So, I've sort of been neglecting the blog. More like majorly. I keep thinking I should at least go and ramble a bit about how I'm doing nothing, but I'm lazy and it's summer and I end up reading something or watching TV or remembering something that I'd been meaning to do the week before, and the blog remains neglected.
I'm still too lazy to write anything, at least for now. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after, I'll write a review. Now, though, it's 12:45 at night and all I can really manage is embedding today's FAYAF video.
So here it is. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, available September 1.
Bibliobibula out.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Five Fans Friday - Strange Angels
I know I haven't posted anything new this week. I just started working, and I've been in over my head with stuff. I'm just getting used to the whole process, and once I get acclimated, I'll be back more regularly.
Anyway, though, here's today's video. Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow.
Bibliobibula out.
Anyway, though, here's today's video. Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow.
Bibliobibula out.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Five Fans Friday - Audrey, Wait!
Today's (well, yesterday's) video. I uploaded it late last night, and it didn't finish uploading to YouTube until this morning. But here it is. Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway. I LOVED this one. If you haven't read it, read it.
Bibliobibula out.
Bibliobibula out.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
TBR Tuesday - June 16
I don’t actually have that many new books this week, but I’m looking forward to reading them all. Here goes.
A Northern Light, by Jennifer Donnely. I ordered this from the library after high praise from Emma at Booking Through 365. I hadn’t heard of it before, but she compared it to I am the Messenger stylewise, and it sounded really good. And we just have really similar taste in books, from what I’ve gathered. Amazon’s description:
It's 1906 and 16-year-old Mattie Gokey is at a crossroads in her life. She's escaped the overwhelming responsibilities of helping to run her father's brokedown farm in exchange for a paid summer job as a serving girl at a fancy hotel in the Adirondacks. She's saving as much of her salary as she can, but she's having trouble deciding how she's going to use the money at the end of the summer. Mattie's gift is for writing and she's been accepted to Barnard College in New York City, but she's held back by her sense of responsibility to her family--and by her budding romance with handsome-but-dull Royal Loomis. Royal awakens feelings in Mattie that she doesn't want to ignore, but she can't deny her passion for words and her desire to write.
At the hotel, Mattie gets caught up in the disappearance of a young couple who had gone out together in a rowboat. Mattie spoke with the young woman, Grace Brown, just before the fateful boating trip, when Grace gave her a packet of love letters and asked her to burn them. When Grace is found drowned, Mattie reads the letters and finds that she holds the key to unraveling the girl's death and her beau's mysterious disappearance. Grace Brown's story is a true one (it's the same story told in Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy and in the film adaptation, A Place in the Sun), and author Jennifer Donnelly masterfully interweaves the real-life story with Mattie's, making her seem even more real.
Mattie's frank voice reveals much about poverty, racism, and feminism at the turn of the twentieth century. She witnesses illness and death at a range far closer than most teens do today, and she's there when her best friend Minnie gives birth to twins. Mattie describes Minnie's harrowing labor with gut-wrenching clarity, and a visit with Minnie and the twins a few weeks later dispels any romance from the reality of young motherhood (and marriage). Overall, readers will get a taste of how bitter--and how sweet--ordinary life in the early 1900s could be. Despite the wide variety of troubles Mattie describes, the book never feels melodramatic, just heartbreakingly real.
Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow. This one wasn’t recommended to me – I kept seeing it and hearing about it and it sounded really good. Really fun. I won this copy in a contest at Fantastic Book Review – thanks!!! Anyway, I can’t wait to read it. Here’s the Barnes and Noble description.
Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called "the touch." (Comes in handy when you're traveling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie.)
Then her dad turns up dead—but still walking—and Dru knows she's next. Even worse, she's got two guys hungry for her affections, and they're not about to let the fiercely independent Dru go it alone. Will Dru discover just how special she really is before coming face-to-fang with whatever—or whoever— is hunting her?
These probably won’t last me the whole week, so I’ll scavenge and find something else to read. I’ve been meaning to reread the seventh Harry Potter book for a while. Maybe I’ll finally do that. I’ll be back to review these two books when I finish them.
Bibliobibula out.
A Northern Light, by Jennifer Donnely. I ordered this from the library after high praise from Emma at Booking Through 365. I hadn’t heard of it before, but she compared it to I am the Messenger stylewise, and it sounded really good. And we just have really similar taste in books, from what I’ve gathered. Amazon’s description:
It's 1906 and 16-year-old Mattie Gokey is at a crossroads in her life. She's escaped the overwhelming responsibilities of helping to run her father's brokedown farm in exchange for a paid summer job as a serving girl at a fancy hotel in the Adirondacks. She's saving as much of her salary as she can, but she's having trouble deciding how she's going to use the money at the end of the summer. Mattie's gift is for writing and she's been accepted to Barnard College in New York City, but she's held back by her sense of responsibility to her family--and by her budding romance with handsome-but-dull Royal Loomis. Royal awakens feelings in Mattie that she doesn't want to ignore, but she can't deny her passion for words and her desire to write.
At the hotel, Mattie gets caught up in the disappearance of a young couple who had gone out together in a rowboat. Mattie spoke with the young woman, Grace Brown, just before the fateful boating trip, when Grace gave her a packet of love letters and asked her to burn them. When Grace is found drowned, Mattie reads the letters and finds that she holds the key to unraveling the girl's death and her beau's mysterious disappearance. Grace Brown's story is a true one (it's the same story told in Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy and in the film adaptation, A Place in the Sun), and author Jennifer Donnelly masterfully interweaves the real-life story with Mattie's, making her seem even more real.
Mattie's frank voice reveals much about poverty, racism, and feminism at the turn of the twentieth century. She witnesses illness and death at a range far closer than most teens do today, and she's there when her best friend Minnie gives birth to twins. Mattie describes Minnie's harrowing labor with gut-wrenching clarity, and a visit with Minnie and the twins a few weeks later dispels any romance from the reality of young motherhood (and marriage). Overall, readers will get a taste of how bitter--and how sweet--ordinary life in the early 1900s could be. Despite the wide variety of troubles Mattie describes, the book never feels melodramatic, just heartbreakingly real.
Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow. This one wasn’t recommended to me – I kept seeing it and hearing about it and it sounded really good. Really fun. I won this copy in a contest at Fantastic Book Review – thanks!!! Anyway, I can’t wait to read it. Here’s the Barnes and Noble description.
Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called "the touch." (Comes in handy when you're traveling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie.)
Then her dad turns up dead—but still walking—and Dru knows she's next. Even worse, she's got two guys hungry for her affections, and they're not about to let the fiercely independent Dru go it alone. Will Dru discover just how special she really is before coming face-to-fang with whatever—or whoever— is hunting her?
These probably won’t last me the whole week, so I’ll scavenge and find something else to read. I’ve been meaning to reread the seventh Harry Potter book for a while. Maybe I’ll finally do that. I’ll be back to review these two books when I finish them.
Bibliobibula out.
Friday, June 12, 2009
It's Kind of a Funny Story
First of all, I have some acknowledgements to make. Okay, one acknowledgement. I’d like to thank Korianne at Korianne Speaks for the header, which she made for me without me even having to ask for it. And also for telling me where I can find the background. The blog looks so much nicer now. So, THANKS Kori!!!!!
Okay. On with the review. It’s Kind of a Funny Story, by Ned Vizzini. Again, here’s what Barnes and Noble has to say about it.
Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life-which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job-Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam, and does. That's when things start to get crazy.
At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he's just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away. The stress becomes unbearable and Craig stops eating and sleeping-until, one night, he nearly kills himself.
Craig's suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio. There, isolated from the crushing pressures of school and friends, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety.
Ned Vizzini, who himself spent time in a psychiatric hospital, has created a remarkably moving tale about the sometimes unexpected road to happiness. For a novel about depression, it's definitely a funny story.
One thing that stuck out to me as perfect about this book – specifically, the writing – was the tone. The change in tone throughout the book. The progression of his depression was written to a tee, and exactly how I’d think a character like Craig would be feeling. At the beginning of the book, reading Craig’s thoughts made me feel just how he was describing himself – depressed, no initiative. As the book progressed and Craig became happier, so did I. It’s an amazing thing when a book is able to do that.
This is the kind of book I appreciate more than I enjoy. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it – I did. But I feel like the point of it was for more than just entertainment. It goes deeper than that. It had more of a message, one that’s hard to articulate. It was sort of an example, I guess, of someone learning to appreciate life. And it made me appreciate life more, too. Not in a life-altering-epiphany, I’m-going-to-dye-my-hair-blue-and-march-in-the-streets kind of way. More of a subtle-optimistic-day-to-day sort of way. If that makes any sense.
The story itself? An idea isn’t really all that hard to come by. I mean, look at Harry Potter. A boy learns he’s a wizard and goes to wizard school. When you look at it that way, the idea isn’t all that original. It’s the execution of the idea that really makes it or breaks it. The characters, the descriptions, the details. Those are the things that make a story come alive. I mean, having a genius idea always helps, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything if the writing is flat and boring. This book? A depressed boy almost commits suicide and then becomes un-depressed. Not very original. But Craig’s voice is so authentic. The characters are so precise and interesting. Every word makes the story come alive.
It’s really a great book, and it’s a great book to be well done. A great story to be well done. Real-world applicable. Make sure to read it when you have a chance. I’m glad I did.
Bibliobibula out.
Okay. On with the review. It’s Kind of a Funny Story, by Ned Vizzini. Again, here’s what Barnes and Noble has to say about it.
Like many ambitious New York City teenagers, Craig Gilner sees entry into Manhattan's Executive Pre-Professional High School as the ticket to his future. Determined to succeed at life-which means getting into the right high school to get into the right college to get the right job-Craig studies night and day to ace the entrance exam, and does. That's when things start to get crazy.
At his new school, Craig realizes that he isn't brilliant compared to the other kids; he's just average, and maybe not even that. He soon sees his once-perfect future crumbling away. The stress becomes unbearable and Craig stops eating and sleeping-until, one night, he nearly kills himself.
Craig's suicidal episode gets him checked into a mental hospital, where his new neighbors include a transsexual sex addict, a girl who has scarred her own face with scissors, and the self-elected President Armelio. There, isolated from the crushing pressures of school and friends, Craig is finally able to confront the sources of his anxiety.
Ned Vizzini, who himself spent time in a psychiatric hospital, has created a remarkably moving tale about the sometimes unexpected road to happiness. For a novel about depression, it's definitely a funny story.
One thing that stuck out to me as perfect about this book – specifically, the writing – was the tone. The change in tone throughout the book. The progression of his depression was written to a tee, and exactly how I’d think a character like Craig would be feeling. At the beginning of the book, reading Craig’s thoughts made me feel just how he was describing himself – depressed, no initiative. As the book progressed and Craig became happier, so did I. It’s an amazing thing when a book is able to do that.
This is the kind of book I appreciate more than I enjoy. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it – I did. But I feel like the point of it was for more than just entertainment. It goes deeper than that. It had more of a message, one that’s hard to articulate. It was sort of an example, I guess, of someone learning to appreciate life. And it made me appreciate life more, too. Not in a life-altering-epiphany, I’m-going-to-dye-my-hair-blue-and-march-in-the-streets kind of way. More of a subtle-optimistic-day-to-day sort of way. If that makes any sense.
The story itself? An idea isn’t really all that hard to come by. I mean, look at Harry Potter. A boy learns he’s a wizard and goes to wizard school. When you look at it that way, the idea isn’t all that original. It’s the execution of the idea that really makes it or breaks it. The characters, the descriptions, the details. Those are the things that make a story come alive. I mean, having a genius idea always helps, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything if the writing is flat and boring. This book? A depressed boy almost commits suicide and then becomes un-depressed. Not very original. But Craig’s voice is so authentic. The characters are so precise and interesting. Every word makes the story come alive.
It’s really a great book, and it’s a great book to be well done. A great story to be well done. Real-world applicable. Make sure to read it when you have a chance. I’m glad I did.
Bibliobibula out.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Five Fans Friday on Monday - I am the Messenger
I thought it deserved two reviews. It was just that good.
Bibliobibula out.
Bibliobibula out.
Friday, June 5, 2009
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