What I’m Reading Now: Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas
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Tag Archives: YA novels
Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas
I am going to start by saying Celaena Sardothien is one badass chick. Seriously. She is a trained assassin. The best in all of Erilea. She is clever, smart and kill you with her bare hands if you annoy her. Yeah, she’s pretty cool. After the death of parents she was found by the the King of Assassins and was trained as an assassin herself. She soon proved to be the best and most feared assassin until she was betrayed and sent to a Salt Mines of Endovier. It’s more of a death camp then salt mines as most people don’t live long but Celaena is not like most people. After a year there she is introduced to the Crown Prince and the Captain of the Guard who offer an escape of sorts. Be the Crown Prince candidate in a competition to the King’s Champion aka become the official King’s assassin. If she wins, she only have to serve the King for four years and then she will be freed. If she loses, she comes back to Endovier where she will most likely die. Celaena does not lack for confidence and sees this as a winning proposition and agrees. Soon she is taken to Rithfold, the capital of Adarlan, the country that has conquered most of Erilea, including Celaena’s home country of Terrasen. She swept up in the contest as she soon finds that it’s not going to be as easy as she thought. First, a year in the salt mines has sapped a lot of her strength and second, she has a formidable foe in Cain. The King of Adarlan has outlawed magic from the land but Calaena finds that magic and mysterious powers are not completely gone. Not only is she battling the other champions but also a mysterious threat as well.
The book is a sort of mix of Hunger Games and Game of Thrones that definitely works. Celaena is strong, smart. clever and despite her brashness she is not fearless. She knows that her situation is tenuous and that any mistake will send her right back to Endorvier or worse death. She’s real. She’s not a shrinking violet like many heroines. She obvisously knows how to save herself but she’s not too proud to accept help when she needs it and yes even the more feared assassin needs help every now and then. Of course this is a YA novel so yes there are going to be suitors. First there is the Crown Prince, Dorian, who chaffs at the control of his father. Picking Celaena as his choice for the competition was sort of a rebellion on his part but he soon finds that Celaena is more then he thought and of course starts to fall in love with her. There is a whole subplot as to why Dorian hasn’t married yet. In a kind of role reversal, it’s Dorian who is the romantic who wants to marry for love and not out of obligation and Celaena is the more practical one. Her other suitor, is the young Captain of the Guard, Chaol. Serious and hard working, he is Dorian’s best friend who is always looking out for him. He has a quiet strength about him that honestly makes him a better fit for Celaena, in my humble opinion (TEAM CHAOL) but I’ll have to wait to read the other books to see how it plays out.
All and all, I thought this was a great book. Great characters and a good story. Celaena is a great edition to badass women in literature and I can’t wait to read how her story continues.
GOOD NEWS!!!! LAIR OF DREAMS IS COMING!!
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.
What I’m Reading Now: A Book of Spirit and Thieves by Morgan Rhodes
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.
At the Movies
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!
Series You Should Check Out: Chronicles of Nick by Sherrilyn Kenyon
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.
Review: Rogue Wave by Jennifer Donnelly
Jennifer Donnelly is a good author. I love her adult series, The Tea Rose (well actually 2/3 of it. The third book, The Wild Rose, I could do without) Most of books are historical fiction and you can tell she put in the time and effort to get the details of the time period right. Even for her YA titles, Northern Lights and Revolution. She knows how to tell a story that is full of romance and suspense that keeps you drawn in. I guess that is what I was expecting with her Waterfire Saga.
The first thing you may have noticed as I did that Rogue Wave as did Deep Blue, the first book in the series, has a mermaid on the cover. Clearly, this was not going to be her usual historical fiction novel. I don’t think it ever says when exactly this novel takes place but I feel it’s implied it’s in modern day. The Mer people are descendents from the lost city of Atlantis. Some of who adapted to the water after the city drowned into the sea and formed six different kingdoms in our oceans and seas. Our heroine, Serafina, is the princess of the Miromara, a Mer kingdom that spans the Mediterranean, Baltic, Adriatic, and Black Seas. On the day of she was supposed to be crown the heir of Miromara, they are attacked and she is forced to flee with her best friend, Neela. A princess from the Kingdom Matalia, located in the Indian Ocean. After many trials and tribulation, they find their way to the River Olt, where the famed Lele witches live. They meet up with four other princesses from the other Mer kingdoms and are told they are the descendents of the originals and only they can find the six talismans that will stop the big bad monster and save their world. Got it? I forgot to mention that Serafina was supposed to have been betrothed to Mahdi, the heir to Matali Empire and Neela’s cousin but that didn’t happen because all hell broke loose or and Mahdi may have been cheating on her. It wouldn’t be a true YA novel if it didn’t have some teen angst, right?
Rogue Wave starts as the six Mermaid Princess separate and go and find their talismans. Serafina, goes back to Miromara because she is sure there is something about Merrow, the mermaid she is descendent from and is also the one who hid all the talismans but of course that’s a dangerous since her home is in ruin and now ruled by Traho and his deathriders, who attacked them. Neela is heading back to Matali to try to warn her parents and hope they will take action. They both are constantly being chased by death riders and others who are also looking for the talisman but they are both smart and determined and find ways to get out of trouble.
The first book I thought was only kinda, meh. I didn’t have a problem with the story or the characters but It didn’t seem to have a lot of energy. I like Jennifer Donnelly as an author, so I guess I have certain expectations when it comes to her work and this I feel is not her best. I mean, props for her for trying something new but I feel it’s a little bit by the numbers. It’s like she had a checklist of everything that should be in a YA fantasy novel and checked things off one by one. Also the writing style is a bit off. I think they are going for a little younger end of the YA spectrum so the 13-15 crowd because it’s very tame. There is nothing anyone would be upset or offended about it. It’s a little surprising because as I said before, she has written YA novels before without dumbing them down. That may not be the best way to describe but she does spend a lot of time recapping what has already happened or spelling things out so the reader won’t miss it. it’s unnecessary and also slows down the pace of the book. Oh and don’t get me started on the cutesy sea lingo. Instead of calling each other girls, they say merls and they use currensea not currency. There are so many of them that a glossary is included at the end.
Rogue Wave is a better effort then Deep Blue but it’s still not up to her standards. It took her two books but by the end of this one I see that this a real purpose for her characters. It’s more then just collect six talismans and save the world. It’s also a great book of female friendships. Serafina and Neela’s friendship is great. They are strong and there for each other. We have barely had a chance to get to know the other four, Ling, Becca, Ava and Astrid but their was a beginning of a real bond between the them. Well the five of six. Astrid is the daughter of the leader who was first thought to behind the attacks and was seen as a outsider. I think that now that we have a real sense of what their mission is and who they are really up against, it’s only going to get better. So Miss Donnelly, you get another chance. It’s not a great series but one I’m willing to see how it goes.
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.
Dear Stackologist: You seem to know about love and reincarnation
Dear Stackologist,
I read your column and you seem to have some idea of how to deal with love and reincarnation. I have a love and reincarnation problem. Um, the world might end because of my one true love and me. I know, sorry everyone. I really love him, he’s great. Our friends are great. But, in order to save the world I have to be careful and keep a low profile. This has meant that I’ve had to stay away from my family and I really miss them. Do you have any advice for how to keep in touch with your family without blowing your cover?
Sincerely,
Love Gives You Wings
Dear Wings,
Pre-paid cell phone? Hotmail account you and your parents both have a password to that you save messages to the drafts folder in? I don’t know, I’m a blogger not a spy, Jim. I am happy that you are trying to reach out and keep in touch with your family, though. And, I’m happy that you really love your guy and that he is great. I do worry for you, though. Separating someone from their support structure, the people who know and love them is also a tactic used by abusers. Please do find a way to reach out to your family and keep in touch with them. Please be careful with yourself while you’re saving the world.
-The Stackologist
Dear Stackologist,
I recently spent some time in prison. It’s complicated. As I’m sure you’re aware, the government is corrupt and has been targeting minority populations for oppression, marginalization and extermination. Before I was, uhm, released from prison, my keeper and I had a chance to get to know each other and come to trust each other. I see him as a strong ally in my fight against a corrupt government. I also maybe see him as a bit more. (I think he feels the same way, too.) However, I’m afraid to admit to my feelings because I think my friends will see our relationship as nothing more than Stockholm Syndrome. I just don’t know how to approach this topic with them.
Dear Prison Tat,
Life is complicated, isn’t it? I think it’s great that you were able to find an ally (and maybe more!) in such a horrifying situation. I also think it is wonderful that you have kept strong ties with your friends. I think you have to ask yourself some hard questions but it sounds like your head is in the right place and I feel like you’ll come to the right decision for you. First, are you afraid that your friends will think you have Stockholm Syndrome because part of you also might feel that way? Really examine your feelings and their origins. If you think you might be coming to identify with your captors then I think you may want to consider a cooling off period without you ally with benefits. If you aren’t, and your feelings, like the world around you, are complicated but coming from a good place, then you should consider being honest with your friends and frankly discussing your feelings. Discussing your feelings with people who care for you will let them know you still trust and value their opinion. It may also help you gain new perspective on your situation. Most of all, it will help to reinforce your support system and if you’re about to take on a corrupt government, you’re going to need that. Finally, we here at Stacks Exceed Life Expectancy have always found that the traditional view on Valentine’s Day, where you focus on romantic love, is misguided. Saint Valentine was martyred for marrying people who was told not to marry. He stood up for what he believed in and fought the power. Today is a day for bold and revolutionary acts. So, today, we here at Stacks Exceed Life Expectancy stand up with you against your corrupt government and say:
Vive la Révolution!
Yours,
The Stackologist
Dear Stackologist: Life is Full of Tough Choices
Dear Stackologist,
I am married. I thought I would be happy to be married to my husband. He is exactly the type of man I should be married to as we come from the same background and status but he isn’t my true love. That belongs to my father’s ward. He would be unsuitable to marry, I know but we are kindred spirits. We used to run all over the moors together. I think what makes me the most unhappy is that my love has ran off with my husband’s sister and married her. I think I was much happier when he was mine and mine alone. Am I wrong to be so down? I just might die if I can’t have him.
Dear Moors,
First of all, I feel like you got married for the wrong reasons. While it might be important to please your family, this is your life and not theirs so if you are not happy with your husband then maybe it’s time for a divorce. Chances are, if you are not happy neither is he. As for your other issue, I’m not sure you really love him but want to possess him. That’s not exactly healthy. If he has gotten married, you should respect his decision but again I do worry about his reasons for marriage too but that’s for another letter. Also I’m a little worried about you saying you will die without him. No man is worth dying for. Life is full disappointments and you must learn to live with them. Nor can you expect someone to stay single just because you want them too. You moved on, you have to allow that they will move on, too.
Sincerely,
Stackologist
Dear Stackologist,
I really like this guy but we sort of met under unusual situation. He’s funny, and charming and also an addict. He traded in doing drugs and alcohol for another vice, so to speak, but he still partakes in self destructive behavior. I couldn’t take it. I could not stay and watch him destroy himself. So, I left. I moved to California with my Mom. I have my own problems to deal with like my brother’s death and my parent marital problems (they’re divorcing). I don’t need to his on top of that. I thought I was getting over him when one day he showed up at my job. Now all the feelings I had for him are back but I’m not sure I can trust him. He says he is no longer doing what he was doing but I just don’t know. I’m not sure I can let him back into my life.
Ugh. I can’t believe I’m one of those letter-writing girls
Dear Letter-Writer,
I think it’s brave that you saw that you were in a bad situation and you took yourself out of it. It’s not easy, especially when it involves someone that you care about. It sounds like you are going through a difficult time right now and by taking him out of the equation you are on the right path. I think this is one of those cases where the only person that can truly help them is them. It’s obviously difficult now that he is back in your life. You want to believe he is better and maybe he is but more importantly, how are you? Who is supporting you? Who is helping you cope with your brother’s death and your parents’ separation? I think you need to deal with you first before him. If he cares for you, then he will wait for to get yourself back together.
-Stackologist
2 Women, So Many Books 