Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Most Unfortunate Character Names

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is Top Ten Most Unfortunate Character Names:

10. St. John Rivers from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë - It doesn't look that bad in print.  But it's pronounced "sin-jin", which always made me think of the villainous Injun Joe from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  Plus, I had to read Jane Eyre for an English class... and when the teacher started talking about this person named "Sinjin", I had no idea what she was going on about!

9. Americus Nation from Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts - When your name is so patriotic it's nauseating, your mother has gone too far.

8. Sookie Stackhouse from Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris - Does it rhyme with "cookie" or "kooky"?  And who the heck would name their kid that, anyway?

7. Po from Graceling by Kristin Cashore - It sounds like the way some people refer to poverty ("I was so po'!).  It's also creeping toward "poo", which is not great, either...

6. Beezus from Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary - Yes, it was a nickname for "Beatrice".  But that didn't stop the boys at school from making fun of her by rhyming her name with "Jesus".

5. Gale from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - Gail and Gayle are girls' names.  That's what I had in my head as I was reading this.  I never could wrap my brain around this one as a name for a guy!

4. Katniss from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - It does sound much like "catnip", as Gale said.

3. Peeta from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins - I still can't figure out if this is a bastardization of "Peter" (much like Haymitch may have been a variation on "Hamish"); in any case, it makes me think of pita bread.

2. Pooh from Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne - What's worse than being named after a turd?

1. Renesmee from Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer - What's worse than being named after a turd?  Being saddled with this monstrosity, that's what!  Even the nickname -- "Nessie" -- is messed up.  Unfortunately, Renesmee is not the only child out there who was given a ridiculous name by a Mormon parent who was trying to be creative.  Check out this list at the Utah Baby Namer.  Once you've seen what some people in real life named their kids, these ten fictional names actually don't look so bad.

Monday's Question of the Day (22)

Monday's Question of the Day is hosted by Eleni at /-LA FEMME READERS-/

Question: Inspired by Ally Condie's Matched, if you were in a controlled society that decided your every move in life, would you follow rules or rebel against them?

My Answer: I'm kind of a stickler for rules and afraid of confrontation (especially with authority), so I'd probably follow them.  But that doesn't mean I'd be happy about it.  I'd probably seethe in private and wish for someone braver than myself to start a revolution.

Review - The Vespertine

The Vespertine (The Vespertine #1)
by Saundra Mitchell
Date: 2011
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 293
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

Amelia van den Broek is sent from her brother's home in Maine to Baltimore in the summer of 1889 to make social connections and find herself a suitable husband.  Along with her cousin, Zora Stewart, Amelia finds herself swept up in the excitement of lavish balls, social calls, and charming young suitors.  Nothing seems out of the ordinary... until one day when she has a vision of the future at sunset.

Under the prodding of her excited cousin, Amelia is soon the talk of the town as "Maine's Own Mystic", invited to give readings for those eager to know their futures.  But not all of Amelia's visions are viewed as good omens, and she struggles with the acceptance of her gift, even as tragedy threatens to destroy everything.

(see it on Goodreads)

I thought this sounded like a really intriguing book.  I quite liked the premise and the way it was written (even though I had to look up a ton of words... there are some words from 1889 that we just don't use anymore!).

However, I never felt like I could connect with Amelia.  Even though the story is told from the first person point of view, I didn't feel like I knew her.  Perhaps part of it was the historical aspect, but a lot of the time, I just didn't understand why she did what she did or felt the way she felt.

I actually preferred the minor characters, including the young men who acted as love interests for the girls.  Again, though, there were some problems with character development (or, really, a lack of it), so that certain character actions seemed a little forced.  Yes, certain attributes were hinted at... but not enough to prevent me from scratching my head in places when things went awry.

There were also places in the narrative that were downright confusing.  Conversations between characters were often peppered with Amelia's observations, which made me have to go back and read the dialogue again to have any sense of a coherent conversation.  I'm not sure if this was done on purpose, but I found it rather distracting.

The plot is fairly sparse, so many of the pages in the book are taken up with the silly (by today's standards) social customs of 1889 Baltimore.  For a long time, I wondered if the story was even going anywhere.  Then, in the last 50 pages, things started to pick up, and they didn't stop until they reached a dizzying conclusion.  While the ending kind of saved the whole book, it wasn't enough to erase my annoyance at having to read so many seemingly irrelevant pages to get there.

All in all, I'd say this is a fairly good story, and it would probably appeal to those who enjoy historical romance (with a paranormal twist).

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing a digital ARC.

Plot: 3/5
Characters: 3/5
Pace: 3/5
Writing: 4/5
Originality: 5/5

Overall: 3.6 out of 5

Say What?

I mentioned one of my writing pet peeves, said bookisms, in this post.  There may be a bit of confusion as to what those actually are.  I don't blame you...  I only learned the term in the past year (and before that, I wasn't even sure if there was a term for it, to be honest).

Basically, a said bookism is when the author replaces the word "said" when writing dialogue.  The word "said" has been used for so long that, in most people's minds, it actually disappears as one is reading.  Also, it makes sense.  A lot of said bookisms don't.  If you look up the term, you'll find lots of great examples of said bookisms that you really should try to keep to a minimum in your writing.  Some of them are acceptable (in moderation), but others are kind of ridiculous:

Okay:
shouted
whispered
replied
whined
asked
cried
shrieked

Not okay:
laughed
smirked
hissed
shrugged
sneered
smiled
shuddered

Think for a moment.  Can you actually shrug a sentence?  How about laugh one?  Try it.  Not very easy, is it?  Sighing might be somewhat acceptable if your character's response is a one-word answer.  But sighing a long sentence is pushing it.

That said, you don't necessarily need to use a speech attribution on every piece of dialogue, either.  Let's look at the following example:

The two teens ran down the alley, turned the corner, and leaned against the wall.

"I don't think they're following us," Jane said.

"Are you sure?" Paul said.

"No, but I'm not about to look," Jane said.

"What if they want to kill us?" Paul said, nervously twisting his backpack strap in his hands.

"I'm sure they don't," Jane said.  "They probably just want to talk with us.  But that's a conversation I really don't want to have."

You could argue that, while it's technically correct, it's a bit clunky.  You could probably get away with writing the following:

The two teens ran down the alley, turned the corner, and leaned against the wall.

"I don't think they're following us," Jane said.

"Are you sure?" Paul asked.

"No, but I'm not about to look."

"What if they want to kill us?"  He nervously twisted his backpack strap in his hands.

"I'm sure they don't.  They probably just want to talk with us.  But that's a conversation I really don't want to have."

All you really need are a few speech attribution tags, just enough to make sure that it's clear who's doing the talking.

Now, with said bookisms, things can start to get a bit ridiculous.  If your characters' words don't convey the atmosphere or urgency you require, then maybe it's time to look at what they're actually saying... because just adding said bookisms can end up looking silly (especially if you go and add adverbs to them)!

The two teens ran down the alley, turned the corner, and leaned against the wall.

"I don't think they're following us," Jane panted loudly.

"Are you sure?" Paul wheezed.

"No, but I'm not about to look," Jane shrugged.

"What if they want to kill us?" Paul shuddered, nervously twisting his backpack strap in his hands.

"I'm sure they don't," Jane smiled uncertainly.  "They probably just want to talk with us.  But that's a conversation I really don't want to have."

That actually doesn't look that weird, but only because there's way too much of that kind of writing in some of today's books; it's become almost commonplace.  Even worse is this:

"They want to kill us," he nervously twisted his backpack strap in his hands.

It needs to be said, since I've come across this mistake in two books in the past year.  This is not correct.  Nervously twisting a backpack strap is not a proper speech attribution.  Think of it this way: if you can't turn the sentence around and have it make sense, then it's probably not right.

Paul nervously twisted his backpack strap that they wanted to kill them.

Does that make sense?  Of course not.

Paul said that they wanted to kill them.

A proper speech attribution (in this case, "said") makes sense.  If it's not an actual speech attribution, then you need to start a new sentence... not just tack the next thought onto the existing dialogue.

And that concludes today's lecture.  < /soapbox>

Book Blogger Hop (9)

In the spirit of the Twitter Friday Follow, the Book Blogger Hop is a place just for book bloggers and readers to connect and share our love of the written word! This weekly BOOK PARTY is an awesome opportunity for book bloggers to connect with other book lovers, make new friends, support each other, and generally just share our love of books! It will also give blog readers a chance to find other book blogs to read!

This week's question comes from Vicki @ The Wolf's Den:

"What are your feelings on losing followers?  Have you ever stopped following a blog?"

Funny you should ask.  I just lost one in the past couple of days!

I will admit, I do feel a little disappointed at first.  Let's face it... I don't really have a ton of followers to begin with!  But I know that followers and subscribers come and go, and I don't want anyone to feel like they're being forced to read my blog if they don't want to.

As for whether I've ever stopped following a blog, the answer is "yes"... but only once or twice.  Actually, I should stop following a few more of them, since I'm subscribed to hundreds and I can't possibly read everything that comes through my Blogger Dashboard.  One of these days I need to go through all of them and see which ones I want to stop following; I'm sure there are some blogs that aren't even active anymore, and it seems silly to keep them in the list!  But that's a huge task, and one I don't feel up to at the moment.

Booking Through Thursday (23)

Booking Through Thursday asks:

I’ve seen many bloggers say that what draws them to certain books or authors is good writing, and what causes them to stop reading a certain book or author is bad writing.  What constitutes good writing and bad writing to you?

How much time do you have?

For someone as pedantic as me, writing is kind of a separate topic from character development or plot.  But there are more than enough common mistakes out there to keep me annoyed.  One thing that will drive me to distraction is the use of "said bookisms".  That's when the author, instead of tagging the dialogue with the simple (and easy-to-ignore) word "said", will use some other word such as "coughed" or "sighed" or "laughed".  I've read books so bad that characters even "shrug" their speech.  In the past year or so I've read two that were awful in this regard (although, in one case, I don't think the author had a good grasp on how to write dialogue at all, since every piece of it ended in a comma, whether it was the end of a complete sentence or not).

In the past, I've done quite a bit of writing.  I have a whole shelf in my bookshelf devoted to instructional/inspirational writing books, and I used to read Writer's Digest magazine religiously.  So when I see errors, they really jump out at me.  For me to consider a book to have "good writing" usually means that the writing is transparent and that I don't notice it at all.  No "said bookisms", no purple prose, no comma splices (unless they make sense in the context of the style).  If I can forget about the writing and just enjoy the story, then I'm more likely to give the book high marks in the writing category.

WWW Wednesdays (4)

WWW Wednesdays is hosted at Should Be Reading.

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

My answers:

What are you currently reading? I'm reading The Vespertine by Saundra Mitchell.

What did you recently finish reading? I recently finished Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.

What do you think you’ll read next? I'm think I'm going to read The Lost Hours by Karen White... although, that could change, depending on my mood (and depending on NetGalley's approval or disapproval of a request).