In My Mailbox (7)

In My Mailbox is hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. It's a cool meme that lets book bloggers share what new books they got during the week.

As you may have noticed, I didn't even try to do an IMM with the books from NCTE/ALAN, but I have gotten a few other new books since then. The book links go to Goodreads.

For review: 

Falling Under by Gwen Hayes. Thanks to Goodreads First Reads for sending me this one! It sounds delightfully dark and mysterious, and the cover is gorgeous.

From the library:

Numbers by Rachel Ward. I picked up the sequel to this one at NCTE but hadn't read the first one, so I decided to fix that. I love the cover on this one, it looks really awesome, but I have no idea what it's about. (Yeah, I'm judging a book by its cover. We all do it.)

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White. I have heard so many good things about this book and I'm excited to finally get the chance to read it!









That's all for me this week! What did you get in your mailbox?

Nerdfighters!

Just a quick post today, you guys, but it's to share something really awesome.

I'm not sure how I missed out on knowing about nerdfighteria until now, but I discovered John and Hank Green's videoblog a few days ago and have since spent lots and lots of time watching their videos and being amused. (Yes, John Green as in the author, and his brother Hank.)

I really don't know how I didn't know about this sooner. It is awesome. And I kind of love these videos.

Check out their website or their Youtube channel if you haven't already, and watch some vlogbrothers videos. You won't regret it.

DFTBA, guys (Don't Forget to Be Awesome. Yes, that is a nerdfighter thing.)

Blog Hop!

It's been a while since I participated in the Book Blogger Hop (hosted by Crazy for Books), but I suppose I just felt like it today.

This week's question is, "What very popular and hyped book in the blogosphere did you NOT enjoy and how did you feel about posting your review?"

Fortunately, I haven't come a whole lot of books lately that I really disliked. Obviously there have been some that I enjoyed more than others, but most of the books I've read recently have been pretty enjoyable, and I generally choose not to review ones that I can't come up with something good about unless I have specifically agreed to review them. The most recent one that I can think of was Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin. It just was not my cup of tea. I can see what other people would have enjoyed about it, but it didn't work for me. And I felt okay with putting that review up, because hey - not every blogger likes every book, and I wasn't trashing the book or anything; I said why it didn't work for me and why I think somebody else might like it, and it did kind of redeem itself a bit at the end.

And that is my rather long-winded answer to this week's blog hop question! See you later, blogosphere!

Review: Glimmerglass

Title: Glimmerglass
Author: Jenna Black
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 294
Series: Faeriewalker #1
Rating: 4 stars
From the back cover: 
Dana Hathaway doesn't know it yet, but she's in big trouble. When her alcoholic mom shows up at her voice recital drunk, again, Dana decides she's had enough and runs away to find her mysterious father in Avalon: the only place on Earth where the regular, everyday world and the captivating, magical world of Faerie intersect. But from the moment Dana sets foot in Avalon, everything goes wrong, for it turns out she isn't just an ordinary teenage girl -- she's a Faeriewalker, a rare individual who can travel between both worlds, and the only person who can bring magic into the human world and technology into Faerie.

Soon, Dana finds herself tangled up in a cutthroat game of Fae politics. Someone's trying to kill her, and everyone seems to want something from her, from her newfound friends and family to Ethan, the hot Fae guy Dana figures she'll never have a chance with... until she does. Caught between two worlds, Dana isn't sure where she'll ever fit in or who can be trusted, not to mention if her world will ever be normal again.

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

Ahem. Shiny, glittery dots on the cover. Hee hee.

Okay, easily-distracted moment over. I loved the premise of Glimmerglass -- the idea that humans are very aware of faeries and vice versa and that they interact normally, but only in one city because that's the only place their worlds connect and they can't cross realms, is a really cool idea. And I love that being a Faeriewalker is something that can just happen and has a totally rational explanation; the novel avoids that contrived feeling that a lot of fantasy novels have. The whole concept of the fae/human politics is just awesome, too. Kudos to Jenna Black on an original fantasy piece that still very much plays into the traditional faerie mythology. Love love love.

And the story is well-executed too. Dana is an incredibly complex character, and her narrative is fun to read (except for the parts where she whines. I feel like almost all female protagonists in YA fantasy now are too whiny), and her emotions are real. As annoying as her obsession with Ethan can get, it's also very realistic and well-done. And Ethan - great character. His sister, Kimber, is also an absolutely wonderful character (j'adore Kimber, she's an excellent Best Friend character), and I really want to find out what's up with the Ethan-Kimber tension. Character development is excellent in Glimmerglass, even if I did get kind of bothered by Dana sometimes. My favorite characters were probably Finn and Keane - I hope we see lots more of them in Shadowspell.

The story is intriguing and fascinating. The fact that I didn't always like Dana very much made it hard to read in places, but on the whole I think Dana is a great character too - some of the stuff I disliked about her, I recognized as being pretty common to most teenage girls. But the worldbuilding is great, and we're not hit over the head with it -- it's just there, and it's lovely.

My recommendation here comes with a warning (can you guess? the narrator irked me sometimes), but I do recommend it. Glimmerglass is another wonderful addition to the growing collection of YA faerie novels with a really cool spin on the faerie world.

Links:
Jenna Black's website

Waiting on Wednesday: Ultraviolet

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

This week I'm waiting on Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson. I found this one while browsing on Goodreads and... well, here, I'll show you and then I'll explain:

Description from Goodreads:

Once upon a time there was a girl who was special.

This is not her story.

Unless you count the part where I killed her.

***

It's so short and it says so much. I really want to know who this girl was and who this person is who apparently killed her. The teeny-tiny little description draws me in and I already want to know what happened. Ultraviolet comes out May 5, 2011, and I will be oh-so-ready to read it.

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

One Final NaNoWriMo Post

I did it! I won! I finished! I wrote 50,000 words in 30 days!

For three consecutive years, I have participated in and won NaNoWriMo. It's incredibly exciting. The fact that I've done it twice before doesn't make it any less exciting and awesome this time around. Of course, my story isn't quite done yet; I may have hit the 50k mark, but the story part still has some wrapping-up to do. Maybe I'll get to that later tonight, but between now and then I must acknowledge reality and do some homework.

But anyway, yay for NaNo! How has it been for the rest of you NaNo-ers out there? If you're not done yet, do not despair! You still have nearly 5 hours (well, if you're on EST like I am) in which to finish, and 5 hours is plenty of time for writing. If you still have words to write... good luck! You can do it! If you did finish already, congratulations!! :)

Also, just a small reminder that Matched is out in stores today. And it is just waiting for you to read it.

Happy Tuesday!

Review: Matched

Title: Matched
Author: Ally Condie
Publisher: Dutton Books
Pages: 384
Series: Matched #1
Rating: 5 stars
From the book jacket: 
Society matched them, but love set them free.

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It's barely any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one...until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path no one else has ever dared follow - between perfection and passion.

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

I don't even know where to start. Matched was such an utterly amazing book that I really have no idea where to begin. So I suppose I'll begin by saying that I absolutely adore this cover. It is so gorgeous. Also, it shimmers. Love love love.

And the story! It's set up within a typical dystopian frame - "perfect" society, someone rebels. (I'm totally not trashing this frame, by the way - it's just part of the genre.) But it feels like it has so much more to it than that! The Society is so intricate, so well-developed. It just kind of makes you shiver with how these are all realistic people acting so...machine, but still with their human characteristics. I'll stop now before I go off into my whole spiel about how much I love dystopian fiction, but suffice it to say that the Society in Matched is one of the best.

The background is perfect: just add characters. Honestly, I feel like the characters could have been boring as all get-out and the book would still have been semi-readable because the backdrop is so good, but Ally Condie did so much better. Cassia is one of the most real protagonists I've encountered, especially with this kind of set-up. And Xander and Ky....oh, man. I love Xander and all, but Ky is so....ahh. I would not want to have to choose. Poor Cassia.

Okay, I recognize that I'm rambling. I shall attempt to stop that. Basically, Cassia gets Matched to Xander, so the two of them will be married...but then, for just a moment, Cassia sees Ky's face on her Matching screen. Cue forbidden love and all sorts of intrigue.

The plot sounds kind of basic, but the execution...I could read pages and pages of absolute nothing, as long as it was written as beautifully as this book. I love love love Ally Condie's writing. And when paired with an awesome dystopian society (er, Society) and some amaaazing characters...well, you're in for a novel you don't want to miss. My only complaint was that I wanted to see more development of the minor characters, but really, I felt like even they were well-rounded.

Long story short, I love this book. Definitely, definitely read it.


Matched is in stores November 30, 2010 (that's tomorrow, for those of you reading this on the day I'm posting it). I recommend finding a copy.

me with Ally Condie at ALAN

Links: 
Ally Condie's website/blog