pornography.livejournal.com is where i usually live
BOOKS READ THIS WEEK:
SAVING FRANCESCA by Melina Marchetta
Set in Australia, this is about a girl who goes to this high school that only recently started accepting female students, so the student ratio is something like 30 girls: 400 boys. Midway through the school year her mother becomes depressed and cannot get out of bed. On top of this there is... Will Trombal. She hates him one minute, they are making out the next. it is up to frances to solve her mother's mysterious illness, and keep her self alive through high school.
I love dragons and magic and all, but the best thing a story can have is friendship. lol, how corny right. I just love novels where you see friendships ~blossom~ -especially when they blossom in detention. I also liked the The Whitlams shoutout. I'd listen to some of their music right now but my ipod is still broken.
Temeraire by Naomi Novik
Summary: The story is set during an alternate history version of the Napoleonic Wars, in which dragons not only exist but are used as a staple of aerial warfare in Asia and Europe. The dragons of the story are portrayed as sentient and intelligent, capable of logical thought and human speech. The series centers primarily on events involving Temeraire (the titular dragon) and his handler, Will Laurence. The first book of the series centers on how Laurence, formerly a Captain in the British Royal Navy, becomes Temeraire's handler, and their early training in preparation for battles against Napoleon's aerial fleet.
THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD. The main highlight was the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire. Although he became a dragon hanger grudgingly, Laurence soon settles into the role of parent to Temeraire, who is pretty much a giant precocious baby. THEY READ BEDTIME STORIES TOGETHER. And then go off and fight the French.
The Dragon choosing its rider thing is similar to Anne McCaffery's The Dragons of Pern, but I liked Novik's dragons better. She writes their voices perfectly; there were so many moments when I wanted to laugh or cry.
Saw District 9 the other day. IT WAS REALLY GOOD. I went in knowing nothing except "there are aliens in a place." It was really well done and original -the best take on 'aliens landing on earth' that I have seen in a long time.
International Institute of Modern Letters : Writers on Mondays: Angel in America – Elizabeth Knox
Date: Monday, 17 August 2009
Time: 12.15-1.15pm
Venue: The Marae, Level 4, Te Papa
Address: Cable Street, Wellington
Elizabeth Knox’s best-selling novel The Vintner’s Luck is soon to hit the big screen as a film directed by Niki Caro. The Angel’s Cut, Knox’s sequel to The Vintner’s Luck, relates the further adventures of the fallen angel Xas as he passes through late 1920s Hollywood and beyond. She reads from and talks about the novel with Jane Stafford. This series is presented by the IIML and The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
I have been watching movies though.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
highlights:
-Helen Bohemian Carter
(How amazing was she in this? Makes me love Bellatrix.)
-Tom Felton has become a surprisingly good actor. and also kind of hot.
-The Harry+Hermione relationship. I think they are awesome as friends -BUT IF PUSHED, they would be my het pairing of choice.
lowlights:
-uhhhhhh Ginny and Harry had no chemistry at all
-DUMBLEDORE ASKING HARRY IF HE WAS DATING HERMIONE that was just weird.
-the abrupt Remus/Tonks relationship.
-lame ending WATCHING A BIRD FLY OFF. YEAH. GREAT.
Overall, while there were lots of funny moments and beautiful shots, i don't think the scenes connected that well with each other. It wasn't boring though.
Drag Me To Hell
Everyone has been all "Sam Rami is back!! The horror genre has AWAKENED ONCE MORE!!" with this movie. This is a lie. THIS MOVIE IS NOT SCARY. The (unlikeable) main character spends a lot of time being scared by goat-man-shaped shadows. There are lots of gross scenes involving bugs and body fluids (at one point a dead body falls on top of her and spews out mucus) BUT THAT IS NOT SCARY, THAT IS JUST GROSS.
A GOOD horror movie i watched recently was The Descent. Horrified me -something that is possibly due to my inability to understand sporty people. HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY GET PLEASURE FROM CRAWLING AROUND IN PITCH BLACK CAVES UNDERGROUND. This movie was terrifying way before the monsters made an appearance.
Books read recently:
FADE BY LISA MCMANN
sequel to WAKE, which was an awesome book. at first i thought this one was kind of boring. the plot was that some teacher was sleeping with a student and Jane had to go undercover to suss him out. "big fuckig deal," i thought to myself. this is because i live in new zealand, where everyone knows of at least one student who has eloped with their teacher or what have you. but i was wrong, because what happened in this book was REALLY AWFUL AND SCARY. Awesome. Lisa McMann sure knows how to freak me out; i thought that when i read the first book, and this book proved no different. THE ONLY LAME BIT WAS THE ROMANCE. but i can understand that. established relationships are hard to make entertaining.
Final thoughts: READ IT. BUT FIRST READ WAKE. IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY. i uploaded them in a community on lj somewhere. ebook_share or something.
DAMIA'S CHILDREN by Anne McCaffery
Third in her ~psychics in space~ series. i hated this book when i was younger; now it is my current favourite in the series. i found the interactions between the human species and the alien species fascinating and am looking fwd to reading more. FUCK YEAH GUESS WHO IS NO LONGER A XENOPHOBE.
ECHO BURNING by Lee Child
Summary:
This dude called Reacher, an ex-marine who wanders about getting into loads of trouble, ends up in Texas. There he is given a lift by a pretty girl who tells him her brutal, abusive jailed husband is more than likely to kill her when he gets out. Reacher reluctantly decides to help her out, but it is difficult to tell who is lying... and about what....
My dad gave me this all "these books are awesome!" It was pretty good, although about 200 pages too long. He popped in to give me another book in the series earlier. The blurb says "Jack Reacher is as tanned and as fit as he's ever been. A local girl says he looks like a condom filled with walnuts." uhhhhhhhh.
The Devouring by Simon Holt
Summary: Reggie is a horror fanatic. When she finds a journal in a box of used books at the bookstore where she works, she "borrows" it. It tells of the Vours, black smokelike beings that possess humans who can't conquer their fear on Sorry Night (the eve of the winter solstice). Reggie and her friend Aaron attempt to make the Vours materialize but instead they possess her little brother. In a fight to the death, Reggie joins the battle of humanity against the Vours.
This book was so graphic! "Good lord YA has come a long way since my day" I thought to myself (even though ~my day~ was like, YESTERDAY). While trying to save her younger brother from demons, the main character ends up visiting a themepark where there are... well, okay, I'm just going to copy out a part:
"She circled the roller-coaster trackers. Human torsos, headless and limbless, lay on the food counters. The'd been gutted with ribs splayed wide... Plastic log cars wooshed down the flume ride, splashing into a pool choked with bloated corpses"
Can't even be bothered finding the really gory parts, I'm sorry.
I liked this book though. I think I have a thing for siblings rescuing each other (See: The Changeover by Margaret Mahy & The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan). The ending seemed a bit open-ended, so I'm guessing there will be a sequel.
Wolfcry by Patricia Briggs
Summary: Anna never knew werewolves existed until the night she survived a violent attack.and became one herself. After three years at the bottom of the pack, she'd learned to keep her head down and never, ever trust dominant males. But Anna is that rarest kind of werewolf: an Omega. And one of the most powerful werewolves in the country will recognize her value as a pack member - and as his mate.
I liked this, although I was totally confused by the beginning, as it starts off right after a shitload of action has gone down (in fact, everything in the summary has already occurred off-screen) -it is like you are reading the second book in a series, rather than the first. The main characters are a little dull too. Uhhh why do I even like this book. I'll edit this later.
Damia by Anne McCaffery
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animeshon i liked this one more than I liked The Rowan. This one focuses on Damia, The Rowan's most precocious and powerful child. ATM I'm trying to get through the third book in the series, which is about Damia's children, but they've all gone and bonded with these weird furry animals and i just -I THINK I'M A BIT OF A XENOPHOBE. i'm only really interested in aliens in literature/tv when they're trying to blow us up. Futurama being the exception, of course.
The Rowan by Anne McCaffery
A reread. I loved this book, and loads of other Anne McCaffery books when I was 12/13. I still quite liked this one, but... well. When I was 13 the romance seemed epic, but rereading it now... it is so abrupt. After one telepathic conversation, The Rowan is ~desperately in love~ with Jeff Raven -who, I might add, is a giant douche. And not a giant douche in an attractive way either.
Handcuffs by Bethany Griffin
Summary: Parker Prescott was caught by her parents in a compromising position with her ex-boyfriend involving handcuffs. This isn't supposed to happen because Parker is the good middle child. Her wild older sister and ADHD younger brother are the troublemakers. Meanwhile Parker is the main focus of a popular school gossip blog.
I like it when the main character is beautiful/envied by all around her, but has no idea and is inwardly a giant insecure mess. This book was okay; I have nothing to say about it really.
Soulless by Christopher Golden
Summary: The first ever mass séance is broadcasting live on the Sunrise morning show. If it works, all the spirits of the departed on the other side will have a brief window - just a few minutes - to send a final message to their grieving loved ones.
Clasping hands in an impenetrable grip, three mediums call to their spirit guides as the audience looks on in breathless anticipation. Then the mediums slump over, slack-jawed - catatonic. And in cemeteries surrounding Manhattan, fragments of old corpses dig themselves out of the ground . . .
The spirits have returned. The dead are walking. They will seek out those who loved them in life, those they left behind . . . but they are savage and they are hungry.
Thoughts: I am pretty sure Christopher Golden used to write buffy fanfic. anyway. This was just your average book about zombies running around eating people :| The solution to the problem was painfully obvious, and the characters were nothing special. It was fast-paced though, and not boring! It just didn't bring anything new to the table, or have characters I especially cared about. Worth reading if you find it and are bored, but not worth deliberately seeking out.
The Graveyard Book b Neal Gaiman
I'm not really a Neil Gaiman fan (i think both Corraline and The Wolves In The Walls are overrated, and I couldn't even get through American Gods.), but this was really wonderful :( A ghostly-version of The Jungle Book.
Summary: After his family is murdered, a baby is taken in by a bunch of ghosts. ("It is going to take more than just a couple of good-hearted souls to raise this child. It will,” said Silas, “take a graveyard.”)
The ghosts were brilliant parents. And Silas, the graveyard's caretaker, was so delightfully mysterious. I enjoyed watching the boy growing up and getting his education from a bunch of dead people and hell hounds. My one complaint is that the villains (i'm always complaining about the villains) had no clear backstory. What evil things did these guys do (besides murdering the family at the start of the book)? Oh and I have completely lost interest in fucking PROPHECIES. I am sick of them. But all that can be overlooked because this story is just so. idk. charming.
The Demon's Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brenan
aka maya
Okay, I didn't read this so much as listen to the audiobook, but whatever. That turned out to be a good move, I think. Dragged the book out. Amd this is a book that you'll want to drag out. I really liked the reader as well. Lots of nice accents.
At first I thought this was your typical YA fantasy novel, with the good looking characters and witty one-liners and t-shirts with funny things written on them. Very Cassie Clare (not that this is a bad thing really, I enjoyed City of Bones). But Sarah doesn't shy away from making her characters hurt (whereas if i had been her i think i would have given up a third of the way in and made all the characters sit down, have a heart-to-heart and confess their love for each other. much more sappy and boring) and so this book is full of emotional punches.
I might add, I thought I had figured out the plot twist well in advance of the ~big reveal~, but it still managed to surprise me. It ended perfectly too. I am really anticipating the next book.
Generation Dead by someone
Summary: For some reason, and no one knows why – not even the scientists, SOME teenagers that die aren’t staying dead. They are referred to as “living impaired” or “differently biotic.”
Okay, the main character was a goth. I JUST CAN'T TAKE GOTHS SERIOUSLY. and of course she falls in love with one of the zombies, despite them being unable to do more than grunt and shit. It had humor (LIVING IMPAIRED), but didn't really deliver what i wanted -the plot was pretty much like any "odd couple love each other despite society's disapproval" story only made ~quirky~ because one of them was a zombie. eh. I've read books dealing with homophobia and racism that did it better AND were more plausible. As if anyone is going to let a bunch of zombies go to school -but not get library cards? That is just ridiculous. Scientists would be scooping them up right and left.
Plus, okay, zombies can't heal -so why did the main one what to be on the football team so badly? WHO WOULD WANT TO BE STUCK WITH BRUISES THAT WOULD NEVER HEAL. IN FACT, WHO WOULD GO BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL AFTER DYING?
The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong
I really liked her other books. Only this one was set in a ~special home for teens~ and they all had special powers or whatever (i assume, i didn't get very far into it). I'M SORRY BUT I HAVE READ NINE BILLION AU FANFICS LIKE THIS. Maybe I'll come back to it one day.
The Passion & The Promise by Donna Boyd
Technically re-reads, but i have decided that this year i do not care about that. The Passion made me cry again.
Short summary: A young human girl befriends a rich elegant werewolf, who introduces her to his world. She makes the mistake of falling in love with him, and alters history forever.
The werewolves in this were so fucking arrogant, ugh. But once you got past their giant egos it was a beautiful book :( The Promise was good too.
The Angel's Cut by Elizabeth Knox
A sequel to The Vintner's Luck. Not as epic, but I think it was a worthy sequel. Her writing has become so fucking impressive.
Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk
Not as difficult to read as I thought it would be, considering it pretty much ignores the rules of syntax (typical sentence: Host father mount altar so stance beside bin empty of water). It is probably the funniest book of his I have read. Perhaps I have just become desensitized to all the psychotic events that happen in a Palahniuk novel.
Plot summary: An infiltrating agent from a nameless authoritarian country poses as a high school exchange student and joins the Midwestern family of Donald Cedar.
Anyway, what I wanted to talk about is another book by Elizabeth Knox, The Vintner's Luck. I own two copies of this book (one regular version for reading, another signed & limited edition), and read it whenever I can bring myself to. It is the only book to ever consistently break my heart.
It is set in the 19th century about a winemaker, Sobran, who meets an angel (Xas). They meet once a year and eventually fall in love. Just thinking about it makes me want to bawl. Mortality is a bitch.
The sequel will be out soon. And the movie. Totally nervous about both.
Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
Summary: Gorgeous Naomi and her best friend, the equally gorgeous and gay Ely, have been neighbors and soul mates since childhood, and in order to protect their relationship, they have created a list of people who are absolutely off limits for kissing. The list is meant to be "insurance against a Naomi and Ely breakup," but when Ely kisses Naomi's boyfriend Bruce the Second, it sets off a chain of events that causes a major rift in their longstanding relationship.
It was cute. Naomi is a ridiculous dramaqueen and I have a soft spot for dramaqueens :) The relationship between Ely and Bruce was really sweet. I totally almost cried.
It is basically this three-stage workout routine. You do the first stage for the first 10 days, then the second for the next 10, 3rd for the last 10 days.
You can download a copy here http://megaupload.com/?d=QBXKRCT0
I am on day 2 of stage 1 :( I REALLY HATE WORKING OUT. HOW CAN ANYONE ONE SPEND HOURS IN THE GYM. IT IS BEYOND ME
Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce, book 2 in the Beka Cooper series
I liked this book a lot more than I liked the first book in the series. One thing I really love about this series is that it is set so far in Tortall's past. Catching glimpses of Alanna's relatives, the creation of the Rogue's ~lair~.... it's all awesome. And, like most Tamora Pierce books, there are intelligent BFF-like animals.
I do feel like this book was a lot more preachy than any of Tamora Pierce's other books (waterboarding is bad, pigeons are not dirty creatures, views re: sex and protection, etc etc), but I think that is because it is harder to be subtle about pushing your agenda in 1st person perspective.
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Smmmary:
Katsa is a warrior-girl in her late teens with one blue eye and one green eye. This gives her haunting beauty, but also marks her as a Graceling. Gracelings are beings with special talents—swimming, storytelling, dancing. Katsa's Grace is considered more useful: her ability to fight (and kill, if she wanted to) is unequaled in the seven kingdoms. Forced to act as a henchman for a manipulative king, Katsa channels her guilt by forming a secret council of like-minded citizens who carry out secret missions to promote justice over cruelty and abuses of power.
Ahhhh best book I have read this year (which yes, considering it is only the 7th doesn't say a lot BUT TRUST ME IT IS GOOD). The main character strongly reminded me of Katniss from Hunger Games.
My only criticism is that more focus should have been put on the evil acts of the villain. Not to sound like a blood-hungry savage, but I would have liked more details. The slashed up animals! What was going on there. What exactly was he doing? And why did he do it? What was his reasoning? I feel like the book could have been so much creepier and horrifying (it had its moments, but Cashore really didn't explore that aspect of the plot as much as she could -should- have).
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