Me on This Week's Book Week (29)

This Week's Book Week is like Stacking the Shelves over at Tynga's Reviews only I named it. ;)

If you happen to see me buying books this month that are for me, slap me across the face. With Christmas and my birthday at the end of the month, December has become a no book-buying month for me. Which is good, I need the limitation. It's a start if you find you need to cut back on book-buying: don't buy any for yourself in the month your birthday is in or in December. Presents could include books or bookstore gift cards. :)

Yeah, not much to babble about for this week. It was an odd week, both me and my sister kept thinking it was different days a bunch of the time. Then there was getting up really early and Christmas shopping (on different days). Today will have more Christmas shopping. :)

Received to review:
The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken (finished ccopy from Hachette Book Group Canada)
Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong by Prudence Shen & Faith Erin Hicks (e-galley from First Second/Macmillan through NetGalley) (Another graphic novel, but I'm excited because I rather enjoy Faith Erin Hicks' artwork. Go check out Friends with Boys.)

Me on Black City

Title: Black City
Author: Elizabeth Richards
Release Date: November 13, 2012
Publisher: Putnam (Penguin imprint)

In Black City, humans and Darklings are separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races are still running high after a terrible war. Then Ash, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie, the human daughter of an important figure, meet and do the unthinkable: they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection, both first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings towards each other, knowing that if they're caught they'd be executed, but the connection is too strong. When they find themselves at the centre of a deadly conspiracy that threatened to throw the city back into a war, they must make some hard choices that could result in their deaths.

Black City is a mix of genres that started off promising but then turned rather predictable. A dystopian setting with ash constantly flying through the sky, creatures that are essentially vampires but they're not called vampires, and a tragic love story fill this book. It's not necessarily a new and fresh idea, but the author deserves some credit for taking what's close to overdone and tired and re-worked it enough. The tension was constantly turned up after each page, keeping me interested, but then a twist blew everything right up into the air and the book took a tumble into predictability.

I've become wary of books that mix genres like this, books that combine the dystopian and the paranormal. It can work but it can also fail. Here, it sort of worked, but that's because the vampires aren't called vampires. Instead, they're Darklings. Instead, there are different kinds with different physical characteristics. Instead, it's sort of treated more like a disease, even more so in terms of the Wrath. It's reminiscent of Partials in that sense.

The two characters are recognizable stock characters. Natalie is privileged and frightened, she needs some spine, she needs to take control of her life. What makes her stand out are the secrets in her past and that what she discovers, combined with some bold choices, changes her future. Ash is shunned and abused, a foot in both worlds, but if he fights back he could be executed. Like Natalie, Ash has some secrets and will have to make some big decisions. The two of them make up a classic, and by classic I mean familiar and often-used, star-crossed lovers couple that suffer from a little instant love. Instant attraction and instant lust are okay, but not instant love.

What continues to surprise me is that school settings in dystopian or science fiction or even fantasy novels still feel like present day high school. There's a certain social order, there are cliques and groups and popular people. It makes me think that the pain of high school will never go away because high school will never die.

As the story progressed, I found it interesting, but then a massive twist appeared. Lots of things changed and, honestly, it became rather predictable. It surely put a damper on my enjoyment of the book as a whole. That being said, I'll continue the series but it's because I'm curious as to how it will all end.

(I received a finished copy from Penguin Canada.)

Me on Waiting on Wednesday (106)

Waiting on Wednesday is a bunch of weekly fun hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. :)

Title: Antigoddess
Author: Kendare Blake
Release Date: September 10, 2013
Publisher: Tor

From Goodreads:

Old Gods never die…

Or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.

Desperately seeking the cause of their slow, miserable deaths, Athena and Hermes travel the world, gathering allies and discovering enemies both new and old. Their search leads them to Cassandra—an ordinary girl who was once an extraordinary prophetess, protected and loved by a god.

These days, Cassandra doesn’t involve herself in the business of gods—in fact, she doesn’t even know they exist. But she could be the key in a war that is only just beginning.

Because Hera, the queen of the gods, has aligned herself with other of the ancient Olympians, who are killing off rivals in an attempt to prolong their own lives. But these anti-gods have become corrupted in their desperation to survive, horrific caricatures of their former glory. Athena will need every advantage she can get, because immortals don’t just flicker out.

Every one of them dies in their own way. Some choke on feathers. Others become monsters. All of them rage against their last breath.

The Goddess War is about to begin.

Honestly. Honestly honestly. Who do I have to punch to read this book earlier than September? It sounds all kinds of awesome and I hope Kendare Blake has really tweaked the Greek myths because there are so many retellings out there.

Me on Starling

Title: Starling
Author: Lesley Livingston
Release Date: August 28, 2012
Publisher: HarperCollins

Mason is a champion fencer on the Gosforth Academy team, but she's never had to fight for her life. Not until the night a ferocious storm rips through Manhattan, trapping her and her teammated inside the school. She soon finds herself beseiged by more than thunder and lightning, because the storm also brings a dangerous stranger into her life, a young man who remembers nothing but his name: the Fennrys Wolf. His arrival tears her world apart, even as she feels a strong connection to him. Together they seek to unravel the mystery surrounding his identity as strange and supernatural forces gather around them. When they discover that Mason's family, with its dark allegiance to ancient Norse Gods, is at the heart of everything, Mason and Fenn are faced with a terrifying future.

Starling is an eerily dark and very dangerous beginning to a new series, filled with intense action and mystical secrets. Something is happening in New York City, something under everyone's noses, and only a select few know what's to come. That something coming is huge, is deadly, and a fair number want to make sure it never comes to pass. But how is anyone supposed to stop a prophecy that heralds the end of the world?

After the storm, Mason gets wrapped up in something complicated, something involving a sinfully handsome and deadly amnesiac, and she thinks everything is different now. If only she knew that everything is still the same, that they're all continuing down the fated path towards... who knows what.

While Mason has a sword and knows how to use it (in non-violent fencing purposes), she still has baggage and teenage insecurities. The sword makes her look dangerous when it's in her hand, but when it isn't she's a normal girl with spatial boundary issues who might have a crush on a couple of guys and has to deal with weird brothers and a distant but over-bearing father. And Fennrys is loads of broken warrior. He's forgotten everything in his past but his name and his awesome fight skills. It's clear he needs fixing, that getting his memories back will help the cause, but it all depends on when that will happen. Luckily enough, he's still got the same attitude from the previous series.

There are times when a book written in third person works, and those times are books like this and Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys. Main characters like Mason and Fenn are focused on regularly, but there are times when the reader needs to know something that Mason or Fenn don't know or can't know, and that's when the small glimpses into other characters' actions are needed. The readers need those few moments with Mason's brother Rory and what he's planning as well as her other brother Roth and their father, the moments with Cal and his mother. These are hints at what coming, and what's coming will shake the world to its core.

The inclusion of Norse mythology is so refreshing. Different names of gods and goddesses, a different afterlife, and a different prophecy of the future. It's almost gotten to the point where Greek mythology is tired and boring, and so many types of faerie lore have been explored. That being said, I imagine there will be some cross-over with the faerie world since Starling is connected to the author's previous Wondrous Strange series, but I'll enjoy the fact that the Norse Gods will be at the forefront.

There are connections everywhere, but not all of them are known. Something is coming, quite possibly the end of the world, and this is just the start of a dangerous journey for both Mason and Fennrys. What comes next in the series will only serve to intrigue and excite.

(I purchased a copy of this book.)

Me on This Week's Book Week (28)

This Week's Book Week is just like Stacking the Shelves featured by Tynga's Reviews only with a different name that I came up with. I'm terrible at names.

I registered for ALA Midwinter this week. *panic* Wow. Well, it's in Seattle, and who knows when I'll ever be near something like this again. I honestly see this as being the only one big conference/convention that I go to in the next few years. I know where I'm staying (thanks to Caitlin for letting me piggy-back on her hotel plans with her co-bloggers and friends) but I'm not yet sure how I'm getting there. I'll probably end up taking the train or a bus. (If you know my train story from my trip to Portland, you know how exciting it could get. If you don't, basically on the way back our train broke for an hour then just outside of Seattle a drunk teenager got hit by our train and died and we had to take a bus back home.)

I completed NaNoWriMo on Monday. *dead* I'm not done the draft as a whole, but the same thing happened last year when I hit 50k words and then stopped. Oops. Hopefully I'll finish the first draft and then let it sit. There's also a story idea from a couple of years ago that I want to pick up again sitting around in my files, that might be what I work on next.

Somehow, during NaNo, I read 3 books in a week and wrote up 5 reviews over 2 nights. Weird. It was nice to be on a roll after not being on a roll for a long time. It was also nice because it means all my reviews are written for December. There won't be any reviews or posts during the week of the 23rd because of Christmas and my birthday. It's looking like there'll be a post on the 19th, perhaps the 21st, then another TWBW (because the horrible temp name has stuck) on the 30th that will cover Christmas and my birthday.

This also means I'm now reading a bunch of 2013 releases. It's like looking into the future. ;)

Holy freaking crap, it's December. Where did the year go??

Received to review:
Wicked Kiss by Michelle Rowen (from Harlequin through NetGalley)

Borrowed:
Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi (from Caitlin but I picked it up from Miriam)

Borrowed from the library:
The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna
What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang