Author Archives: Bethlylou

Review: Losing at Love by Jennifer Iacopelli

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This was a good follow up to Game. Set. Match. With the French Open now behind them, Penny, Indy, and Jasmine look to make the quick turn around of Wimbledon.  Probably the most underrated difficult thing to do in any sport, go from the super slow clay courts of Roland Garros to the lightning fast grass courts of Wimbledon.  True, over the years, The All England Club has slowed down their courts in an attempt to encourage more rallies but it’s still unbelievable achievement to win the French Open and Wimbledon back to back.  Borg did it multiple times, Nadal has done it twice and Federer only once.  Ok, so you get the point.

All three girls are in very different places.  Indy had a successful French Open, in more ways than one.  She won the juniors and got Jack. Penny beat the World number 1 again but sprained her ankle in the process.  And poor Jasmine, crashed out the first round of the juniors and now is being pushed to play college instead of going pro.  All of their careers are going in different directions and the stakes are getting higher.  How does one balance friendships when your playing for thousands of dollars in the most prestigious tournament in the world?

Now, there are a few things I do have a problem with from a tennis fan perspective.  Indy and Jasmine have to qualify to make the women’s doubles field but when Indy is given a wildcard, she pulls out.  The reasoning is her coach and agent think that she can’t play qualifying and focus on her singles.  For someone who has followed tennis as long as I have I feel this in inaccurate, for lack of a better word.  Young players are often encouraged to play doubles when they are younger.  It gives them more match play, a chance to get real life experience of playing in tournaments.  It gives young players a chance to compete and learn how to compete on a more consistent basis while their singles game improves.  Winning is winning.  However, I understand from a drama point of view, why Miss Iacopelli would decide to go this way and really, I’m being nit picky here.

I do like the friendships.  I like that they are messy.  I like that for the most part, when they do fight, it’s not about boys but about their games.  They all may have dramatic love lives but for all three of them their tennis comes first.  I think it’s important to show that girls can be ambitious, that they can have drive but also have the love and respect of a man.  I hope that there are more of these because now that Wimbledon is over I can’t wait to see what happens at the US Open.

Reasons I love The Diviners by Libba Bray

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Featured imageLet’s try something different in this review.  Let’s just talk about what I love about this book and this series (now that I have finished Lair of Dreams!!!)

1. Evie O’Neill is the Elephants Eyebrows, which I assume in 20’s slang for the Bees Knees.  She’s joyful, funny, sarcastic, brave and yes a bit spoiled but at her core she wants to help and make difference. If that happens to get her name in the papers so be it.

2. All of the female characters are awesome.  Mabel, Evie and Theta are all completely different.  I mean seriously, I don’t think you could find different girls.  Well, you probably could but as different as they are they compliment each other.  Yes, they fight, yes they have their falling outs but when it matters, they are there for each other.

3. The guys are not bad either.  Sam, Jericho, Henry and Memphis all have book boyfriend potential.  You have bad boy Sam with a heart of gold.  Studious Jericho who is more then he appears to be and mysterious Memphis with a poets heart and brother’s loyalty.  Henry is the class clown.

4. Libba Bray does a great job of setting a tone of 20’s optimism with darkness and foreboding of something big that is about to happening.

5. You can tell that a lot of research went in to writing of this novel.  Everything from the tone, to the slang to the description of clothes and city to the politics and social issues that really brings you into the time and truly makes for a lush reading.

6. I sorta can’t believe that I’ve made it this far without mentioning their super powers! The story revolves around a group of 17-18 years old who start to discover they have strange powers.  Like, walking in dreams, reading objects for a person’s past, seeing into the future or healing the sick.  It’s like an X-Men origin story!

7.The big bad is truly terrifying but nothing is truly terrifying to me then someone who truly believes that what they are doing is for good even though it is bat shit crazy!

8.Speakeasies, night clubs, Follies and so much more of the Roaring 20’s.

9.For all the optimism of the 20’s, Bray is not afraid to touch on the less happy things from the era, like racism, the Chinese immigration laws, religious fervor and eugenics movement.

10. The diversity of characters.  Memphis is black and Henry is gay.  Not to mention it’s filled with characters from all spectrums of life in smaller roles as well and more of those characters to come in the sequel.

Review: The Walls Between Us by Nova Ren Suma

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Featured imageThere are some authors that other authors just swoon over.  Nova Ren Suma is one of them and I really don’t get it.  Her prose is quite beautiful but I’ve always had a hard time getting into her books and they are not that memorable after I have read them. The only thing I remember about the other book I have read by her, Imaginary Girls was that it had a good ending and I think one of the girls died for the other.  The common thread of these books is that her characters are shrouded in mystery.  I’m not sure what I’m missing.  It’s not that I don’t like her books but I don’t find them to be as wonderful as I they are supposed to be.  Then again, reading is subjective.  What someone likes someone else might not.

The Walls Around Us is the story of three girls.  Amber is in a juvenile dentition center for girls, serving time for a crime she may or may not have committed with little chance of getting out anytime soon.  Violet is a ballet dancer, who is on the verge of getting everything she has ever wanted.  She just graduated high school and is about to start at Julliard for more training.  Orianna is the link between the two of them.  As the story unfolds, we discover who did what and who is innocent and who is guilty.

Major spoilers ahead Continue reading →

Pop Culture Homework Assignment for Kate

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So Kate,

I’ve thought long and hard about what your assignment was going to be.  At first I thought I would assign you a series that I’ve recommended to you.  I know over the years I have given you books that you haven’t read or finished but I’ve sort of lost track of what you have read and what you haven’t.  So then I thought maybe I would assign you to a new series I have read that you would like but I wanted to assign you a series that has been completed.  Which narrows things down quite a bit.  I’ve gone all over the pros and cons of each series and couldn’t come up with a clear favorite.  So, then I thought maybe I would assign you to finish a series that I know you haven’t finished like the Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare but I think it’s only the last book in both of those series left for you to read and that’s not enough for summer.  Plus, that might be kind of mean, since I know why you haven’t finished the Mortal Instruments and I respect your decision not to.  It wouldn’t be right for me to force you to do so that idea was brushed aside.  Then I got a brilliant idea, thanks to twitter.  Well, a tweet from Rainbow Rowell.  Now, I don’t actually remember what she actually said or what it was about but she is usually thoughtful and clever. It made me think, have you read any of her books? I didn’t think so and well that needs to be corrected.

So, Kate your Pop Culture Homework Assignment is to read all four of her books in order of them being published (if possible).  All of her books are standalone with the only thing common with all of them is the state of Nebraska.  What I like about them is that even though they are in the most romances, they never feature your classic beauties.  All her leads are curvy, tall, have big foreheads and such.  They are very much set in reality with characters who are dealing with the same issues as you and I that they seem so real and well, since most take place in the Nebraska there are a lot of Midwestern humor that only those of us who grew up here could really appreciate.  You’ll  start with Attachments and get to know Lincoln and Beth (what a lovely name!) then go on to Eleanor and Park and probably cry over both of them and then laugh and cry with Levi and Cath in Fangirl and then end your summer with Landline with Georgie and Neal.  I know you will love all of them and I can’t wait to read and hear all your observations.

There you go, get to work.

Highs and Lows of Fandoms by Cassandra Clare and Maggie Stiefvater

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I’ve actually never really been apart of a fandom per se.  There are a lot of books, movies, TV shows that I love and care about.  Despite my love for Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Magnus Bane, Katniss Everdeen and more, I’ve never signed up to any message boards or read fan fictions.  I may have time to time read other fans blogs and theories about why a certain character did this or what they think will happen next but never really participated in it personally.  Once upon a time, I was very involved in a i guess you could call a  fandom for tennis player, Andy Roddick.  Do athletes have fandoms?  I started posting on a fan site called Roddickrocks.com.  Soon, I was a board moderator and then I started writing recaps of Andy’s matches and got more involved from there.  I spent a lot of time on Roddickrocks.  It was the first site I checked in the morning and the last before I went to bed.  It was almost a job, keeping up with the demands.  After a year though, the site splintered.  I have forgotten the exact details but some of us wanted to take the site in one direction and others wanted to keep as is.  Feelings were hurt and relationships severed.  A few of us started a new fan site but it didn’t last very long.  I think the official reason in most of our minds was that we all got too busy. Most of us were in school or had real jobs and that started to take priority but really, as much as we tried, we could never recreate what we used to have.

Now that I think about it, this might be why I’m not much of a joiner online but really just a lurker.  It’s not how I want to spend majority of my time online, these days but also it can get rather negative pretty quickly.  I follow many authors on twitter and tumblr and there I get the gist of what is going on in the fandoms they created.  I can see the other creative things my fellow readers are making and read thoughts and theories without have to truly have to participate.  I’m not sure what that says about me but I do think it has lessens some of my online stress . Fandoms are great at uniting  people from all over the world with like interests but it can also be toxic.  I don’t regret the time I spent on Roddickrocks because it introduced me to some of the best people in the world that I still am friends with but I definitely do miss the negativity that surrounded the ending.

So why am I bringing this up?  An author I follow, Cassandra Clare, decided to take a break from social media after the fandom she inspired sort of turned on her.  Her books, The Mortal Instruments have been turned into a movie and now is being turned into a show.  There was apparently a rift between fans who loved the old cast and fans who love the new cast.  Clare decided not to take sides and was threatened by fans for it.  Recently, she with another favorite author of mine, Maggie Stiefvater did an interview about the good and bad of fandoms and it’s a great read.  They talk about how fandoms have changed.  How twitter and tumblr help and hamper them.  How they both want to accessible to fans but being too assessable comes with a price.  How they are now treated by fans.  They also talk about how that women in general are treated.  It’s a well thought out discussion that I think is very valuable to read.

So please read it here and leave comment below about what you think?  What are experiences in being apart of a fandom?  Are like me and just lurk on the outside or do you actively participate?  Sound off below.

Review: Penryn and the End of Days by Susan Ee

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I was first turned onto Angelfall by our friend Stephanie back in 2012.  Like her, I was immediately taken with Penryn and Raffe and their struggle to keep their families together litereally and figurely.  Her mother schizophrenic and her sister is in a wheelchair.  After her father left them, it’s been up to Penryn to take care of them.  It was hard enough before Angels descended on the earth an caused a massive breakdown of civilization.  For Raffe, he just wants to stop his people from an all out Civil War.  Raffe and Penryn team up as they help each other and discovered that the Angel’s appearance of Earth may not be divine intervention after all. Spoilers Ahead! Continue reading →