Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Books I'd Recommend to X Person

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

This week's topic is Top Ten Books I'd Recommend to X Person.  Who's the target of my recommendations?  I'm going to go with Boys (or YA Fans Who Want A Break From Female Protagonists).  There are so many books out there these days, but the YA and MG markets don't seem to reflect the fact that boys make up 50% of the population.  So here are some books I'd recommend that would appeal not just to the female segment of the market:

10. The Thief (The Queen's Thief #1) by Megan Whalen Turner - This is one of my all-time favourites.  Gen is a fun character and a great narrator... and just the sort of fellow you'd want to go on an adventure with.

9. Warm Bodies (Warm Bodies #1) by Isaac Marion - One of the most enjoyable zombie novels I've read, this one really lets you get inside a male character's head... even if that guy is technically dead.

8. Draw the Dark by Ilsa J. Bick - This is one of the better male-narrator YA novels I've read.  It's creepy and dark, but with an interesting storyline that's a bit different.

7. Tiger Moon by Antonia Michaelis - While the framing device in this story uses a girl, most of the action in this story revolves around a young man named Farhad and his adventures with a talking white tiger.

6. Peter and the Starcatchers (Peter and the Starcatchers #1) by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson - It's Peter Pan, a bunch of little boys, and some manly sailors!  You can't have much more guy appeal than that...

5. Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones - Quite a few of Diana Wynne Jones's books are suitable for boys, but I remember this story being particularly un-girly.

4. Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker #1) by Paolo Bacigalupi - This is a somewhat dark, near-future adventure with a strong male protagonist.

3. The Magic Thief (Magic Thief #1) by Sarah Prineas - This was a fun first novel in a series that would appeal to younger fans of Harry Potter.

2. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine #1) by Ransom Riggs - A male narrator, fascinating old photographs that tie into the story, and some really creepy goings-on make this a great choice for boys who may be reluctant readers.

1. The Giver (The Giver Quartet #1) by Lois Lowry - There doesn't seem to be a ton of recent YA or MG dystopian fiction that's suitable for boys as well as girls, so I had to include The Giver on this list.  It was one of the first dystopian books I can remember reading, and it whetted my appetite for more in that genre.

Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Sequels I Can't Wait to Get My Hands On

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

This week's topic is Top Ten Sequels I Can't Wait to Get My Hands On.  Let me preface this by saying that I'm not really feeling much love for sequels at the moment.  I've been disappointed too many times lately, so I'm not exactly itching to read any second (or third or fourth) books in a series.  That said, here are some sequels that I wouldn't mind reading (and that I hope I would enjoy):

10. The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater - The Raven Boys wasn't the best book I've read all year, but it wasn't the worst.  And I do kind of want to find out what happens, and if a certain plotline will eventually be played out (or if it will continue to be ignored).

9. The New Hunger (Warm Bodies #0.5) by Isaac Marion - Okay, so this is technically a prequel, but I didn't know about it until after I'd already read Warm Bodies.  There is going to be an actual sequel to Warm Bodies, but not for a while; it doesn't even have a title yet!

8. Under the Light (Light #2) by Laura Whitcomb - This one came out back in May, and I've yet to read it.  The first book, A Certain Slant of Light, is one of my favourite books, and Laura Whitcomb seems to be a dependably good writer, so I really want to read this particular sequel!

7. The Fox Inheritance (Jenna Fox Chronicles #2) by Mary E. Pearson - I really enjoyed The Adoration of Jenna Fox, so I'd like to find out what happens in this next chapter, which sounds like it focuses on Jenna's friends.

6. World After (Penryn & the End of Days #2) by Susan Ee - It was a little cheesy and I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I enjoyed Angelfall... but I do want to find out what happens next!

5. Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #2) by Laini Taylor - Do I really have to explain this one?  That was one intense ending in Daughter of Smoke & Bone; of course I have to see how it plays out!

4. Dreamquake (The Dreamhunter Duet #2) by Elizabeth Knox - The first book, Dreamhunter, had a really different feel to it, and I found that refreshing.  I'd like to find out what happens to the characters and the intriguing world that Knox built.

3. Frozen Heat (Nikki Heat #4) by Richard Castle - I'm a little bit behind on my Nikki Heat reading.  I've been hesitant about this one because the ghostwriting seemed to change (for the worse) in the third book, and I don't know if I have it in me to slog through all that mediocre writing.  Probably the main reason why I would consider it is because of how the third book, Heat Rises, left off...

2. Jessica Rules the Dark Side (Jessica #2) by Beth Fantaskey - I have this one sitting in my TBR pile, and I just haven't gotten around to reading it yet.  So many books, so little time...  I found Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side to be a delightful surprise; I hope Book #2 lives up to my expectations!

1. Hollow City (Miss Peregrine #2) by Ransom Riggs - I thought Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was deliciously creepy and pretty unique, so I'm definitely interested in reading a sequel... especially if it turns out to be as good as the first book!

Bookish Survey: Cast a Harry Potter Spell - Part 2

This is the second part of a fun-looking survey created by Jasmine at Flip That Page.  This time, instead of casting the spells on books, we're casting them on ourselves.

Here goes!

Stupefy

puts victim in unconscious state

A book with a chapter you couldn’t seem to get over: The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman.  This particular chapter was the reason I needed to cast Expecto Patronum on the book (see first survey).

Confundo

causes befuddlement or forgetfulness

A book that generally confused you: Salt by Maurice Gee.  I found this book confusing because it had such good reviews, and yet it was so awful.

Crucio

inflicts unbearable pain

A book that was a pain to read: Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.  I shouldn't have to explain this one.

Episkey

heals relatively minor injuries

A feel good book that you enjoyed: Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff.  Not all of it is "feel-good" stuff, but overall this book gave me the warm-fuzzies.

Expelliarmus

temporarily disarms an opponent

A book with a swoon-worthy character: Wrapped by Jennifer Bradbury.  Caedmon!  I might be in the minority with this one, but I quite liked that guy...

Impedimenta

impedes target’s progress

A book that kept you up all night reading: I don't think I've ever stayed up all night to finish a book.  I do remember, however, staying up "late" so I could finish Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary.  I was around 7 or 8 at the time, and "late" was probably still before midnight!

Silencio

immediate silencing

A book that left you speechless after you read it: Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick.  And I was not speechless in a good way.  I didn't even finish this one, I was so traumatized by what I did read.

Legilimens

allows you to delve into someone’s mind

A book with well-developed characters: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.  So many of the books I read today seem to have characters that are like cardboard cutouts.  That was not the case here, and it was so refreshing.

Levicorpus

a spell that turns you upside down

A book that changed your mind about a character from its prequel: Magic Under Stone by Jaclyn Dolamore.  At times, I felt like I wasn't even reading about the same characters.  There were some definite continuity problems, and I did change my mind about some of the characters; after the second book, I really didn't like them anymore!

Obliviate

used to hide memories

A book with a story you can’t remember: The Hollow by Jessica Verday.  Honestly, all I remember about this book is that the main character spent a lot of time baking cookies, making perfume, and taking baths.  What was the plot of this one again?

Peskipiksi Pesternomi

useless spell

A boring book that had absolutely no effect on you: Pivot Point by Kasie West.  I was so bored, I couldn't even finish.  I didn't even care how the story turned out, which shows how little I had invested in it.

Reducto

breaks through solid objects

A book that convinced you to reconsider a certain genre: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion.  I thought I hated zombie novels until I read this one.  I'm still not crazy about all the gore in zombie novels, though, and I think Warm Bodies may be uniquely thoughtful for a book in this genre.

Rictusempra

tickling spell

A book that made you laugh: Gump & Co. by Winston Groom.  I don't generally laugh out loud when I read (unless something is really awful).  This book, though, made me laugh in a good way.  I can't remember what was so funny... but I do remember that it made me laugh.  I also found the previous book, Forrest Gump, pretty funny as well.

Sectusempra

offensive spell that violently wounds the target

A book that may have scarred you for life: Barefoot Gen, Volume One: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima by Keiji Nakazawa.  This book was absolutely horrific.  I found it at the university library and it was one of those things that's so awful that you can't seem to look away from it.  Prepare to be traumatized (especially when you realize it's semi-autobiographical).  Now that I think about it, maybe this book is the reason why I've avoided manga like the plague; perhaps there are negative subconscious connotations there.

Tarantallegra

makes you dance uncontrollably

A series finale that made you feel giddy: The Wyrd of Willowmere by Alison Baird.  This is the only series finale I can think of at the moment that I actually liked.  So often, those final books are disappointing.  This one wasn't.  And while it might not have been the strongest book in the series, I thought it wrapped things up in a great way that made me want to smile.

Bookish Survey: Cast a Harry Potter Spell - Part 1

This is a fun-looking survey created by Jasmine at Flip That Page.  I thought I'd give it a go!  I'll let Jasmine explain:

So how does it work? Basically, it’s a survey of sorts, where I give you a certain spell from the Harry Potter series, and you answer with the title of a book you’d like to cast the spell on.

Here goes!

Reparo

fixes damaged objects

A book that needs some serious fixing: The Lake and the Library by S. M. Beiko.  First, let me say that this is not a bad book.  It actually has an amazing plot, and I quite enjoyed it.  It did, however, have some instances of bad writing and a few characters could have been developed a bit more.  If these issues were fixed, it could be a great book!

Lumos

creates a narrow beam of light

A book that deserves more attention: Tiger Moon by Antonia Michaelis.  It's one of my all-time favourite books, and yet I rarely see it discussed; I don't think a lot of people have even heard of it!  Reminiscent of One Thousand and One Nights, it has a gorgeous setting and unforgettable characters.

Nox

counters the effects of Lumos

An overhyped book: If I Stay by Gayle Forman.  I read this one because everybody said how good it was, and I thought the premise sounded really interesting.  I found it extremely disturbing, yet paradoxically boring, and I thought the out-of-body experience idea was completely underutilized.

Accio

summons an object from a significant distance

A book you’re anticipating: World After by Susan Ee.  I'm kind of embarrassed to even admit it, as Angelfall was kind of a fluffy, guilty-pleasure book for me.  I guess I could have also said Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor, but it seems weird to anticipate the third book in a series when I haven't even read the second one!

Alohomora

opens unlocked doors, unless bewitched

A book you want to be more open about: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.  Okay, maybe this is just because I feel I should read it at some point.  I've tried twice already, but I just couldn't get into it.  Maybe the third time will be the charm!

Expecto Patronum

conjures an incarnation of positive feelings

A book that made you cry, or at least want to: The Shadow in the North by Philip Pullman.  I must have read it over a decade ago... and I'm still gutted.

Morsmordre

conjures the Dark Mark

A book you wish to mark as one of your favorites: Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones.  My favourite book from one of my favourite authors.  It's not as well known as Howl's Moving Castle, but it's a lovely fairy tale retelling and well worth reading!

Petrificus Totalus

petrifies victim

A book you wish to keep forever: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.  It's one of my favourites, and I hope to always have a copy in my collection.

Protego

shield charm

An intimidating book you keep putting off: Under the Dome by Stephen King.  Maybe it's not the best choice for someone who's never read a Stephen King novel, but the premise looks really interesting.  However, at over a thousand pages, this one has me running scared.

Riddikulus

used against a boggart

A book with a deceiving synopsis: Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore.  There was nothing in the book about "Parry's involvement with a league of sorcerers who torture fairies for sport"... which is actually kind of disappointing, because that could have been a really interesting subplot.

Lacarnum Inflamarae

shoots fireballs

A book you wish to burn out of your mind completely: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.  But if I got rid of the memory of it, I'd still feel like I needed some resolution to the cliffhanger at the end of Catching Fire... and then I'd have to read Mockingjay and be disappointed all over again.

Wingardium Leviosa

levitates objects

A book you wish to reread: The Light Princess by George MacDonald.  It's short and sweet and one of my favourite fairy tales of all time.  I don't generally reread books, but I might make an exception for this one.

Avada Kedavra

causes instant death

Worst book EVER: Basajaun by Rosemary Van Deuren.  Not only did it have a horribly misleading synopsis and a creepy plot, it was also one of the worst technically written books I've ever had the displeasure of reading.  I'm sure it's not the worst book ever, in the history of all books... but it's probably the worst one I've personally ever read.

Review - Magic Under Stone

Magic Under Stone (Magic Under #2)
by Jaclyn Dolamore
Date: 2012
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 291
Format: e-book
Source: library

For star-crossed lovers Nimira and Erris, there can be no happily ever after until Erris is freed from the clockwork form in which his soul is trapped. And so they go in search of the sorcerer Ordoria Valdana, hoping he will know how to grant Erris real life again. When they learn that Valdana has mysteriously vanished, it’s not long before Nimira decides to take matters into her own hands—and begins to study the sorcerer’s spell books in secret. Yet even as she begins to understand the power and limitations of sorcery, it becomes clear that freeing Erris will bring danger—if not out-and-out war—as factions within the faerie world are prepared to stop at nothing to prevent him from regaining the throne.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

This book was so bad, I almost feel like laughing.  You have to have a sense of humour after spending hours reading something so disappointing.

I was somewhat entertained by the first book, Magic Under Glass.  But when I started in on the sequel, it quickly became apparent that it didn't have nearly as much polish or attention paid to it as its predecessor.  There were so many clunky bits of writing and so many little out-of-place details that had me scratching my head.

I mentioned in my review of Magic Under Glass that I thought perhaps the two books should have been joined as one volume.  I stand by that assessment for the most part, simply because there's not much meat to the plot.  And yet, it would have been weird to put the two books together because the format of the second book is not the same as the first.  Nimira is still a first-person narrator, but her sections are interspersed with third-person narratives that tell the story of the jinn, Ifra, and his dealings with the fairy royal family.  As a result, it didn't really feel like Nimira's story anymore.

The characters in this book seemed much less well developed than in the previous book.  Most of the female characters act like silly, vapid clotheshorses at one point or another, and too many minor characters were brought into the mix.  Ordorio Valdana was a particular disappointment, as, when he finally did appear, he only did so for a few pages before being of very little help anyway.  The villains were numerous, and some were also annoying infodumpers; they gave out too much information about their plans (presumably for the benefit of the reader), which made them seem unrealistic.

This book also really dragged, and the plot seemed like a really roundabout way of getting from Point A to Point B.  The side plotline with the jinn's point of view was necessary because, without it, there would not have been enough here to make a whole book.  And while I thought Ifra himself was an interesting character, I found most of the action around him to be contrived and boring.

My biggest annoyance with this book is that, while the main plotline was tied up and resolved, it wasn't done so satisfactorily for one big reason: the author forgot that she had two main villains, not just one.  There was no mention of what happened to the other bad guy, so presumably he's still out there, waiting to cause trouble.  The problem with that is that there's not enough unresolved conflict for a third book... and so this one just comes off as incomplete by mistake.  Oops.

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

Overall: 2.14 out of 5

Review - Eat, Brains, Love

Eat, Brains, Love (Eat, Brains, Love #1)
by Jeff Hart
Date: 2013
Publisher: HarperTeen
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 352
Format: e-book
Source: library

A laugh-out-loud funny, surprisingly romantic, zombie road trip novel filled with heart—and brains. Eat, Brains, Love is perfect for fans of Isaac Marion's Warm Bodies.

The good news: Jake's dream girl, Amanda Blake, finally knows his name.

The bad news: it's because they both contracted a mysterious zombie virus and devoured the brains of half their senior class. Now Jake and Amanda are on the run from Cass, a teen psychic sent by the government's top-secret Necrotic Control Division to track them down. As Jake and Amanda deal with the existential guilt of eating their best friends and set off in search of a cure for the zombie virus, Cass struggles with a growing psychic dilemma of her own—one that will lead all three of them on an epic journey across the country and make them question what it means to truly be alive. Or undead.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I don't know what I was expecting from this one.  No, actually, I do know what I was expecting from this one.  I was promised a funny, romantic story reminiscent of Warm Bodies.  That was not what I read.

Instead, this book is a half-baked teenage "romance", complete with references to rip-offs from other zombie works.  (What is it with zombies and vinyl LPs?  Is it like some required trope in zombie fiction?)  Aside from the superficial similarities, about the only thing that Jake has in common with R is that both are aware of their condition and don't really want to be zombies.  But while R has the heart of a sensitive poet, Jake has the heart of a nondescript, violence-desensitized teenage boy.  As you can imagine, the characters come across as quite different.

Unfortunately, the weak characterization in this novel prevented it from being anything more than a gratuitously gory story.  Aside from a couple of mentions of hair colour, we don't even know what many of the characters look like.  Imagine my surprise when, at nearly the end of the book, one character that I'd been imagining as white turned out to be black!  (If it's not important, don't mention it.  At least, don't mention it near the end of the story when readers have already created their own mental pictures of the characters.)  The story was told in alternating first-person points of view, switching between Jake (the zombie) and Cass (the psychic).  Both were so badly developed as characters that they might as well have been created ten minutes before the start of the book's events and just dumped there.  We never got to know who these people were before they were enemies, so it was difficult to care about either of them.  There were a few references to family and friends and a few things that happened before Jake went all zombie and Cass had to stop him... but they seemed like afterthoughts.  We didn't even really know what kind of people they were.  Both were kind of blank, as far as personality went.  Jake comes across as a mindless teenage boy; he's not even horny enough to be interesting.  Cass is even worse; she's in over her head and she wants to go home... but home to what?  This is a girl who apparently had no friends and no life to go back to.  I'm having trouble even coming up with ways to describe what I didn't like about these characters.  There just isn't enough there to even criticize!

The plot, at its most basic level, was okay, but kind of cheesy.  It reads a bit like a zombie/X-men mash-up.  On the one side, you've got Jake and Amanda, who are trying to get to Iowa and a rumoured cure for their zombiism.  On the other, you've got psychic Cass and her evil overlord boss, Alastaire, who are trying to stop them.  Okay... but I might have liked the plot better than I did if it had been resolved!  It was not, and as there is no hint of a sequel*, I feel really cheated.  What's changed since the beginning of the book?  Not much, other than the fact that a few more redshirts are dead and we've now got a love triangle.  The main conflict isn't resolved and the villain just disappeared.  That is not how you end a stand-alone novel.

Another thing that may be an issue for many readers is the amount of gore.  Warm Bodies had gore, to be sure, but it wasn't gratuitous like it was here.  I don't know if the author was trying to be funny by being so overly descriptive, but the disgusting descriptions of blood and guts came across as almost gleeful, which I found off-putting.  If descriptions of people's heads being turned into pink mist by a gun blast or zombies eating intestines à la Lady and the Tramp sound like they might be too much for you, you might want to give this one a pass.  Or, you know, give it a pass because it's not a complete story in its own right and shouldn't have been published as a stand-alone novel in the first place.

*Note: Since I first published this review, a sequel has been released.

Plot: 2/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Editing: 3/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 2/5

Overall: 2.57 out of 5

Weekly Recap - September 29-October 5, 2013

Here's what I managed to blog about over the last seven days:

Tuesday - I participated in Top Ten Tuesday, where we listed what turns us off about certain books.

Wednesday - I reviewed Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore.

Thursday - I reviewed two picture books: Flat Stanley: His Original Adventure! by Jeff Brown and Macky Pamintuan and Doug Unplugged by Dan Yaccarino.