Simon, Baz, Penelope, Agatha and Shepard. Let’s see how this all ends.
What I’m Reading Now: Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell
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Beth’s Favorite Books of 2019
It’s that time of the year.where we all take a moment and look back at all the books that we read this year and try to narrow it down to our favorites. I read 42 books this year which is actually less then normal but that’s okay. It’s quality over quantity right? How do you pick a favorite? Do you go by the book that you just coulnd’t put down? The one you wanted to reread as soon as you finished? The one that gave you the most feels good or bad? All of the above? It’s really hard to choose but I will do my best.
The list is in the order I read them this year as I’m chickening out in saying which one if my favorite favorite. It was too hard to choose.
- On The Come Up by Angie Thomas – This was honest and heart breaking as a young girl finds her voice through many challenges.
- Seafire by Natalie C. Parker – Girl Pirates. That’s it. I mean what else do you want in a book? Besides some great characters. Interesting world building and twist and turns around every corner. The sequel Steel Tide is just as good.
- Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee – I really wished this wasn’t a standalone because they are so many adventures awaiting Min. Such a fun story and adventure.
- The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson – This book was a couple of years old but I never got around to reading. I’m glad that I finally did because I couldn’t put the trilogy down.
- Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell – What do you get when a Witch, a vampire and a former wizard with wings and a tail take a road trip? The coolest car ride ever!
- Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo – Traumatic and harrowing but a good mystery. I’m truly intrigued on where it goes from here.
- Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater – Ronan Lynch is one of my favorite Maggie characters so I was pretty sure I was going to like this book but I surprised at how much I felt for Declan Lynch and new character Jordan.
- The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black– No one does fairies like Holly Black and the finale to your the Folk of the Air trilogy proves why.
What were your favorite books of 2019? Comment down below and let us know what books we need to add to our stacks.
Books I Want to be Made in a Movie or TV Show
The last couple of days I’ve been home sick with a bad cold and while that sucks it has given me time to think about what books I’ve read would make good movies or TV shows. Why I was thinking this I don’t know. I guess I was looking through all the options you can watch TV and movies now. Netflix, Hulu AppleTV, DisneyPlus, traditional cable, etc. It seems like there is an endless number of places that need contact to fill so why not give a few suggestions.
- Genuine Fraud by E. Lockhart Who doesn’t love a good suspense mystery. I would be interested in seeing how a filmmaker would take the unusual structure of the narrative as it’s told in part real time and partly in reverse. I think it would be true challenge to balance all the nuances right and not let too much away to soon. This would work both as a movie or as a serialized series.
- Seafire by Natalie C. Parker I could see this as a movie but I think it would work best as a HBO prestige series. There is so many aspects of the story that a movie wouldn’t be able to get to it all. Not to mention, I think TV would be more willing to have an an all diverse female cast then movies would and it would have to be HBO because to do it justice it’s going to have to have a big budget. It would be great because who wouldn’t want to all a Girl Pirate Crew take on the patriarchy of the seas? Mad Max Fury Road but on a boat. It has a lot of potential.
- Dread Nation by Justina Ireland An historical drama with zombies Really what else do you need?. It may take place after the Civil War but it is relevant today as it ever was. Racism, Sexism and Classicism all play a part in the series. So far it only has one book out. The sequel comes out early next year. If HBO is still looking for a “What if the Civil War had ended differently” drama now that it’s ill advised Confederate show is dead because D&D of Game of Thrones left for Netflix. This is it. The Civil war didn’t end because one side won over the other but because the dead came back to life. Slaves were freed, sort of. They are now used to stop the Zombie attacks It can examine how the US is different and how slavery plays a part without the messiness of the other show’s premise. Not to mention Jane is an excellent protagonist
- Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. I can’t be the only one who has been disappointed in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them movies. The first one was okay. Entertaining but the second one was a big ol’ mess. I’m not even going to mention the Johnny Depp situation. So why not make a movie of Rainbow’s Simon and Baz series? All the magical elements are there. Wizards and witches and mythological creatures. Magic schools. A mysterious and powerful villain. Rivals turned lovers. A real LGBTQ love story that is front and center and not just in context or added later. The second book expands on the world but going on a road trip through the US and series hi-jinks ensue. I feel like it’s the remedy for the bad Harry Potter content we’ve been getting lately.
- A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro Yes, I’m aware we have had a lot of Sherlock Holmes adaptations recently but we haven’t had one like this one. Not only is our Holmes a teenage girl and our Watson a teenage boy but it takes place in a world where the novels exist and Holmes and Watson were real people. It’s a fun and breezy mysteries that would make excellent movies or TV shows.
- The Diviner’s by Libba Bray This one would have to be a series. The amount of detail and length of each novel could not be properly shown in a movie. How lush it would look. All the glitz and glamour of 1920’s New York. Again, it may be a period piece but it is so relevant to today. It tackles racism, sexism, class and immigration with the supernatural element in the background. Not to mention all of our main characters have their own X-men like powers! The possibilities are endless.
- Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake Game of Thrones type of series but from an all female perspective. You get all the court intrigue and magical elements without all the messiness that Game of Thrones had. Women can be just a ruthless. They have to be when to become Queen you must kill your sisters to do it. I would love to this on big or small screen.
- The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow Okay, I want to this as a movie only if Tilda Swinton plays Talis. The sassiest, homicidal AI in history of Artificial Intelligence. The world was in constant war so Talis was like let’s go all Medieval on you. I’m taking your heirs as Hostages. If you declare war, I kill them. That’s oversimplification but it’s awesome and tense and has LGBTQ love triangle in it that is just too good to ignore. This should be made into a movie but again only if Tilda Swinton is involved. I won’t accept anything less.
So there are few books I think need to get the big or small treatment. What do you all think> What book or book series do you want seen into a movie or TV show?
Review: Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
So what happens after the hero vanquishes the villain and wins the heart of the fair maiden? They live happily ever after right? Well do they really? Anyone who has ever seen the Musical Into the Woods knows that yea, fairy tales don’t always live happily ever after. A better comparison might be the Play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, that doesn’t exactly portrays Harry in the best light. I mean seriously, no Harry kinda grows up to be a dick but I digress. Simon Snow didn’t really believe he would survive the HumDrum but he did and to so he gave up his powers and has wings and a tail. He moved into a flat with Baz and Penelope and went to college. Baz and Simon are together and Penelope is still her best friend. Agatha is off living the good life in California. Everything should be good. They won! So, why is everyone unhappy. Penelope’s solution is a road trip. She thinks that Agatha is in trouble and what better way to get everyone out of their funk then go on a mission to save her and drive across the Great US of A. The problem is they have no idea how big the US really is or how things work here. It seems the US is kinda like the wild west of the Magical world. Anything goes and no real formal organization. Our heroes found themselves in so funny situations thanks to cultural clashes and well underestimating how weird the US really is. One of the funniest scenes is when they stumbled on a Ren Faire in Omaha and our flabbergasted to see people dressed up in Medieval garb as it’s regular wear. I guess they don’t have Renaissance faire’s in Britain? Along the way, they meet my new favorite character, Shepherd who is just too nice and too curious for his own good. I love him and I can’t wait to read more of them. In a way Penelope is right, they needed this road trip. Baz discovered that there is more to being a vampire then he knew. Simon still had fight left in him. Penelope is still a clever but maybe not as clever as she thinks and needs to learn to trust others and Agatha was in trouble but she also was the damsel in distress this time. She ultimately found a way out and helped save them all. When I started it, I didn’t realize that there was going to be another book. Rainbow Rowell doesn’t right series. This is actually her first sequel but when the book ended on a pretty big cliffhanger, I screamed there better be another one! Thank goodness their is. I can’t wait to read what happens next. This series is just too much fun to let go.
What I’m Reading Now: Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
Beth and Kate read Rainbow Rowell Books
Hello and welcome to October! I talked Beth into a read along of sorts for this month. It is the most wonderful time of the year! It’s Autumn! Halloween approaches! Break out your books with wizards and vampires in them because this month I’m reading Carry On and Beth is reading the sequel Wayward Son both by Rainbow Rowell!
It’s Banned Book Week!!!
September 24-30 is Banned book week. The week that American Library Association releases their top 10 challenged books of the last year and we talk about censorship. A topic that has been getting a lot of talk recently. Anyway, so why do books get challenged? ALA has this helpful infograph to help us out.
No surprise that most of the content that people object to have to do with sex and LGBT lifestyles. Violence and offensive language is also a big one but nothing seems to get people uptight then their poor innocent children reading about having sex or Gay people. THE HORROR! So who are challenging. THe ALA has another infograph to help us out.
And what are the most challenged books of 2016?
Top Ten for 2016
Out of 323 challenges recorded by the Office for Intellectual Freedom
- This One Summer written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
Reasons: challenged because it includes LGBT characters, drug use and profanity, and it was considered sexually explicit with mature themes - Drama written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier
Reasons: challenged because it includes LGBT characters, was deemed sexually explicit, and was considered to have an offensive political viewpoint - George written by Alex Gino
Reasons: challenged because it includes a transgender child, and the “sexuality was not appropriate at elementary levels” - I Am Jazz written by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings, and illustrated by Shelagh McNicholas
Reasons: challenged because it portrays a transgender child and because of language, sex education, and offensive viewpoints - Two Boys Kissing written by David Levithan
Reasons: challenged because its cover has an image of two boys kissing, and it was considered to include sexually explicit LGBT content - Looking for Alaska written by John Green
Reasons: challenged for a sexually explicit scene that may lead a student to “sexual experimentation” - Big Hard Sex Criminals written by Matt Fraction and illustrated by Chip Zdarsky
Reason: challenged because it was considered sexually explicit - Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread written by Chuck Palahniuk
Reasons: challenged for profanity, sexual explicitness, and being “disgusting and all around offensive” - Little Bill (series) written by Bill Cosby and and illustrated by Varnette P. Honeywood
Reason: challenged because of criminal sexual allegations against the author - Eleanor & Park written by Rainbow Rowell
Reason: challenged for offensive language
Let’s not forget that books like Harry Potter, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, and Where’s Waldo? have all been on this list before. So go read a banned book. Don’t let ideas go to waste.
So I’ve Also Been Reading: Runaways by Brian K. Vaughn and Adrian Alphona (artist)
In July, one of favorite authors, Rainbow Rowell announced her next project would be writing a new series of Marvel’s Runaways, we were intrigued. True I was hoping she would be releasing a new novel. It’s been over a year since Carry On came out. I wasn’t all that familiar with Runaways. I knew of them from all the years shelving graphic novels while working at Barnes and Noble but never really paid much attention. Well, the Runaways are having a moment. Not only are they being revived by Rowell but next year Hulu is premiering a TV show based on them. I’m a big fan of Rowell’s. I enjoy her writing so for the first time I’m going to read issue by issue instead of waiting for Trades to come out because let’s be honest, even with a star writer and an only cult following there is no guarantee that they will come out in trade. I didn’t even know you could pre-order comic books like you can book books! It’s a whole new world for me people. I’ve decided that even though Rowell’s Runaways is a reboot so I don’t need to be a fan to runaway, I would go ahead and read the previous stories. So far, I’ve made it through the original series by Brian K. Vaughn and artist Adrian Alphona (2003-2004) and they are delightful. I can see why so many people latched on to them. It follows a group of teenagers with seemingly nothing in common except for once a year they are forced together as their parents get together to catch up and fund raise for charities. Alex, Nico, Karolina, Gert, Chase and Molly discover that their parents are not who they think they are. They are in fact super-villains and they call themselves the Pride. They runaway as they try to figure out what to do next. They also discover that some of them have powers of their own. Molly is mutant with super strength. Karolina is actually from another planet and has the ability to fly and glow. Nico is a kind of a sorceress who can cast spells. Gert has a psychic connection to a dinosaur. That’s right a dinosaur! Being a teenager is hard enough but being a teenager on the run from your evil parents while trying to figure out how to use your powers is down right stressful! It’s a full cast of diverse characters with different backgrounds and different personalities. I’m quite enjoying them. Now on to the next series.
Mom and I went to BookCon and it was a lot of Fun!
Our Mom is visiting me in Brooklyn this weekend. When she comes I always look for things that we haven’t done before so when I finally realized that BookCon was going to be at the Javits Center while she was going to be here we decided to go. Both of our parents inspired our love for reading. Mom has already 81 books in 2017. Putting my 25 books to shame. She’s never been to anything like this before and my only convention experience was at BookRiot Live. Which was tiny compared to this. The Javits Center is huge. Not surprising since this is also the home to New York Comic Con. We decided first to explore the vendors as we got our bearings. Pretty much every major publisher was there with a mini store and most a signing area. Now there were signing areas that you had to sign up for ahead of time and then smaller ones that you had to line up for. It was kind of confusing what was what. Also, we seemed to always miss all the free giveaways the publishers were handing out but that’s ok. I’ll live. After we had a quick bite to eat we headed to hear Rainbow Rowell talk. I’ve read all of her books but Mom hasn’t. Before the talk began, Mom asked if any of her books would make her cry and I was like yes but I’ll lend her Attachments because of all Rainbow’s books that seems to have the less tears. I think. She was just a delightful as I imagined her to be but the one comment that stuck me was talking about Eleanor and Park and sad it is that having a fat female protagonist was somehow revolutionary. We all know someone who is overweight. We have seen them in relationships, married and have kids so why wouldn’t they have their own love stories? After Rainbow, we went back to the vendor floor. We each bought a few books, tote bags and shirts before heading down to hear Jeffery Tambor. The Arrested Development star has a new memoir coming out and after seeing him I want to read it. He was funny, smart and completely honest. We then went to our final panel of the day with Maggie Stiefvater, Kami Garcia, Laini Taylor and Marissa Meyer about Magic and World Building moderated by Daniel Jose Older. I adore all these authors books (Mr. Older’s book are on my to read list) so it was interesting to hear how they all go about crafting their stories. The most interesting part was talking about you are always building a world no matter if you are making a world from scratch or drawing from the real world. I’ve never thought of that. Maggie said that authors talk about how if they were to assign each of them to write about this room they would all write it differently because they are writing from their perspective their view and how that is reality but not completely real. It was an interesting talk. It was then that we decided to leave as it was a full day of books and fun. I’m glad we did it because it was something new and different. My one complaint was that it would have been better if they had clearer signage of where things were because it was kind of hard to figure out where things were. We had to wander around to find things. Either then that it was a fun day.
Books that Rocked My Face off in 2015
This year it was hard to narrow it down to just 10 books as there were so many books I really loved this year. So to narrow it down, I had to ask myself which ones was I still thinking about even after I started reading the next book? Those are ones I choose for the list. (These are really in no particular order
- Beauty Queens by Libba Bray – This book I really wish I read when I was a teenager as so many of the messages I could have really used. You would almost think that a book about teenage beauty queens stuck on a desert island would be caricatures but they weren’t. They were very like girls I know or were me. I could pretty much identify with all of their struggles. Plus it was a lot of fun.
- Winter by Marissa Meyer -I am really going to miss this series so much. Cinder, Scarlet, Cress and Winter made me laugh, cheer, angry ( on their behalf) and proud of all of them. Winter was by far the longest book of the series and it was non-stop action. There wasn’t any filler or time to relax. It was the perfect ending.
- Carry On by Rainbow Rowell – A little bit Harry Potter and a little bit of fanfiction. It was a great final book to an imaginary series. I was surprised by many of the twists and turns and touched by the romance.
- Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray – I loved the first book in the series and so I was nervous this one wasn’t going to be as good. It was better. Now my only complaint is that she doesn’t write fast enough.
- Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard – It was fun, tense and very interesting. I thought I knew where things were going and then I didn’t. I’m looking forward to what lays in store in the next book.
- Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow – This wasn’t anything like I thought it would be. It was surprising. It was fresh. It had the sassiest A.I. in the history of A.I.’s. For that reason alone, you all should read it.
- An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir – It was sorta historical fiction with a dystopian vibe and boy did it work. It was brutal and it was tense but entertaining.
- Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo – This was very much an Ocean 11’s style caper with a little bit of a magic and darkness in only the way that Leigh Bardugo could do it. It’s set in the same world but after the events of her last series but a completely different vibe.
- The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson – This is the third book in the series so the stakes are so much higher and it didn’t disappoint. It’s full of humor, action and ghosts. What else can I say.
- The Rose Society by Marie Lu – This is the second book in the series that tells the story from the villainess point of view (though I’m not convinced that Adelina is the real villain but whatever) It was intense and was surprising, maybe a little problematic but worth the read.
There was two books that I enjoyed so much that I read the other books in the that were out in the series this year too. So I thought they would get their own category.
- Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas – For those looking for a Game of Thrones fill in until George publishes the next book, I recommend this. It was has all the twists and turns and is not afraid to kill of a character or two. I’m never really sure where it’s going to take us next but I know it will be well worth the ride.
- Talon series by Julie Kagawa – It has a little bit of everything. A Romeo and Juliet Love, a love triangle, a betrayal and yeah dragons. Who doesn’t love dragons? Ok, the idea isn’t that original but I do love it anyway.
