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).

In My Mailbox (25)

Bought:

The Dark Divine
by Bree Despain

Grace Divine, daughter of the local pastor, always knew something terrible happened the night Daniel Kalbi disappeared -- the night she found her brother Jude collapsed on the porch, covered in his own blood -- but she has no idea what a truly monstrous secret that night held.

The memories her family has tried to bury resurface when Daniel returns, three years later, and enrolls in Grace and Jude's high school. Despite promising Jude she'll stay away, Grace cannot deny her attraction to Daniel's shocking artistic abilities, his way of getting her to look at the world from new angles, and the strange, hungry glint in his eyes.

The closer Grace gets to Daniel, the more she jeopardizes her life, as her actions stir resentment in Jude and drive him to embrace the ancient evil Daniel unleashed that horrific night. Grace must discover the truth behind the boy's dark secret... and the cure that can save the ones she loves. But she may have to lay down the ultimate sacrifice to do it -- her soul.

I know, I know.  I shouldn't be buying more books.  But I couldn't say "no" to the Kindle edition of The Dark Divine for $2.39!  For that price, I don't care that I'll have to read it on my computer screen.



What was in your "mailbox" this week?



In My Mailbox was started by Kristi of The Story Siren.

Review - Mockingjay

Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3)
by Suzanne Collins
Date: 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 390
Format: e-book
Source: bought from Kobo

Katniss has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now the Capitol is furious, and it will do everything in its power to stop the revolt that Katniss has unwittingly set in motion. Katniss joins the rebels, becoming their inspirational Mockingjay in an attempt to overthrow the corrupt and decadent regime headed by the evil President Snow.  It's a dangerous mission... but the people of Panem have had enough, and the rebellion grows stronger by the day.

Will Katniss be able to protect those she loves? Or is the Capitol still powerful enough to destroy everyone and everything she cares about?

And after all that... I have to say I'm pretty disappointed.

Beware of spoilers ahead!  Stop reading if you do not want the ending ruined!

I did not enjoy this book.  After flying through the first two installments in the series, I thought I was in for another treat.  I was wrong.  Instead of the rather unique and unusual circumstances of the first two books, we're instead given this mish-mash of combat scenes and Katniss crawling into various corners to hide.  The whole book seemed slapdash to me, thrown together at the last moment just to make a trilogy.  The tight plotting of the first book was gone.  The pacing was off.  And the characters grated on my nerves.  I think what bothered me the most was the lack of character development of Katniss.  But it's understandable because, when you get right down to it, she's really not that great of a main character.  She doesn't really do anything; she's basically used, abused, and kept in the dark throughout much of the series.  Things happen to her... but she doesn't really have much control over the situation.  She doesn't even handle these things very well.  That's not exactly what I like to see in a main character.

There were some things that I would have liked to see in this series.  One major thing that I wish Collins had written about was what went on behind the scenes of the Hunger Games.  Instead of Katniss going back into the arena for a second time (as she did in Catching Fire), I would have liked to see her act as a mentor to another tribute... and then perhaps proactively do something to start bringing down the government from the inside.  That would have been an interesting story.

Instead, we got a very depressing, very graphic depiction of war and resistance.  I finished the book last night and then had nightmares about watching people die for entertainment on reality TV (I'm not kidding).  While I get the underlying messages of the books, I just wish this third book had been a little more interesting (and perhaps a bit more optimistic).  It reminded me a lot of John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began... only it didn't hold my interest nearly as well.

All in all, I quite liked the first two books, but if I had to do it over again, I would have stopped reading after The Hunger Games.  I probably would have been more satisfied than I am now... even with that first cliffhanger ending.

Plot: 1/5
Characters: 3/5
Pace: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Originality: 2/5

Overall: 2.4 out of 5