Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill of Breaking the Spine.

This week, I'm waiting on Memento Nora by Angie Smibert. Honestly, it was the title that made me look further at this book and actually read the synopsis, because I thought of "Memento Mori," which I remembered from The Austere Academy (why yes, I am quite a fan of the Series of Unfortunate Events books). Anyway, I'm glad I did look at the synopsis, because it looks quite intriguing:

Description from Goodreads:
Nora, the popular girl and happy consumer, witnesses a horrific bombing on a shopping trip with her mother. In Nora’s near-future world, terrorism is so commonplace that she can pop one little white pill to forget and go on like nothing ever happened. However, when Nora makes her first trip to a Therapeutic Forgetting Clinic, she learns what her mother, a frequent forgetter, has been frequently forgetting. Nora secretly spits out the pill and holds on to her memories. The memory of the bombing as well as her mother’s secret and her budding awareness of the world outside her little clique make it increasingly difficult for Nora to cope. She turns to two new friends, each with their own reasons to remember, and together they share their experiences with their classmates through an underground comic. They soon learn, though, they can’t get away with remembering.

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Dystopia (at least, it sounds like it) and magical forgetfulness pills and remembering secrets? Sounds like my kind of book. I'm not too sure about the whole "ooh popular!" thing, but the cover is awesome and the plot definitely sounds fascinating. Memento Nora comes out in April 2011, at which time I will definitely need to read it!

What are you waiting on this week? Leave a link in the comments and I'll stop by to visit!

A Noveling Plea for Help

Yup, it's another one of those NaNoWriMo posts...

I realize that the second week of NaNoWriMo is not exactly the best time to be doing writerly research, because speed-writing + homework + college applications != lots of time to look stuff up. But I need to do some writerly research anyway. And I need your help!

The protagonist of my NaNo novel is very involved in fencing, as in the sport, and is also very skilled in the art of actual swordplay. (She's been practicing both for years, so it's not "poof, I can magically do it!" because that would annoy me.)

The problem is, despite my best efforts to the contrary, I've never been able to learn how to fence, and I've definitely never used a real sword. This is where you come in.

If any of you wonderful, awesome, well-read and multi-talented readers know anything about fencing or swordplay or can direct me to a book or website that would help, that would be spectacular. And if it will make you feel better, I can even name a character after you. I'm always short on good names. :) Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

Also, just a general update on book-related things: my reading time has been tragically limited by all the schoolwork I'm having to do, but I should have a new review up sometime this week, with any luck at all.

♥ Becky

Review: Beautiful Darkness

Title: Beautiful Darkness
Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Publisher: Little, Brown
Pages: 503
Series: Caster Chronicles #2
Rating: 5 stars
From the book jacket: 
A few months ago, I believed nothing would ever change in this town. Now I knew better, and I only wished it was true.

Ethan Wate used to think of Gatlin, the small Southern town he had always called home, as a place where nothing ever changed. Then he met mysterious newcomer Lena Duchannes, who revealed a secret world that had been hidden in plain sight all along. A Gatlin that harbored ancient secrets beneath its moss-covered oaks and cracked sidewalks. A Gatlin where a curse has marked Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals for generations. A Gatlin where impossible, magical, life-altering events happen.

Sometimes life-ending.

Together Ethan and Lena can face anything Gatlin throws at them, but after suffering a tragic loss, Lena starts to pull away, keeping secrets that test their relationship. And now that Ethan's eyes have been opened to the darker side of Gatlin, there's no going back. Haunted by strange visions only he can see, Ethan is pulled deeper into his town's tangled history and finds himself caught up in the dangerous network of underground passageways endlessly crisscrossing the South, where nothing is as it seems.

**********

I loved Beautiful Creatures, the first book in the Caster Chronicles, so I've been dying to read this since way before it was released. Sometimes in cases like that, the sequel can't possibly live up to your expectations, but I think Beautiful Darkness did.

I will confess that I had a hard time getting into it at first - it started off a little slowly. But once it got going, it really got going. After getting through about fifty pages throughout the week in my few free minutes at school, I sat down this morning to read a bit more over breakfast. I decided that I would read while I ate, then go work on college essays and NaNoWriMo. Around 3 pm, with only a brief interruption to get lunch, I finished the novel and hadn't written a word. I simply could not put it down.

Ethan is still crazy in love with Lena, but Lena is struggling with a dark secret and even darker emotions that are pulling her away from Ethan. Suddenly, she's hanging out with her evil cousin Ridley and a mysterious new Incubus, leaving Ethan feeling pushed aside and desperate to save her before she turns Dark. Her Seventeenth Moon is coming up, and Lena will have to be Claimed soon. And Liv, Marian's new assistant at the library, is only convincing Lena that Ethan has moved on. But, of course, in Gatlin, SC, nothing is what it appears to be.

I loved so many things about this book. The characters - Link and Liv especially, and Ethan's great-great-aunts, and Ridley, and of course Ethan most of all - just came to life in my mind. I wish we had gotten to see more of Lena, although I'm confident that she'll be more important in book three. I would read pages and pages of just small talk between these characters, because I love them that much.

And the plot. Oh my goodness. I really want book three NOW, because I just have to know what happens next. Beautiful Darkness keeps working at solving the mysteries introduced in book one, answering a few questions and raising plenty more, and there's always something new happening. I feel like that description is really cheesy and doesn't do the book justice at all, but I'm not sure (1) how much I can say without accidentally spoiling something and (2) how else to say it. It just takes hold of you and refuses to let go until you've read every last word, and then leaves you hungry for more of it.

Long story short: I adored this book, every bit as much as the first one if not more, and I can't wait for book three! Absolutely read the Caster Chronicles.

Links: 
Caster Chronicles website
Kami Garcia's blog
Margaret Stohl's blog

NaNoWriMo By the Numbers

Yes, I'm one of those people. The people who are crazy enough to attempt to write a 50,000-word novel in a month, on top of senior thesis and college applications (*shudder*) and a trip to Orlando for NCTE/ALAN (*squee!!*).

Oh! I should talk about NCTE/ALAN! Because I have the best dad ever and he happens to be an English teacher, I get to go with him to the NCTE convention and ALAN in Orlando this year. I am unbelievably excited about this trip, and I promise to tell you all about it when I get back. With pictures, probably.

But anyway, NaNoWriMo. It's November 5th. Here's NaNo as of today, in numbers:

-Goal word count for today: 8,335
-My current word count: 8,209
-Dances I have performed in instead of writing today: 1 (and it was so much fun! If any of my fellow dancers are reading this, y'all rock <3)
-College applications that I should be working on instead of writing: 2
-Number of essays required by those applications: 9 (I know, 9 essays for 2 applications. Whaaat?)
-Pages I have read of Beautiful Darkness: 96 (and I love it!)
-How long I have left to meet today's word count and still get some essay-writing done: 3.5 hours

Off to write some more now! Whether it will be college application essays or NaNo remains to be determined.

Super Awesome Cover Love

This would be released on a Wednesday when I already have my WoW pick up. I considered scheduling this post to show up tomorrow, but I'm really excited about this, so I had to share it now. Without further ado, I present to you....the amazing-wonderful-awesome cover of The Demon's Surrender by the lovely Sarah Rees Brennan:

I am so excited for this book, you guys. I loveloveloved the first two books in the series and cannot wait to read this one! It's sad that the series will be coming to a close, because I'll miss these characters, but oh my goodness I simply MUST find out what happens.

(The Demon's Surrender, if you don't know, is the third book in the Demon's Lexicon trilogy.)

*wants this book. now.*

Waiting on Wednesday: Between the Sea and Sky

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week I'm waiting on Between the Sea and Sky by Jaclyn Dolamore. First, look at the cover. It's brand new (revealed on the author's blog on Monday) and it is preeeetty:

I love all the blue-and-white swirlies everywhere. Actually, I just love this whole cover. :)

You can see the full post on Jaclyn's website here, but this is what Goodreads has to say about Between the Sea and Sky:

For as long as Esmerine can remember, she has longed to join her sister as a siren, the highest calling a mermaid can have. But when her sister runs away to the mainland, reportedly to elope with a human, Esmerine is sent to retrieve her. 

Using magic to transform her tail into legs, she makes her way unsteadily through the streets of New Sweeling. There, she will come upon a friend she hasn't seen since childhood - Alandare, a boy, now a man, who belongs to a winged race of people. Together, Esmerine and Alandare put aside their differences to find her sister, and in the process discover a love that cannot be bound by land, sea, or air.
***
It sounds awesome and I can't wait to read it! Plus, I love the name Esmerine. Seriously awesome. We'll be waiting on this one until June 7, 2011.

What are you waiting on this week? Leave me a comment and I'll stop by to visit!

Review: I Am Number Four

Title: I Am Number Four
Author: Pittacus Lore
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 440
Series: Lorien Legacies #1
Rating: 4.5 stars
From the book jacket:
Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books - but we are real.

Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. We have lived among you without you knowing.

But they know.

They caught Number One in Malaysia. Number Two in England. And Number Three in Kenya.

I am Number Four.

I am next.

---------------

When I first picked up this book at Barnes & Noble and read the jacket cover, I thought it looked fascinating. Now that I've read it, I can say that I was absolutely right.

The author, using the pseudonym Pittacus Lore, wastes no time in plunging readers into the story of the Loric people and the Mogadorians. Lorien and Mogadore are two of the eighteen life-sustaining planets in the universe. The closest one to them is Earth. Nine Loric children and their guardians (called Cêpan) traveled to Earth after the Mogadorians destroyed their planet. These nine children are the future of Lorien, its only hope of someday being restored to what it once was. They are protected by a charm, so they can only be killed in order. One, Two, and Three are dead. Four - alias John Smith - knows he is next on the list.

There's one problem. John and his Cêpan, Henri, are living comfortably in Paradise, Ohio, and John has started fitting in for the first time ever. He's also come closer than ever to revealing who he really is, because he's receiving his Legacies - the "superpowers" that come naturally to Loric Garde (the ones who aren't Cêpan). He has a girlfriend, Sarah, a best friend, Sam, and a life that he actually doesn't want to leave. Enter the Mogadorians.

The action in this book was incredibly intense. Once I started, I did not want to stop - I had to keep going and find out what happened next. I'm not sure when Book 2 comes out (although according to the website, it will be called The Power of Six), but as soon as it does, I want to read it. I Am Number Four is coming out as a movie (starring Alex Pettyfer and Dianna Agron) on February 18, and I want to see it so I can see what they did with it, although rumor is it's quite different from the book. At any rate, the insane action in the book should translate really well to film.

But I digress. The plot was amazing, sure, but the characters were great. I love Henri, and Sarah, and Sam, and Six (S, S, S, haha), and of course John is the star of the show. I wish a couple of them had been developed a little more, but the cast is still amazing and they just came to life in my mind. Love, love, love.

Long story short: READ THIS BOOK. My one complaint is that the writing got to be a little more tell than show in one or two places and I wanted more of the characters, but aside from that, this is the best sci-fi action novel I've read in a long time and among the best novels overall that I've read recently, too. It's so awesome!

Links: 
Official Lorien Legacies website