Follow Friday (#33)

Yay, it's the last Friday of the Fall semester!  This means the end of classes, but also the start of exams.  *Sigh*.
Anyway, a warm hello to everyone stopping by from Follow Friday (hosted by the fabulous Parajunkee and the equally wonderful Alison of Alison Can Read).  For those who don't know, I'm Kat-- reviewer of mostly YA, fantasy, historical, and scifi-esque fiction.

If you would like to keep up with my reviews, general bookish babblings, or are interested in some giveaways which will be coming up during the month of December (hint, hint), then I'd love to have you as a follower via GFC, RSS, email, or even my sparkling new Twitter account-- whichever you prefer.  Leave a comment with your FF, and I will be sure to visit/follow you back!


The FF question this week is:

Who do you want to be? If you could choose any character from a book. What do you think that character looks like and what do you have in common?

My answer:  Ooh, very tough one!  My first thought, like our featured bookworm's, was Hermione Granger, for obvious reasons of her being awesome and somewhat like a magical version of me (and every other bibliophile).  Arwen from The Lord of the Rings would be a close second: whether you choose to remain an immortal, magical elven woman or give up your mortality to be with Aragorn (a young Viggo Mortensen is like nearly as good as immortality), being Arwen would be a pretty sweet deal.  Arya from the Inheritance (Eragon) books would be another good one-- again immortal elven woman, this one with bad-ass powers and (SPOILER ALERT...A dragon).   

If I'm allowed to be a guy character: Gandalf the Grey, also from The Lord of the Rings.  To be that wise and powerful and... wizardly, with a wizard hat and a wizard staff and wizard eyebrows.  I always wonder: are there female wizards in LOTR?  'Cause that would be kind of sexist, if there weren't.  Then again, in a series which only has, count them, three named female characters of any importance...


Anyway, I wish all you visitors and followers a fantastic weekend (filled with lots of quality reading time, rather than exam-cramming, like mine).  Hope to see all of you around the blogosphere!

Rotters by Daniel Kraus

Genre: YA contemp/ horror
Published: 2011 by Delacorte Press
Pages: 448 (available in paperback-- check it out on Amazon)

Synopsis: Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It's true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey's life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school.
    
Everything changes when Joey's mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey's father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey's life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating.
    
Daniel Kraus's masterful plotting and unforgettable characters make Rotters a moving, terrifying, and unconventional epic about fathers and sons, complex family ties, taboos, and the ever-present specter of mortality.

Cover Thoughts:
Definitely like this cover better than the original hardcover, with all the gloomy tombstones!  It has the neat feel of a collage, like it could be scribblings on the inside of a young grave-robber's notebook.  Dark, yet whimsical, and downright intriguing. 


My Take:
Rotters is definitely not your typical YA book, or your typical book, period!  It's utterly unpredictable, extremely absorbing, and both thought-provoking and disturbing in ways that matter.  I totally wanted to read it because of that interesting cover and because I'd read reviews saying that it's a completely different kind of read-- having read it, I couldn't agree more.

Forced to move after his mother's sudden death, our protagonist Joey is shocked to find himself an instant outcast at his new high school.  His father is the local parish-- the Garbageman, everyone calls him, and Joey has inadvertently become the Garbageman's Son.  Living in his new home, a ramshackle house which indeed does smell of something strange and foul, and dealing with his bizarre, reclusive father, Joey finds himself unprepared for the incredible, sickening truth, even as he comes to suspect it: his father is a grave-digger, and worse, a grave-robber.  He is part of an ancient and dying order of men, nicknamed the Diggers, who make their unorthodox living by traveling the country and digging up the treasures buried with the newly-dead.  At first, Joey is repulsed... but also fascinated.  The Diggers are a strange and dying breed of men, and as he begins to understand their creed, he also begins to unravel the mystery of his father's dark past and the secret of his father's one-time best friend, a man known as Boggs, who is a parish even among the outcast order of the Diggers. 

Rotters is written in first-person, easy to read except in a very few slow parts in the middle of the book, and fairly fast-paced.  Despite this, it manages to be strangely philosophical-- kudos to Daniel Kraus for doing that while still keeping the book entertaining!  It's difficult to explain exactly what a "rotter" is-- and no, it's not simply a corpse-- without having read the book, but the revelations Joey makes constantly come as surprises-- there is nothing predictable about this mad-cap, ingenious plot.   
Rotters doesn't go on my shelf of favorites, simply because it isn't the kind of book I would re-read again (that's kind of top criteria for that mental bookshelf).  But it is the kind of book I will always remember very clearly: Rotters is a story both exhilarating and haunting, one that I think all but the most faint of stomach or heart readers will enjoy if they give this terrific book a chance.

Book Rating:

Extras:
--Rotters on Goodreads
--Daniel Kraus on Rotters and his other books & a book trailer

Similar Reads:
--The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey (male narrator, with a similar but more Victorian feel: scary monsters and Jack the Ripper)
--Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda (girl inherits a legacy as dark as grave-digging-- but there's more paranormal and more romance)

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

Genre: high fantasy
Pages: 330 (this paperback edition)
Published: 1937 (but republished many, many times)


My Take:

Keeping in mind that this book is no Lord of the Rings (one of my first fantasy obsessions), I really enjoyed this book.  The Hobbit has a charming, kind of Old World feel to it-- I kept thinking how very British Tolkien's writing is.  (Not that there's anything wrong with that-- I love Britishness.  Harry Potter is British.  So is Doctor Who.  And Neil Gaiman.  All very wonderful things.)


 Bilbo Baggins is a typical hobbit in many ways: he enjoys the occasional parties and house guests (as long as those guests don't overstay their welcome); and he is generally very comfortable in his Hobbit-hole and cares little for adventures of the fantastical or unusual sort, thank you very much.

But then the fabled wizard Gandalf the Grey enlists the reluctant Bilbo to accompany him and a troupe of thirteen dwarfs to the faraway Misty Mountains, where they hope to steal back legendary dwarven treasures from the very old and very wicked dragon, Smaug, who slumbers in a high mountain amongst his hoard of treasures.

 Bilbo, Gandalf, and the dwarfs travel far across Middle-Earth, through deep forests where millions of tiny eyes watch them from the trees at night.  They stay in the house of a shapeshifter and in the ancient house of Elrond and the elves and are not entirely roasted, boiled, or fried by a trio of trolls. 

Alone and hiding from goblins in the depths of a watery cave, Bilbo engages in a deadly game of riddles with the strangest and most sinister of beings: the creature which we will come to know as Gollum.  From Gollum he wins a beautiful ring, a ring of power and magic which can help its wearer turn invisible at will, but can also cast a dangerous spell over its owner.  In the end, there is a great battle as the people whose villages the dragon has devastated for so long attempt to take vengeance against Smaug at last...and Bilbo proves to be a far more valuable addition to the company of dwarfs and wizard than he would ever have expected.

Anyway, I enjoyed doing that-- nice way to liven up a book review with pretty pictures.  I loved the illustrations in my edition of The Hobbit, and definitely recommend that edition: the cover is so colorful and the style of the little patchwork drawings perfectly pits this book.  The Hobbit is a wonderful read: a good book for savoring and definitely one for reading aloud to kids, if you have kids or little siblings, etc.

The only thing that bothered me about the book wasn't about the book at all: it's how in the world Peter Jackson is going to make this barely 300 page book into a three-part movie series!  How will that work, exactly?...One movie about the party in the beginning, one about the journey, and one about a battle?  It seems like one Lord of the Rings movie might have more plot action than all three Hobbit movies put together.  I'm guessing the pace of these latest films will be a little more plodding... lots of beautiful shots of New Zealand.  But a creepy cameo by Gollum and a lot more Gandalf.  I've always really liked Gandalf (the Grey variety preferred), and wizards and wizardly hats in general.  Anyway, I'm glad I read this delightfully wonderful book, because it's made me even more excited for the upcoming film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which will premiere (yay!) on December 14th.

Book Rating:

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

 Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 563 (hardcover)
Published: 2012 by Dial

Synopsis: Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck's reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle--disguised and alone--to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn't yet identified, holds a key to her heart.

Bitterblue is something of a sequel to both of Kristin Cashore's other Seven Kingdoms books, Graceling and Fire.  While it's billed as a companion novel, I think that many readers would be a little confused about the back-story behind certain characters, such as Katsa and Po and Leck, who appeared in the earlier books if they hadn't read the other books first.

Bitterblue is a queen who barely knows her own kingdom (queendom?).  Her well-meaning but baffling advisers keep her busy with mounds of royal paperwork within the walls of her castle, while outside the ordinary people of the city of Monsea are still suffering from the aftermath of the reign of Bitterblue's now deceased father, the sadistic King Leck-- Graced with telling lies which were always believed.  The haze which Leck's terrible Grace cast over Bitterblue and her friends, the horrors which he committed during his long reign, and the secrets behind the apparently pointless mad things he did, such as creating a fathomless maze around his personal chambers and commissioning bizarrely fantastical sculptures for the castle, still linger over the kingdom.  When Queen Bitterblue, sick of being protected from the truths of how the rest of her city lives, sneaks out one night, she chances to meet a Graced Lienid sailor and his friend, a printer.  Through the eyes of her new friends and with the help of Prince Po and the fearless Lady Katsa, Bitterblue begins not only to see her kingdom-- and herself-- as they truly are, but also to unravel the terrible secrets which Leck kept.

Bitterblue is like the other two Seven Kingdoms books, and at the same time, unique.  It has a somewhat slower pace than the other books, particularly Graceling (still my favorite of the series).  Bitterblue as a protagonist is sympathetic and strong-willed in her own way, but I did miss the supernaturally strong Katniss and Fire as main characters.  Bitterblue may know how to use knives to defend herself against assassins, but well, Katniss could do more with her bare hands.  I missed that very kick-ass element, though I also loved how Bitterblue came to realize her power and strength as a queen and also her great responsibility.  (Because with great responsibility, comes great power.  I had to go there.)

I really enjoyed so many of the characters from Graceling appearing in this third novel.  Katsa and Po (of course) are brilliant, and really I could never get enough of Po.  Without revealing any major spoilers, I'll also say that the plot and characters from Fire have a part in Bitterblue, as well.  The love interest in Bitterblue, Saf aka Sapphire, is sad to say my least favorite of the Seven Kingdoms boys.  He isn't un-likable, he just seems sub-par compared to Po and the prince from Fire (what was his name?)  My other favorite "new" character is Death (pronounced to rhyme with "teeth"), Bitterblue's Royal Librarian, who is Graced with the ability to read super-quickly and remember perfectly everything he reads.  I would pick this Grace over even being Graced with survival like Katsa.  Kristin Cashore's beautiful and vibrant writing style really shines in Bitterblue and this book is a must-read for fans of Graceling and Fire, or fantasy in general.

My Rating:

Top Ten Most Anticipated Books for 2013

This week's Top Ten Tuesday theme (meme hosted by the bloggers of The Broke and Bookish) is one I've been waiting on for a while.  There's nothing like checking and re-checking the release dates on your most anticipated books for the year (and nothing worse than when publishers push back those release dates!)  So here are my current most anticipated books to be published in the year 2013 (assuming we survive that Mayan apocalypse, of course).

January 2nd

Prophecy (Dragon King Chronicles #1) by Ellen Oh

I confess I don't know too much about this one, other than that it's YA and has the words "dragon" and "king" in the series title.  Double win.

January 8th

 Paper Valentine by Brenna Yovanoff

A new YA paranormal-type book by Replacement author Brenna Yovanoff, with a very cool cover.  I haven't read much paranormal lately, but it seems like some promising books by good authors will be coming out in 2013.

January 22nd

 The Archived by Victoria Schaub

New YA novel by the author of The Near Witch, which was a quick and creepy read.  It has a fascinating, complex premise: from what I gather, Librarians (with a capital L) are charged with keeping the stories of the dead safe in an Archive (also capital A).

Sometime in January

 

 Unfettered by Terry Brooks and many other authors

 This is, so far, my most anticipated anthology for 2013.  It is a "theme-less" anthology, with just the best fantasy and speculative writers submitting short stories from their own literary universes.  The book will include stories by Kevin Hearne (Iron Druid Chronicles), Naomi Novik (Temeraire), Mark Lawrence (Prince of Thorns), Carrie Vaughn, and Brandon Sanderson.  It's a very impressive author line-up!

February 13th

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

I still haven't read Shades of Gray (that would be Ruta Sepety's earlier YA World War II novel, not the soft porn book), but this book already has great early reviews and I know the author by reputation and the reviews of others as pretty brilliant. 

March 26th

A Dance with Dragons by George RR Martin

Yes, I know it's already been released, but the paperback edition won't be until March.  I can't wait to snap up that very hefty paperback to add to my collection of A Song of Ice and Fire paperbacks and re-read it again without the risk of accidentally dropping the hardcover and breaking a few toes.

April 2nd

 Light (Gone series # 6) by Michael Grant

The last book in the dystopian Gone series is almost here, at long last!  I feel like I have spent years of my life waiting on these books.

April 15th

Between the Devil and The Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke

This one has a beautiful cover and an awesome premise.  Sounds like another paranormal with rare promise-- too bad the release date is still so far away.

?????

 Hunted (Iron Druid Chronicles #) by Kevin Hearne

I still have yet to read Trapped, which was just released today!  (What is wrong with me, I must go buy it now!)  Hunted doesn't even have a final cover yet or a release date, but it is still at the top of my most anticipated list.

June 18th

 The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

This latest Neil Gaiman (!!!) book will be released on my birthday.  It's fate.  Has to be.  I really have no words for my excitement over this one.  The premise sounds sort of American Gods-esque.

I'd love to read what books ya'll are all anticipating this week, so I can visit back and add more books to my already threatening-to-topple mental TBR stack!

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

 Tiffany Aching series #1
Genre: YA/MG fantasy
Pages: 375 (paperback)
Published: 2004 by HarperTrophy

Synopsis: Armed only with a frying pan and her common sense, Tiffany Aching, a young witch-to-be, is all that stands between the monsters of Fairyland and the warm, green Chalk country that is her home. Forced into Fairyland to seek her kidnapped brother, Tiffany allies herself with the Chalk's local Nac Mac Feegle - aka the Wee Free Men - a clan of sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men who are as fierce as they are funny. Together they battle through an eerie and ever-shifting landscape, fighting brutal flying fairies, dream-spinning dromes, and grimhounds - black dogs with eyes of fire and teeth of razors - before ultimately confronting the Queen of the Elves, absolute ruler of a world in which reality intertwines with nightmare. And in the final showdown, Tiffany must face her cruel power alone....

My Take:

The Wee Free Men is THE book I would give a young or pre-teen girl to read, after she read the classic musts like Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, of course.  And, though I'm a little older than the target audience, I also really enjoyed the first book in the Tiffany Aching series.

Nine-year old Tiffany Aching is far from the usual heroine of YA (and MG) fantasy and paranormal books: she's a farmer's daughter, well-trained in the timeless arts of cheese-making and caring for sheep.  When a decidedly un-Glinda-the-Good-Witch-like Queen of Faerie kidnaps her sticky and obnoxious younger brother, Tiffany sets off on a quest to Faerieland (along with the Nac Mac Feegle-- a fearless band of Celtic warriors who happen to be very small and blue--, and an intelligent talking toad) to rescue her brother.  I loved Tiffany as a character.  She is told by the fully-grown and powerful witch Miss Tick that she has the potential to be a witch, which in Pratchett's world is basically a smart person who's always one step ahead of the masses, has a lot of knowledge of folklore and common sense, and can likely perform a spell or two.  She uses her powers of "first sight and second thoughts" to accomplish things most nine-year olds definitely couldn't dream of.  

I was also definitely loving the "girl power", in that Tiffany couldn't be less interested in boys, love triangles, or the social drama of high school.  I love how generally different the setting of this series is compared to other YA and MG fantasies which take place in the "real world" as well as a fantastical universe.  Rural or suburban high school seems to have become the default setting for the protagonist's pre-magical conflicts and problems, but Wee Free Men completely turns this tiring cliche (along with many others) on its head.  The Wee Free Men (or Nac Mac Feegle, as they call themselves) are an interesting cross on Celtic brownie myths and, well, Terry Pratchett's amazing imagination.  They're funny and violent and have incredibly long and complicated names because Mac Feegle tend to have only five or six common first names and many, many clan members. 

The book has the feel of the few other Terry Pratchett books I have read (Hogfather and Small Gods being the ones I remember most) in that it isn't a long book to begin with, but when you read it you probably will get sucked in by the fast-paced story and quickly lose track of time.  It only took me a few days to finish Wee Free Men, and that was with me exerting some self-control to do things like homework and eating meals.  In short, this one is definitely recommended.  I have the next book in the series, A Hat Full of Sky, on my shelf right now and hope to read it sometime in the near-future!

My Rating:

In My Mailbox #25: The Long-Time-No-Post Edition

Wow, has it been a long time since I did an IMM post!  But now I thankfully, finally do have some new books to show off-- since I haven't posted in ages, these are the books I've gotten over the past couple of weeks.


Here's what I got:

YA

Adult/Historical Fiction

History/ School-related Books

--The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stpehen Chbosky (review)

--Rotters by Daniel Kraus

--The Wee Free Men (Tiffiany Aching #1) by Terry Pratchett

--A Hat Full of Sky (Tiffiany Aching #2) by Terry Pratchett

--Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor (review)

--The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine de Medici by Jeanna Kalogridis

--Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

--The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer 

--Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schliff

--Beloved by Toni Morrison

Other Recent Reviews:

--The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

--Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

--The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

Anyway, I wish you all happy reading, and if you leave me a link to your mailboxes/blogs, I promise to visit back!

Top Ten Books I'd Want on A Deserted Island

Top Ten Tuesday, if by some chance you stumbled upon this post and did not already know, is an amazingly awesome weekly blog meme hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish.  The topic for this week's list: top ten books you'd want to have with you to pass the time on a deserted island.  If I was somehow crash-landed on an island in the middle of the Pacific, I'd definitely rather curl up in a hammock with a book on the beach rather than, say, attempt to explore the probably haunted jungle with the giant smoke cloud roaming around in it or create a companion for myself in the form of a soccer ball.

1.

 The Chronicles of Narnia (series) by CS Lewis

Nope, that's absolutely not cheating!  The Chronicles are now bound in one pretty volume.  As I see it, if you're going to be stuck on an island for an unknown amount of time and can only have ten books, you may as well make them very long books.

2.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

In this thought-provoking and fascinating book, the protagonist Pi is adrift on a sort of floating island in the form of a life raft-- a life raft which he shares with Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger.

3.

The Stand by Stephen King

I've never been able to read The Stand.  But I really do want to, and being stuck on an island would give me plenty of time to take on this monster of a book.

4.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Endless re-readability potential here.  At nearly 1,000 pages, Avalon would be another very useful brick of a book to have around for entertainment when entertainment is scarce.

5.

Shogun by James Clavell

Another huge epic book I've never read.  But I've heard it's so good.

6.

His Dark Materials (series) by Philip Pullman

Again, not cheating.  I could concentrate on finally puzzling out some of the weirder and more mysterious things in The Amber Spyglass if I had this book lying around on the beach.

7.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

Of course, I gotta have at least one Harry Potter book.  I'm not quite sure why this one immediately came to mind... I guess it's just the most epic, the most satisfying read of the bunch, and an amazing conclusion to the whole wonderful series.

8.

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

Another series-in-one-volume, yes.  The Lord of the Rings is another series with great re-reading value.  I usually re-read it once a year, as a kind of nerdy tradition.

9.

The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

I've only waded through this tome once... would definitely read it again, though.  This is an awesome epic about the building of an English cathedral which spans several generations and is a lot more enthralling than it sounds.

10.

 War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Meh, may as well give it a shot.  Most readers seem to either read and enjoy or attempt and fail to read War and Peace at some point in their lives.

And that is El Fin.  Leave a link to your Top Ten in the comments and I'll be sure to check out your list!