Waiting on Wednesday: Dreamless

Title: Dreamless (Starcrossed 2)

Author: Josephine Angelini
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 400
Release Date: May 29, 2012

As the only Scion that can enter Hades at will, Helen descends to the Underworld in search of a way to overcome the Furies and end the cycle of revenge that has cursed the Scions. But she’s running out of time. Each descent weakens her both in mind and spirit. A mysterious stranger might be her only salvation, but the price may be her love for Lucas Delos.

As an unforgettable love triangle emerges, Josephine Angelini’s compelling saga becomes ever more intricate and spellbinding. The eagerly awaited sequel to the internationally bestselling Starcrossed, Dreamless delivers with a huge emotional impact that will leave readers satisfied—and longing for more.—Goodreads

So, I saw Immortals this past weekend. While I had a grand ol' time watching the gore and the shirtlessness and Henry Cavill's awesome spear attacks and spin moves and The Chick who Played Athena's Buffy-inspired Fan Kicks of Doom, I found myself wanting something . . . else.

And I found myself thinking about Starcrossed, a book about demigods I read earlier this year. And then I remembered that there is to be a sequel! So I took my happy little self over to the Goodreads website and lo and behold there is a cover and a description and release date for the sequel, Dreamless.


And it's going to be all kinds of hellish with Miss Helen going off to Hades and chillin' with those kids. And apparently one of them is a mysterious stranger. Interest = peaked.

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Review: Eve

Title: Eve
Author: Anna Carey
Publisher: Harper Teen
Release Date: October 4, 2011

The year is 2032, sixteen years after a deadly virus—and the vaccine intended to protect against it—wiped out most of the earth’s population. The night before eighteen-year-old Eve’s graduation from her all-girls school she discovers what really happens to new graduates, and the horrifying fate that awaits her. 

Fleeing the only home she’s ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust...and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life.—Goodreads


I'll be up front: Eve is bleak. Like, zombie apocalypse (and not in the funny way) bleak. There are hardly any people left. Cars and homes and buildings are just abandoned and falling apart. And if you're a smart and lovely eighteen-year-old orphan who has just realized that her future does not hold a great job, as she was led to believe, and you decide to run away from the only home you've ever known into the FREAKING WOODS to try and get to a utopian-sounding place that may or may not actually exist, all of this bleakness becomes even more bleak.

The world Carey creates in Eve is intense and terrifying in a very real way. She does a beautiful job of describing death and decay and straight-up hopelessness. And she also does a very intriguing job of imagining what education would be like in a world where the population is emaciated—read: girls are taught that men are terrifyingly carnal and awful by reading Romeo and Juliet. (That actually made me laugh a little because I'm not one who loves Romeo and Juliet.) So when Eve meets a boy—the oh-so chivalrous Caleb—who is nice to her, she is VERY DUBIOUS of him. And then he takes her to his Cave of Boys and she realizes that everything she was taught was a perversion of the truth.

From there, Eve becomes the Wendy to Caleb's group of Lost Boys. And just about the time that I was getting comfortable with the story and thinking that things would maybe end up being okay for everyone, THINGS BECAME  NOT OKAY. And they stayed not okay.

By the end of Eve, my heart was broken into about three thousand pieces and I was so, so grateful for my family and friends and job and apartment and food and world. And I desperately wanted the next book in this trilogy, because it ends in a place of OMG WTF.

Although, I will say this—if this book was a stand-alone, I think I'd be weirdly ok with how it ends. But I'll stop talking about the ending of this book now and just tell you to go read it if you so choose. :)

Overall, Eve is a gorgeously devastating book. If you like a good dystopian read, definitely check this one out. And if you're not so much into dystopia but are willing to give it a shot because you are a person who likes good books and are open-minded enough to try anything, this might be the one to sway you in favor of the dystopian genre. But know this: this is not dystopian-light. It is straight up unhappy.

But you know what's not unhappy? CALEB. If nothing else, read the book for Caleb. *swoons*

Review: Shatter Me

Title: Shatter Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 342
Release Date: November 15, 2011
Format: ARC Tour from the lovely Tara at Fiction Folio

Juliette hasn't touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal. As long as she doesn't hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don't fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war- and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she's exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.—Goodreads 


Reader-Bethany's Reaction to Shatter Me 
This book is crazy-good. Everyone should read it. Like, you should be at your favorite bookstore when it opens on the morning of November 15th and you should RUSH into the bookstore and buy all the copies so you can give them to people as presents. You and yours will thank me for telling you to do so.

You should follow the above advice for these reasons:

1. Tahereh Mafi is a very, very gifted writer. Her verbs and metaphors are gorgeous and creative and curious and gut-wrenching. Instead of telling you how her characters feel, she forces you to feel it right along with them. She also employs the use of the strikethrough better than any way I've ever seen it used. It's inspired, really. 
2. The story is wonderful. I described it to a friend as a dystopian X-Men.*
3. The world building is really cool, but subtle. Which is nice. 
4. ADAM. Oh holy bazoo, Adam. 
• (Related: I have a bit of a thing for Warner, who is presented as the villain. Like, a weird Stockholm Syndrome thing for him. But, then again, I tend to over-sympathize with villains. However, I'm not sure if I think he truly is a villain. DO YOU SEE WHAT THIS BOOK HAS DONE TO ME?!)
5. The characters are so well-crafted and Mafi allows them to evolve. 
6. Juliette is real damn kick-ass too. 
7. It's just really frackin' great. Entertaining and intense and emotional and unforgettable. 

 *This would be an AWESOME comic book. If a comic pub house hasn't already picked this up, they seriously need to. IMHO, I think Dark Horse would do a bang-up job of adapting it.

Writer-Bethany's Reaction to Shatter Me 
This book shook me.

Reading this has made me think differently about how I write. The way that Mafi uses her words is completely different from anything I've ever read. She takes words that I would never, ever, ever think to put beside each other in a sentence, lines them up, and forces you think about those words in a different way. It's truly masterful.

And then there's the way Mafi uses verbs. Her verbs are violent and inventive and magnificently gory. (e.g., "There are wire cutters carving holes in my heart.") I was fawning all over myself  and bouncing up and down and calling random people to read them sentences from this book because of the verb usage. SRSLY.

If I'm being completely honest, Shatter Me is the first book I've read in a long time where I've thought "I want to write LIKE THAT." And I'm sure that this book will inspire many young or aspiring writers to think the same thing. Mafi's voice is fresh and evocative and so, so, so inventive that I wish I could adopt it. But that would be weird and forced and disingenuous. So I won't.

But! What I can do is re-examine the way I write. Mafi's writing has made me look at my own and think "How can I make these words really come alive? And how can I make my reader feel what my character is feeling? And, ok, this section here is a little dry, which words can I use to shock my readers and keep them attentive?"

But let's be clear here—I'm not modeling my writing on Mrs. Mafi's. Her voice is hers and I will never write the way she does. But reading Shatter Me has definitely made me think about it differently, and, I'd like to think it's made both my writing and editing skills sharper and more attentive. Because, y'all, it's really easy to be lazy about your words or to find crutch words that feel natural, and then employ them over and over again. That's not fun. Mafi has fun with her words. She splashes around with them like a little kid. It's refreshing and eye-opening and jealous-making and OH-MY-GOD SOOO YUMMY.

In sum, this book is fantastic. Not only will it captivate you and keep you enthralled from page one on, it'll keep you guessing and laughing and crying. It will have make your heart bleed and break and pound right along with the characters'. But, you know, in a good way. For me, Shatter Me was more than a book—it was a watershed moment as both a reader and writer. Maybe it will be for you too.

Reactionary Reading: Paranormalcy

Welcome to the another edition of Reactionary Reading, a feature where I share my reading notes with all of y'all! This week I'm publishing my notes on Paranormalcy by the adorable on Twitter Kiersten White, a book that I did not really like at first, but that really, really grew on me while reading it.

For those of you new to this feature, there are a couple THINGS you probably need to know about it. So, here's how it works:

I have gone through and redacted major spoiler information. (Yep, just like the government does.) If you've read the books, or if you don't care about being spoiled, feel free to highlight the redacted portions so you can read the text. (It's like a game! Sort of.) But there might still be minor spoilers involved. So if you're the type that hates knowing things before you read, DO NOT PROCEED. And please keep in mind that this is all in good fun and are just my thoughts and opinions. Also, bad language abounds.

So without further ado, may I present my notes on Paranormalcy.

Review: Firelight

Title: Firelight
Author: Sophie Jordan
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 336
Release Date: September 7, 2010

Marked as special at an early age, Jacinda knows her every move is watched. But she longs for freedom to make her own choices. When she breaks the most sacred tenet among her kind, she nearly pays with her life. Until a beautiful stranger saves her. A stranger who was sent to hunt those like her. For Jacinda is a draki—a descendant of dragons whose greatest defense is her secret ability to shift into human form.

Forced to flee into the mortal world with her family, Jacinda struggles to adapt to her new surroundings. The only bright light is Will. Gorgeous, elusive Will who stirs her inner draki to life. Although she is irresistibly drawn to him, Jacinda knows Will's dark secret: He and his family are hunters. She should avoid him at all costs. But her inner draki is slowly slipping away—if it dies she will be left as a human forever. She'll do anything to prevent that. Even if it means getting closer to her most dangerous enemy.

Mythical powers and breathtaking romance ignite in this story of a girl who defies all expectations and whose love crosses an ancient divide.—Goodreads

This is a book that really surprised me. Before starting Firelight, I wanted to read it because I was really into the idea of having the female character a) being a draki and b) being all supernatural when her love interest isn't. I feel like you just don't see that all that often and that it was a really refreshing take on the paranormal romance.

Also: DRAGONS.

But when I started reading this, it just, felt a little flat. But I kept with it because I felt like reading and the next time I looked up and I was more than halfway through the book.

This one is sneaky like that.

Needless to say, Firelight has a plot that sucks you in. As you follow Jacinda from her guarded draki home in Colorado to the unprotected mortal life in New Mexico, you find yourself wanting her to defy her mom and sister, who both hated living with the draki and want her to let her draki die, and run away to either a pride of draki or with Will, the guy who makes her draki feel alive despite the harsh environment she's been forced into. (Weather plays a big role in this book . . . it's a little complicated and I don't want to SPOIL anything, so I won't go into it. Just . . . take my word for it.)

But that's not all! Jordan throws in a couple really compelling plot twists, and a couple really compelling guys, that keep the story moving along at a brisk pace, and before you know it, you're finished and left thinking "But. I want more."

Overall, Firelight is a really quick and surprisingly fun read.

Also: DRAGONS. :)

Review: Starcrossed

Review: Starcrossed
Author: Josephine Angelini
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 310 (ebook)
Release Date: May 31, 2010
Format: eGalley from Netgalley (Thank you!)

Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it's getting harder. Nightmares of a desperate desert journey have Helen waking parched, only to find her sheets damaged by dirt and dust. At school she's haunted by hallucinations of three women weeping tears of blood . . . and when Helen first crosses paths with Lucas Delos, she has no way of knowing they're destined to play the leading roles in a tragedy the Fates insist on repeating throughout history.

As Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend. But even demigod powers might not be enough to defy the forces that are both drawing her and Lucas together—and trying to tear them apart.—Goodreads

I think every kid goes through a phase where they are obsessed with Greek and/or Roman (and, sometimes, Norse or Native American) mythology. I went through that phase when I was eleven, and I've never really let it go. In fact, when I was in undergrad, I went to Greece to study art and architecture for a summer. (Yes, it was as awesome as it sounds.)

Hello there Acropolis!

Hugging the Temple of Hera. 

Suffice it to say, I was super excited to learn that Starcrossed is deeply rooted in Greek mythology and history. And though I really did enjoy this book in the end, I didn't love it the way I wanted to. It started really rough for me, and took me a bit to get into. But I kept with it, and in the end, am very very glad that I did.

So let's get the not-so-happy things out of the way first, shall we?

My first gripe is with the pacing. There were a lot of aspects about the book that the author takes an exceptionally long time to fully explain, which really super bugged me. For example, the main character, Helen (yes, she's named after that Helen), who is a demigod but doesn't know it, wears a necklace that means a lot to her and is referenced MANY TIMES throughout the book—it's obvious that the necklace is going to come into play and be something bigger than just a necklace. But it isn't until close to the END of the book that it's explained. I found this really, really distracting because I kept thinking "What the bloody hell is going on with the necklace?!" I also feel like there was a lot of time devoted to exposition (which, I realize is important for this kind of book because not everybody is well versed in Greek mythology/history) but I kind of wished there was a bit less of it.

My second gripe is that the two characters I like the most, Helen's best friend Claire, and Helen's boss, Kate,  are sort of forgotten in the middle, and only sort of make a comeback. Both of these characters provided humor and warmth and strength for Helen, who can be a bit of a wet blanket, but when the Delos family moves to town, Claire and Kate are very much abandoned in the story. Which was sad for me because I kept thinking "I really want more Claire and Kate." [Anyone else think of LOST when those two names are mentioned in the same sentence?!]

But that brings us to the Delos family, the ginormous group of  insanely attractive family members who all have very Greek mythology-inspired names (Lucas, Hector, Ariadne, Pandora, Cassandra, Jason,  Pallas, and Castor . . . yeah) and move from Spain to the island of Nantucket. Turns out, they are all demigods as well! And Helen inexplicably wants to KILL THEM, (particularly Lucas) which is AWESOME.

But she (mostly) gets over that urge, which is both good and sort of disappointing, because after she decides she doesn't want to kill Lucas, there is full on angsty instalove. But it is all explained in a way that makes it very okay in the end.

Overall, this book is really involved and really smart. Angelini obviously knows the canon of Greek mythology and pays meticulous attention to the finer details, which makes her book very rich and lush with the infusion of Greek mythology, history, and lore. Despite some of my initial frustrations with Starcrossed, this is definitely a series that I want to stick with!

P.S.: If a movie is ever made of this series, the casting director needs to cast Tamsin Egerton as Helen. I really don't think there's any other option.

Tamsin Egerton 

Favorite Quote: "As he walked out of the locker room he stripped off his bloody shirt and threw it in the garbage. Helen's vision stabilized again, and she watched his bare back moving away from her. The last cobwebs clearing from his eyes, she decided that if Lucas was gay then she was going to have to get a sex change operation. He would be so worth it."

Review: Die for Me

Title: Die for Me
Author: Amy Plum
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 341
Release Date: May 10, 2011
Format: eGalley via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

In the City of Lights, two star-crossed lovers battle a fate that is destined to tear them apart again and again for eternity.

When Kate Mercier's parents die in a tragic car accident, she leaves her life—and memories—behind to live with her grandparents in Paris. For Kate, the only way to survive her pain is escaping into the world of books and Parisian art. Until she meets Vincent.

Mysterious, charming, and devastatingly handsome, Vincent threatens to melt the ice around Kate's guarded heart with just his smile. As she begins to fall in love with Vincent, Kate discovers that he's a revenant—an undead being whose fate forces him to sacrifice himself over and over again to save the lives of others. Vincent and those like him are bound in a centuries-old war against a group of evil revenants who exist only to murder and betray. Kate soon realizes that if she follows her heart, she may never be safe again.—Goodreads


Everything about this book is romantic: the setting (Paris), the boy (Vincent), and even the concept of revenants (people who died saving someone else and now spend their undead lives continually saving other people) is deeply, desperately romantic.

Unfortunately, I'm not a very romantic kind of girl. 

While author Amy Plum does a fantastic job of setting scenes and tone—so much so that I was sitting there thinking OMG SEND ME TO PARIS NOW NOW NOW (There's a scene involving a tarte tatin that had me looking up the nearest French patisserie/boulangerie to me. Thank God I live in NYC.)—I wasn't really in love with her characters. The main character, Kate, is a bit of an emotional mess. It makes sense—girl lost both of her parents and then was whisked away to Paris to live with her grandparents—but she honestly spends the majority of the book crying, and not just because she is grieving her parents. I really tried to be sympathetic. I even tried being empathetic. Neither worked. I mostly just wanted to shake her and tell her to stop crying. (Lesson of the day: I am a heartless bitch.)


The love interest in the story, Vincent, isn't much better. Yes, he's romantic, and yes, he's all kinds of paranormal-sexy, and really sweet to Kate, but the instalove is super intense. Like. Twilight intense. And he does that Edward Cullen thing where instead of letting Kate into his life and explaining the dark, complicated parts to her, Vincent tries to keep her on the outside because that is "going to protect her." That got on my nerves too.

But! Not everything about this book annoyed me! There are three things I really enjoyed, other than the Parisian setting:

1. I really loved Kate's relationship with her sister, Georgia. Although Georgia isn't necessarily in the book all that much, her scenes brought a much needed life and energy and sisterly understanding/handling of Kate to the story.

2. Ambrose. He's another minor character, but...he's Southern! So I like him on principle.

3. There is a whole bunch of fencing in this book. FENCING!!!

Overall, I wish this book had had less crying, more fencing, and had allowed a little more time for the relationship between Kate and Vincent to grow. Plum obviously has the writing chops and ability to create intriguing, richly detailed, beautiful stories and I loved reading her descriptions of Paris (and the desserts.). I just wish I had loved the characters as much as I loved the setting.

Review: Divergent

Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books (HarperCollins)
Pages: 487
Release Date: May 3, 2011

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself. 

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her. --Goodreads


Divergent is one of those books that I find hard to review. The prose are clean and simple, the story is perfectly plotted and well-paced, the characters are well-developed, and, well, it's a great read. Despite the fact that it's almost 500 pages, I almost read the entire damn thing on a plane. At 6 AM. When I should have been sleeping on the plane so I wasn't exhausted when I got off the plane. But I made the mistake of reading while waiting for take-off, and then, all of a sudden, I realized we were landing. 


It's that kind of book. 


Okay, let's see. Other than being well-plotted and cleanly written/well-edited, I think what I liked most about the book was, well, Four, the main male character in the book. He's strong and confident and masculine and smart in the way that only guys who are the kind of guys you want to be a better woman for are. In fact, he might be the most mature male I've ever met in a YA novel. He's steady and sure of himself and, just, a rock. He may not be the most charming or warm or happy, but he is steadfast. That just might be the sexiest quality ever. Anyway, the development of the relationship between Four and Tris, the actual main character, is just the best. It's slow and a little bit unsettling, but a lotta bit satisfying.  


But outside of the one character, y'all, this book is solid. I know I've already said it, but it really is one of the best plotted books I've ever read. At no point does it feel like it's lagging or repeating information or using words just to take up space. Every sentence propels the story forward and every detail is purposeful. And the story is pretty good too. ;) 


Oh. Another thing. I haven't really mentioned the AUTHOR yet have I? Well, her name is Veronica Roth, and she is a twenty-two-year-old wunderkind. She's the kind of person who makes me look at my life and think "I have a Master's degree in Journalism and a half written novel saved to my computer. WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!" Not that I dislike my life. I really like my life. But. Yeah. The girl is good at writing books. 


Okay, time to wrap up!


Overall, this is a book that, despite it's lengthier-than-normal page count, is a quick read due to its brilliant writing, plotting, and solid characters. I enthusiastically encourage you to read it. But only when you have a day to devote to it, because, I promise, you won't be able to tear yourself away.