advantage. And Fair's weirdness is kinda refreshing. I knew we would be friends when she made T-Rex claws and Raaaawwweeed at someone. 

• Originality: 9. This book is incredibly creative, but sometimes the new quirks fly by so fast its hard to catch them all.
• Absurdity: 9. BUT this book is supposed to be absurd in a magical realism kind of way. (Its not accidentally absurd in a feather-petting/ insta-love kind of way). The surreal qualities coming in increments and make you want to know more. How can a fitted sheet be shaped like London? How can tar bubbles smell good?
• Level of Paranormal Romance. 1. Fair does not fall in True Love with the Montgomerys within 72 hours. That is NOT how she rolls (who KNOWS how awkward she would be with some lip contact). But it is a nice change of pace to the general YA out there, and I hope hope hope for something to swoon over in the next book. The foundations are there, and expectations are high! 
• Level of Harry-Potter-ness: 5. I think people will be divided about the very fanciful writing style of this book. Painter makes up words (sometimes I found this confusing) and uses some wacky metaphors. Once in a while I wanted a calm moment to collect my brain and enjoy the whimsy. By the end, however, I either got used to it or things calmed down. My biggest complaint about the book was at less than 200 pages I was left wanting more plot development. I feel like we had just approached the meat of the mystery when the story ended; I learned the world and the lingo, and then things wrapped up. Nooooooo, give me more!

Overall, I was charmed by these people and am bee-lining toward the sequel, Redwoodian. If you need a good laugh and lighthearted antics, get involved!

FTC Full Disclosure: I received a review copy Alysia Gray Painter. Happy reading followed. (We do not accept or receive compensation for reviews at YAF and WS.)

Review: Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

So Grad Student showed me this great trick of hitting up NPR books for reviews about really great Young Adult Fiction (see sidebar links!). I was all over that website at the end of the year, especially when they were highlighting the "Best of 2011" reviews.

Swamplandia! was one of these recommendations from NPR and after reading their review, I thought, what the hey, let's read it.

Once I got a few chapters into the book, I quickly realized this wasn't Young Adult fiction and - whoops - I must have travelled outside of the YAF recommendations on NPR. Let me tell you, when you're expecting some light-hearted YAF and you get Debbie Downer - It. Is. Shocking.

The basic premise is a family living in the swamp of Florida on their gator farm after their mother (Hilola) and star of their gator swimming show passes away from ovarian cancer. The family is the weirdest of the weird (weird for the sake of being weird, almost) and the book chronicles the fall out from Hilola's death through the eyes of pre-teen Ava and her 18-year-old brother Kiwi.

The first thing I noticed was that it was totally unbelievable that a 12-year-old was narrating part of this book as there were a ton of SAT words - Kindle's Oxford dictionary was working overtime on this one. But whatever, I'll suspend belief.

This book was dark. Based on the title (yeah, I said it), the fact that I thought this was YA fiction and the review, I wasn't really expecting that. Maybe you have to be in a certain type of mood to call this a page turner, but I was just totally put-off from the beginning. There were so many (sad) side stories happening that it was hard to follow and the periphery became distracting to the overall story development.

I actually am not 100% why I continued reading it (library guilt?), but I did and I'm not saying it's a bad book, just that be prepared it is dark and stormy (you would need a Jack and Coke vs. a Whiskey Sour).

Waiting on Wednesday: Karma, by Cathy Ostlere

This Waiting on Wednesday, a brilliant weekly meme from Breaking the Spine, is dedicated to getting out of the US of A and seeing some new sights! (not literally, cause that takes cash $$$ money, but literar-ily. Can I make that word for now? ANYWAYS...)


I have come across praise for Cathy Ostlere's Karma, A Novel in Verse for about six months now, and have decided its high time to read it. Since I fell head-over-heels for Jandy Nelson's  The Sky is Everywhere, I am not as fearful of this "novel in verse"-- told through journal entries and poems. The bit of the book I flipped through (digitally) on Amazon looked amazing. Bring on the YA poetry! And a cover I can take out in public!

"On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi is gunned down by two Sikh bodyguards. The murder sparks riots in Delhi and for three days Sikh families are targeted and killed in retribution for the Prime Minister’s death. It is into this chaos that sixteen-year-old Maya and her Sikh father, Amar, arrive from their home in Canada. India’s political instability is the backdrop and catalyst for Maya’s awakening to the world." (Note, I don't think the Good Reads summary here emphasizes it enough, but there is some falling-in-love involved in this book. PHEW).

What are you waiting on?

Top Ten Tuesday: Books to Read in A Day

Its time for another edition of The Broke and the Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday: Books To Read In A Day. Per-usual, I cannot come up with ten. But this is a top eight list, my personal specialty! Another specialty? Reading a book in a single day. So here are books I have gobbled up in a single day/night, and not minded the sleep-deprivation that followed.

1. The Girl who Chased the Moon (see review) by Sarah Addison Allen. The epitome of an easy, fun, one-day read.

2. The Sky is Everywhere  (see review) by Jandy Nelson. Because it is physically impossible to stop. You have no control when those charming Fontaine boy show up. Just make yourself some coffee and give in!

3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins- does this even need to be said at this point? It is a verb in my life. Hunger Game a good book!

4. Glass Houses (the Morganville Vampire Series) by Rachel Caine. A Victorian house and wacky roommates and vampires? Fun! A bit predictable, but so what! I think if you had more than one of these lying around you could have a multiple-books-read-in-a-day situation on your hands.

5. The Silver Bowl by Diane Stanley. This under-the-radar book was surprisingly charming and short enough for a single night’s read.

6. Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep. Sometimes you need a little fluff. And I found Gwen entertaining, even though I am not on the mythic-warrior bandwagon.

7. Matched by Ally Condi. I didn’t love this book’s sequel, but I read this in a single sitting this summer, when it was too hot to go outside and my roommates had scattered to cooler pastures. And I just. kept. rooting. for. Xander.

8. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer. We have not discussed how awesome this book is on YA F and Whiskey Sours. But we are aware. Juliet is fantastic and saucy and I would love to be her pen pal.

The moral of the story is sleep is overrated! Read more books!

      

In which grad student shares a lit pilgrimage!

I had the great luck this past week to visit Aldo Leopold's shack outside of Madison, Wisconsin. This place was AMAZING and I want to share his most famous book A Sand County Almanac for those looking for an easy,  beautiful piece of non-fiction. Gasp!!! A foray outside young adult fiction, but worth every missing moment of teenage angst.

The need-to-know: Leopold is an incredibly influential writer, conservationist, forester, and philosopher,-- think a early-20th century mid-western Thoreau. DO NOT RUN IN FEAR. This book is lyrical and very funny. Its about his and his family's time on a farm that is left for dead during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.  AND I GOT TO VISIT. It was awesome. AND probably supremely dorky. I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry!




Imagine me! standing right there!

“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace. To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue. To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm him shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the weekend in town astride a radiator"” -Aldo Leopold, "Good Oak"


Crazy Camper, eat your heart out!

Review: Passion by Lauren Kate

Oh, Luce. You headstrong, time-travelling teenager.

This whole book was just a stepping stone to get to the finale of this series, right? Ugh, it read like it. Talk about another female heroine that I just find gag-inducing. Luce is traveling through her past, via the Announcers, with her creep-o sidekick Bill trying to figure out whhhhhy does Daniel love her? Can she break their curse by screwing with the past to correct the future??!

In case you didn't know, Luce and Daniel have loved each other (more than anyone else) throughout history and that they're meant to be, but Luce has to know whhhhhy before she can fully accept it.

Well, by the end of the book, God, the devil and every angel in the Bible has been involved and this love affair has become epic. Really, this YA romance is that important. Eye roll.

So here goes:

• Originality: 6; It's an original premise, but it's hella weird ... I found it more frustrating than intriguing
• Absurdity: 10; Ms. Kate knocked this one out of the park. Maybe not in a good way?
• Level of Paranormal Romance: 6; this one tries hard to be romantic, but just reads as weird. Nothing but kissing and a few wing strokes, my friends.
• Level of Harry Potterness: -3; Sorry J.K. Rowling Ms. Kate is not!

Tamora Pierce- Protector of the Small Quartet: Coming up for air

I am midway through book three and taking a breather to check in. The premise:

This is the tale of Keladry of Mindelan, a girl who wants just one thing: to copy the feat of her hero Alanna the Lioness, and win her knight's shield.

As a young teens, GradStudent and I LOVED beyond belief Pierce's Alanna and Wild Magic books. I think they were the first series we ever owned every book of. Recently, I saw a friend reading the Protector of the Small series and she immediately lent them to me when she saw the expression on my face.

To be clear, I am too old for this series. When it starts, Kel, our heroine, is 10. TEN. As it has been many years since I was 10, maybe I am wrong, but these are the oldest 10 year olds ever. So I pretend they are not, just to make it easier on my late-20 something self. I have been crushing through these books, happily returning to Tortall and Pierce's world in a very self-indulgent way. Currently on book 3, Squire, and not stopping anytime soon.

• Originality: Well, its hard to say, since it is VERY similar to the Alanna books, but I am going to go with Tortall as a whole, and I give it a 5. Nothing like quasi medieval magical fantasy to get me going.


• Absurdity: 5, this is accepting the world of magic and Immortal enemies of centaurs and spidrens. My absurdity ranking is due to the fact that she is TEN and I dont know any ten year olds killing grown bandits. But I also don't know any bandits...


• Level of Paranormal Romance: 1, so again, there is not romance paranormal or not. But in book three, at the age of 14, hints of crushes are beginning to emerge. YA book with no romance? Why am I still reading this? O wait, cause it's awesome somehow still.


• Level of Harry-Potterness: 5, like Harry Potter, fans of Alana will fall right back into the world of Tortall and do so happily with many of the same characters guest staring in this new series.

Overall? I am only mildly embarrassed to say I am enjoying this series incredibly. I may need to look back at the other series soon too. Am I bringing this on my climbing trip this weekend? You betcha.