Book Review: Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

Title: Goliath
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Illustrator: Keith Thompson
Publisher: Simon and Pulse
Genre: YA (steampunk)
Why I read it/how I found it: Third book in the Leviathan trilogy

Description:
Alek and Deryn are on the last leg of their round-the-world quest to end World War I, reclaim Alek’s throne as prince of Austria, and finally fall in love. The first two objectives are complicated by the fact that their ship, the Leviathan, continues to detour farther away from the heart of the war (and crown). And the love thing would be a lot easier if Alek knew Deryn was a girl. (She has to pose as a boy in order to serve in the British Air Service.) And if they weren’t technically enemies.


Review:
The first book, Leviathan, was a little harder for me to get into because a lot of it felt like introduction. But I'm really glad I stuck through with this series, because Goliath was amazing! There's a lot of angst and action, and I love Deryn's character. Even Alek grew on me, when I was apathetic toward him before. Seeing this alternate version of history wrap up was exciting and unpredictable. The illustrations are as brilliant as ever, and they make me wish every book had pictures with them.

Other information: This is the last book in the Leviathan series. Scott Westerfeld's website is here.

I am a library addict

Hello, everyone. My name is Jenna, and I'm a library addict.

Provo, UT library. Yeah, it's gorgeous.

Libraries are free. They have so many things there: books, movies, CDs, TV shows, and all of them you can borrow for free. When I get inside a library, I buzz with the knowledge that I can take out up to fifty items without dropping a single penny. There's no guilt like a bookstore, because I'm not spending any money on this stuff, so if a book turns out to be bad, what does it matter? It was free anyway!

This may not seem like a problem, but believe me, when walking home with an armful of books you can barely carry, and then come back home to the mountain of books from your previous library trip, this becomes a problem. There's no way I could read all of these before they're due back, unless my professors decide hey, why give the students homework? Or make them come to class? And so sometimes, I have to return a book before I've read it which disappoints me, and other times I hold onto a book for weeks and weeks, making me feel guilty for hoarding it.

Oh, and other cool stuff that libraries do? They have author visits. So you can meet the actual person who wrote the book you read! I've met amazing authors like Lois Lowry, Ally Condie, Shannon Hale, Marissa Meyer, and a whole lot of others because they came to a library. Only if you want a signed book (which I have an addiction to as well) you need to buy a book and suddenly, this whole thing is a lot less free. Help! I'm going broke!

And then they do stuff like hold writing groups. Which, believe me, is great, except when I have a paper and two proposals and a test and a presentation to do! I go, and I feel guilty I'm missing out on school. I don't go, and I'm cursing my lack of time, wishing I could be there.

My name is Jenna, and I'm a library addict. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

New Writing Routine

So I've come to my final year of college (yeah, weird) and for my honors thesis, I'm writing a book! I almost feel professional (minus the agent, book deal, editor, and all that stuff) because for the first time, I have a real deadline for a full book. I started off the year determined to do well in this.

But home is distracting! Friends coming over, roommates doing fun stuff, social media, you know the temptations. Now I've buckled down.

I set a word goal for the day, and I don't leave campus until that is complete.

This works for me because I like home. It's warm and there's food and it's a place to rest after a long day of classes and work. But by staying on campus, I'm still in the mindset of work mode. I have to keep typing until I hit that word count, and only then can I eat food and play around on facebook and start my other homework.

It's nice, here though. One of the buildings has comfy chairs with foot stools, an outlet, and no distraction from the strangers around me. It's working out great and I've gotten to my word goal every day so far!

What do you do to keep distractions at bay while writing?

Book Review Catch Up

Still really busy, but wanted to get together some reviews that I did for the 2012 Debut Author Challenge. I'm only one book away from meeting the 12 book goal!

The False Prince by Jennifer A. Nielsen:

Orphaned fourteen-year-old Sage is taken from his orphanage to aid a noble's plan to impersonate an assumed-dead prince after the rest of the royal family has died. He has to compete against two other boys, and those who doesn't get chosen will die, when the one who does must commit treason.

Sage's voice is excellent in this. I loved the characters in this and the inner conflict that Sage has with his own family and his past. This book is tightly plotted with nice twists that I wasn't expecting. A great book for boys who might be difficult to be persuaded to read.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

This book takes place in the Russian-inspired land of Ravka, where the "Fold," an inhospitable, dangerous, and dark place, separates the country from the "True Sea."  When  being attacked in the Fold, Alina lets out light to protect herself and her best friend Mal from the dark creatures, she is discovered to be the Sun Summoner, the first in hundreds of years. Her magical power is more than rare, it has the potential to get rid of the Fold and bring light to Ravka again. With the Darkling, the most powerful "Grisha" in the land, she learns to unleash her power.

While this has many similar elements to fantasy novels with the protagonist discovering her power, the unique situation and setting brings an added layer to this novel. The magical system is of a standard kind, with just enough explanation of how it works to keep the reader free from confusion. The plot goes along not slowly, but not quickly, either, at the beginning. Halfway through, the speed is at a gallop. The two opposing relationships Alina has with Mal and Darkling make excellent foils to each other, illustrating a deep, understanding relationship opposed to one based solely on the lure of power.

Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe by Shelley Coriell

Chloe Camden, a junior who winds up doing a project on helping a radio show with promotion. This all happens just after Chloe's two best friends decide they can no longer stand her, and end up ditching her and spreading nasty rumors. But Chloe's upbeat personality won't be dampened, even if her grandma's Parkinson's is getting worse, and the boy she likes won't communicate with her.

Chloe's a fun, upbeat girl who always looks at how to better a situation through laughter. Her experiences with friends, family, and crush reflect what many teenage girls go through themselves. Sometimes I felt like her positive attitude diminished the pain she was actually feeling, but at the same time her character was refreshing among snarky teenage voices out in the YA market. Her life doesn't come to perfection, but it does come to happiness and plays out in a rather realistic manner. 

I'm baaack! (hopefully)

Life has been, well, insane.

Let's just say: craziest semester of my life so far. But I'm hoping to get back into blogging again, because I miss it!

I'll be catching up with some 2012 debut author reviews and sharing more of my thoughts and writing updates. My life's going through some momentous changes soon (namely graduating from college in April) and it's going to be opening up in a very exciting and sometimes nervous-making way.

That's all for now. Tell me, what have you been up to while I've been buried in real life stuff?

Book Review: Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins

Title: Sweet Evil
Author: Wendy Higgins
Publisher: HarperTeen
Genre: YA (paranormal)
Why I read it/how I found it: 2012 Debut Author Challenge

Description:
What if there were teens whose lives literally depended on being bad influences?

This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels.

Tenderhearted Southern girl Anna Whitt was born with the sixth sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She’s aware of a struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but Anna, the ultimate good girl, has always had the advantage of her angel side to balance the darkness within. It isn’t until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that she discovers her terrifying heritage and her willpower is put to the test. He’s the boy your daddy warned you about. If only someone had warned Anna.

Forced to face her destiny, will Anna embrace her halo or her horns?

Review:
I'm sure people who consistently enjoy paranormal romances will find interest in this story. For me, I love paranormal stuff done well, like Everneath and Paranormalcy. Unfortunately, there are more bombs than successes in this genre. While structurally I couldn't enjoy Sweet Evil, the mythology presented in it is very unique, given the angel/demon thing has been done a lot in the YA category. I think what I liked most about it is that it didn't shy away from the actual presence of God, or angels, or anything, rather than kind of just ignoring Him. The few angel books I've read have done this before.

This has a lot of standard tropes you see in YA paranormal romance.
-The sweet, innocent female protagonist. That would be Anna. But OF COURSE Anna isn't socially accepted by her peers. Because she's "different."
-The dark, tortured, but hott (yes, two t's, because Anna insists he's hott with two t's)love interest. Who also happens to be British. And in a band. And rich. And an emancipated minor. And did I mention the hott factor? That is Kaidan.
-The guy who gets thrown in halfway as a potential love interest, but she can't get over how her heart goes thump-thump over the first love interest, the one her soul sings to.
-Insta-love! Four days is enough to feel love toward a guy, right? RIGHT?

This did hold more entertainment for me than most other books in this genre lately, and it wasn't HORRIBLE, but it wasn't even good. I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy it who like other stuff similar to this, but for people looking for something different, Sweet Evil doesn't deliver quite enough. 

Other information: This is a planned trilogy, but the rights to the other books haven't been bought yet. Wendy Higgins's website is here.

Book Review: A Breath of Eyre by Eve Marie Mont

Title: A Breath of Eyre 
Author: Eve Marie Mont
Publisher: Kensington Publishing
Genre: YA (Er...contemporary? Fantasy? Fanfiction? Yeah, let's go with fanfiction.)
Why I read it/how I found it: 2012 Debut Author Challenge

Description:
Emma Townsend has always believed in stories—the ones she reads voraciously, and the ones she creates in her head. Perhaps it’s because she feels like an outsider at her exclusive prep school, or because her stepmother doesn’t come close to filling the void left by her mother’s death. And her only romantic prospect—apart from a crush on her English teacher—is Gray Newman, a long-time friend who just adds to Emma’s confusion. But escape soon arrives in an old leather-bound copy of Jane Eyre…

Reading of Jane’s isolation sparks a deep sense of kinship. Then fate takes things a leap further when a lightning storm catapults Emma right into Jane’s body and her nineteenth-century world. As governess at Thornfield, Emma has a sense of belonging she’s never known—and an attraction to the brooding Mr. Rochester. Now, moving between her two realities and uncovering secrets in both, Emma must decide whether her destiny lies in the pages of Jane’s story, or in the unwritten chapters of her own.

Review:
I love Jane Eyre. It's one of my favorite books. Which is why this book was so disappointing for me.

Many sections of the book are plopped straight out of Jane Eyre. Conversations, actions and such. Which, I've read alternative POVs from famous books/plays before with the same dialogue, however this book did not either A.) Add more scenes/dialogue than the original or B.) Give new perspective to the scene. Whenever she was in Jane's world, I found it boring and also, really unnecessary to the plot of her own issues in her life. It did drift away from the original novel toward the end of her journeys as Jane, but then it was just stupid.

Rochester's blamed for everything. Bertha's craziness, her situation, all of it. Despite the fact that Charlotte Bronte says insanity runs in Bertha's family, that Rochester stayed with Bertha for four years trying to help her, and also that asylums in the nineteenth century were horrible. Absolutely horrible. Yet Emma thought it would have been a good idea to send Bertha to doctors and nurses. Honestly, for someone so smart she should know a bit about history and the fact that insane people were treated horribly back then. Rochester did Bertha a kindness keeping her in Thornfield. Was he perfect? No, but judging him on our standards today is unfair.

Bertha's insanity is reduced to a depression, rather than the homicidal insanity it truly was. I shook my head the whole time Emma decided she needed to "save Bertha" rather than forgive Rochester.

And what killed me the most--Emma claimed Jane was not a feminist. Because she stuck with Rochester rather than Bertha. I can't even muster the energy to write down how completely wrong and stupid that reading is. Flat-out stupid to call one of the most progressive feminist novels for its time anti-feminist.

Emma's story outside of Jane's world is all right. Fairly stereotypical with mean girls and boys and such. I felt that a lot of things that should be more serious and drawn out in Emma's life were cut short because of the pages spent as Jane.

Other information: This is the first book in a trilogy, the other two A Touch of Scarlett (taken from The Scarlet Letter) and A Phantom Enchantment (taken from The Phantom of the Opera). Eve Marie Mont's website is here.