Sci Fi and Fantasy

Sacred Scars

3 Comments / 2010, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Book two in the A Resurrection of Magic series was better than the first book. Much, much longer  which scared me at first. Sometimes book two isn’t so great, particularly when it’s more than twice as long as book one. But Sacred Scars was excellent. I couldn’t put it down and of course I’m dying to find out what happens in the third book. I love how it ended. (Sassymonkey is in shock right now…)

Huh. I just went to peek to see if I could find out when the third book will be out and there’s a note from the author on her Amazon page saying someone complained about the language in this series… there isn’t much profanity at all. In fact, almost none particularly if you compare it to most other YA books published now. I will say that on the rare occasion that a Damn or a Shit appears – it’s glaring because there’s so little of it. And… I like that. It felt real, not like gratuitous profanity.

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The Demon’s Lexicon

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Queer, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Now I’m not sure I want it to be a trilogy, isn’t that weird? I have been looking forward to reading The Demon’s Lexicon since long before it made it to the Cybil’s shortlist and now that I finally made time to read it… I’m not sure what I think. I like that it’s darker than most books about magic.  I like that there was a happy unhappy ending. I almost always wish that stories with characters I’m interested in would come back for round two but this time… I just don’t feel it.  I’d like to just leave Nick and Steven where they ended right here. Maybe if book two was just about Mae and Jaime and left Nick and Alan where the landed…. But from what I can tell, all four characters return to Book two.

Go read it and tell me if you agree, please. Maybe it’s just me?

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Skin Hunger

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

The second book in the A Resurrection of Magic series is a Cybils shortlister. TW and I had been looking at it for awhile in the library, without realizing it was on the shortlist. Thankfully, I reserved the first book to start with because the second would have been crazy to read without having this background story. And what a background story it is.

Skin Hunger tells two different stories, one of Somiss and Franklin and Sadima as they were trying to rediscover magic – and one of Hahp, Gerard and eight other boys trying to become wizards — and Somiss and Franklin are the wizards who run the school. Evil place it is, obviously since it’s run by Somiss who is… horrible. I kept waiting for there to be something good, something redeeming about him. There wasn’t. Maybe in the next book we’ll learn more… I hope. Because otherwise, I just hate the guy. It will be awhile before I find out – TW just picked up Sacred Scars, and it’s much longer than this one. Maybe I’ll get to it next week.

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Blood Song

2010, Books in Bed, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Women /

I don’t read nearly as many vampire novels as TW and RJ – I tend to find them a little bit repetitive and I’m really really not into vampire romance. I think Twilight did me in for that genre. But, a vampire detective/mystery – that’s another story. Which is why I went ahead and read Blood Song. (And also because it’s due back to the library pretty soon and having my library closed for more than a month is just a little bit freaking me out. Heaven forbid I waste a library book…)

It was troubling to read this book because it felt like this was  a sequel. A whole lot of backstory was missing and it was referred to in a way that made me SURE I’d missed book one. But when I look, there is no other book before Blood Song, just the sequel – Siren Song. So now I’m extra confused. I liked the book. I liked the characters. Celia Graves is my kind of female detective character. But what the heck happened before Blood Song? Something is missing and that’s annoying.

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Red Pyramid

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I finally got to read Red Pyramid. I didn’t reserve it at the library because Liz owned it in hardback and promised me that I could read it when she finished. Before I had a chance, she loaned it to a teacher (at the end of last school year) and the teacher did not finish it before school was over. So, I had to wait until school started and Liz brought it back. That was a long, long wait.

And it was good but I didn’t like it as much as the Percy Jackson books. TW says that’s because I’d just recently finished the last book in that series, so the characters were all fresh in my mind. That might be true. Or maybe I just don’t like the Egyptian Gods all that much? Or the Godlings either. I think it’s Carter. I just don’t particularly like him very much. And I don’t particularly like Carter and Sadie together. Or maybe I don’t like characters who eat flamingos. I don’t know. We’ll see when I read the next book… spring of 2011. I can wait.

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Mockingjay – No Spoilers

2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I’m very tempted to write a long post about Mockingjay. But to do that, I’d have to post spoilers and I am very anti-spoiler. So… I will say that this was an excellent trilogy. Even when I was disappointed in Collins decisions – and I was, at least once, in each book though the biggest disappointment for me did take place in this one. Toward the end. It didn’t make me want to come here and rant about the ending, which is what I often do (particularly with YA fiction) – it just made me wish Collins had taken a few more chances with her characters. I just had moments where I wished she’d let her characters grow, just a little bit more – or a little bit differently. Katniss is an awesome female character but she could have been so much better in the last several chapters of Mockingjay.

Go read it (or read the series) – it’s excellent work, it really is.

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Lips Touch Three Times

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Cybil Challenge, Sci Fi and Fantasy, short stories, Young Adult /

Really interesting that author Laini Taylor has two books on the Cybils shortlist – a middle grade fantasy/scifi, Dreamdark, and a YA fantasy/scifi, Lips Touch Three Times. I liked Dreamdark a lot, even though it was a sequel and I had not read the first book. I liked Lips Touch Three Times too – though I’m not a big short story fan. Brilliant idea, to write three stories related to kissing. Very very smart idea – and interesting stories, too. And stories that don’t exactly have a happily ever after, woken with a kiss, prince and princess ending. Very smart. I like Laini Taylor.

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Breathers

1 Comment / 2010, Books in Bed, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy /

I’m a big fan of zombie books and was pretty pleased when my library had a table full of zombie books on display. Most I’d read, but a couple were new to me and looked good, so I grabbed them. Breathers is the BEST zombie book I’ve ever read. The BEST.  Funny. Sad. Interesting. I didn’t want to put it down last night – laugh out loud funny and I almost cried in a couple of places at the end. Read it and be sure to tell me what you think. Zombies are people, too!

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The Last Olympian

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

I finally finished The Last Olympian. That took for freaking ever. Crazy since I really like Percy Jackson and his friends (and family.) Can I just say, I really liked the end? I did! I liked the end of this book and the end of this particular series.  Now onto Riordan’s new series… I’ve heard it’s better than Percy Jackson… I find that hard to believe.

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I’m hyperventilating – for real

2010, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

The beautiful new Glenview Public Library is nearing completion. We will be closed Sunday, September 5 through Friday, October 8 while we move. During this period, neighboring libraries will welcome Glenview Library patrons. Join us for an opening celebration Saturday, October 9, 1-5 pm.

I won’t even be here for the grand opening – I’ll be in San Francisco for BlogHer Food.

Hyper.Ventil.Ating.

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