Bookshop Bumblings

Preparing For Christmas Season In The Harried Book World: Book #1

Evidently the dust jacket to this book features a book description that gives away a major plot point that doesn’t occur until halfway through the book. Shame on you dust jacket!

Fortunately, I don’t read dust jackets prior to reading books! Unfortunately, I did read the letter from Stephen King praising the book that was included in the front of the advance reader’s copy of this title. It compares it to a story which not only gives away the plot but also the ending as well.

Even though I knew how it would end based on this comparison, I still feel sucker punched by it. I completely loved the entire book until the end which made me take all of my feelings of love and adoration back. It’s been over a month since I finished this one and I’m still steaming mad over the ending. I don’t know if it was worth it. I feel as if the author made me love Edgar Sawtelle and his story, only to manically destroy everything I loved with an evil cackle.

I have been in reader HEAVEN! All of my favorite YA series have had another book come out. Septimus Heap has Queste out. After I finish devouring that, I get to hop on to Libba Bray’s third book wrapping up The Great & Terrible Beauty trilogy. Then, it’s on to Pullman’s prequel to the Golden Compass. I am so excited! I have such a huge stack of lovely looking fun reads that it’s making me giddy.

This one is the third in Brandon Mull’s Fablehaven series which is really quite likable. Normally, I like young adult books that are for the older readers whereas this one is more middle school level. It’s still a thick seemingly complex book though so I’m still a fan. I’ve had good luck with recommending this one because there’s really nothing for people to dislike.

In my regular blog, I detailed how due to Stephenie Meyer and “Twilight” series is gracing the top of all the best seller lists, I had bought myself a dream journal.

On her website she tells how she came up with the plot for the story from an intense dream she had one night. In fact, chapter 13 of her first book is basically a transcript of that dream. I’m fairly sure I’m among a large segment of the population who forgets their dreams within moments of waking up. So, what best sellers have I been missing out on? I mean SERIOUSLY. Coming up with story ideas is my biggest problem. Do you realize how hard it is to write without having a plot or an original story idea? I know, I know – Nicholas Sparks makes it look easy but still.

So I went and bought myself a dream journal. When I told Ben about it, he thought I mean like a “goal” journal where I would write down life ambitions and such. He has made fun of me for it so much. In fact, now if I dare to complain or ask for a favor he just replies, “Why don’t you go tell that to your Dream Journal.”

Now, the Host was not based off of a dream. It was based off of a story Meyer was telling herself to keep herself entertained on a long road trip while driving through Arizona to Salt Lake City. I’ve made that trip, but I didn’t tell stories to myself to keep myself awake. Of course, I was driving in the summer in a car that didn’t have air conditioning so any stores I would have told myself would take place in Antarctica. “Penguins, lovely.”

And unlike the dream journal, I don’t think I’m going to start taking long road trips in the desert just so I can try to come up with a good story too. This one was good. I don’t think that it has as compelling characters as Twilight (which has caused a lot of the adults to overlook some of the writing), but if you like Meyer’s other books and you’re willing to make it through the first several chapters (which are a real snoozefest) it gets pretty good. Halfway through I found myself caught up enough in the characters that I had trouble stopping until I was finished. I’m not saying it’s classic literature or that Meyer’s pen is obviously guided by angels. But it made me happy reading it.

I do love Stephenie Meyer – not just as an author but as a friend. She’s really awesome and has always been incredibly fantastic to her fans. I’ve had so many teenage girls who have written her and been astounded when she wrote back. She can’t keep up with that now, but she has always been so kind to all her fans. That’s what makes me love an author – almost as much as what and how they write. Because I love my customers and so it makes me happy when an author loves them too. Thus, I will always defend her and her books – sparkling vampires or not.

Also, if you’re still reading this – I’m having a Breaking Dawn midnight release party and it’s going to be seriously awesome. You should totally come.

Versus

Shortly after I read Marr’s first book a friend commented about what a shame it was that one was getting all the shelf space in large bookstores and so lauded when Cassandra Clare’s City of Ashes series was being overlooked. My first chapter into Clare’s work and I immediately agreed with my friend. It’s a fantastic story with compelling characters who are funny (so funny at times) and without the forced “I’m cool! Teenagers please love me!” feel that Marr (and Holly Black’s) books give off.

However, by the very end I was beginning to waver because of a huge plot turn (that I can’t even allude to without spoiling it) which is also explored more in the second book. And let me tell you it’s a big EW factor. It actually left me feeling pretty disgusted by the end of the first book, but since I was able to immediately read the second (the third hasn’t been published yet) those feelings were assuaged slightly. I think it’s going to turn out be a big hoax but still EW.

But even with the Ew factor, Clare’s books are still much better. Victory is to Clare – Knockout!

versus

In this corner weighing in at 645 pages, I have a set of books set of books which are urban faeire tales with Seelie folk walking around with glamours to shield us mere mortal from their cruel beauty.

And in the other corner weighing in at 653 pages, I have a set of books set of books which are urban faeire tales with Seelie folk walking around with glamours to shield us mere mortal from their cruel beauty.

Hmm, wait. When I read the first book in each of these sets (where the second book is slightly related to each other as in they take place in the same world, but the second book isn’t a true sequel of the characters in the first books), I liked Melissa Marr’s tale slight better than Holly Black’s. Neither are fantastic books but there was something compelling about each one that kept me from stopping halfway through. They both try a little hard to be cool – look my humans have tattoos and problems! and so forth.

I didn’t love either book enough to whole heartedly recommend it to someone (unless they were a fan of the genre) but they weren’t horrible. Pretty much they’re on the same level – if you liked Holly Black’s books, I’d recommend Marr’s to you or vice versa.

However, Wicked Lovely & Ink Exchange have gorgeous covers so I declare them the winner by a hair!

I’m behind the times on this one, but it works in my favor since it means the second and third sequel to it are already out so worry about forgetting details as I wait for the sequels to come out. The reason I hadn’t picked it up before is a friend had read it and scrunched her nose at it. I don’t know if I would have liked it as much as I did if I had not gone into reading thinking that I might hate it. Turns out it was a nice light (but not happy) read. It was just what I was in the mood for and I love when that happens.

Due to being covered in hives, I’ve been trying every which way to escape from real life. So far my best bet has been urban fantasy in the young adult section.

Tithe = OK

Wicked Lovely = Pretty good!

Vampire Kisses series (I read the first three out of the four) = SO BAD. So bad it’s not even good!

I liked Sedia so much that I’ve ordered two other titles by her but they haven’t come in yet. I also have a couple of Charles De Lint titles on order as well. I’m pacing as I wait and welcome any suggestions for light reading in that genre. It doesn’t necessarily have to be young adult oriented.

I don’t think I blogged about Dave Ramsey’s ‘Total Money Makeover’. Perhaps, I did. It certainly seems to be many people’s personal finance bible and contains good advice – especially for those mired in debt. However, it made me twitchy. I had all these questions and felt slightly uncomfortable with some of Ramsey’s instructions so I turned to this book which seems more complete in it’s information. It’s less of an personal instruction to finance and more informational, although it certainly offers some advice. I found it incredibly helpful and really liked it. I’ve already made a couple of changes that should have been obvious to me that I hadn’t thought of (example: I switched the emergency fund to a high interest savings account.)

Plus it is a really good overview of things I always hear about but I don’t know exactly what they are. You know annuities and whatnots. I keep trying to get Ben to read this one too because I think it has a lot of information that *all* adults should know — whether they’re ready to implement them or not.

This was recommended to me as the Russian version of Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere”. In fact, it even has a quote by Gaiman on the cover of the book saying the same thing. The quote makes Neil seem a little cocky.

“A lovely, disconcerting book that does for Moscow what I hope my own Neverwhere may have done to London.”

While I was a little meh about Neverwhere, I really enjoyed this book. In fact, I’ve been thinking that it’s only fantasy on a young adult level that I like, but I think it’s really this sub-genre known as Urban Fantasy that tickles my fantasy. I can relate and get into that kind of story more so than a full out unbelievable fantasy land. Although with all of the Russian fairy and folktale characters which I was completely unfamiliar with, it might as well been an unbelievable fantasy land for me.

I quite liked the characters, the writing, and the storyline in this one. The ending WAS disconcerting and unhappy which sealed the deal for me.

Spooks, boggarts, and witches – oh my!

This is the fourth in the Last Apprentice series which is a middle school level fantasy/horror series. I can’t handle scary things so a fifth grade horror book is about as much as I can handle. This is a good series that I’ve been fond of suggestion to that age of readers.

With this new addition, I’m a little weary to recommend it because it deals a lot with believing in God. I think it’s good for children this age, but I don’t think every child’s parents would agree with me.