So the pdf file Scholastic provided for Pip Barlett’s Guide to Magical Creatures takes a while to load each page thanks to all of Maggie’s amazing illustrations so I’m reading that at home and Throne of Glass on the train.
Good News! Well good news for me. Lair of Dreams, book two of the Diviner’s series by Libba Bray is actually going to happen! Last November, I wrote about how the publishing date kept getting pushed back but Miss Bray confirmed on her blog that, Lair of Dreams has indeed been finished and will indeed be released this year! WOOHOO! I’ll forgive that the release date is even later then the last time I checked. Now the date is August 25 instead of July but hey what’s another month when I’ve already waited 3 years?
Bask in it’s Glory!!
So why am I so excited about this book? Well, the first book, The Diviner’s was amazing! Evie O’Neill has been shipped off to New York City to live with her uncle in the middle of the Swinging Twenties. It’s supposed to be a punishment but how could living in the greatest city in the world among the speakeasies, jazz clubs and Ziegfeld follies be anything but a reward. Evie gets caught up in a strange murder, when police consult with her uncle who is an expert in the occult. Soon she is using her strange power to help solve the murder and meeting other exceptional young people with powers of their own. It kinda has a little X-men type vibe. Like any moment, they are going to ban together and use their powers to fight evil!
The setting is great. All the optimism of the twenties. The characters are all likable and real. Miss Bray doesn’t shy away from the race and social divide of the characters and make it part of the story. There is so much going on but it doesn’t feel cluttered. It also has so much to build on that I really can’t wait to see where Miss Bray takes it. So finally! Finally! I’ll get to find out! In the meant time people, Go read The Diviners before the Lair of Dreams comes out.
Controversy aside, I’m really excited to read about an adult Scout and the cover is very pretty.
So I think we all know this was going to happen. The show Game of Thrones was going to end before the final book is published. However, I think many of us, were hoping that the show’s ending would be different then the books. It’s doesn’t seem like it will be. Show runners, Dan Weiss and David Benioff confirmed the show is heading towards the same endgame as George is with the book. I’m not sure how I feel about this. In one way, we are going to miss out on George’s meticulously detailed story telling and no longer will have the benefit of knowing what’s coming on the show. On the other hand, it means we get to experience the show with a fresh take that we couldn’t before since we had an idea of where the characters stories go. So there’s good and bad in both options. First we will get a condensed version of the story and outcome and then we will get a more detailed account of how Westeros was won or lost. And let’s be honest, I’m going to watch the show and read the final books anyway so why stress how I find out how it ends? I have seen a movie and then read the book after to see how they compared so this isn’t anything new to me or to many other people. So I guess after typing this all out, I feel alright about this.
So how do you feel about this? Are you upset that the books will now be spoiled? Will you still read them when they come out? Or are you like me, who’s now just going to go with the flow? Let us know in the comments below.
The first book in a spin-off series from the Fallen Kingdom Series. It takes place partly in Mytica and partly in Toronto and apparently that will all make sense.
So this is a cute book. Perfect for kids who have just finished Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket and are looking for something new. It has many of the same kid fantasy novels. Three siblings who are move from orphange to orphange until they land in Cambridge Falls. There they travel back and forth in time thanks to a mysterious book. Soon they meet an evil Countess, a badly dress Wizard, a Giant and Dwarves. Kate is the older sister, who carries more responsibility then one at 14 should. Michael is a dwarf obsessed nerd of a brother and Emma is a tough as nails baby sister, who doesn’t take anyone’s crap. They of course find out that they are more then what they seem because that’s how these types of books go and end up going on wild adventure that will either save the world or end it because isn’t that how all adventures work? It’s fun and cute and at times quite humorous but also pretty predictable. I good start to a series that I think will be pretty entertaining but the next book will have to wait as I have a few books on my nook and iPad that demand attention.
And we are back. Well, I am. As I’m writing this Kate is on a plane on her way home. New Orleans was great! We both had a lot of fun. It’s such a chill city. It was a lot of fun walking around and seeing the sights. I do hope we get to go back again some day.
But back to business. The movie adaption of Insurgent by Veronica Roth comes out tomorrow. I have mixed feelings about the movie of Divergent, I overall liked it but I have reservations about this one. First the trailer makes it pretty clear they did some major changes and I’m not sure if that’s going to be good or bad. Insurgent was a hard book to read because Tris suffers from PTSD and no one tries to help her and it was beyond frustrating. I’m not sure how that will play on screen or if they will sort of gloss over it kinda like they did with Katniss in Mockingay Part 1. I guess I’ll find out when I see it later this or next week.
There are other YA movie adaptations coming soon that I’m pretty excited. Of course Mockingjay Part 2. That’s definitely going to be brutal. Moviefone highlighted a few that are in the works. Some that I knew of like The 5th Wave and Mrs. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. The former should make a good movie and the latter, well hopefully with Tim Burton at the helm it will be better then the book. I didn’t know that Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Grasshopper Jungle, Immortal Rules and Shadow and Bone have all been optioned. That’s awesome! I think both Kate and I have said how much we loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. That will be really interesting to see how that plays out on the big screen. Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa is excellent Vampire Dystopian novel. I also think that Smoke and Bone by Leigh Bardugo is being produced by David Heyman of Harry Potter fame. So I have a lot faith that will be well done. And Edgar Wright is attached to direct Grasshopper Jungle? Yes please! I know we have talked a lot about this book lately and it’s flaws but it was an entertaining book and I actually think if done right will make a better movie.
So book fans, we have a lot of good books being made into movies in the upcoming years. Let’s hope that they are all more like Harry Potter and Hunger Games and less like The Giver or Percy Jackson.
P.S. Not mentioned in the article but Maggie Stiefvater’s Scorpio Races and Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor and Park have also been optioned. I’m not sure where Scorpio Races is in development but I do know that Miss Rowell was asked to write the screenplay for Eleanor and Park and well I can’t wait for both of these!
One last thing on the whole Andrew Smith fiasco. Maggie Stiefvater said it best on twitter.
https://twitter.com/mstiefvater/status/576773638512340992
https://twitter.com/mstiefvater/status/576773905878269952
https://twitter.com/mstiefvater/status/576774062812372992
https://twitter.com/mstiefvater/status/576774253162397696
https://twitter.com/mstiefvater/status/576774333261078528
https://twitter.com/mstiefvater/status/576774565411610624
The author who said that Maggie was “more familiar with manly car things” was a female author. It’s also a pretty benign comment that probably wasn’t meant to be sexist but could be taken as that, just as Smith’s comments were. It goes both ways. That’s why we have to talk about. Sexism has become such a part of culture that we don’t even truly realize we do it.
I’ve never read anything by Marilynne Robinson. It seemed time.
Next Week Kate and I will be going to New Orleans for the first time ever! To say we are excited would be an understatement. To celebrate our upcoming trip we are going to share some of our favorite books that place in The Big Easy. I’ll go first with the series, Chronicles of Nick. It currently has five books Infinity, Invincible, Infamous, Inferno and Illustion, with the sixth book, Instinct coming out on March 31. 
The Chronicles of Nick is actually a spin-off series from Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter series. I haven’t read them yet but there are many characters cross over between the two series. Nick Gautier (that’s Go-Shay, it’s the Cajun pronunciation and don’t forget it)is a streetwise kid from New Orleans. He’s the only child of Cherise Gautier, who had Nick when she was 14, the age Nick is now. Nick thinks he knows what’s what. He’s starting high school as a scholarship kid at a fancy private school. He is constantly bullied for his lack of finances and his forced wearing of ugly Hawaiian shirts but Nick makes do. Then everything changes when one day, he’s hanging out with his friends and well they try to kill him. He is saved by a mysterious warrior, Kyrian and is dragged into the world of the Dark-Hunters. Nick’s world will never be the same.
Nick is one of my favorite male YA characters. He’s so sarcastic that who could give Percy Jackson a run for his money. He always has a comeback and really it’s hard to get him to shut up. It’s really surprising that he doesn’t get slapped more often. With the meeting of Kyrian, who is a Dark-Hunter, a warrior fights a race that fights the dark forces. He soon finds the world is filled with demons, werewolves, vampires and worse and by worse, Nick himself. You see, Nick is the son of the Malachai. The most powerful demon that can singularly take down the world. There is only supposed to be one Malachai at once but his father has done all he can to stay away, even get arrested and jailed. Throughout the series, Nick is fighting his destiny to become the Malachai and destroy the world. The dark forces that created his kind will do anything to turn him and his friends will do anything to keep him, him.
In first five books, Nick has had to battle of Zombies of his classmates, vampires,and demons. He’s been kidnapped and taking to the demon realm. He’s also been taking to an alternate universe where he isn’t constantly trying to run for his life. With the help of his friends Caleb, Koda, Ash, Bubba and Mark he has battled the worst and kept his sarcastic sense of humor in tact. Now that he has accepted who he is he has to fight even harder to fight his own destiny. It hasn’t been easy since many of his friends have once been his enemy. For instance, Koda his girlfriend was originally sent to kill him and honestly may still if he turns towards the destruction of the world. Caleb is a demon that was tasked to protecting, Nick and sorta hated him for it. So yeah, it’s been rough. Despite all the darkness, Kenyon keeps things rather light and fun. I laugh so hard when I read them and I can’t wait for the next one.
New Orleans is the perfect backdrop for the series. NOLA, is known for it’s ghosts and haunting, voodoo queens that it’s no stretch of the imagination that there might be a bar run by werewolves or witches run classes in the french quarters. Or that it’s a doorway to other realms and there is a goblin market. I’m pretty excited to see where Nick hangs out. Have beignets at Cafe du Monde and walk around St. Louis Cemetery. I’m really excited to go to New Orleans and looking forward to what Nick and company do next.
2 Women, So Many Books 