I've Moved!

As of July 3, 2013, I have changed blog location! You can now find me blogging on my new blog, The Giant Pencil. Click the link below to view.

http://thegiantpencil.blogspot.com

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Book Blog: The Crimson Crown by Cinda William Chima

WHAAAAAAA IT'S OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe this; the Seven Relms series is complete. Finished. Done with. No more Raisa, no more Han. Not even Micah!

Okay, I'll try to talk about the cover. I haven't actually looked at it very much. But if you actually look at the details, it's pretty amazing. The little fire and magic in the background = fantastic. I love little details like that.

I actually thought this book was a little bland, but it might have been because I didn't read it right after I read The Gray Wolf Throne. The first 100 pages were kind of boring. At first I didn't like the whole dance/celebration thing they were doing, but the thought of Raisa and Han doing that Demon King/Hanalea dance started to grow on me. A lot. It's amazing how I went from Team Amon in the beginning to Team Han now.

I don't know what Chima did with her writing style, but I found that its easier to picture the characters. For example, Han was just a name to me in the first three books. But now I picture him as tall, handsome, and a whole handful of other descriptive words that I probably have got wrong. And Micah, I can faintly see him, but not his face. Everyone else is still a blurry mass of skin. It's funny, I never thought of how easily I can picture characters before. And that goes for any book.

What I really didn't like (it took a lot of sitting around and thinking before I finally found something I DIDN'T like about this book) was how Raisa was so easily deceived. When will she learn not to trust Micah? Jeez.

I expected more out of The Crimson Crown. It's suppose to be the "big ending". The finale. Te thing that leaves the reader in stunded silence, or in a puddle of tears, or a—you get my point. But, even though I didn't actually predict it this time, the ending wasnt a big surprise to me. It wasn't like Eona where I feel like I'm being slapped in the face with twist and turns (I think that's the only time when I would be okay being slapped in the face). I'm a little disappointed that my prediction for Queen Marianna's killer didn't come true. I thought I had that one in the bag. But, I guess I can't win them all!

Because the ending was very anticlimactic, I'm taking off a half of a star. Sorry Chima!

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Book Blog: Alanna: In the Hand of the Goddess

I don't know why, but I don't feel anything after reading this book. It's like my feelings are in neutral; I don't hate, but I don't love it.

The cover is better than the first. She doesn't look AS scary as the Alanna in #1, which makes me happy ^_^

The content is alright. All the time jumps are really confusing, and the book is REALLY easy to predict. And who is Pierce's publisher? I'm reading and I find half a billion (alright, maybe not that many) typos and mistakes. That's just not right!

Yeah, so I guess you can say that this boo is pretty average. It almost makes a reviewer like me hate it because I don't have anything to say.

Rating: 3.75 Stars

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Book Blog: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

REPOST FROM GOODREADS


Now, before I begin, let me start off by saying that I absolutely adore dystopian novels. I've been reading as many as I could get my hands on (which, unfortunately, hasn't been that many because, apparently, everyone else likes science fiction too). I received this book as a present recently because it "got really high praise." Overjoyed, I began reading it right away. 

But I noticed several things. Usually, when reading a good science fiction novel, (or any well-written novel), I'm immediately ensnared into the plot, constantly craving more. Delirium? Not so much. Although the book was interesting, I found the whole story line a little....shallow. It might just be me, but I think that it has something to do with the major love factor. 

Don't get me wrong; I love to read romances every once in a while. There are plenty of good ones out there. But love is one of the easiest, yet hardest topic to write about. And I felt that the story just kept going on and on without a climax. 

I plan on reading the sequel because authors tend to improve their writing style as the series goes along. Or not. We'll see.

Book Blog: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

LOTS OF SPOILERS!!!

The cover freaks me out. Her face is too big and her body is made out of flowers. What a creep-o.

Let's cut to the chase; the book was as boring as...I don't know. Stuff. I don't know what I'm talking about. Please hold while i go and get my notes.
...
...
... I'm back!

First off, the book is freakin confusing! Oliver thought it would be all fine and dandy to keep switching back and forth between "now" and "then" which got me all confused. I actually had to READ the chapter title! It's too much work >.<

Um, this isn't a complaint...not really...but Lena keeps reminding me of Beautiful Creatures ^_^ But the story line is really boring :( I had a hard time paying attention to the book. I skimmed over a lot of the details.

My copy of my book has really thin pages! I don't know why I put that in my notes, but it's true. The pages are really, really thin. I was afraid I was going to rip one! And the chapters are too short. Boo. And the scenes with Julian (or whatever his name is) and Lena are awful! I mean, it just so happens that Lena wakes up to see Julian "bathing" himself and IT JUST SO HAPPENS that Julian walks in the room when Lena doesn't have her top on. Goodness. It's way too obvious that Oliver wants them to get together.

It makes me feel a little silly when I figure stuff out before the characters in the book. Like the code that was hidden in the clock? The character are looking around thinking 9 and 3 blah 3 and 9 Bleh. And I'm sitting there shouting "IT'S 0915 YOU BIG FAT DUMBOS!" And then seconds later they're all like "Oh! it's 0915!" *facepalm*
"'Hey, hey, hey!' A policeman is waving to us from up ahead, gesturing with his walkie-talkie..."

Rating: 3 Stars

Monday, April 22, 2013

Book Blog: Eona by Alison Goodman

Oh. My. God. I think I'm going to cry. This book was so fantastic.

Over 18 hours later...

Alright, everyone. I can now write a truthful review. I've learned from past experiences not to write a review immediately after finishing a book with an over-the-top ending. What will happen is that I will find all of these flaws only to forget them by the time I finish the book.

As usual, lets start with the cover. It's beautiful, true, but is that suppose to be Eona? She rarely wears her hair down (based on the structure of society in this book), so I don't think that the drawing is particularly accurate.

The content reminded me a lot of Beautiful Darkness. In Beautiful Darkness, Lena was all crazy because she didn't know what the heck she was. And here's Eona who doesn't know what her power is... Let me be frank. She was a mess. I was very, VERY unhappy with the book. But then the ending came along. And then I was the one who was a mess.

Here's the thing; I lie foretelling events in stories. And I was pretty sure I already knew how it was all going to end.  But Goodman just HAD to throw the reader a curve ball.  I loved the ending. Very much. So much, that I decided to give the book five stars instead of three.

But, one thing.

FOR YOUR CONVINENCE
Please highlight the below text (which is in white) to view my rant ^_^

I'm mad that Ido turned out to be the rotten person everyone thought he was in Eon. It just seems like a lousy way to get rid of Eona's other love interest.

But the ending was great. If anything, read it for that.

Rating: Five Stars

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Book Blog -MANGA-: i am here!

Here's the thing; I don't usually do book blogs on manga. But I have a lot to say about this one, so I'm making an exception.
So, I came upon this manga by chance. I say the cover, thought it was pretty, and bought it. What I didn't know was that it was a T Ages 13+ manga. I'm used to reading Older Teen manga; it's much more interesting to me. But I already bought this one, so why not read it?

Here's a little background:
A Sunflower in the Shade
Invisible to her classmates, Hikage Sumino is and eighth grader with no selt-esteem. Her only friends are the visitors to her Internet blog. One day, the most popular boy in the grade suddenly talks to her. Encouraged by this twist of fate, Hikqge determines to transform her life.

...I don't think I've read a manga that takes place in middle school. Until now. Not sure how I felt about that, but I read it anyway.

This manga is a stunning piece of work. The drawings (I'm not sure if I'm using the correct terminology here, but you get my meaning) are cute/pretty and BIG! It was easy to determine what was going on, unlike those manga with the epic fight scenes where there's so much ink on the page that I have NO idea what's going on. Visually, this manga is fantastic.

The story line...I'll give it a B. Middle school drama isn't really my thing. It sends a great message, but it almost seems like a fantasy. Not many of the bully situations shown actually turn out the way they did. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I wish it was more realistic. Not that there's anything THAT realistic about manga in the first place, but still. I would have liked a more complex story line.

There's one more thing I'd like to point out about this manga. The blog. The main character blogs!!! Even though after...three years(?) of blogging with only two followers, she hasn't given up. That's really inspirational. It kinda reminds me of myself. I'm a blogger, but I don't think anyone actually reads what I'm saying. But I'm determined to keep blogging now, especially since Hikage had to blog for a year until she got her first comment. If that's what it takes (or more) then I'll keep writing. (Oh, and I saw the link to the blog several times in the manga and its actually a real blog! I can't read it. Of course, and the last post was made several years ago, but here's the link: http://emaema.sakura.ne.jp/blog/)

Overall, I'd give it an A, especially considering that this was Ema Toyama's first manga. I wish More mangaka could draw like her!

Friday, April 19, 2013

Footnotes: Mangas, Graphic Novels, and Other Pictue Books

I've become an otaku recently, within in last half a year. It started with an anime...
I mean, what's not to love of Kaichou wa Maid-sama!? For those of you who don't know, the picture is of Misaki and Takumi (they're in love!!! Not that you can tell by that picture or anything. And sorry if I just spoiled the story for any of you). After that, I found the manga (online, I could figure out where I could buy a copy in English). And then I branched off to other mangas. I read Soul Eater, Fairy Tail (one of my favorites!), Pandora Hearts (another fav), Black Butler, Special A...I won't list all of them. There should be a widget on the side >.> with a bung of the manga that I like list on it. It's not a complete list; I don't think I included some of the manga I read online for free, but you'll get to see some of the stuff I've read. 

I'm trying to branch out even more; so far, most of the manga I've read have English names (beside Kaichou wa). But I'm afraid to read it when I don't even know what the title means! I guess I'll have to conquer that fear sometime O.o Have you guys ever noticed that I haven't been doing book blogs on any of the manga I've read? There's reasoning behind that, y'know. Manga books are way too short and it's hard for me to pick out stuff that I DON'T like about it. Plus I'm not a good critic for pictures, which is why I tend to stay away from regular, non-manga books. That and the fact that they're meant for kindergarteners. 

What really bugs me are graphic novels that are written/drawn originally in an English-speaking country. Like, I haven't seen too many of those, but I know there's a graphic novel for Maximum Ride and Beautiful Creatures. But then they're listed as a manga (or at least in my local book store)which really, REALLY bugs me. You're suppose to call them graphic novels!!! A manga reads right to left, not this left to right nonsense. I guess some people who don't know the true art of manga would be drawn to it, though. Almost all my friends (or are they O.o)think it's WEIRD to read a book BACKWARDS. C'mon, people! It's completely normal to read boos backwards. Right?... Alright, maybe not normal there life. But it's normal in Japan, so deal with it people-who-think-manga-is-weird.


Well, I'm tired of mini ranting about how manga is t appreciated. I'm done. Bye, and don't hate manga!!!

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Book Blog: Alanna: The First Adventure

Yup! I finally got to reading this book. For those of you who don't know, it's by the same author of Beka Cooper. I thought that I'd read the book that started it all. It's funny cause I kept thinking "Hey, that's  like Beka Cooper's story!" Only to realize that it would actually be the other way around. But that's what I get for reading the books out of order.

The cover first, of course. Kinda creepy in my opinion. I don't like her eyes. She's staring at me. Always. Gives me shivers at night.

The book itself is pretty good. I'm keeping this review short since the book is short (lame excuse, I know). But there were only a few things that I DIDN'T like, and I'm a hater. There's barely anything for me to hate one!

One, the evil ghost stuff. They kept mentioning that and I'm all like "AHHHHHHHHHH!" I'm a stickler for that stuff. Gave me shivers. And the demons at the end. They're suppose to be some big and mighty opponent, but they seemed so wimpy! I would have liked the big enemy at the end to have been something more...scary.

This read seemed to be...easier than the Beka Cooper books. Not that I'm complaining or anything; I got through the book faster than Terrier or Bloodhound. But that might have been because it looked less intimidating.

The book's too short. I could have read it in a day. But a good book.

Rating: 4 Stars

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Book Blog: Beka Cooper: Terrier

REPOST FROM GOODREADS


The book is very...unique. When I started reading, I was immediately turned off, for a lack of better words. The diary entries weren't exactly the easiest to read, so right away, I was bracing myself for a long, torturous 500 pages. 

It wasn't as bad as I thought. The story itself was pretty good, though hard to units and at times. It's been a while since I've read this style of writing. The main character was one of my favorites; she wasn't outgoing or have an attitude. She was shy, but she didn't let that get in her way of becoming a heroine. 

What made me give this book four star instead of five was the writing style. It just wasnt to my liking. I know that Pierce was just writing like that character(s) should be (and I praise her for that), but it really bored me at times. And the intentional (though I think there was a typo in there somewhere) writing mistakes were driving me nuts!

Book Blog: Grave Mercy

I'm going to keep this review short. Just cause.

Look at this beautiful cover! For once someone got it right. They made the girl wear a RED dress (draws the eye to it, no?)!  And everything else is nice to. It's a very good looking cover, if anyone cares about my opinion.

Now, I picked up this book based on the cover, something that I rarely ever do. But I thought, "A picture says a thousand words, right? So I can probably look at the cover and figure out what the story's about WITHOUT EVEN READ THE BACK!" I thought that this book was about a girl of higher class, maybe a princess or a lady (I did know that this is a historical fiction), and that she was going to be doing some kinda fight (see weapon).

Remind me to never, ever, do that again. I think that not knowing what the book was about resulted in me not liking that book. If I knew it was going to be some romance-y nun novel, I probably would never have picked it up. To cliché for my liking (besides the nun part, of course).

I open the book and read the first chapter. So far so good. She's being forced into a marriage, nothing uncommon about that. But then, all of a sudden, BLAM! Suddenly she's part of some convent that serves Death like he's their God.
And then she's got to meet some super hot guy who he hates, but is so OBVIOUSLY going o fall in love with (which SPOILER ALERT she does). 

That's another thing I don't like about this book, the characters. I felt like there wasn't enough description, especially for our dear protagonist. 99.99% of the time, I couldn't remember her name!

But I'm going to stop ranting now because I really don't want to have to think about it anymore. Don't read it.

Rating: 1.25 Stars

Book Blog: Beka Cooper: Bloodhound

This book review is not going to be as long as I hoped it would. You will read below that I read the book in two parts due to personal reasons. The first part was written on April 5(?) and will be n the first 250 pages or so. The second part is written today (April 16, 2013) and is on the book as a whole, though there probably will be more on the last half than anything else. I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm repeating myself!
April 5


So I kinda sped read through the last part of the book (for personal reasons, I couldn't read that particular copy of the book this past weekend). The beginning was much, much better than the first book, but I really don't know what happened at the end. I'll be rereading it after I finish rereading Grave Mercy.

April 16

As I said earlier, this book was much better than the first. What I didn't like, however, was the wide variety of characters. I couldn't remember them all! But thank goodness for the character list in the back; even though it was a pain to keep flipping back and forth, at least it was there. And the...canoodling was a bit of a surprise too. I didn't think it would be that type of book. 

The ending wasn't exactly the super-fantastic fan-grilling ending I was hoping for either. It's one of those endings where the author wants to make sure you know what happens to each single little character. I mean, I don't mind it THAT much, it's just that it got kinda boring near the end. Just saying. And then there was the fight scenes. This isn't just this book; it's any book with a detail scene that has a truckload of details. I get confused really easily with stuff like that, and that's what happened with this book too.

If you've read the first Beka Cooper book, and you thought it was decent enough, then read this one. I'm promise, if you're anything like me, it's a good read.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Footnotes: Spring, Life, and Sleep

Hey everyone! I'd thought that I'd do another one of these footnote thing-ys since I haven't written one in a while. I just haven't had a lot of thoughts lately. Even right now, right at this moment, I really don't know what exactly I'm going to talk about. But whatever. I'll type up whatever comes to mind.

Spring is pretty awesome and is probably my favorite season of all time. It's warm, but cooler than the summer (unless you go up to the mountains or something. Then it's really, really cold and I hate it). And it's a lot prettier than the fall! Fall is kinda like the opposing season to spring. Instead of getting hotter, it gets colder. Instead of flowers blooming and trees become un-naked, the fall makes everything die and all the leaves clog up the sewers. Then you have to pull out your jackets and end up having to do more laundry and use more money to buy soap and things. But spring, on the other hand, is much better. Compared to the cold winter, the weather is considerably hotter (unless its raining or snowing, which is kind of a bummer. Why couldn't the sky finishing raining and snowing in the winter?) which means that you get to wear less clothes (a LOT less, for some people) and save a lot more money!!! But I guess that if you going spring shopping or whatever normal people do, you would actually be doing the exact opposite...but those people don't count. Summers alright except for the heat and the crazy little children that start running around without any clothes on. And in winter everyone smells like a wet dog. Yuck.

Life is alright. I had a friend hang around my house for a while and she kept waking me up WAY too early. But I ended up going to sleep earlier like a normal person (whaaaaaaaa?!) and I feel a lot better about myself now. I'm not as tired, I'm more relaxed. Truthfully, I feel great. Sure, I might not get three hours of work done now, but people can deal with themselves. Sleeping's a lot more fun.

Um, yeah. That's kind of all that I have to say right now. There wasn't anything else that's really on my mind other than sleeping and how hot it was today! That's one downer of spring; it can be really, really cold, wet, and windy one day, but cook-bacon-on-my-head hot the next day. Stupid weather.

Alright. Bye now. I've got twelve hours of work to catch up on.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Booked Dates: April Fool's Day

I wasn't actually sure which category I should put this post under. When I was forming this post in my mind earlier in the day, I had planned for it to be a Footnote. But then I realized what day it was today; April Fool's Day.

This is what got me; is April Fool's Day considered a holiday? Or is it just a special title given to the first of April for no reason in particular. But then I thought, "Well, that would be stupid if a day in April was pronounced a day for pranks and jokes for no reason at all! Everything has a reason even if it's just a 'Because I felt like it' reason!" So what does this mean? I had to look it up!

I'm pretty sure that April Fool's Day isn't a religious holiday, thank goodness. For a while there, I thought all of the holidays that I celebrated had religious origins (not that there's anything wrong with the origins being from a religion, but variety is the spice of life). It's kinda of funny to me that I'm writing another Booked Date blog so soon, the day after Easter!

But I was going to talk about something else, except I forgot. So, instead, I'm going to post a few pictures I found of April Fool's Day jokes.

A fake crash

Pretty self-explanatory
LOL!

Book Blog: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Rating: 4 1/2 Stars

I'm not exactly sure how I want to start this review. Usually, I start with the cover, but I was hoping that I could start with something else, something more interesting. But no ideas come to mind, so I guess I will be starting with my thoughts on the cover, as usual.

At first glance, I didn't notice that there was a girl in the background, so you must imagine how I reacted when I was closely examining the blues and purples of the book to realize that a big, human eye staring straight at me. What's up with Cashore and her eyes? In the Graceling, there was an eye on the sword (but thankful there wasn't one on Fire's cover) and now this!

Second of all, why would the background be blue and purple (other than the fact that there is the word "blue" in Bitterblue's name)? The keys don't really match and, to me at least, make the cover really, really ugly.

The title's creativity annoy's me too. I didn't mention it at all in my Fire review because when I began the book, I was unaware that the main character was named Fire. But this is just getting ridiculous! I can't believe that Cashore couldn't think up a more creative name for her third book other than her protagonist's name. It's very disappointing.

Now onto the content.

When I finished the book, I didn't feel that fan-girl bubbliness that I felt with Graceling and Fire. To be frank, the ending was bland. But I almost fell in love with the story and I'll tell you why. Bitterblue's story has similarities to one of my favorite books; Cinda William Chima's Seven Realms series. Bitterblue sneaks around with a guy that's pretty much opposite to her in status, behavior, etc which is almost EXACTLY like what Raisa was doing! If I didn't love this forbidden love situation so much, I could be ranting on and on about the similarities between the two books. But I'm not going to waste your time with that if it's not exactly bugging me that the stories are so alike.

I don't think I actually like Bitterblue very much as a character. Sure, it's a relief that she's normal; she doesn't have a supernatural power, a grace, or considered a normal. But she's such a baby! She's suppose to be 18 and yet she's constantly crying! I'm glad she's not my Queen!

I think that Cashore should have put more about Fire and her story in the book. But what I'm glad about is that Fire actually got married. THANK GOODNESS!!! While I was reading this book, I couldn't help but think that Cashore had something against men (The bad guys in Graceling were Kasta's uncle and Leck, in Fire it was Leck and Fire's father, and in Bitterblue it was Leck's past advisors and Leck's memory). I'm glad that at least one couple that Cashore created settled down.

What I really wanted to see from Cashore was a book from a male point of view. She wrote all three books from a female point of view, but I think it would have been better if she did at least one (maybe Fire?) with a male protagonist.

The book was alright. If you've read Graceling and Fire, but don't really know if you want to read Bitterblue, then don't. It wasn't that great. Read something else, like The Demon King! If you read that, it's pretty much the same story as Bitterblue except better and stretched out into five books.

---

This doesn't have anything to do with the book, but when I was reading several gay/lesbian references, it got me thinking. It's funny how in our world, everyone is considered straight unless their not. ...I mean, it's assumed that you are straight, like everyone else, until you come to the realization that your gay (unless your not, of course). Isn't that peculiar? I'm sure that once the world gets used to people liking the same gender as themselves, it won't be like that. Parents will talk to their children and say that they wonder if he/she will end up liking a female or a male. This whole thought blew my mind, and I thought that I should share it with you all.