Waiting on Wednesday #6 - 2 November 2011

Waiting on Wednesday was started by Jill at Breaking the Spine for bloggers and readers to get excited about upcoming books.

Spell Bound

Hex Hall Book 3

Rachel Hawkins

Release Date: 13 March 2012 

Hailed as “impossible to put down,” the Hex Hall series has both critics and teens cheering. With a winning combination of romance, action, magic and humor, this third volume will leave readers enchanted.

Just as Sophie Mercer has come to accept her extraordinary magical powers as a demon, the Prodigium Council strips them away. Now Sophie is defenseless, alone, and at the mercy of her sworn enemies—the Brannicks, a family of warrior women who hunt down the Prodigium. Or at least that’s what Sophie thinks, until she makes a surprising discovery. The Brannicks know an epic war is coming, and they believe Sophie is the only one powerful enough to stop the world from ending. But without her magic, Sophie isn’t as confident.

Sophie’s bound for one hell of a ride—can she get her powers back before it’s too late.

Why I can't wait

  

Well, I mean, look at it! That cover, that sword, that stance... I loved Hex Hall and Demonglass so much that I seriously can not wait for the last book.

What are you waiting on?

General Notice: Temporary blogging laziness is temporary

Hopefully by the start of November, which is not coincidentally NaNoWriMo and which I wouldn't miss for the world. Now if only I had a story to tell...

Meanwhile, lemme know what you think of mah new look!

Read-a-Thon: Wrapup

Sorry for the late update - I was too busy reading to blog, hahaha. I had such a blast with the read-a-thon, can't wait for the next one. So, my update:


Books read between Monday and Wednesday:






As you can see, I started out fine on track, but the moment I read Evermore (and had access to the rest of the books, of course), I abandoned the rest of my TBR list and pursued the Immortals series. I know, sad, isn't it? ;p

(I would have done the same if I had Supernaturally in my possession after I finished Paranormalcy by the way.) Plus, I had so much fun!

Books read: 6
Hours read: About 25 hours
Pages read: No idea. Rough estimate at 200 pages per book it'd be 1,200
Mini-challenges done: 4/6

So really, thanks to everyone involved, this was a great way to get back into reading and blogging.

Waiting on Wednesday #5

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we just can't wait to get our grubby fingers on.

This week, I'm anxiously awaiting:

The Renfield Syndrome by J.A. Saare.

Vampires, and werewolves, and demons, oh my. 

I  don't want to post the entire description here, since it will spoil the first book which you have to read. Review coming later today or tomorrow, but now I can not WAIT until this book's release. Unfortunatly, it's only in August :(

What are you waiting on?

 

Read-a-Thon: Mini Challenges 3 and 4 plus UPDATE

So, the Read-a-Thon is so much fun! More than even I thought, and I had high expectations. Here are mini-challenges three and four, update at the end of the post.

Mini Challenge from YA Bliss:  

So, for this one you will have to post on your blogs your top 3 LOVE TRIANGLES.

Great concept. Good love triangles, where you can't decide who to root for, are so hard to find! Nonetheless, here are my 3 faves:

1. Archer vs. Cal in Demonglass.

2. Eric vs. Stu in the Katie Connor books (reviews to come!)

3. Eponine vs. Cosette in Les Misérables

All of these I simply could not decide who should get the girl (or guy), since I loved both characters.

Mini Challenge from The Bookish Type:

Pick any book from your readathon pile and write a fake synopsis based solely on the cover. The synopsis does not have to be related to the actual book at all, just the pretty, pretty cover.

First of all, what an AMAZING idea! I love it, thanks so much! So, my entry:

When Nua Carter is sent to a secretive and elite university by the father she had never seen, her entire life and everything she knew starts unraveling before her eyes. Nothing is what it seems and Nua learns shocking truths about her father, her mother and her destiny. Because Nua is special, Nua is needed and the task that Nua must preform will save the world - and unravel Nua's very existence.

And now I have inspiration for a new story! Yay! Thanks!

RaT UPDATE: Finished Impulse and Paranormalcy, starting Evermore.

Current book: Evermore (Immortals #1)
Books read: 3/6
Hours read:  +-17
Pages read: 818
Mini Challenges completed: 4

Let me know how your challenge is going!

RaT Mini Challenge #2 and update

Mini-challenge hosted by IBBookblogging



So here's the chellenge:

Mini Challenge Question 1:
What is your favorite type of myth (Greek, Roman, Egyptian etc)?

As a scholar in Latin, I have a deep and abiding love for the Greco-Roman mythos so that will always be my first choice. However, I've always been intrigued by far-eastern cultures, although I know next to nothing about them. Also, I found Celtic and Norse mythology through reading and I love it.

Mini Challenge Question 2:
What is your favorite book with some type of mythology in it?

Difficult question, there are so many, some with made up in-world mythologies and some drawing from known traditions.

Interpreting the question as "known traditions", I think I'd have to go with a series, The Fionovar Tapestry. It takes together all of the main mythologies into a "master" world where all myths and legends originates and is the richest and most complex exploration of mythologies I've yet seen.

Edit: Of course, made from scratch mythologies goes to Terry Pratchett. Obvs. If I were a Discworld goddess, I'd BE Annoia.

UPDATE: I'm done with Dead Reckoning and it turns out that Impulse is written in verse and was a quick read. I'm on page one of Paranormalcy now - can't wait to read it!

Yay Read-a-Thon kickoff!

Yay, it's time for the Read-a-Thon! If you haven't already, click on the pic to sign up and read, read read!

Books I plan to read:





This is the first time I'll be doing a read-a-thon, so I'm sooo excited. I'll keep you updated as I finish my books and the challenges (I plan to do them all, how's that for overly ambitious?), and the twitter hashtag for this is #OUreadathon, if you want to hang out.

What are you doing for the read-a-thon?

Incredible Giveaway by Evie at Bookish!

Evie has reached more than 700 followers in the time she's been blogging, which is incredibly amazing. To celebrate her appreciation, she's holding a major International giveaway with 5 winners and 9 incredible books! You simply HAVE to check it out and if you aren't already following Evie, where have you been?

Waiting on Wednesday #4

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

 This week, I'm waiting on a book that's LONG in coming. On the other hand, we're already in June, and it felt like just yesterday when we opened Christmas packages, so here's to hoping the time will pass quickly!

Damage by Anya Parrish

Description: 

There was a time when I prayed for Rachel to be real. Until the night I learned she'd always planned to kill me. 

When Dani was eight, she fell from a building. No one believed her claim that she was pushed by Rachel . . . her imaginary friend. It took years of therapy to convince Dani that Rachel wasn't real.
Now fifteen, Dani wants to make it as a dancer. But a deadly freak accident sends Dani a terrifying message: Rachel is back, she's real, and she'll stop at nothing to kill Dani.

Complicating matters is Jesse, the school bad boy who's being stalked by his own invisible childhood nemesis. Dani and Jesse join forces to learn why their astral tormenters are back. Their investigation leads to a horrifying discovery—and the terrible experiment that binds them to each other.

***

I'm not crazy about the cover, and I hope they change it before the release, but how awesome does this story sound? I'm all excited about it, September can't come fast enough!

What are YOU waiting on?

Squee, a book club!

So, Bookluvr Mindy over at Magical Urban Fantasy Reads asked the following question which immediately filled me with glee and joy:

Wanna join my book club?

The idea, as I understand it, is to get people to read and comment on each others reviews. So each weekend, you pick 5 of the participating blogs/reviewers and read a review by them. Leave an honest and thoughtful comment containing your thoughts on the review. That, as I understand it, is basically it!

For the more nitty-gritties, check out Mindy's (absolutely gorgeous ZOMG!!!) blog and join us!

Waiting on Wednesday #3

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's WoW is one I've had my eye on for a while now, and I can't wait to share it with you! It's only to be released in October (so far away!) but it looks like it'll be a stunner!

The Glass Man by Jocelyn Adams 

Description: Lila Gray is just a human—at least that’s her mantra when she accidentally topples a building or bends a paranoid local's gun into modern art. That she can sense and control the minds around her doesn’t prove anything, either. Unwilling to put others at risk, she hides in the wilderness from the beautiful creature who hunts her, one who sees her as his ultimate prize.

Alone, the egocentric Glass Man can kill with a thought. Mated with Lila, he's a supernatural weapon prepared to annihilate the humans he loathes.

Caught in the Glass Man’s latest scheme, Lila is plunged into a hidden fae realm, faced with a secret birthright and a forbidden romance.

With the Glass Man threatening everyone she loves, can Lila accept who she is in time to end his bloody reign? Or will she succumb to his dark power and become the vehicle of destruction for the human race? (from Goodreads)


So much cover love, and the description sounds riveting. 

So what are you anxiously waiting for?

Waiting on Wednesday #2

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week's WoW for me is one that will hopefully be released within the next week, which just heightens the anticipation even more. So without further ado, I present:

Ultraviolet by R. J. Anderson

Once upon a time there was a girl who was special.

This is not her story.

Unless you count the part where I killed her.

Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sectioned in a mental institute for teens, having murdered the most perfect and popular girl at school. But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison's condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can't explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori -- the next she disintegrated. Into nothing. But that's impossible. Right?

This books sounds positively riveting, doesn't it? Working on my novel has highlighted what a fine line it can be between the paranormal and slash or supernatural and mental illness, so this is absolutely PERFECT for me right now. I can't wait to read and review it.

What are you waiting on?

Review of Regina's Song

Title: Regina's Song
Author: David and Leigh Eddings
Genre: Murder Mystery (?) with some stuff that could possibly be inferred to be hypothetical supe elements (?).

Rating:

 Zero. I would have liked to go into the negatives here, in fact.

Description: Regina and Renata are truly identical twins. They are so strikingly alike, even their mother can't tell them apart. Since their DNA is identical and their infant footprint records were lost by the hospital, no one can be sure which is which.

This doesn't bother the twins. In fact, they're inseparable--until one of the young women is murdered. The other has no memory of the event, no idea who she is. In her near-total amnesia, she can remember only family friend Mark, who has always been a surrogate big brother to the twins. And Mark finds himself fearing that the effects of the trauma don't end with amnesia, for now a series of vicious murders terrorizes Seattle, accompanied by the howl of wolves....

Review:

From the description, this book sounds like a zinger, right? I mean, what more do you want? Identical twins so identical that they frequently swop roles without anyone knowing! Their personalities so entwined that it's impossible even for them to say where one ends and the other begins! Then one of them is murdered!

I mean, the possibilities here for good, compelling fiction (with or without supernatural elements - although I obviously prefer with) are virtually endless.

To my vast disappointment, however, the book is not only composed entirely out of stale prose, canned dialogue, pre-packed stereotypes and cardboard flat characters, but there is just about no plot at all. The surviving twin gets released from a mental hospital because she wants to attend university; suddenly a mysterious spates of killings with victims that are known for their criminality turn up. Whodunnit?

That's basically it, I'm very sorry to say.

The premise and mystery of the twins and their twinhood and how the loss of it affects the one left behind is just not explored at all. Instead, it's basically a revenge story (which you already knew, right? I mean, do you need spoiler tags to know that the "murder mystery" part of the novel is the surviving twin hunting down the dead twin's killer, killing anyone she thinks it may have been coz they deal drugs sometimes until she actually gets the right guy?) told from the incredibly distant point of view of a person who is a family friend of the parents of the surviving twin.

So through the eyes of Mark we follow Renata, the surviving twin, as she attempts to reintegrate in society. Mark is a postgraduate in English Lit, and at the beginning of the story he finds a student house filled with FIVE PEOPLE JUST LIKE HIM.

I'm dead serious.

Sure, three of them are girls and they all study different thingies, but they all agree on everything all the time, they use the exact same dialogue and phrases as the other characters, and even the same conversational tone! Constantly! It's like one person talking to himself, that person being the Prototypical Eddings Creation Tee Em, which is a smart-ass wannabe comedian with... no, that's about it.

They all hold exactly the same views on just about everything, although it's just damn convenient that one of them is a philosopher, who can ask very deep, yo questions about the nature of personality and morality without ever really discussing these things, since everyone agrees with everything instantly.

Also, luckily one of them is a lawyer, who can help Mark and the Surviving Twin(TM) out when legal troubles arise in a way which everyone agrees with and is perfectly happy with, despite it being, in my view, ridiculously unethical and immoral. Also, luckily one of them has a brother on the police force, very handily getting all the inside info that help them figure out who's committing the murders and how to get that person out of this damn mess they made.

Also, one is a psychology major, so we handily have analyses on hand, all of them uncontested, naturally, explaining everything Renata goes through and the why the who what and etc. These things don't need to make sense or have any kind of underlying logical structure, because what this psych major tells us is what we all already know from living in the "real world" and its obsession with Pop psych and easy explanations, so obviously it's the true and only answer possible.

Alright, I'm letting my snark get out of hand, but I was truly aggravated by this book. Not only are there no actual characters at all and no plot to speak of, there are no supernatural elements! No horror! No nothing! I mean, the cover of the hardcover version I have says right there, very explicitly: "A chilling story of a nightmare come true." The blurb has hints of wolves howling. I don't feel that an expectation of chills and/or explanations of the wolfy howlings are unreasonable here. Instead, we get none of those with a huge side-serving of Nothing Much Happening for Most of the Goddamn Book.

We're just told that wolves and dogs howl when the murders are committed, and that Regina listens to some freaky music with wolves howling.

Rage! Frustration! But back to the review.

Even though the authors employ first-person narrative, readers are constantly kept at an oceanic distance from the main character (or who the main character, the one doing the action and driving the story, is supposed to be, at least) and you feel at best a bit of sympathy for the poor surviving twin while getting constantly irritated at the narrator and his incessant lame joking. You're also told by our narrator that yes, losing her twin was so horrible for Renata that she went mad and so on so he'll keep an eye on her now and again, all very sad, but hey, English Paper due and class to give, mysteries of Milton to talk about exploring, lame-ass comedy to perform. I'm trying very, very hard to think of what else the narrator does, but I honestly can't add anything to it.

I'm so extremely disappointed in this novel mainly because I have such a soft spot for David Eddings. When I was something like 13, I saw a novel of his at the library and the cover so enthralled me that I picked it up. It was the middle book of a series (the Elenium, if I remember correctly), and that hooked me on fantasy for life. So I wanted this book to be good, and I was willing to like it even if it was just mediocre or slightly bad.

It wasn't even that. It was awful. Truly, soul-wrenchingly awful. The only redeeming quality I can think of is that there are no spelling or grammar errors.

Please avoid. Trees shouldn't have to die for this crap, and there are so many actually good books to read out there that you don't even want to waste the 5 or so hours that it takes to read through this book. That's time you'll never get back!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday, What are you reading this week? is a weekly event hosted by Sheila at Book Journey to list the books completed last week, the books currently being read and the books to be finished this week.

Strangely enough, I get most of my reading done throughout the week. This past week I have been mostly reading articles and books dealing with Virgil's Fourth Eclogue (you don't want to know, I promise), but I did manage to get through some truly awesome books that I can't wait to review!

So, on my Currently Reading list is:

 Check out the short-form synopsis from the publisher's website: 

Zinzi has a talent for finding lost things.
To save herself, she’s got to find the hardest thing of all: the truth.

I mean, it doesn't get more awesome than that. So, long backcover blurb:

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a client turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job -- missing persons. Being hired by famously reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass, marked by their animals, live in the shadow of the undertow. Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the underbelly of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she'll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives -- including her own. Set in a wildly re-imagined Johannesburg, it swirls refugees, crime, the music industry, African magic and the nature of sin together into a heady brew. 

I'm about half-way through right now, and I can't WAIT to review it. Seriously, u guise, I am so excite!


Continue Reading!

What I finished last week:

As well as:

Review for these follow on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday!

I also re-read one of my favourites, which I highly recommend if you like your fantasy and paranormal with a good dose of chuckles:

That's about it - all I had time for last week, although I plan to read like a machine this coming week. So, what books have you read?

South African writer wins internationally sought-after prize for Sci-fi

To my great surprise, I found out yesterday that South African writer, Lauren Beukes, won the prestigious Arther C Clarke prize for Science Fiction on 27 April. Coming completely from the left field and competing against established international names like Tim Powers, Ian MacDonald and Patrick Ness, her book, Zoo City was declared the "clear winner".

While it's not only heartening that South African authors are receiving international recognition and all that, what I found most wonderful about this turn of events is that it introduced me to Lauren Beukes and her work.

Before yesterday, I had never even heard of her, which I'll admit is something to be ashamed of. However, as soon as I heard the news and read a review of the book, I simply had to procure Zoo City and am currently greatly enjoying it.

Many congrats, Lauren, and I look forward to reading more of her work in the future.