Inamorata

Months ago, I'd downloaded Inamorata by Megan Chance--a free book that I'd completely forgotten about. As I looked through my Kindle for a book to read on the plane, I had no recollection of the book summary--or even what had compelled me to download the book in the first place.

I haven't gone back to read the Amazon summary that must have initially hooked my interest, but Inamorata possesses certain qualities that I can easily see would have drawn my attention. For starters, it has a darker paranormal element--not the sort that triggered the Twilight paranormal romance craze years ago, but more menacing and nightmarish. Moreover, the story takes place in late 1800s Venice and centers around the artist/writer/musician culture in Europe at that time--including allusions to famous artists and writers of the past.

I don't want to get too specific about what this book is about, but as I tend to write these book report posts to digest what I've read, there are certain elements I want to stew over.

The aspect of this book that really struck me (and may not impact others the same way) was its premise that many of the "greats"--Schumann, Byron, Canaletto--traded their souls to a succubus for fame. The succubus would become a powerful muse, and these men would produce their greatest masterpiece--the magnum opus that would immortalize their legacy, that people would remember them for in years to come--and then succumb to madness in turn.

Anyone who creates probably shares the same desire to some extent--to be immortalized in their work. The question that the book raises is, how far would you go to achieve that end? Would you make that pact with the succubus, knowing that you will produce your greatest work and then waste away in madness after?

By the time I finished the book, the sky had already begun to darken outside. The clouds over the Las Vegas desert were streaked a brilliant, bloody red as the last vestiges of daylight slinked away for cover behind the mountains. For a long time, I gazed out the airplane window and absently admired the colors. I don't know what I would do if faced with the temptation of immortalized fame, but I do know one thing. I know the madness that only a muse can induce. I still remember what happens when your creativity proliferates uncontrollably under the fever of inspiration, infected by the singular source of all your greatest highs and lows.

The year is coming to an end, and my bones can already feel the changes looming in the horizon. December has always been a time of retrospection. I've lost track of how many years have passed since the genesis of Heart & Crossbones, and I couldn't be bothered to calculate them now. But the sun is setting now. I haven't felt the same cancerous madness in years, and a part of me believes that I will never experience it again. But there are others in my life now--perhaps ones who will eventually inspire my words. As I stand on the precipice, I wonder if it is time to fall. I wonder if the sun has finally set on You.

Book Report: Second Helpings

My first day of orientation is tomorrow morning, which means I should probably go to bed, considering how I've been averaging nine hours of sleep these days...

My female roommate seems to be much more of a social butterfly than I am -- she's pretty much out at bars every night this past week. She's invited me to tag along a couple of times, but today and yesterday I pretty much just stayed in and had my "alone" time. At age 23, I really should stop caring about what other people think of me, but I can't help but wonder if she thinks I'm a hermit.

Part of the problem is that I've heard soooo many older med students here talk about how awesome my roommates are, and how I'm so lucky to be living with them. And it's true -- they're great. But it's putting all the pressure on me to be awesome enough to be part of this trio...

Anyways, today I drove downtown to run some errands. For starters, I've been deathly afraid of draining my car battery, so I haven't really been using the A/C in my car, which resulted in me literally soaking my shirt through with sweat. It was disgusting. I also was so stressed out about trying to find parking downtown that I forgot about an unprotected left turn and got majorly honked at.

But the good thing about today is that I ventured over to the New Orleans Public Library and got my library card. It's not a very fancy library--I've gotten so used to self-checkout stations at Duke and my home libraries in California that it was very strange handing my books over to the circulation desk and see the lady judging my book selection. But this library has lots of YA books I've been dying to get my hands on.

What sucks though is that adults aren't supposed to hang out on the second floor (where they keep all the YA books) because it's supposed to be an environment for youths. So the lady at the 2nd floor desk had to ask me how old I was and give me the spiel, and then I politely responded that I was only going to browse through the shelves and not plunk myself down next to the teenage young'uns.

Anyways, I found Megan Mccaferty's Second Helpings, which I've been waiting to read for a while now, ever since I finished Sloppy Firsts. So I stayed in tonight and read the whole thing.

Second Helpings by Megan Mccafferty

Okay, before I start... I've realized that reading books like this rubs off on me. It was the same thing with Saving Francesca -- after I read something with a very strong witty narrative voice, it affects the way I write. I just looked at that giant slab of mumbo-jumbo at the top of this post and did a double-take.

Anyways. I'm going to drop spoilers left and right, so please disregard if you plan on reading this book with virgin eyes.

So, I had quite an internal debate with myself about whether or not I liked Sloppy Firsts or Second Helpings better. Second Helpings was a bit off-key for me in the beginning, because Jessica came across as a lot whinier and unfunny than I recalled in Sloppy Firsts. The whole part about her summer camp I just wanted to skip past, because damn it, I wanted to read about Marcus Flutie. But on the other hand, this book had WAY more Marcus Flutie, which is pretty much the main reason why I picked up this book in the first place, considering how things ended in Sloppy Firsts. Also, we saw way more of Jessica's grandmother, who I totally imagined as Betty White because she's just that awesome.

In the end, I think I'm going to have to give it to Sloppy Firsts. For some reason, I feel like I laughed out loud more times with the first book, which also had a stronger narrative arc. Plus with this one, there were quite a few times when I wanted to shake Jessica and be like, "If you're so desperate to lose your V-card, why are you still dating Len Levy if he's so insistent on abstinence and you obviously are still in love with Marcus Flutie?!" I also didn't really sa-WOON over the scene where Marcus Flutie and Jessica finally get their shit together. I mean, I totally fist-pumped when they finally figured out their feelings and whatnot, because I've been shipping them since Day 1, but it takes A LOT for me to be impressed by love song lyrics/poetry. Sorry, Marcus Flutie -- I like you a lot, but your poems don't do it for me.

(Though I wonder if it'll be different if I'm ever on the receiving end of these things. I read somewhere today that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who are currently working on different continents, write handwritten letters to each other. I make fun of my ex-roommate's romantic boyfriend fantasies all the time, but I have to admit that I used to tell myself I'd be super impressed with someone who knew how to write an actual letter to me... kinda like how Koala said she'd be super impressed with someone who gives her his jacket when she's cold. Are we at an equivalent level of pathetique here? Actually, don't answer that.)

Anyways, I'm not going to read the rest of the Jessica Darling series. Why? Some credible sources have told me not to bother with Jessica's college and post-grad years. Kind of like how I've taken other people's advice not to read Mockingjay or Allegiant, I will just stop myself here unless I find myself incredibly bored one day and decide to see for myself. I can imagine if the series goes up to five books, Jessica and Marcus are bound to break-up at some point, and I'd rather just imagine every thing is fine and dandy when we close the pages on their high school graduation.

Okay, I need to go to bed. Toodleloo.

Book Report: Saving Francesca

 Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

I reviewed Melina Marchetta's most famous book, Jellicoe Road, last year. I liked it a lot, but now that I've read Saving Francesca, I have to say Melina Marchetta is one of my favorite YA writers. Her writing isn't lusciously poetic like Laini Taylor or Francesca Lia Block, but her characters always make me wish I could be their friends too.

Saving Francesca is about a 17-year-old girl of Italian heritage at a private Catholic, former all-boys' school that recently opened its doors to girls. Instead of the typical trope that paints this situation like a teenage girl's paradise, Francesca ends up dealing with a bunch of stinky, gross, sexist boys and hangs out with the few other girls that she doesn't really get along with. Meanwhile, her mother has suddenly succumbed to a bout of acute depression, and her family struggles with this situation as her mother seems to get worse and worse. 

This book reminded me of Megan McCaffrey's Sloppy Firsts, in the sense that it's focused on realistic, everyday life. Some people might find this boring, but I usually don't have any problems with slice-of-life stories--especially if the narrators are as hilarious as Sloppy Firsts' Jessica Darling or Francesca Spinelli. (I'll admit I laughed out loud multiple times in this book.) The plot of Saving Francesca isn't wildly dramatic, but all of the characters are wildly interesting. Francesca was sarcastically funny (if sometimes boneheaded, like your typical teenager), but her friends and family members were also great. I liked most of these side characters, but my favorite was definitely Jimmy Hallier, one of the crude boys that Francesca meets in detention. He is a riot.

"We get to Annandale and he takes out a cigarette and offers one to me.

'I try not to indulge. It's a filthy habit,' I tell him.

'I love that word filthy. I love the way you force it out of your mouth like it's some kind of vermin you want to get rid of.'

'You've had vermin in your mouth?'"

Besides the characters, I also really liked how the Italian cultural aspects were woven into the story. One of my complaints about Eleanor and Park was that I felt that there was too much of an emphasis on Park's race and so much untapped potential in exploring Park's culture, especially in a dual-heritage home. There's a brief part in the book where Francesca stays at her nonna's house and her nonna hosts the Rosary. There's a little backstory about how William Trombal (Francesca's love interest)'s grandmother stole her nonna's famous S biscuit recipe, and they've been fighting ever since. William Trombal's grandmother brings a batch of those S biscuits, and so Francesca decides to take action:

"So during the Glorious Mysteries, I put them in the bin, wrap up the garbage bag, and take it outside. I know the Virgin Mary will understand. The Jews are a lot like the Italians, so I'm sure there were jealousy issues between her and the other women of Nazareth."

I wasn't a big fan of Will Trombal--he wasn't as interesting as Jimmy or Thomas Mackee, the other boy that ends up playing a role in this story. So the romance part didn't really do much for me, but if you're at all interested in YA contemporary and have patience for naive and stubborn heroines (who will eventually learn her lesson, obviously), this book is worth checking out.

And now, I'll end with a final quote related to the gross but kind of endearing Thomas Mackee:

"For a moment I can't help thinking how decent he is--that there's some hope for him beyond the obnoxious image he displays. Maybe deep down he is a sensitive guy, who sees us as real people with real issues. I want to say something nice. Some kind of thanks. I stand there, rehearsing it in my mind.

'Oh my God,' he says, 'Did you see that girl's tits?"

Maybe not today."

Book Reports: "The Raven Boys" and "Lips Touch Three Times"

Off to a slow start with Chapter 16 (sigh). In the meantime, I chopped my hair really short yesterday (like Miley Cyrus length), and now I'm back again with a second round of book reports.

1. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

I've only read one other book by Maggie Stiefvater, Scorpio Races, which I liked a lot. That book was based on the Scottish water horse myth, which I've always been intrigued by (I wrote my own short story on water horses, after all), and her writing was very skillful in creating atmosphere. I haven't bothered reading Shiver and the other books in that series (which is what put Maggie Stiefvater on the map in the first place) because I'm not terribly big on paranormal romances, but I heard a lot of good things about The Raven Boys from my go-to book recommender, Forever Young Adult.

The Raven Boys is kind of hard to explain/summarize, but it was completely my cup of tea, and I adored it. I've always been interested in stories with a tinge of creepiness but not outright horror. There was a manga I read when I was younger called Tarot Cafe, and since then I've always been interested in tarot cards used as foreshadowing in fiction. Other elements that were totally up my alley were prophecies, rich private school boys, and spirits.

The heroine of The Raven Boys is Blue Sargent, who comes from a family of fortune tellers and mystics. She doesn't have those magical psychic abilities but for some reason is able to amplify the powers of others around her. Everyone who has ever told her fortune has seen that if she kisses her true love, he will die. Early in the beginning of the book, she goes to the cemetery with her aunt, and to her surprise she sees the spirit of someone who will die within the coming year. Her aunt tells her that the fact that she can see his spirit means that either he's her true love, or she'll kill him.

Later on, you find out that the boy whose spirit she saw is Gansey, a rich student at the local private all boys school who's desperately hunting for something. I won't give away what he's looking for, but his reasons were quite... well, you'll see. You also meet the rest of the "Raven Boys": Ronan, Noah, and Adam.

This book was great. I loved the interaction between the four boys, who were all very well characterized, and the mysterious elements were unique and thrilling. What sucks is that this was the first book in a series... so I'm gonna have to figure out how to get my hands on the second book, The Dream Thieves.

2. Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor

Obviously everyone who read this blog knows I am a HUGE fan of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, and I admire-envy Laini Taylor's way with words. So, OF COURSE I was going to read this book sooner or later. This book basically consists of three stories, each revolving around a kiss. At the beginning and end of each story are illustrations by Laini Taylor's husband, Jim Di Bartolo, which are gorgeous. I kept flipping back and forth to look at the illustrations as I read, since some of them depict specific scenes in the story.

The first story "Goblin Fruit" is about a high school girl who catches the attention of a very handsome new student. Immediately, it sounds like Twilight, though I'll just go out and say that it's not about vampires. I won't spoil what happens at the end, but let's just say if Twilight had ended up with Edward seducing Bella to dine on her blood, and Bella willingly going to her demise... then that's basically the gist of what happens here.

The second story "Spicy Little Curses Such as These" was my favorite out of the three. It reminded me of a fairy tale, mixed with a spin on the Orpheus myth. Due to a bargain between a demon and a human ambassador to Hell, a girl is born cursed with a voice that will kill anyone who hears it. Though no one knows for sure if the curse is real, out of fear she remains mute her whole life. In time, a soldier falls in love with her after reading her lost diary, and after they meet, she falls in love with him as well. The story takes place in India and uses a lot of eastern ideas on the concept of hell, and this was the story that started reminding me of Francesca Lia Block, though I feel like Laini Taylor's poetic style is a little more restrained. I was impressed by how the ending neatly wrapped up certain things in the story, which was a pleasant surprise.

The third story "Hatchling" has more of a fantastical feel that for some reason made me think of Howl's Moving Castle. This one also veers more towards Daughter of Smoke and Bone territory, with some fantasy terms and supernatural creatures. This story involved a lot of flashbacks, which reminded me of how some people were turned off by the huge chunk of flashback about Madrigal and Akiva in Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I didn't mind Madrigal's story in that novel, but with this one I felt that it became a bit too flashback-heavy. This story almost felt like a precursory experiment before Laini Taylor ended up fleshing out a full universe with related elements in DOSAB.

If you like Laini Taylor's writing and slightly creepy fairy tales, this book is worth reading. In particular, I enjoyed reading the words and sentences masochistically and asking myself, "Ughhhh why can't you do this?" Here's one of my favorite passages:

It was bound in floral linen and filled with girlish script. "The secrets of a blushing maiden," he quipped with a smile that brought his dimples out, and he flipped it right open with no scruple to preserving the maidenly modesty of its writer. Indeed, he expected none. He had endured his sea voyage in the company of the "fishing fleet" -- English ladies hying themselves in India to catch husbands -- and he felt as if he had barely escaped being drugged and dragged to the altar. He thought he knew the character of English girls in India, and surely this diary would be more of the same.

Tucking Gaffney's lighter back into his pocket, James began to read.

His smile wavered. It clung for a time in disbelief and then fell away in stages [I love this sentence!]. The little book did indeed hold the secrets of a blushing maiden, but they weren't the sort of secrets he'd expected, and by the time his train arrived in Jaipur, James had read the diary through twice and found himself--against all expectation--to be half in love with its writer.

And there were other great lines scattered through, but too many to quote here without giving the story away.

Book Reports: "Cress" and "The Moon and More"

Finished writing Chapter 15 last night--a short one, involving the scene where Rory pierces her own ears with a sewing needle. I had to do a bunch of Internet research for this one, which involved watching people pierce their own ears on Youtube. Haha my recent search history would appall my mother.

Checked out seven books from the library on Sunday. I figured I should write reports for two of them while they're still fresh in my head.

1. Cress by Marissa Meyer

I reviewed the first book in The Lunar Chronicles, Cinder, almost two years ago, but I just realized I never wrote a review for the second book in the series Scarlet. It's also rather hazy in my head, so I can't recall in any great detail what happened between Cinder and Cress.

In any case though, I will judge Cress on its own merit, and I have to say I was impressed with how Marissa Meyer handled this book. There are many, many characters in different places to keep track of in this book, and it tied together rather well. Also, I was pleasantly surprised by how she wove the Rapunzel elements into this futuristic setting. Cress has been stuck on a satellite orbiting Earth for seven years. Her "prince" is a wanted criminal and spaceship pilot who is such a Han Solo, and I never would have thought to adapt the "blindness" element from the original fairy tale, where the witch tosses the prince out of the tower and he loses his vision.

Also, there's something I want to talk about that is spoilerish. So... SPOILER ALERT.

Okay... so with Cress, Marissa Meyer TOTALLY cranked up the heat. Scarlet and Wolf have a tender moment in an early chapter before she gets abducted by the Lunars, so you don't get to see as much with those two. With Cress and Thorne... I knew the kiss was coming, since Marissa Meyer set it up so early, but it was still a fist-pump-worthy moment when Thorne kept his promise to Cress. Those two were adorable, especially the awkward conversation after they survived the battle and the normally smarmy and charming Thorne seems really nervous about having not lived up to Cress' expectations haha. As for Cinder and Prince Kai... maybe I need to reread Cinder again, because I wasn't quite feeling it with those two, though I still totally fist-pumped in that scene. You know which one I'm talking about.

END SPOILER.

Anyways, overall this series doesn't match my adoration of say Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but I am looking forward to reading the fourth book, Winter. Hopefully it'll be a great finish to the series.

2. The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Like pretty much all the other girls in high school, I was a big fan of Sarah Dessen in high school. Even now, when I go home I'll usually reread one of my top three Dessen favorites: The Truth About Forever, Just Listen, and This Lullaby. I stopped reading her books after a while though, because the others just didn't meet up to the Key Three and felt like a letdown. Well, since I had time this week and was feeling in the mood for something more warm and light-hearted, I decided to give The Moon and More a shot.

The story takes place in a beach town that I imagine is probably around the Outer Banks of North Carolina. (Dessen is from Chapel Hill, and since I spent the last five years in Durham, North Carolina... well, you imagine things.) It's a world I am not accustomed to at all--that is, a small town with small-town mentalities--but it was rather refreshing to read about this. The main character, Emaline, is about to head off to college in the fall. She works at her family's real estate business that accomdates a lot of summer tourists, and the story has the usual elements of a Dessen tale--family issues, funny and endearing friendships, love interests, an oft-repeated phrase thematically tied to the novel's title.

Where this book didn't follow the well-beaten trail, however, was where the love interest comes in. At the beginning, Emaline is with Luke, her easygoing boyfriend of four years (since ninth grade). They have some issues, and he ends up cheating on her, which usually is a dealbreaker GTFO thing for me when it comes to fictional characters, but in the end I couldn't hate him. It's obvious throughout the book that he and Emaline's lives have been closely intertwined and that they'll always on some level care for one another. He's always there for her even after they break up, and really, I chalk their story up to a case of bad timing. When you're about to head off to college, I think anyone would get restless and start to wonder what else is out in the big wide world. If they'd met later in life and remained just as compatible, then maybe it would have worked out.

Dessen introduces a second male lead, Theo--a film student at NYU. There were a number of things that Theo said that I could relate to--like his emphasis on education and city culture. I wasn't exactly like Theo, who reeked of Northeast money and privilege, but seeing as I went to Duke, I definitely felt like Columbia University is a different level than the fictional East U that Emaline ends up enrolling at. (I also couldn't believe why Emaline didn't bother applying FAFSA, but whatever.) So on one hand, I'm kind of from Theo's world. But on the other hand, good god... I can't count how many times I wanted to give him a smack on the head. He's so incredibly pretentious with a very skewed perception of his own abilities, and no humility whatsoever. I thought he was pathetic in all sorts of ways and couldn't believe why Emaline started dating him.

Anyways, yeah I just totally spoiled everything, but I'm glad Emaline didn't end up with anyone. This kind of ending felt very true to life. The only problem? The book wasn't a very exciting read for me as a result. I didn't feel particularly invested in Emaline, who I couldn't completely relate to because of her small-town mentality. I liked Luke better than Theo but knew the timing was off. Normally I'm really big on Dessen's side characters (e.g. Kristy and Monica from The Truth About Forever, Mallory from Just Listen, Dexter's band in This Lullaby), but I wasn't super into Morris and Daisy (didn't feel fleshed out enough to me). There was a bigger emphasis on Emaline's relationship with her biological father and half-brother, and while the resolution to that was also true to life (some people won't change no matter how hard you wish otherwise), it also made me feel like the storyline was stagnant.

So I guess my issue with this book was... it was too true to life? I already knew I dig fairy-tales, but I may have to ponder a bit more about why I was relatively bored by this book.

IF I STAY Movie Trailer

I don't think I ever reviewed If I Stay or Where She Went by Gayle Forman on this blog. For the record, those are two of my favorite YA books of all time. And to prove that point--yes, I own physical copies of both books. Bittersweet tragedy? Check. A family story at heart? Check. A high school love that revolves around music, featuring a classical cellist and a rock musician? Check. I didn't cry reading If I Stay, but that one definitely needs to come with a warning label for waterworks.

When I heard they were making a movie based on If I Stay, I didn't have much of a reaction, to be honest. As someone who generally prefers the book version over its film counterpart, I wasn't exactly squealing with joy at the news.

Then, I saw some photo stills from the set and felt strange about the casting of Jamie Blackley as Adam. I'd pictured Adam very differently in my head.

(Note: I have a soft spot for Adam because of Where She Went -- and not because I'm like one of those Team Edward groupies who's madly in love with a fictional character. If you've read Where She Went, you know what I mean.)

Then, I heard about Chloe Grace Moretz's backhanded comments on young adult literature in an If I Stay promotional interview, and I felt rather angry about it.

Then, I watched this trailer and all the negative feelings melted away, and I remembered why I loved the book so damn much. And also, I eat my words about Jamie Blackley, because at the moment when he says "It's too late. I see you" in the trailer, all these feels started bubbling up inside of me because dude, HE IS TOTALLY ADAM AND I JUST WANT TO GIVE HIM A HUG. And also, whenever that "Say Something" song pops up on the car radio, my roommate and I always make fun of it for being so weepy (not a weekend-road-trip-anthem or Monday-grocery-run-song in the slightest), but whoever made this trailer is a freaking artiste, because he/she managed to use this song in a way that not only did not have me rolling my eyes, but it actually made me feel something like sadness.

Anyways, point is -- I love this trailer. I still have my reservations about how this movie is going to turn out, but this trailer is definitely making a strong case for it.

Book Report: Dreams of Gods and Monsters

It's been established quite a few times here on this blog that when I fall in love with something, I fall hard. My attachments can become both fierce and long-lasting, and I will snarl at anything that tries smack them down. And when it comes to books especially, I become a full-fledged YAngelical and try to spread my love to everyone I know (i.e. YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK OR YOUR LIFE WILL BE FOREVER INCOMPLETE).

Okay, I don't actually do that. Because I'm generally not the type that tries to impose the things I like onto others, because my tastes can be a wee bit eccentric. But secretly, I am DYING to have someone share my excitement. And unfortunately, none of literary-inclined friends quite have the same tastes as me, so oftentimes my recommendations are left unheeded and thus, I party alone.

Anyways, as mentioned previously, I pre-ordered the third and final book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. You know when's the last time I pre-ordered a book? Harry Potter. You know when's the last time I reached that level of excitement about an impending book release? Okay, maybe I was excited about Throne of Glass, but not enough to pre-order the book. No, the answer is Harry Potter. The book finally came yesterday afternoon. I put off reading it until after I came home from dinner and grocery shopping, which put me at around 9 PM. I even commented to my roommate, "Ah, I shouldn't start this book right now," just as I picked up the book and proceeded to sit on the futon.

And yeah, I basically did not move from that spot on the futon until 1:30 am. Which was a REALLY fast speed-read, given the size of that book. I finished it in around five hours and felt like my eyes had turned into lead. Which was really a poor life decision, because I have class on Tuesday mornings before work. And I also, I missed the total eclipse, which I'm not terribly bummed about because it was probably too cloudy to see anything last night. But anyways! Poor life decisions...

...that I don't regret one bit, because THIS BOOK!! This is how you write the final book in a trilogy, everyone. This is how you write an ending that feels bittersweet but whole, in that you're sad to leave this universe behind but you know you're leaving everyone in a good spot.

And normally I dive straight into spoilers and my thoughts on the book, but I'm not doing that here because my YAngelicism is kicking in and I want everyone would go out and read this trilogy without reading any spoilers, because I can't understand why this series is so underrated. Is it because it's not a dystopian? Because it's not a paranormal romance? Because you can't really fit it neatly into a box, because it's so strange and unique?

There might a thread of selfish motive in my proselytizing here, because immediately after I finished the book, I wanted to discuss it with SOMEBODY, but alas I have no friends who have developed such rabid affection for this series as I have. The eternal struggle of my life. Le sigh.

And on a final note, before I end this "report" (cough): ZIRI I LOVE YOUUU!!

DNF: Love in the Time of Cholera

It's official. I have officially slapped Love in the Time of Cholera with DNF status.

I loved Marquez's writing style, but good lord I was all out of fucks to give about Florentino Ariza. If you plan on reading this book, then you should probably stop reading right here.

The book starts off at the end of the timeline, with Urbino and his wife Fermina living in old age. Urbina dies in a mishap involving a pet parrot. Right at the end of his funeral, an old man approaches the newly widowed Fermina and re-proclaims his undying love for her. And thus almost immediately, Florentino and I get off on the wrong foot.

The book then rewinds to the beginning, when Florentino and Fermina are young and exchange secret love letters. Their courtship continues even after her father discovers the relationship and uproots the family to get away from him. When Fermina finally returns, she sees him in person and all the magic is lost (i.e. "WTF WAS I THINKING??!!"); she tells him she doesn't love him and soon marries Dr. Urbino, her father's chosen suitor, thus effectively demolishing Florentino's tender heart.

The rest of the story essentially becomes the tale of how Florentino pines "chastely" and "faithfully" for Fermina for the rest of his life. While sleeping with a ton of women on the side. I don't even remember the exact number, because there were too many to keep track of. Possibly hundreds. I have no idea what happens in the end, or how Fermina responds to Florentino's confession. I'd like to imagine that she tells him to GTFO and kicks him out of her house, but to be honest, I don't really care about what happens.

I'm not sure how this story is supposed to be interpreted. If it's supposed to be a sentimental romance about the endurance of love or something, then it completely rubbed me the wrong way. To me, there was nothing remotely romantic or beautiful about his lifelong pining. Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and GET OVER IT, FLORENTINO. If it's supposed to be the story of one man's lovesickness-turned-mental-delusion that leads to him living a stunted life, then Marquez did a great job, but unfortunately I was so turned off by Florentino that I couldn't even bring myself to finish the book.

I do have to say, the book caused me to re-evaluate myself in ways that made me quite uncomfortable. I've read many stories in the past where I totally bought the "pining" bait, hook line and sinker. Not to mention that I participated in my own fair share for some years (cough). Also, there was an incident last semester that I've refused to blog about, but let's just say that when you're on the receiving end of unwanted attention, all that pining stuff just gives you the heebie-jeebies.

In other news, last week I decided to pre-order Dreams of Gods and Monsters, aka the final book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone triology. If you buy the first-print from Barnes and Nobles, it comes with a signed drawing of Karou by the queen Laini Taylor herself. And since my boss gave me a B&N giftcard for Christmas, it all worked out. CANNOT WAIT.

Book Report: Prodigy and Champion

I reviewed the first book in the trilogy by Marie Lu more than a year ago, back during the winter of my senior year when I finally managed to get my hands on some of the most recently popular YA dystopian books. Out of the three I reviewed, Legend was my favorite--but it faded from my memory rather quickly. I bought the boxed set for the trilogy during Amazon's holiday lightning deal sales. It was more of a financial calculation on my part, as I paid a pretty awesome price for three hardcover books. Normally I don't buy a physical copy of a book unless I absolutely adore it. And, to be honest, I didn't adore Legend.

And so, this boxed set unopened sat in my closet for almost three months, until today. Normally, I probably wouldn't have spent my Friday evening binge-reading for six hours straight. However, a friend of mine introduced me to this particular game yesterday, and I'd gotten so addicted to it that my eyes were swimming from staring at the computer screen for so long. In order to salvage my poor eyes, I decided to take a break from the computer and read those books. (Don't remind me that I still haven't finished Love in the Time of Cholera or Nights at the Circus...)

I skimmed through Legend briefly in hopes of triggering my memory about the plot. Just enough so that I could figure out what was going on what I jumped into Prodigy. After I finished Prodigy, I jumped straight into Champion, so I'll be talking about the books in terms of the overall series, rather than individual books.

Legend series by Marie Lu

If I ask someone to give me a YA dystopian series, chances are they're either going to say Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games series or maybe even Veronica Roth's Divergent series. Funny enough, there's something else those two series have in common--the third book of each trilogy received enormous backlash after its highly-anticipated release. I still haven't read Mockingjay because many of my friends told me not to bother, and I wasn't invested enough in the series to do so. I also haven't gotten around to reading Allegiant either, but again--I didn't love the series and when I already got wind of why exactly everyone was so outraged by that book, I felt even less compelled to hunt down a copy.

Which is why I'm even more amazed by what Marie Lu managed to achieve with Champion. The third book was easily my favorite out of the trilogy. I've talked about TEABS (The End of Awesome Book Syndrome) before in my book reports. For me, this usually involves feeling emotionally drained and strung out like a wire--but in a good, cathartic way. The ending is an emotional one, and though I always joke that my tear ducts have been surgically removed, I can easily imagine people bawling their eyes out in the last few chapters of this one.

In regards to my personal taste in stories, I'm typically (though with exceptions) more interested in character studies than the intricacies of world-building. If I don't feel anything for the characters, even an outstanding premise might not be enough to save me. To tell you the truth, I was only moderately engaged in the dystopian United States that Marie Lu built in this series. I did think a lot of it was quite interesting, like how Antarctica becomes a highly technologically-innovative nation that keeps it citizens in check with a video-game-esque point system, or how the United States split into two nations reminiscent of present-day North and South Korea. But I feel like the Legend series was less focused on examining its dystopian elements, than say the Hunger Games, which I think ponders more about the nature of rebellion and the Capitol culture in our own society today. The biggest threat in Legend is biological warfare in the form of a man-made virus--hence, the connection to present-day is a little more tenuous.

Spoilers follow, so read at your own risk.

The plot in Prodigy and Champion is fast-paced, and the action runs quickly. However, there weren't really any major twists that surprised me, except maybe the revelation that Matias, June's brother, was in love with the man who ultimately betrayed and killed him, Thomas. I don't know if it's because the glut of recent dystopian releases has made me more immune to these plot twists, but I anticipated quite a number of the story developments that occurred, especially in Prodigy. Who can you trust in these political games? Obviously, it will never be the first person you meet that offers a perfect solution to everything.

The series also, to my surprise, relies on a lot of tropes I frequently see in manga and Asian dramas. At the end of Prodigy, Day is told he is terminally ill, and so he breaks up with June without telling her the real reason, because he thinks she deserves better. Even Big Bang had a music video based on that premise (see: "Haru Haru"--which throws in a fake palliative boyfriend aka THE BADASS ONE into the mix). At the end of Champion, Day recovers from a successful operation that cures him of his disease, but he's left with retrograde amnesia which erases all trace of June from his memory--which June believes was the trade-off for praying to the gods to save his life. I believe Hana Yori Dango also employed this tactic on Domiyouji, until a bunch of cookies brought his memory back?

I haven't quite digested how I feel about the use of those tropes. On one hand, when I first realized what Lu was doing, I let out a mental groan--because these are tricks I've seen over and over again. But on the other hand, cliches can work--if they're done well. I feel less warm about how Day handles his diagnosis by breaking up with June--the confusion is cleared up rather simply in the third book, when June realizes what's happening to Day when the news report that he's been hospitalized. I still feel like this part could have been handled more creatively. But the retrograde amnesia part worked for me. Those last few chapters were what left me stumbling.

Yes, it was cliche, but it worked for me because Marie Lu earned it. She cultivated the relationship between Day and June across three books, and she'd taken great pains to show that as much as those two loved each other, they would always remind each other of the enormous pain they'd caused each other. When June realizes that Day is free from his memory of her, and she walks out of his life and lets him go, you want to cry with her because after all they've fought for, she's giving him the ultimate sacrifice she can give for his happiness. Lu includes a Ten-Years-Later epilogue at the end, which leaves the series on a bittersweet and somewhat hopeful note. It's also a fairly cliche scene, as one might dramatically imagine what would happen if an amnesiac crosses paths with a former love. I think most readers would need this scene of hope at the end. I still have mixed feelings on it, as it teeters dangerously towards sappiness but, deep down, I want Day and June to be happy together. Even with my notorious penchant for tragedies, that's how much I rooted for them in the end.

Book Report: The Mad Scientist's Daughter

This was another one of those books I found in the Kindle Daily Deals a while back. It had been sitting in my reading queue for a while, but for some reason today I just felt compelled to pick it up. I know I've been "currently reading" Love in the Time of Cholera for ages now, but it's hard to keep plowing through when you're not particularly invested in any of the characters.

I confess that I spoiled the ending of this book for myself before I even read it. I read through a lot of reviews of this book, trying to decide if I wanted to buy it. I knew how the story would end and I was apprehensive about the fact that several reviewers had called the heroine "unlikeable." But in the end, the premise of a futuristic robot love story outweighed the possibility of paying a few dollars for a book I didn't like.

The narration follows the limited third-person perspective of Cat, the titular daughter. The story takes place in the future, after a natural disaster wiped out most of the human population. Robots were then created to help rebuild civilization, at least until the human population was able to bounce back. The book begins when Cat is a little girl and her father brings home a mysterious robot named Finn that is startlingly human-like and one-of-a-kind in the world. Over the course of the novel, Cat grows up into a woman and we see her struggle at different points in her life as she becomes more and more aware of the feelings she has developed for Finn--who, though almost eerily human, is only a robot.

Though this book is categorized as Science Fiction, it's not quite the standard type you see in the genre. I can already think of certain friends of mine who are big SFF buffs, and I know this book won't be for them. In contrast, I don't read much SFF but this book is right up my alley. Yes, it's a love story--but it's also a bildungsroman and a character study of a heroine going through very complicated emotions.

I'll grant what the reviewers were saying about Cat being an unlikeable heroine. She has quite a number of faults. She hurts several people over the course of the story out of selfish reasons. But although there were times when I was dying to jump into the story and shake her shoulders, I liked Cat as a heroine because thanks to how flawed she was, I feel that her character grew and matured noticeably by the end of the book. I cared about her enough that I became very emotionally invested in her story.

Other complaints I heard were that reviewers wished Cassandra Rose Clarke had gone into more depth with the world-building. A part of me does wish there was a more detailed picture of how civilization has changed since the Disasters. I thought it was very interesting that society seemed to have reverted to old-fashioned norms, such as housewives going back into fashion. This actually set up a really interesting dynamic between Cat, who is inclined towards art and other "housewife" pastimes, and her mother who is a scientist in her own right. I felt like Cat's relationship with her mother never had any real chance to grow and be explored, which was a pity.

Now that the minor criticisms are out of the way, here's what I have to say: this book completely drained me. Quite literally, I felt an aching while reading this book. The plot wasn't the most clever thing I've ever read, but Cassandra Rose Clarke's prose was so lush and melancholy. I've never used the highlight function on my Kindle app before today, but while I was reading this book I couldn't stop marking different lines that caught my eye.

Also, Cat and Finn.... sigh. I spoiled the ending for myself, but the very reason I kept reading was because I was rooting for them so bad, I wanted to know how they were going to overcome such a huge obstacle. Y'all have probably figured out that as cynical as I may be, there's a romantic hiding deep inside. But my favorite love stories are the ones where you have no idea how they'll be able to overcome all the barriers in their path. There's a yearning that spans distance and time, kind of like the one that made me love Daughter of Smoke and Bone so much. Again, this book isn't for everyone. But for me, it left a lingering weight in my chest the way one might feel after a long cry.

--------------------
ETA: I just went and looked around Cassandra Rose Clarke's website, and she listed Francesca Lia Block as one of her favorites writers that had a heavy influence on her own writing. Boom. No wonder I liked the prose so much.

Book Report: Sloppy Firsts

This book was published in 2001. I was in fourth grade, still being a brat to my friends--namely Astrid, who I teased relentlessly over a boy we dubbed Warthog. It boggles my mind that I'm reading this book 13 years after it first came out, and it still feels as fresh as if I were still hunkered down in the trenches of high school.

I'm pretty sure I stumbled across this book in the library at some point during my adolescence, but I snubbed my nose at both the title and the cover art. Even now, I still probably wouldn't be caught in public reading a book with this cover. I distinctly remember seeing this book in Gov. J's house one day (a long long time ago) and thought to myself, Gross. The term "sloppy firsts" conjured all sorts of images of wet slobbering macking that I had zero interest in--which in retrospect was probably a wise decision, because although I read a lot of fiction books from the grown-up section back then, I was completely naive and oblivious about sex and I probably would have been skuzzed out by all the hook-up culture going on in this book. You see, unlike the book's protagonist Jessica Darling who seems to think everyone is boning everybody in high school, I used to think that, other than the blonde cheerleader in my World Cultures class who used to talk about her escapades all the time, people my age just didn't do these things. Cue a rude awakening a few years later.

It's kind of hard to summarize this book and make it sound interesting. It fits right under the slice-of-life category--which means it could have been really boring if executed poorly. Jessica Darling is a straight-A sophomore in a suburban New Jersey high school. She desperately misses her best friend Hope who moved to Nashville, secretly hates her friends whom she's dubbed the "Clueless Crew," has the usual family problems, crushes on a senior athlete whom she's only spoken to once, and has something weird going on with Marcus Flutie, a mysterious loner dude with a dubious reputation that precedes him.

But fortunately, the execution of this book was spot-on. It was so entertaining that I zipped through this in approximately three hours while multi-tasking. Jessica Darling's snarky commentary is a riot, and though she can get quite judgmental at times, to me she's kind of like a modern-day Elizabeth Bennet where those flaws just make her more endearing. If I had been friends with her in high school, we probably would have been smack-talking about annoying people all the time. Though high school hadn't been all fun-and-games for me, I'd say that I generally had a good time. I wasn't a social pariah. I had a solid group of friends that would occasionally talk smack about one another, but reading about Jessica and the Clueless Crew made me just a teensy bit nostalgic for the days when Rogue and I would spend every lunch break swooning over our fictional bad boys, complaining about the lameness of our lives and how we'd both end up at the same nursing home, and discussing the latest brouhaha surrounding the star players of high school drama (always the same dramatic people).

Random tidbit that might be categorized under TMI (you've been forewarned)--whenever Jessica would talk about her problems with amenorrhea (aka her menstrual cycle going on strike due to stress), I would mentally laugh at the irony of me reading this book when last night I woke up at 4 am because my monthly uterine rebellion was giving me such shitty sleep. And apparently I was having half-lucid nightmares about birds exploding into splatters of blood before I finally headed for the bathroom. Don't ask.

Also, no review of this book is complete without mention of Marcus Flutie. I've heard a lot about this boy, especially from FYA which has once dubbed him the "Mr. Darcy of YA." Well, I've only read the first book, so I don't really know if he clinches that title later in the series or what, but he's an intriguing one, I'll give him that. The thing is, Jessica's interactions with him are fairly sparse in this book--so there weren't any major moments that got me all riled up about shipping them. But because he showed up so infrequently, I always immediately perked up whenever he made an appearance--because let's face it, the two of them do have chemistry.

The cliffhanger at the end with Marcus is almost enough to make me scope out for the second book. But I probably won't read it--at least not any time soon. I scoped out some Goodreads reviews, and when I heard that Jessica gets more whiny, more obsessed with sex, and also stubbornly refuses to reconcile with Marcus, I thought---Ughhh. She was already gracefully balancing the fine line between being snarky and complaining about everything, and I'd rather not see that line crossed. Also, FYA favorably compared Jessica Darling to Anne Shirley, which I totally agree with, but if I have to put up with Jessica Darling snubbing Marcus Flutie the way Anne Shirley did to my precious Gilbert Blythe, there will be sad unhealthy days for my blood pressure.

I'd probably reread this book again though, just to savor the hilarious pieces of commentary. Maybe it's better not to tarnish a good memory by reading a less-than-sparkling sequel? We'll see.  

RE: Eleanor and Park

http://angrygirlcomics.tumblr.com/post/72519376982/angry-girl-review-eleanor-and-park

I wasn't as outraged in my review of Eleanor and Park--rather, I think I took on a more disappointed approach when it came to how Rainbow Rowell handled Park's race issues in that book. But the review I've linked at the top of this post does an excellent close-reading of all the issues I had with how Rainbow Rowell tackled having an Asian-American male lead. The book has received so much effusive praise in the literary realm that I'd been wondering if I was some oddity who felt rather underwhelmed by it all. Apparently, I'm not. The book seems to strike a different chord for people who are well-aware of the history behind media portrayals of Asian men.

On another note, this is one of those moments where I wish I actually used my tumblr account, but all in all, tumblr doesn't quite suit my blogging style. Not to mention that this blog is over seven years old...

Book Report: 4 for 1 Deal

Finished reading Burial Rites last week on the airplane; might write a post about it later. But anyways--

On Monday night, I checked out six books from the public library. My return flight to North Carolina leaves on Saturday morning, which means I had approximately 4.5 days to finish six books. Besides cram-reading books for class, I don't think I've ever forced myself to read back-to-back books at such a pace, but that's the luxury of the winter holidays for ya.

I was considering writing single posts for each book, but once I sat down with my laptop, I decided there wasn't really all that much I wanted to say about some of the books. Or rather, I'm just lazy and want to spill it all out in one go, since I'm really just writing these book reports for my own purposes--so I can remember what the heck I've read and jot notes on what I noticed. If this were a book blog that people referred to for recommendations, then maybe I'd put some more effort ha-ha.

In the order that I read them:

1) Love in the Time of Global Warming by Francesca Lia Block

If we're judging a book by its cover, then this book would be awesome. First things first, I love the title. Obviously a play on Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, which I've been meaning to read for ages. The summary describes the story as a post-apocalyptic retelling of the Odyssey--cool, right? Finally, FYA has entire posts about this topic, but I just want to second the motion that YA book designers need to stop creating embarrassing covers with big faces and pretty dresses and pastel fonts that scream TEENAGE GIRL TEEEHEE. Many people don't take YA seriously, and these book covers aren't helping the cause. I couldn't even get my friend to read Daughter of Smoke and Bone until I took off the jacket cover with the big face on it. (Fortunately, I got her completely hooked on the series... victory mwahaha.) As a matter of fact, I read this book first out of the six precisely because it had my favorite cover out of the bunch.

As for the actual contents of the book, I'd have to say that out of her newer releases (aka the ones published in the last five years), this is probably one that I like better.The language didn't enchant me with the same power it had when I was in high school, but I'm not sure if it's a matter of Block's writing or if my artistic tastes have simply changed over time. Probably both. I will forever hail Block for how she manages to weave diverse LGBT characters into her work without making them "issue books," and she does that nicely here.

I guess I didn't fall in love with this book though, because I was expecting more. Given the world we live in today, there's a lot that can be said about the apocalyptic future of global warming gone too far. I guess I was hoping to see more of a reflection on today's society in that regard, but Block undermines this by adding the whole mad scientist/bad science thing with the giants schtick. On one hand, I understand that the giants were necessary for the "Odyssey" theme, but on the other hand, I feel like I would have been more impressed if there had been a more radical spin on the giants. Fantasy elements such as giants and fairies are Block's territory, but I guess for me personally, I was sort of disappointed by having such a literal re-interpretation of Neptune's sons. I still prefer her older works and felt like the execution of this one was a bit of a miss, but overall it wasn't too bad.

2) The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

So here's the thing about me and vampires.

I am generally not a huge fan of the paranormal genre, but one thing I did enjoy about the vampire explosion in the last few years is how the "rules" are crafted in different stories. I was not impressed by the whole sparkling-in-the-sun thing from Twilight, but there have been a couple vampire stories I've stumbled upon that I've enjoyed. The Vampire Diaries TV show was fun to follow for the first few seasons, especially since the show wasn't afraid to turn people into vampires and kill some pretty important side characters. I've avoided most of the vampire YA books, but there have been some manga with interesting spins on the vampire lore. In one of the more intriguing ones--I actually can't remember the title of the series--the idea is that if a vampire ever kisses a human, their fates become bonded such that the vampire can drink only that human's blood. Once the human dies, the vampire loses its blood supply and will die soon after. Can you even imagine being the vampire in this situation? It's like true love on steroids, like marriage except 100 times the gamble because you're putting your life on the line and there are no take-backsies.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown sets up and executes a very interesting set of rules about vampirism. Here, being bitten by a vampire inflicts something known as the Cold--a "fever" that lasts 80 hours where you begin craving blood to the point of insanity. Drinking human blood completes the vampire transformation, but if you manage to resist for 80 hours, the Cold flushes out of your system. Coldtowns are kind of like ghettos where the vampires and some humans are kept within walls, and the US has realized that putting cameras in these Coldtowns--something of a cross between puppycams and reality TV--is profitable business. As a result, a lot of naive teenagers fantasize living in a Coldtown and turning into an eternally youthful vampire.

This is the first book I've read by Holly Black, and I enjoyed it a lot. I gobbled up all the satirical jabs at our celebrity-infatuated culture, and there are plenty of deaths to keep the stakes high. (One thing I didn't like about Twilight... given the deadliness of vampires, the action seemed awfully sterile.) The latter portion of the book loses a little steam, in my opinion, but I did not see the twist at the end coming, so bonus points there. Gavriel felt a little flat to me (I rolled my eyes once he started getting into the whole "you-reel-me-back-to-my-humanity" love territory), but holy pomelo, that one scene with Tana when they first enter Coldtown was scorching. If more vampire books had been like this, maybe I would have jumped on the bandwagon.

3) The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

I had never heard of this book before, but I happened to find it in the New Books section and the summary was too good for me to resist. Set in colonial Malaysia, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family is asked to be a ghost bride for the recently deceased son of a powerful family with secrets. She is soon haunted by his ghost but also finds herself drawn to the new heir of the family. This premise had me thinking of Tokyo Crazy Paradise where Tsukasa and Ryuji are obviously endgame but the obstacles for getting them together seem almost insurmountable. I read the jacket summary thinking that the heroine was coerced into accepting the ghost marriage and fell in love with the new heir while living in the new household. Potential adultery against a ghost? Mysterious family secrets? Oh heyyy.

As it turns out, I misinterpreted the summary--she doesn't accept the ghost marriage. The Ghost Bride has a lot more fantastical elements than I expected, which I probably should have anticipated if I read the last paragraph of the jacket summary a little more carefully. The latter two-thirds of the book take place in the Chinese afterlife, which I've seen people compare to Spirited Away on the Internet. They both take place in a spirit realm, but I don't know if I would describe it as such. Spirited Away is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli movies, and it might have the advantage of being animated but its setting feels so much more vivid, like a place I would actually want to visit as a tourist for a day. I feel that in the hands of someone like Laini Taylor with superb skills in world-building, the afterlife of The Ghost Bride could have been even sharper. On the other hand, I appreciated seeing the elements of Chinese mythos and culture woven into the story--given my Taiwanese heritage, I caught onto a lot of things pretty quickly, though I wonder how the world-building came across for someone with less exposure.  

Given that the storyline turned out to be so different than what I'd been expecting, I'm not quite sure how to pass judgment on the book. I don't mind stumbling across a story completely different from my expectations, but with The Ghost Bride, I didn't fall in love with what I ended up finding. The third love interest, Er Lang, caught me off guard because I failed in reading comprehension of the summary, but I almost felt like the three suitors were never fleshed out enough for me to care much about them.

The main thing that caught my attention though is that parts of Choo's writing reminded me of my own drafts. One of the things I've been struggling with recently is that at times my prose feels too slow or disengaged. Choo's writing seemed at times eerily similar, and I kept trying to figure out why. Does it have to do with the natural cadence of my writing? Do I use too much passive voice? I'm still pondering this matter.


4) The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr

I've heard good things about Sara Zarr but haven't felt compelled to read the one she's most famous for: Sweethearts. It's one of the six books I borrowed though, so I may get around to reading it tomorrow. The summary of that book didn't quite hook me, but there seems to be an inverse proportion between my expectations for a book and how much I actually end up enjoying it. But anyways, I ended up reading The Lucy Variations first because I was curious how Sara Zarr approached the whole young-pianist-giving-up-her-music-and-finding-it-again thing that I'm trying to do for Charlotte in EP.

I do like Sara Zarr's writing style, so I probably will give her other works a chance. What didn't work for me in The Lucy Variations though was that I didn't give a flying duck about any of the characters. This was particularly true with the protagonist, Lucy Beck-Moreau, a girl who falls for men twice her age and who I would probably not get along with in real life. I already wrote a post last month about why I don't like reading teacher-student love stories, and in this book Lucy falls in love with not only her English teacher but her brother's married piano teacher. Though the book stays in PG territory, this stuff was already making me feel nauseous. I also felt that Lucy wasn't a very good friend to her besties Reyna and Carson (who is Taiwanese!), so basically I didn't feel very fond of her at all.

And yes, I felt a bit of sympathy for how she grew up being pressured by her grandfather and mother into being a child prodigy. As a tiger cub who wasn't a child prodigy by any means but also grew up feeling chained to the piano at times, I could relate to Lucy's struggle with music. But when you strip the story to its bare bones, there wasn't much of a narrative arc for Lucy's return or any real character growth. And so much of it was propelled by her attraction for the piano teacher that the whole thing made me feel kinda icky and detracted from whatever punch the story might have had about loving music on your own terms. On the plus side, reading this book made me a little hopeful that I can pack a harder punch with Charlotte.

Progress Report No. 5 (and Other Goodies)

Okay, three things:

1) Music
Dunno why it took me so long to rediscover them again, but holy kleenex batman---Arctic Monkeys has been on replay this whole weekend, particularly their AM album. Ultimate favorite is still "Do I Wanna Know?" The lyrics are ingenious, in my opinion, and captures so much of the whole lust-charged unrequited yearning deal. Already shared some of my favorite lines in the last post, but this one's a zinger:

Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new.

The music video for "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?" made me laugh a bit--I like that song as well as "Knee Socks." Also perused through some of their older songs, and there are some shattering lines in "505":

What did you expect,
I probably still adore you with your hands around my neck,
Or I did last time I checked

But I crumble completely when you cry,
It seems like once again you've had to greet me with goodbye

Basically, I am completely envious/in awe/CHRIST-WHY-IS-HE-SO-TALENTED about Alex Turner's lyricism, and it doesn't hurt that, considering Sophelia's established proclivity for deep voices and good hair, this wordsmith is also in possession of a baritone voice and an eye-catching hairstyle that I've already discussed at length before. I have a suspicion I'd find him a lot less cool in real life (based on watching a couple of his interviews), but at least in the virtual world of my computer screen, Alex Turner is awesome.

2) Reading (and Watching Movies)
Just finished reading Life After Life by Kate Atkinson last week. It's my first time reading any of her works, and I do admire her writing style a lot. The story itself, however, left me with mixed, though predominantly positive, feelings. On one hand, I thought the plot device of rewinding time again and again until "you get it right" was quite interesting, especially when you see the side characters in Ursula's life play different roles in the parallel storylines. On the other hand, there were some storylines that confused the beejeezus out of me or left me feeling like I just wanted to jump ahead until Ursula died so that things would rewind again. Not perfect in my eyes, but good nevertheless.

Which is kinda how I felt about Frozen, to be quite honest. I was planning to write a separate post about the three movies I've seen the past three weeks (Hunger Games: Catching Fire, Frozen, The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug), but never got around to it and don't really feel like it at this point. Some things about Frozen though (SPOILERS AHEAD):

1.  WHYYYYY, OH WHYYYY did Disney only give Jonathan Groff one song in the entire movie? And not even a full song at that. Don't get me wrong, I love the reindeer song--I believe I said something quite similar not too long ago (along the lines of: "I like animals. They don't come up to you one day and tell you they don't love you anymore.") But that reindeer song was less than a minute long. What a tease.
2. Along those lines, that movie should have had more songs in the second half. The songs in the first half were great, but then what happened? This is where they should have gotten Jonathan Groff to sing another song--Kristoff had that great emotional moment near the end, or I would have been perfectly happy with another sappy romantic duet in the vein of Tangled's "I See the Light."
3. At the beginning, Kristoff witnessed the trolls erase Anna's memory of Elsa's frost magic. Why did he never mention any of this to her? Sure, maybe he was a little kid then and it was so long ago, but considering that was the moment he was adopted by the trolls, I think he'd remember how he ended up there in the first place.
4. Hans, I don't like you because I don't understand you. Yeah, you were totally skeezy in that "Love is an Open Door" song, but I didn't quite brand you as a villain because your actions didn't add up. If you were really just going to kill the princesses anyways so you could take the throne, why did you bother going off to look for Anna when you could have just sat in the castle and taken over from there? AND WHY DO YOU GET A DUET WHEN KRISTOFF DOESN'T?
5. Am I the only one who thought Hans would end up marrying one of the princesses? Since he was totally marketed as a prince rather than a villain in Disney's promo material. 

All in all, I liked the songs and thought Disney crafted an intriguing sisterly spin on one of my favorite fairy tales of all time. But I gotta deduct points, because those plot holes and the egregious lack of Jonathan Groff drove me mental.


3)   Writing
Was completely antisocial and sedentary this weekend--to the point that I started getting a headache, which rarely ever happens--but managed to churn out around 4.5k words. Not completely happy with most of it, but whatever. I just need to keep plowing ahead and I'll let my perfectionist side run free later. Funny thing I've realized--I was totally like Charlotte back in high school, feeling sorry about myself for so many things, but when I try to write in her voice nowadays I'm like, GIRL STOP THE PITY PARTY AND LET'S MOVE IT. Which is why it's kind of fun writing in Laurel-who-has-been-reincarnated-as-Ruqayya-long-story-I'll-explain-later, who tells it like it is and doesn't put up with her shit.

Progress Report No. 4

I suppose a progress report is overdue, so here we go:

Like I predicted, my November was too hectic for me to actually make a meaningful attempt towards NaNoWriMo's 50k target. In reality, I probably only wrote ~9k overall. As the year approaches the end, I've started having minor panic attacks right before I drift to sleep that I will never finish writing this damn thing. I know it's a pressure I've put on myself -- that if I don't finish a draft by the end of this gap year, I will have to defer this project for an even longer period of time once my future career plans start kicking in. I've been contemplating setting up stricter writing schedules the way I used to do with my study schedules as a college undergrad--waking up earlier, sacrificing sleep, etc.

The problem with that, though, is that I don't necessarily write better under pressure. I wrote a completely new scene last weekend, and it turned out to be probably my favorite piece of writing that I've produced in the past month. However, the rest of the stuff I've produced has left me with mixed feelings. On one hand, I think my writing has improved since high school in the sense that I've become much more precise with my language and more restrained when it comes to purple-y prose. But on the other hand, I feel as if I've lost the ethereal and poetic quality I held so much pride in before. It's still there somewhere, but I haven't figured out quite how to coax it back out. Optimistically, I might have made a breakthrough yesterday afternoon--a key piece of music came up on my iPod as I was writing a particular scene, and though it was only two sentences, those two sentences were reminiscent of my old vignette style--in the best way.

Anyways, I have a lot of work to do. =_____=

In other news, lots of good deals on YA books via Amazon today. I went a book shopping spree and bought the kindle edition of Days of Blood and Starlight ($3) and hardcover copies of The Fault in Our Stars ($6) and the boxed set of Legend, Prodigy, and Champion ($20). I wasn't madly in love with Legend, but twenty dollars for three hardcover books was too good to resist. In any case, I'm excited to read the rest of the trilogy. Eleanor and Park is also on sale for both the hardcover and Kindle editions, but I think I'm going to pass on that book. I've already wrote my thoughts about that book here. I really wish I had someone to discuss that book with, because I feel like I'm the only person in the world who wasn't head over heels for that book!!

Meanwhile, I've been spreading my time between two books. Finally got my hands on a copy of Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, which I've been reading in small bits during my lunch breaks at work. The book hasn't quite gripped me, so it's been a slow but steady process. I also read the first part of Nights at the Circus in one sitting over the weekend, and I remain in awe of Angela Carter's power. Considering how much trouble I had with the frame narrative in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, I was surprised by how invested I became in the story-within-a-story in Nights at the Circus.

I feel like I should start having a Currently Reading and Currently Listening section on the side of this blog... 

Book Report: Why We Broke Up

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

Even if you don't recognize the name of the author, you've probably heard of The Series of Unfortunate Events, which he wrote under the nom de plume of Lemony Snicket, what a decade ago? Time flies, eyyy.

Whenever I see a book on the Kindle Daily Deals that remotely interests me, I tend to browse through a couple reviews on Goodreads just to get a sense of whether or not I'm willing to spend two or three dollars on the e-book. I'd heard of Why We Broke Up before--it created some stir in the industry when it first came out and eventually received a Printz Honor. Some of the complaints I read in the reviews were that the heroine was not very relatable or kind of annoying, or that the writing style was hard to adjust to. I was somewhat concerned about that first factor--it can definitely make or break how much I enjoy a book (experimental writing style is something I'm more open to)--but in the end, I decided I was curious enough about this book to give it a go.

The premise of the book is straightforward. Min (short for Minerva) is a movie aficionado; Ed is the star basketball player at their high school. The book is essentially a Dear John letter from Min to Ed in which she returns all her mementos of him, recalling key moments from their whirlwind relationship through each object. 

I'll start off by saying that there were some negative things that I ended up agreeing with. Min's narrative voice often raves on and on about some of her favorite fictional movies. I would instantly skip over those--they bored me, and I think I would have perked up more if they'd been about actual movies that I'd heard of or seen before. Min was someone that felt quite real to me (especially impressive, given that a man is writing in the voice of a teenage girl), but I could imagine that this wasn't a girl I would have befriended in high school.

Yet despite this, the end of her story gutted me. And I think it gutted a lot of other readers out there, because most people can relate to getting their heart broken, especially by first loves. You hate someone with all your heart--maybe they cheated on you, maybe they rejected you, or maybe they just never truly looked your way. Falling for this person left you defenseless and vulnerable. You hate how pathetic you have become. And yet in despite of it all, you still senselessly and maddeningly cannot let go.

Everyone knows how the story ends--it's in the title of the book, after all. But knowing what's coming doesn't make the journey less suspenseful. Yes, Ed does something very Grade A asshole-y that prompts the end of their relationship. This was a minor issue I also had with the book -- perhaps it's because I was never super close to guy friends in high school, but I was dumbfounded that Ed thought he could get away with something so inanely jerkish and stupid. Maybe I'm giving high school boys too much credit. I guess I had been expecting a different reason for "Why We Broke Up" and what Ed did to Min didn't quite cut it for me. But regardless, Min's anger and pain registers quite sharply. What I do have to applaud Daniel Handler for is that despite Ed's flaws, I could understand why Min loved him in the first place. Maybe if they had met years down the road when they were less immature, it might have worked between them.

I don't think I would recommend this book to everybody--stylistically, it's not everyone's cup of tea. But I was thoroughly impressed by a number of things Daniel Handler managed to accomplish with this book. Aside from some negative points, I ended up liking Why We Broke Up, even though it left me feeling melancholy for the rest of the day.

Progress Report No. 2 / Book Report: Eleanor & Park

Update on my personal life: to my pleasant surprise, I have received interview invites for three medical schools in October. I now need to figure out a manageable balance between preparing for these interviews and maintaining a habit of writing.

In regards to my writing progress, I decided to try a completely different approach since my last update. I decided to try a more extreme version of outlining that involves summarizing each storyline from beginning to end. I've only been working on Charlotte's so far, but it's had some surprising results so far. I've completely nailed down her backstory with Storm (who has since been renamed... for reasons that I'm actually very excited about), and now I'm figuring out the details of each of the three interviews she conducts with Her Highness. Occasionally, I still run into some mental roadblocks, but I've since developed a way of countering it--by picking up a book and reading. Which leads me to my newest book report:

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Like many of the other books I've been reading recently, Eleanor & Park is one that I'd been hearing lots of rave reviews about. I was intrigued for a number of reasons: 1) Gayle Forman wrote a blurb that mentions "punk rock" and "true love" -- two elements that are totally up my alley; 2) serious high school contemporaries are also my thing; 3) Park is half-Asian. When's the last time I ever read about a male protagonist who had any trace of Asian heritage in him? (Answer: NEVER)

Well, I read this book really fast. I'm a notorious speed-reader, but this was much faster than normal. I have a confession to make: I skimmed the middle. I found myself wanting to skip ahead to the end. I even considered putting the book down at about 40 percent in, which is a rarity for someone like me who usually plows through in one sitting. Here are some talking points about the story, which might help elucidate why I reacted towards this book in such a way:

1. The Romance
FYA rated the swoon scale for this book a perfect ten. If we were talking about only the first third of the book, then I would agree--the scenes on the bus when Eleanor and Park start developing feelings for each other were adorable and really captured, in my opinion, how intense your five senses become when you're a teenager with a crush. I think Rowell managed to write the hottest chaste-hand-holding scene in all of English literature.

But for someone like me who prefers her love stories with a slow torturous burn, the build-up for Eleanor and Park's relationship moved too fast. After they got together, which happened less than halfway into the book, I grew disinterested in all the "I-love-yous" and "I-miss-yous" and the typical teenaged sweet-talk. After that, I couldn't tell where the story was going to go--and hence, I started losing interest. Perhaps I'm more plot-driven than I imagined myself to be, but I skimmed ahead partly because I began wondering, "So... now that they're together, what's next?" The family storylines of Eleanor and Park were intriguing, so I thought maybe Rowell would chase after those tails... but in the end, there really wasn't any true closure for Park's issues with his father nor Eleanor's problems with her dysfunctional family. 

And the ending. Oh, the ending. Maybe I'll come to a different, more enlightened conclusion after I think about it a little longer, but at the moment I can't understand why the story had to end the way it did. Specifically, why Eleanor couldn't be bothered to stay in touch with the guy who freaking drove her across state lines to help her get away from an abusive stepfather. I know she's more emotionally timid than Park, but that still doesn't explain to me how she could go from being so in love with the first boy that ever really looked at her to completely ignoring his letters and never calling. This is the type of behavior I see in shoujo manga all the time, and it drives me nuts. I can understand cutting off ties as a self-defense mechanism, but since the book barely describes any of the aftermath, I can't tell what Eleanor gained from this behavior at all.

2. Race Issues
I do have to applaud Rowell for creating two leads that are almost exotic species in YA literature. I have rarely ever come across a heroine like Eleanor who hails from an extremely poor family, and I was also duly impressed that Rowell was brave enough to write about a character with a complicated ethnic background. These facets are what made Eleanor and Park interesting people that I wanted to know more about.

However, given that I am fairly well-versed in the cultural and social issues of Asian-American identity, I think Rowell did manage to touch on important points but, overall, didn't execute Park's racial identity quite as well as I would have liked. I appreciated the part where Park points out to Eleanor that Asian men suffer negative stereotypes, and that the only Asian-American celebrity with a positive connotation is Bruce Lee. However--and maybe this is just me--I couldn't help but wonder about the fact that Park was associated so strongly to his Asian-ness throughout the book. I could understand the characters around him forgetting that he's also half Irish-American, but I couldn't quite understand how Park never brought this up at all. The book seemed to imply that Park inherited more of his mother's Asian features than his father's, but I think it would have been insightful to catch a glimpse of how Park feels about his blended looks. Because let's face it--Park is not just Asian. He is of mixed ethnicity.

Moreover, culture is different from race. There was a lot of talk about race in this book, but I hardly got any sense of culture. This hones in on one of my major issues with this book--Park's mother. Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan are painted as this wonderful true-love couple, and while those two were probably my favorite characters in the book, I felt the picture was painted too perfectly. Mrs. Sheridan had to leave behind her entire family in Korea in order to marry in the United States--specifically, in OMAHA, NEBRASKA. I've never been to Omaha, but having heard stories about my parents' graduate school years in Illinois, I can assume that there were few, if any, Asian supermarkets in the area back in the 1980s when this story takes place. I have no gripes about Park's parents still being passionately in love with each other, but I do take issue with the fact that the story glosses over how difficult it must have been for a Korean woman to immigrate to a place with hardly a trace of her native culture and homeland. And even if she had managed to replant certain elements of Korean culture into her new home, Park never mentions any Korean elements in their home, other than a line about his mother cooking liver for dinner. Again, I'm not expecting to hear about Korean traditions maintained in the Sheridan household, but in the complete absence of any mention, I would have liked at least a line or two addressing why his mother became so Americanized.

Overall: This book had a lot going for it. People have been crying out for more diversity in YA literature for years now, and I was really happy to see that this book has been receiving so much acclaim. However, I can't deny that I was disappointed in its execution--particularly with the racial/cultural issues with Park and his family.

I can't remember if I mentioned this on an earlier blog post, but one of the major changes I made with EP is an emphasized focus on the racial and cultural background of the characters. Culture was something I became very interested in during college, and it's spilled over into a lot of my work since. Aurora, Rhys, and Patrick all now have very specific ethnic backgrounds. Rhys, in particular, has changed a lot from the way I wrote him back when I was a bumbling high school student. Reading Eleanor & Park helped me gain a better sense of how I need to tackle these cultural issues adequately.