The first book in the series was meh but I like the author so I’m giving book two a chance.
What I’m Reading Now: Rogue Wave by Jennifer Donnelly
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Review: The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare
Magisterium: The Iron Trial is basically Holly Black and Cassandra Clare’s Harry Potter. It might be unfair to say so but let’s face facts. It’s about a boy, Callum or Call as he likes to be called. Who gets into a mysteries school, the Magisterium, for young Mages. He becomes friends with Aaron and Tamara that will help him on this journey. Oh and there is a mask wearing villian that is out to destory death. Sort of sound familiar? Similiarities in literature is nothing new and may not be surprising considering that Cassandra Clare wrote Harry Potter fanfiction before she started writing about Shadowhunters but for everything that is the same they are enough differences to make it worth reading. There is going to be a lot of spoilers after the cut. Continue reading
What I’m Reading Now: The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare
I love both Holly Black and Cassandra Clare but they do have different writing styles. Let’s see how this goes.
So What is New Adult?
I just finished reading A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas and it was good but I’m holding off posting my review until closer to it’s May 5 released date as request of the publisher. (If anyone is interested in, you can download the first four chapters on your Nook, Kindle or other devices for free. I would recommend it) However, that hasn’t stopped me from reading what other people are saying about it. In some of the few reviews I have read, I was surprised to read that many people are calling this book a New Adult title instead of Young Adult. I mean what’s the difference. According to good old Wikipedia.
New Adult (NA) fiction is a developing genre of fiction with protagonists in the 18–25 age bracket. St. Martin’s Press first coined the term in 2009, when they held a special call for “…fiction similar to YA that can be published and marketed as adult—a sort of an ‘older YA’ or ‘new adult’.” New Adult fiction tends to focus on issues such as leaving home, developing sexuality, and negotiating education and career choices
Well that clears things up. So, it’s YA but marketing to adults. As for focus of issues of home, developing sexuality and education seem to be pretty normal topics for YA to me. I’ll give them career choices though. So is this a marketing ploy? Is it an easier way for parents, librarians and booksellers to recommend books that are age appropriate? For readers to find more books they like? Or just another way to put books into catergory?
As for A Court of Thorns and Roses the only difference between it and other YA fantasy novels is well sex. This book contained some of the most detailed sex scenes I’ve read for a novel directed for young readers. That being said, it also leaves a lot to the readers imagination but goes much farther then other authors have. If I was still a bookseller, I wouldn’t recommend it for tweens or younger teens not because I don’t think they could handle it but I would be afraid of the parents reaction. As for me, I’m also an adult who is not at least bit embarrassed to read YA or even children’s lit. It doesn’t bother me if people see me browsing the Teen aisle or reading Cassandra Clare on the train. Let them think of me what they want. I’ll read what I want, whether I was target audience or not. I guess that not many people feel the same about it as I do as there articles and articles about whether or not it’s ok for Adults to read YA or not. I guess New Adult, might assuage some of the fears of people looking down on them because while New Adult may have my cover many of the same themes as YA is supposedly more sophisticated then YA. RIght?
So I guess I go back to my original question, what really is New Adult Literature? Is it just YA for the college years and older? A new way for publishers to make money? A guilt free pass for adults to read YA? A legitimate new genre? Sound off in the comments and tell me what you think.
What I’m Listening to Now: All the Light We Cannot See
First Beth read it, now it is my turn!
What I’m Reading Now: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Beauty and the Beast but with Faeries!
Update: Mime Order
So, I have finished The Mime Order. And, everything, everything, everything in this post is going to be full of spoilers for both The Mime Order and the first book in the series The Bone Season.
If you have read the books, please join us for discussion and wild speculation in the comments! Some of my thoughts about the book after the cut.
Review: Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay
This was a really different tale than I typically read. Set in what is a fantasy-version of Medieval China, it follows the lives of a number different people who have a huge impact on the course of the empire. The tale starts with Shen Dai who is spending his official mourning period following the death of his father at the site of his father’s worst memory, a battle field at the edge of the empire which was so devastating that many of the slain weren’t even able to be buried. He spends the mourning period burying as many of the dead as he can. This ends up having tremendous consequences for him because he is honored for his work with a gift of 200 of the strongest and most beautiful horses. This is cause for some alarm. He’ll probably be killed for these horses. So, he has to figure out how to navigate the world he’s been out of for two years without getting killed.
Meanwhile, his lover in the capitol has been taken as a concubine by a rival. That rival has moved up in the Palace ranks and is a hugely influential adviser to the king and his brother is that rival’s most trusted adviser. Additionally, his sister has been raised to a princess and has been sent to marry a border tribe leader to cement a treaty.
And, that’s not even half of it. The story follows the lives of Shen Dai, the rival, his brother, his sister, the concubine, an assassin, the heir to the throne, army leaders, border leaders and outcasts and the Emperor’s favorite wife. All of these threads weave in and out of each other in a personal tale about a crisis within the whole empire.
This was an immensely fun listen and I am happy to have read it. Although, it is full of an incredible amount of detail so I ended up listening to some parts of it more than once. (As it turns out, when it snows heavily during your evening commute, you have a lot of time for listening and re-listening to audio books.) If you’re looking for a break from teen romance, I recommend this!
What I’m Reading Now: The Replaced by Kimberly Derting
I think I’m going to have to go back and read the first book, The Taking before The Replaced comes out because I totally forgot so many things.
This Month in Reality…and the Oscar Goes to…
When Beth and I talked about what to do for this month, I got really excited about travel memoirs. But, then, everyone in the Northeast is probably dreaming of warm beaches and sunny locales. (Although, it has been sunny this week. I love the look of the sun on clean, white snow. It makes the world so bright and beautiful. Of course, this beauty has also been accompanied by dangerously cold temperatures and wind. Win some, lose some.) But, then we got to talking about something that has always been a fun night for us: The Oscars. It is fun to watch people win, the speculate and to discuss the films that we saw (and didn’t see). We’ve been known in the past to drink a lot of wine, make and eat a lot of food and be pretty irreverent in our cheering and jeering (which, this year, we’ll be doing over FaceTime.)
In honor of this glorious night of fancy dresses and finger food, I give you the low-down on three books that inspired Oscar-nominated films. All of these books I listened to rather than read and all of them came from the Buffalo and Erie County Public libraries. Go, Library Card!
This is the tale of Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York who is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Written by Northup after he was rescued and returned home this memoir is a painful inside look into the institution of slavery. It is every bit as harrowing as you expect it to be but that is what makes this such an important piece of history. Slavery was very real and it destroyed many, many lives and we still live with its legacy. The audio book was read by Louis Gossett, Jr. Northup’s strength and courage are inspiring but the situation that he finds himself in is utterly despicable. This book is totally worth the read.
I wasn’t sure I was going to like this when I picked it up because I remember being only a little into the film. This biography follows the life of John Forbes Nash, Jr., a brilliant mathematician who had a promising career ahead of him until he fell ill with schizophrenia. The first part of the book details his early life and schooling. He’s great at math, he gets scholarships and it becomes apparent that he’s good enough that he has a serious shot at a prestigious academic career in mathematics full of groundbreaking research and accolades. He works for the Rand corporation. He fathers a child. He has homosexual encounters that cause some upset in McCarthy era America. He gets married and fathers a second child. He holds a position and almost receives tenure at MIT. He is, like most geniuses, a lot a bit arrogant and kind of a dick. He’s a possible candidate for the Fields medal ( which is like the Nobel of math). And then his illness strikes. Much of the rest of the book chronicles the harrowing struggle that is schizophrenia and how he, and the people around him, worked to manage it, manage him, or sometimes, failed to manage either. This was a terrible tale of losing ground, gaining ground and then losing it again. Towards the end of the book, when Nash’s work in game theory was being considered for a Nobel prize, it was also a tale of how people tried to use his illness as an excuse to not give him the prize. This was a harrowing picture of mental illness and how the mentally ill are perceived. It did have a small light at the end of the tunnel, though. Nash seems to have had a long remission from schizophrenia later in life which allowed him to return to his work and he did receive the Nobel memorial prize for Economics in 1994. This is an important book for how it sheds light on schizophrenia and perceptions of the mentally ill.
This book broke me open put me back together and then broke me again. A memoir of Cheryl Strayed’s 20s in which she gets married, loses her mother, graduates from college, does a lot of drugs, gets a divorce and hikes the Pacific Crest Trail had me laughing and sobbing and laughing again. I spent a lot of time texting and calling my mother after reading this book, so grateful I was to have that opportunity. I like hiking memoirs (and travel books in general) so I enjoyed the descriptions of the hike and her monster backpack. This story was beautiful and poignant and I’m so happy to have read it. Unlike the two previous books, I feel like I can say that I enjoyed this one. (The other two I’m happy to have read but I can’t really say that I enjoyed them.)
We hope that if you have Oscar plans that they are enjoyable and that your favorites win!
