"Know Your Own Happiness"

Finally finished my first Jane Austen book of the great reread!  It took me a while mostly 'cause the weather was being dumb and when the weather would cooperate I was on an ambulance keeping people alive.  Anyways a couple of nice days with some free time and I've finished Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.  Are we ready for my thoughts on this first novel by our famous lady?  But first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

I'm not gonna go into a ton of detail as full on synopsis are available in a zillion places, but here is the bare bones gist.  Our story centers on the Dashwood women.  We have Mrs. Dashwood, the widowed second wife of a gentleman.  She has three daughters, the sensible Elinor, the passionate Marianne and the young Margaret.  Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters must find a new living under diminished means after the late Mr. Dashwoods son from his first marriage inherits almost all of his assets.  The ladies are fortunate enough to be offered a cottage by a distant relation, Sir John Middleton and his wife.  Though much less the they are used to, the women find a way to get comfortable.  Elinor is stoically nursing a secret attachment to her brother's wife's brother...that makes sense right?  Anyways the gentleman in question is Edward Ferrars, who is even more stoic and controlled then Elinor.  Unfortunately for our stalwart couple, his mother and sister are set against any marriage that does not improve the family fortune.  The family is continually invited to the main house of the Middleton's where they make the acquaintance of Colonel Brandon, a man out of his 20's who very much admires Marianne and her free spirit.  She of course being young and wild does not consider the man a true prospect.  While out exploring her new surroundings, Marianne falls and injures her ankle and is rescued by the dashing young Willoughby.  With what feels to Elinor a lack of propriety the pair begin a very obvious flirtation, spending as much time together as humanly possible.  One day at a party headed by Colonel Brandon, he is suddenly called away on urgent business.  Elinore learns from the effusive Mrs. Jennings (Sir John's mother-in-law) that the Colonel has a tragic past that involved a young free spirited girl that he was not allowed to marry, leading to the young woman landing in very dire straights.  Not much later Willoughby with an apparent sudden change of heart bids farewll to the Dashwoods in a very abrupt and painful manner, leaving Marianne a not so happy creature.  Meanwhile two young lady's by the name of Ann and Lucy Steele have taken up residence with Sir John and his family.  Elinor is taken into the confidence of Lucy and is informed that Lucy has been engaged to Edward for several years.  The engagement has been kept a secret as his mother would not be pleased to see her eldest son wed to such a low person.  Marianne and Elinor are invited to London by Mrs. Jennings and they agree to go.  Upon arrival Marianne promptly does her best to get in touch with Willoughby to no avail.  The Steeles also arrive to plague Elinor with Lucy's continual talk of her engagement.  Marianne eventually gets to see Willoughby, but he is very cold and very formal with her.  This is followed by a letter letting her know in no uncertain terms that there is nothing between them.  Marianne is devastated and succumbs to a crippling emotional melancholy.  Colonel Brandon arrives soon after to tell Elinor that the reason he and Willoughby left was because Willoughby and seduced, impregnated and then abandoned Colonel Brandon's ward.  After much back and forth, it finally comes out to Edward's mother and sister of his engagement to Lucy...and it does not go well.  He is essentially disinherited in favor of his younger brother, but Edward shows his true colors by refusing to break of he engament just for the sake of money (good job Edward).  Elinor is resigned that he should follow his honor instead of his heart and prepares herself to live with the idea of him married to Lucy.  The Dashwood sisters start their journey home, but are stalled when Marianne falls very ill.  She is tended by Elinor, Colonel Brandon and eventually her mother. At some point Willoughby comes to seek if not forgiveness, then at least understanding.  Mariann starts to recover and they head home with Mariann being clamer and wiser for her illness.  Upon arrival they are greeted with the news of Lucy becoming Mrs. Ferrars.  Everybody believes that Edward and Lucy married...until Edward shows up to refute that idea.  Apparently after shifting the inheritance to Edward's brother, Lucy found she preferred him and left Edward.  This has the happy consequence of allowing Edward to follow his heart to Elinor, who agree's to be his wife.  They soon marry.  Marianne eventually grows to love the Colonel who has stayed by her through thick and thin and also finds happiness.  Everybody gets what they deserve, learn to be better people and live mostly happily ever after.

World Building - Set in the late 1700's in various parts of England, this at the time could be considered contemporary.  Of course we all now think of it as historical fiction...but yeah.  Anyways, the author does a good job of setting the various scene's, making us feel like we are in the various locations and really really making me want to visit 18th century England.  I always feel like I could walk the streets or parks or paths of whatever place the characters happen to be.  One of my favorite things about this author.  In this book in particular I am always enamored with Barton Cottage and the surrounding areas.

Story - With the exception of a few overly convenient plot points, the story is very well done.  We have the weaving of several story lines, a bunch of characters and a setting the brings everything together in a fairly believable fashion.  This is one of the more full on romantic of this authors novels, focusing mostly on the love lives of the main characters, but so many other things are also taken into consideration.  The ability of the author to balance romance, everyday living, practicality, humor, pathos and every other literary thing is pretty awesome.  It is even cooler when I remember that this was at the time a contemporary novel so it was written for the time, and yet still resonates now.

Character - The varied and complex characters are for me what really make a Jane Austen novel.  She has the ability to create characters that at first glance seem to be stock or even extreme, but as the novel goes on we notice nuance and growth for almost every single character.  Take the two main characters for example.  Elinor is portrayed as stoic and sensible.  This is mostly a good thing, but we see where her inability to share her feelings with the people she loves leads to miscommunication.  Marianne on the other hand is overly emotional leading people to try and calm her or tame her, yet at the same time she is shown to be able to truly enjoy life in a way most people can't.  We see Mrs. Jennings as portrayed to be a well-meaning gossip, yet by the end of the book both Elinor and Marianne see that she acts with genuine love and care.  I LOVE that everybody has a motive, arc and even in most cases some sort of redeeming quality.

Editing - To me this book makes perfect sense.  Some people have a bit of difficulty with some of the language...not Shakespeare level trouble, but enough to turn some people off.  There are several editions that contain footnotes and blurbs that explain some of the more arcane language or turns of phrase.  I find this both helpful and enlightening and find it a smart editorial choice.

Love - This book is chock full of love.  Family love, sister love, friend love, but most prominently love love.  I like this book because it shows us the many ways a person can fall in and out of love.  We have Elinor and Edward who take there time and fall in love with the whole person.  They also suffer because they are both stoic and honorable and are constantly giving each other up for various noble reasons...I'm just glad they finally got together.  Marianne shows us violent young love that does not wait for true knowledge of the other person, but rather falls in love with idea's and circumstances.  Marianne's later acknowledgement and acceptance of the slower, deeper, yet way less passionate love of Colonel Brandon shows a maturity in here way of thinking.  Lucy Steele shows us a more selfish and catty love as she attaches only to improve her station AND to make people (mostly Elinor) feel bad.  Willoughby's flirtations, seductions, abandonment's and finally marrying for money show us the worst of immature love where one only loves to gratify ones own feelings.  By exploring the various kinds of love and their consequences I feel like every teenager regardless of gender/identity should read this book to get an idea of the craziness that is what we call love.

Humor - When one talks about classics or even more specifically Jane Austen one does not necessarily think of humor.  I will probably address this again, as it is one of my favorite things about Austen's style, but let's start here.  Ms. Austen has a very subtle tongue in cheek style that can catch one of guard if you are not paying attention.  There is more then one occasion when I have laughed out loud at a turn of phrase or a well placed pun.  Also certain characters (the elder Ms. Steele and Charlotte Palmer comes to mind) that seemed to be placed in the book for comic relief.  It is this well roundedness that adds a lot to the overall reading experience.

 Ages - This is just a bit of a personal thing for me.  I know that the era that this was written in was vastly different then ours is now...but still.  In this book in particular, the ages of the girls who are looking to be married are very young, like 17 years old young.  In this book Marianne, who is 17 marries the 36 year old Colonel Brandon...who has a 15 year old female ward...who has a baby of her own...so essentially he married a girl who is the same age as his adopted daughter and made her an instant grandmother...kinda ew...and I like Colonel Brandon...but ew...and apparently lots of ellipses...Anyways.  I know there are probably worse things, and that the age difference still happens today and there are many happy couples who have a significant age difference.  I think it's the idea of a 17 year old grandmother that really gets to me...so...yeah.

Overall Impression - This first novel of my beloved Jane Austen does not disappoint.  I love the complicatedness of it, I love the humaness of it, I love the eloquance of it, I don't love the overly convenient plot fixes...but that is minor compared to the awesomeness of this debut novel.  I give it 8 out of 10 painted screens and recommend it to anybody who wants a great story, loves a classic or is looking for a non vomit inducing romance.  Happy Reading Everybody!

The Old Ones of Swampsea

Ok...let's see if my mushy brain can pull off a rambling today.  I was gonna wait for when I was more coherant to write this post, but I actually think the inside out state of my head will actually help in writing about this dream of a book.  Wait...I haven't told you what we are rambling about today?  Whoops...sorry about that.  The book is Chime by Franny Billingsley.  The book had been recommended by one of my favorite book blogs and I was super excited to read it.  I'm gonna tell you right now I was not disappointed.  Let's get to it shall we?  As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Briony Larkin is guilty.  Of what she is guilty of we are not 100% sure, but she is guilty.  We know that she is guilty because she tells us she is.  Briony is on trial for her life, and she just wants it all over all ready. Briony is evaluated by a being called the Chime Child, a person who was born at the minute between midnight.  The Chime Child can see and talk with the Old Ones, but is a human so the feeling is they are best suited to judge whether a person is human or Old One.  Here is Briony's confession.  Briony Larkin, her twin sister Rose and their preacher father all live in the tiny town of Swampsea which borders a broad swamp somewhere in an alternate England.  Briony has been hiding a secret for most of her life.  Briony is a witch, she knows she is a witch because her beloved Stepmother told her she was.  Stepmother however is not of a normal fairy tale variety and she helps Briony keep her powers a secret.  Briony's witchcraft is first revealed when she and Rose were playing on the swings as very young girls and after a bout of jealousy produces a wind that knocks Rose off the swing, causing her to hit her head. Rose is forever strange from that point forward. Stepmother tells Briony that it was her witchcraft that did the deed and that she must learn to control it.  Briony grows up torn between fearing her power and loving the things it allows her to see.  In this world of Swampsea the swamp is full of what are known as the Old Ones.  Old Ones are things like brownies, faries, and other familiar creatures, along with some specific ones such as Dark Muses which feed of male creativity until they are a husk, or the Dead Hand which clamps on your hand and pulls it off.  Briony used to write stories about all of these creatures until one day her power got out of her control and a huge wave swamped her house, breaking Stepmothers back.  Briony after an illness of her own stays home instead of going to school to care for her strange sister and broken Stepmother.  Eventually Stepmother kills herself with arsenic rather then live broken.  Briony has vague memories of this time but she knows two things, one that Stepmother was a kind and wonderful woman who would never kill herself and two she is a witch.  One day, the son of a new arrival to Swampsea comes to live with the Larkin family.  Eldric is a special guy who seems to be able to draw Briony out of her self hatred, allowing her to remember how free she was before her fear of her powers and guilt over her sister and Stepmother overwhelmed her need to talk with the Old Ones and run free in the swamp.  A sickness known as the swamp cough has come to the village and is almost always fatal.  Regardless of her attempts to stay away, Briony is contacted by the Old Ones and learns that the Boggy Man has sent the cough as retaliation for the planned draining of the swamp to allow the railroad to go through.  Eldric continues to help Briony come out of her walled self and eventually she tells him the truth of what she is.  Eldric is much more sympathetic then she thought he would be, and he insists that she is not evil and feels there is more to the story.  Rose continues her cryptic ways and we are starting to feel like Eldric that there is much more to the story.  Briony tries various ways to stop the draining of the swamp all while trying to deal with her feelings for Eldric, her duty to her sister and her guilt of previous events.  It all comes to a head one night when Briony collects the ghosts of the children who have been killed by the swamp cough and convinces the town to stop draining the swamp.  This of course reveals her to be a witch.  We then go to the trial in which this book started.  Rose finally is able to get through what she was trying to say through out the whole book.  We finally find out that Briony is not a witch but a Chime Child and that Stepmother was a Dark Muse who fed off of their father.  Once he realized what she was he stayed away hoping to starve her.  The Dark Muse/Stepmother found a way to feed off of Briony's writings about the Old Ones.  Briony finally realized what was going on and slipped arsenic into Stepmothers food, killing her to save her family.  Briony is absolved of witchcraft as she is a Chime Child, and cleared of murder as a parasitic Old One is not a human.  She, Rose and Eldric find a way to live happily with her father in Swampsea.  Briony realizes that eventually the swamp will be drained so she starts writing her stories again to preserve the lives of the Old Ones.

World Building - The book is set in an alternate England village at the beginning of the Industrial Age.  The world is expertly built with the atmosphere being it's own character.  I felt like I could wander the village of Swampsea and feel the damp swamp air and roam the boggy marshes.  It was phenomenal how completely immersed in this world I got, the author did an amazing job writing a complete world.  I think what helped the most was how ingrained into the actual story the world was so that we were constantly learning about our little area, how it looked, felt, smelled, who lived in it, how they lived and all that great world building stuff with out a bunch of heavy exposition.  Anytime I feel like I can actually enter a book world makes me super happy, a zillion points for world building.

Story - The story was both straight forward and convoluted all at the same time...kind of like my brain right now.  The story itself took a bit of back seat to the intense character of Briony and the overwhelmingly awesome atmosphere of the book.  There was definitely a story and over all it was followable, but it was so entwined with every thing else that sometimes you had to try and remember where and when you were at in the story...but in a book like this I feel that may be part of the appeal.  Some people will love it, some will hate it...I loved it.

Characters - This book is with out a doubt all about Briony.  She is the sole narrator in a first person voice and everything is seen and heard through her foggy memories, self loathing and stubborn and tenacious nature.  This is ok 'cause like I said...it's her book.  That being said the characters were all fairly well done.  I found Eldric to be a mix of awesome and a bit to good to be true with just a touch of over the top emo...but I also feel he had to be all that to match Briony's overwhelming personality stuff...so yeah.  I think Rose was my favorite, with her crypcticness and odd, yet persice way of being.  I'm not sure if she was supposed to be autistic, or just "touched" as they used to say, but I thought the character was well written.

Editing - So...hmmm...This book was a mix of writing styles that were both prose and lyrical...I will expound on that in a minute.  Where this pertains to this category is if it is still readable.  I felt that it was fairly well edited. The story flowed, everything was readable.  If I had any real quibbles in this book it might be that we kept going back to the "incident's" with out adding any extra info or insight.  I think we could have gone back a bit less and had a bit more of a streamlined book.  That being said the editing was over all pretty good.

Writing Style - As I just mentioned, this book was a pretty unique mix of straight logical prose and very dream like lyrical.  I have heard mixed reviews for this style, but for myself I felt that it worked.  I think I liked it because it showed the state of Briony's head.  Briony could be cold, logical and able to do what needed to be done.  She could also be dreamy, muddled and spent a lot of time living in another world.  The mix of the two styles were still consistent in that they both sounded like Briony, they both used her voice and that made for a well blended story.  I found the transitions smooth and the combination of the two styles very quickly merged into a pattern that was perfect for the tone of this book.

The Old Ones - I love love love a good fairy tale, and this book was a great twist on that style.  The Old Ones in this book were a mix of familiar and new ones specific for this story.  The author used the Old Ones to both further the story and add to the world building and atmosphere.  They were well explained and well integrated into this little village by the swamp and I loved it.  Reading this book made me want to go look up all sorts of local legends and brush up on all the various fair folk hanging around the various areas...and that my friends is a sign of a good book.  I also loved how well suited the Old Ones were for the environment that the author dreamed up.  No float elf types here, they were all earthy, swampy types, some were dark, some were innocent, some were wise and some were bad.  Loved it.

Mood Match - One of the reasons I may have enjoyed this book so much is that it was the perfect book for the mood I was in when I read it.  I was in a weird transitional mood and this book is a weird atmospheric book.  It does make me wonder if I would still feel the same about it if I read it during a different mind phase...but I don't really care.  I love it when my mood and book pairings work out so well!

Overall Impression - I have a hard time articulating what I liked about this book.  It was atmospheric, it was convoluted, it was dream like, it was a bit eye rolling, it was different, it was the perfect book for the mood I was in when I read it. I have read a lot of reviews on it and people seem divided between loving it for it's weirdness and well being weirded out by it.  I loved it, I will probably read it again and I recommend it for anybody who likes fairy tales, atmosphere and a different style of book.  I give it 8 out of 10 Mucky Faces.
Happy Reading Everybody!

Bookworm Romance

If there was any doubt in my mind that I totally married the bestest Hubbin in the universe (there never was) he totally did the most romantic thing for me the other day.  I had a couple hours off from the fire station and my sweet Hubbin took me to the book store and bought me books!!!!!  Seriously the guy is just awesome.  He got me coffee, breakfast and then straight to the bookstore.

I got to roam the shelves to my hearts content and he followed me around holding every book I handed to him.  After exhausting myself he marched up to the cash register and paid for my books.  He handed them to me, took me home, made me coffee, handed me chocolate and let me read read read.  Seriously folks best Hubbin EVER!  Happy Reading Everybody!

Melting Tingling Alice

Dear Baby Sis, please don't read this post, love your Biggest Sis.  Ok now that is out of the way, today we are going to ramble about The Collector's Society by Heather Lyons, the first in a series also called The Collector's Society.  I'm going to tell you two things right off the bat.  One I did not really like this book.  Two I am in a very small minority as the reviews on this thing show it to be insanely popular and well received.  Why is this?  I'll tell you but first, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Alice has returned from her third trip to Wonderland as a 25 year old woman.  She checks herself into a mental institution to try and essentially detox from her adventures in the hope that she can rejoin a normal Victorian English society.  All of this gets blown to pieces when she is invited by a Mr. Brom Van Brunt to join an organization known as the Collector's Society.  The only information she is given is that without her help Wonderland will be destroyed.  She agree's and they step through some sort of doorway into modern day New York City.  Here Alice meet's a host of characters that give her absolutely no information about anything, which is fine because Alice does not share anything either.  After a bit of not sharing back and forth Alice meets Finn Van Brut...formally known as Huckleberry Finn.  She falls in instant lust, melting every single time he so much as glances her way...which happens quit a bit.  Alice (and the reader) finally find out that the point of the Society is to find the catalyst for each Timeline.  A Timeline is a world that comes to life somehow when a book or series of books, or an author becomes widely read and loved.  Apparently each Timeline has a catalyst that if destroyed will destroy the Timeline...I'm not sure in anyway shape or form how this works, or why it works, or how it was discovered, or how a Timeline can disappear when the books are still around and loved, or well all kinds of stuff that makes no sense but is never explained.  Anyways the Society sends agents (who are usually characters or related in someway to the characters in other Timelines...it all gets very meta)  into the Timelines to collect the catalysts to keep them safe from some sort of villain that for some reason is destroying the Timelines.  The majority of the first two thirds of the book however is taken up with Alice keeping some sort of secret from everybody including the reader, while also melting and having the little hairs stand up on the back of her neck every time Finn is so much as thought of.  Finn (who is an impossibly stand up guy) seems to reciprocate the melting and the tingling and the secret keeping.  So pretty much we have a very repetitive secret romance going for a really long time.  Eventually the book picks up a bit when we FINALLY get to Wonderland.  We discover that Alice was made the Queen of Diamonds and fell in love with the White King.  Because of some sort of screwed up Wonderland politics, Alice agreed to leave Wonderland in the hopes of alleviating the suffering of her people.  Alice, Finn and a couple of their friends (Victor the son of Dr. Frankenstein and Mary Lennox of The Secret Garden) go to Wonderland to get Alice's crown which is the catalyst for this Timeline.  They enter a Wonderland in the middle of a brutal war and eventually meet up with the White King who aids them in their quest.  There are some moments between Alice and the White King, but she makes a choice to stay with Finn in the new world she is now part of.  They bring the crown back and melt and tingle some more and we never figure out anything else because that is what the next books are for.

In case you didn't pick up on it, I did not really like this book.  In general it felt like a rote romance book with a potentially couple of good idea's thrown in that suffered from execution issues.  I'll go through what bugged me the most, and then tell what parts I did like.  To start with the book was in first person, so we were stuck in Alice's head, which was problematic for many reasons.  First off, she did not know ANYTHING so we didn't either and we only got an extremely limited view of what was going on in this new world.  This works if the character learns and discovers as they go, but that was not the case.  Second of all, even though we are stuck in Alice's head, we are not even privy to her thoughts and secrets so pretty much we spend the vast majority of the book with vague, yet overly dramatic phrases meant to keep everything in the dark.  This is one of my biggest pet peeves when an author drags out a supposed secret or bit of information for no other reason then to try and keep you reading.  This is especially aggravating when the secret finally gets revealed and really is not that big of a deal.  There was nothing that got revealed that made me gasp out loud.  The romance drove me absolutely batty.  I am not a huge fan of romance novels in general, mostly because they all feel like the same book to me and at least on the romance side to me this book was no exception.  Alice was supposed to be this strong kick-ass character, but she spent the majority of the book alternating between dramatically declaring to herself that she does not want to have any sort of human contact with Finn and melting and tingling and going weak kneed every time Finn is even mentioned.  This happens over and over and over and over and the worst part is the author uses pretty much the exact same phrasing in every angsty encounter.  Even worse, when they finally get together and have sexy time...well lets just say it was so tame and bland and repetitive that I would let my eight year old nephew read it (ok not really, but you get the point). Finn was waaaaaay to perfect to be of any interest to me.  He was always doing an over the top good guy thing, with his only real flaw being his getting super angry when those he loves are hurt, seriously I don't see the appeal.  The White King was a much more interesting and complex character and I would have loved to spent more time with him.  Ok let's move on.  Getting away from Alice for a few minutes the premise of the book could have been pretty cool except for the fact that I still don't really know what it is.  It felt like the author had an idea about using characters from different books to create a society to protect books, but let it get to complicated with no real world building at all.  We never really get a good explanation for anything.  There were a couple of parts I did enjoy.  I liked it when Alice wasn't getting all angsty and just had conversations or some very witty one liners.  What I really liked was the time spent in Wonderland, I really wish the author had pretty much skipped everything else and just written this future Wonderland.  I like the idea of Alice as an adult and the potential adjusting from Wonderland back to her home.  This idea would have been plenty for a really great book.  I am most definitely in the minority in my feelings on this book, the vast majority of the reviews have been very positive and glowing.  I am thrilled that so many people love.  It's books like this that prove my point that not every book is for every person and just because everybody else loved it, doesn't mean I have to.  Nor does every book I love have to be a home run for anybody else.  Overall I give this book 4 out of 10 cups of tea and recommend to anybody who enjoys romance, or some potentially good ideas.  Happy Reading Everybody!

A Pygmy Puff, But I Didn’t Say Where

I got a craving to read Harry Potter right before my cruise, so spent the week before leaving, rereading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (now known as HBP) by J.K. Rowling.  It's taken this long for me to ramble about it 'cause I had to get through the movie first.  Like before, if you want a full synopsis look here.  Now on to my very own, very personal thoughts on this sixth book. As always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Voldemort - I loved loved loved finding out about Tom Riddles history and journey to becoming the Dark Lord.  It gives some substance and meaning to this slithery guy's actions.  One of my favorite things is when the bad guys have a reason for being the way they are.  It was cool to see Voldemort's history intersect with the mythos history as well.  The following of Slytherin's line from it's glorious founder to it's ignominious end with the Gaunt's was very interesting.  I also liked the continuation of pointing out the similarities between Harry and Tom and showing how various circumstances and decisions have led them to become such different people.

Romance - I am normally not a huge fan of teenage romance 'cause it can get very angsty and stupid, but I thought the author actually imbued the book with a decent sense of humor and realism when it came to the many many many romances in the book.  Ron especially got some great page time with his various romances, love potions and sheer teenage boy stupidity.  We finally get our Ginny/Harry romance which actually made some sense.  I really enjoyed how in this book we see every form of romance, from crushes, to teenage puppy love, to complicated adult relationships, to engagements to marriages.

Harry Harry Harry - Usually I talk about the characters in context of the trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione, and while the three of them definitely had their time together (and apart, and fighting, and saving etc.) Harry really started to stand apart as the main guy in this book.  Harry went with Dumbledore (who finally decided to include him in stuff), Harry had the irrational issue with Draco (even if he did turn out to be right), Harry found the potion book, Harry was a favorite of Slughorn, Harry got the memory, Harry witnessed the BIG DEATH, this book was all about the Harry.

The Potion Book - The world building in this book was more minimal then in some of the other books, focusing more on the characters and stories.  That being said, using the Half Blood Prince's potion book allowed to spend some time with Potions and learning more about that subject which was pretty cool.  I also LOVED how the whole book was kind of a misdirection about the previous owner of the book and the ultimate importance Snape (who turned out to be the Half-Blood Prince) played not only in this book, but the series as a whole.

Movie - This movie sucks.  They changed so much, cut out so much, focused so much on relationships that I felt the true point of this book was completely lost.  I know that the audience for this movie is the teeny bopper crowd, but let's give them some credit and assume that they would at least like to follow the over all story.  In fact now that I have reread the book and re watched the movie, I'm wondering if some of my apathy towards this book is partly based on the movie...hmm...

The Big Death - Since GF, death has been present in the Harry Potter books, we have had numerous people die and have felt the consequences of those deaths through out the series.  This book is no exception with the author stepping up the deaths big time, really showing us the impact of Voldemorts return.  Of course we still have the BIG DEATH, I am of course talking about Dumbledore.  I think the biggest thing here is not so much who died, but how he died, who killed him, and the twisty path it sends our trio of friends on.

Overall still not my favorite book, but I did find that I enjoyed more the second time around.  It is much darker then the previous books and set's up the last installment for all of its heavy epic conclusion.  There are still some light-hearted moments, a little bit of wide eyed magic, but you also start to feel the fear and angst of a world in danger and turmoil.  I give this installment 7 out of 10 splinched eyebrows.  Just one more book to go folks!  Happy Reading Everybody!

Ninja Nuns

Hey, so I totally thought I did a rambling on this book, mostly 'cause I am totally proud of the post title, 'cause seriously ninja nuns! That being said, I'm pretty sure I heard that phrase somewhere else so maybe I'm not as cool as I think.  This ramble is already getting rambley so let's get to it shall we?  The book is Grave Mercy the first book in the His Fair Assassins series by Robin LaFevers.  I have heard mixed reviews on this book so it took me a while to start it.  Which side of the coin did I land on?  Let's find out, as always SPOILERS AHEAD!

Ismae has just gone from her abusive father's house, to what will probably be an abusive husbands house.  She is rescued when her new spouse freaks when he see's a mark on her body that is there from when her mother tried to abort her with poison.  She is taken to a convent and trained as an assassin for the "saint-god" Mortain.  An old god that is now called a "saint" to make it more palatable to the Christians and Catholics of this time period.  Isame it turns out is especially good at poison's as she is immune to them.  Essentially the daughter's of Mortain are trained to carry out kills at the will of their god.  The marks are given to them by the blind seeress Sister Vereda who tells them who Mortain wants dead.  The assassin girl then will usually see a dark mark that indicates the manner in which the person is to be killed.  Ismae gets through her training, makes a couple of kills and is then paired with Duval a bastard noble as his "special friend" to go to court.  Turns out that one of the convent's most important tasks is getting Ann the Duchess of Brittany back on her throne and confirmed as ruler...not sure why Mortain cares...but there it is.  Ismae goes begrudgingly with Duval, who happens to be the over protective half brother of the Duchess and is installed in his household.  During her stay Ismae keeps feeling all kinds of feelings she doesn't understand for Duval, but that doesn't stop her from her duty's.  Ismae ferrets out all kinds of information, kills a couple people and gets in good with the Duchess.  Duval works mostly with her, in spite of his mother and brother schemeing, several important men vying for Ann's hand, and his obvious attraction for Ismae.  Ismae receives several disturbing orders from the convent and Duval asks her to consider the idea that at least some of what the convent does is driven by human need and want, and not solely by direct orders of Mortain.  Chaos and madness ensue and Duval gets himself all poisoned.  Ismae must leave him, dying to save the Duchess.  The Duchess and her kingdom is saved, most of the bad guys are at least identified and Ismae goes back to say good bye to Duval.  She meets Mortain in the flesh on the way back and is given the means with which to heal Duval...which coincidentally means getting nekkid with him.  Ismae after finding out more of the big picture and after actually meeting Mortain decides that the convent is not the be all end all of her existence.  The story ends there, with a promise of more to come.

Contrary to my snarky tone in the above synopsis there were actually several things I really enjoyed about this book...and obviously a few things I didn't.  Let's start with the good shall we?  The premise is pretty darn awesome, I mean seriously a female religious order dedicated to death in it's most elegant form?!?  Kind of awesome.  The methods in which the girls used to carry out their assignments were pretty cool and out of professional curiosity kind of want to see how some of them work.  The  historic setting was fairly accurate and portrayed events that actually happened which I always find pretty neat.  The story flowed very smoothly, keeping my attention, and making it a book that I picked up very easily.  I liked some of the mythology we got with Mortain and some of the other "saints' mentioned in the book and would like to know more about them as well.  I actually probably enjoyed Duval most as a character.  He seemed to have a fairly reasonable head on his shoulders, a wicked sense of sarcasm, and an ability to come across as an intelligent, yet caring human being.  I didn't mind Ismae that much except for her over the top awareness of her own skin.  This seems to be a thing in YA books with any romance in them, especially set in earlier times.  If I had to read about her trembling, shivering anything, or the way her skin felt any time Duval touched her for any reason I was going to SCREAM.  I also hate how much time was devoted to Ismae's skin feeling things.  I was a teenager once, and I had crushes and my skin got touched and I never remember having any of these issues.  I think my biggest problem with Ismae as a character is that she was very inconsistent.  She was fierce...no wait she was fragile...no wait she was highly trained...no wait she doesn't know anything...no wait...and not in a round out the character way, but in a whatever felt convenient for the story way.  I never got a good fix on Ismae's personality like I did with some of the other characters, which was to bad 'cause I think she could have been pretty awesome.  In the end, despite my issues, I actually did enjoy the book and will finish the trilogy.  I give it 7 out of 10 pearls of poison and recommend it to anybody who likes European history, romance, or girls who know how to kill you 15 different ways.  Happy Reading Everybody!

The Host Or The Movie Where Everything Needed A Kiss

Just in case anybody is not aware how absolutely amazing my Hubbin is, he voluntarily took me and baby sis to see The Host. This is a movie based on the book The Host by Stephenie Meyer, yes that Stephenie Meyer, the one who wrote the series that shall not be named.  My baby sis had recommended the book to me and I found myself actually enjoying most of it.  Copious amounts of teenage angst aside, I thought the book was very well thought out and the ideas had some originality to them. You can read my ramble on the book for more details of what I thought. Since I was up visiting her, and we both had read and mostly enjoyed the book, Hubbin was sweet enough to take us to see the movie (he even bought us chocolate!).

The movie was...long...really really long...with lots of kissing.  So much kissing, everything was about kissing.  When a character was mad they kissed, when they were sad they kissed, when they were happy they kissed, when they were bored, scared, tired, hungry, excited, dirty, clean, confused, whatever they kissed.  So if I had not read the book I would probably think that the invading aliens were just here for some kisses.  The visuals for the movie were pretty spot on.  Everything that was shown really captured what the author wrote in the book, so that was really cool.  My favorite was how they portrayed the actual physical being of the aliens, just spot on.  The casting was pretty well done as well, with all the requisite pretty young things, with just enough grizzled experienced folk to make things semi-plausible.  Saoirse Ronan (I love that name!) was cast as Melanie/Wanderer and did an excellent job at portraying the old soul in a new body. The only real issue I had with that character is that we don't get a whole lot of Melanie in the movie, there are
occasional flashbacks, but since they are mostly kissing we don't get a whole lot of Melanie's personality coming through...though to be honest she kind of drove me nuts in the book, so maybe less Melanie wasn't so much of a bad thing.  For as long as the movie was, they did not actually get a whole lot of alien history in to the story.  One of the things I loved about the book was that Wanderer was this revered soul that had traveled the galaxy and who's job it was to teach, first the other souls and then later the humans about all the places she had been.  I found this not only interesting, but very helpful in showing the reader that these aliens were not warlike conquering evil creatures.  In most cases they worked with "lower" life-forms to enhance the world that they came to.  It is made clear that humans are a very different species then ever encountered and that free-will from the host species is not really something they had to contend with before.  I thought that they came of a bit more aggressive in the movie, especially in regards to Wanderer who seemed less of a revered soul and more of your run of the mill soul who is only good to help interrogate the body it is inhabiting.  Hubbin did not find the movie aliens aggressive, he said that he got a sense that they were mostly peaceful, so that may just be my reading into things.  The other part I wished they had put in and did not was the fact that the aliens seemed to not want to put a soul into their own human babies.  Wanderer in the books says this will probably save humanity from further inhabitation because they will not want to have their human children "souled".  Other then these types of things the movie kept to the book surprisingly well, almost to its detriment because the pacing was really really slow.  There was a lot of sitting and gazing into space and
kissing.  I know I have mentioned this a bunch already but there was SO MUCH KISSING.  If they were not staring pensively into space they were kissing...all of them...all of the time!  Overall it was not a bad movie, just slow and not as rich and nuanced as the book, but also not quit as angsty so there is that.  The visuals were stunning and amazing, and the casting was pretty yummy so at least you had something to watch while they were kissing.  The music was awesome and watching the movie made me want to go reread the book. The contacts they used for the inhabited humans was a bit distracting and the shoes on most of the females were just hideous, but I guess that does not really have that much to do with the movie, also the aliens must have found a sale of metalliac silver spray paint, 'cause that was all over everything.  Overall I would give the movie 6 out of 10 alien soul invaders. Favorite line in the movie "kiss me like you want to be slapped!"
What did you think of the movie?  Do you find it odd when you wish there was more of a book in a movie and yet want the movie to be shorter?  How much kissing can there be in one movie?!?

Starry Blue Apocolypse

Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert Spoiler Alert
Just had to put that out there 'cause I'm pretty sure the spoilers will be coming fast and fierce with this rambling of And All the Stars by Andrea Host.  I actually decided to do something different and try and write down all my reactions to the book, so here they are in the order that they were written.
Starry blue apocalypse (what a great post title), Apple green cavalry teeheehee, Noi, not the main girl character yet by far the strongest and yet most caring girl in the book, Fisher-Science Boy YAY!, Pan is a theatre guy and not gay, Nash is the hot athletic one and is gay, yay for stereo-type reversals, Tyler?, AHHHHH Alien boyfriend, ....ew?!?, Theodin :-)  Shakespeare and Peter Pan I may die happy, Oh...gees, Never knew the boy, The Host, Why are Aussie teens more mature?  No crushing Angst, eh happy/pat ending.

That my friends was pretty much word for word in order the thoughts I had time to jot down while reading this book...but what is it about you ask, well I will tell you. Be prepared for an epically long post!
Madeline wakes up in the rubble of St. James station, confused and hurt.  It takes a couple chapters but we learn that huge Spires of something have risen out of the earth at Earth's most populated cities spewing a cloud of glittering dust that may turn everybody into Edward Cullen...wait I mean we don't know what is going to happen with the dust.  Sydney Australia is one of those cities and this is just the beginning.  Madeline makes her way to her cousins (the androgynous cross-dressing, movie star Tyler) apartment and starts putting together what happened.  People are warned to stay indoors and try not to be exposed to the dust as they are not sure what it does yet.  Madeline gets a hold of her family and lets them know that she is safe.  Meanwhile her body starts to to weird things, like ache all over, giver a hunger like she has never

experienced, allows her to project and "shape" energy, and oh yeah it covers most of her body in a deep blue starry like substance.  After eating all the food in the apt.  Madeline goes in search of food and meets Noi, a baker who survived the initial dust dispersion.  She informs Madeline that the dust does one of three things, kills you, makes you Green, or makes you Blue, Noi is Blue like Madeline.  The girls run into a boy who appears to have fallen down the stairs and meet his friends, the beautiful Nash, the impish Pan, and Gav who drives and apple green Bug.  All of the boys are Blues and come from a boarding school where they are trying to help their fellow school mates recover.  After some practical other things being done, the boys and girls decide to band together, along with a young girl named Emily that they pick up along the way.  They start doing experiments, trying to figure out how to use their new found powers and keep enough food in the house to feed their new ravousness appetites.  Madeline, who is an introvert by nature, finds the best way to stay calm is to sketch and paint her new friends.  She is also attracted to the driven, calm and intelligent Fisher, who is doing everything he can to find out about the dust and the Spires.  Madeline and Noi become inseparable as friends, depending on each other far more then anyone else.  One day while experimenting with a large group of Blues at a local beach, huge white "kites" of energy start swooping in and possessing the Blues.  The group try and get away, but Gav is taken.

They acquire a new companion in the form of Min, a sarcastic, yet practical boy. They get away and move into an apartment with a secret office and rig up early warning devices.  Madeline finally acts on her feelings for Fish in an awkward but very sweet way, but they are interrupted by the Spire "singing".  By watching the news they find out that the possessed Blues are aliens called the En-Mott and that they are here for two years to settle primacy...whatever that means.  The humans are to turn over anybody who is Blue, and if they are not sufficient more dust will be released until they have enough.  The Green's it turns out are susceptible to the Spires and are essentially mind controlled by it.  This triggers a cycle of trying to figure out what to do, hiding and practicing.  It is discovered that some of the Blues (like Nash) instead of expelling energy actually need to absorb it from other Blues, these are called leech-Blues. Turns out that settling primacy means having several types of challenges, destroying buildings and humans in the process.  When one of the challengers turns out to be hunting Madeline down for being the strongest Blue, the group decides to head out.  They end up in a newly build hotel, and Madeline and Fish do the deed...several times (yay for teenage sex).  Madeline tells Noi that she has fallen in love with Fish.  The next day they are all captured and separated.  Madeline wakes up to an empty building and minimal food.  The En-Mott are trying to weaken her so that they can possess her.
 She runs into Fisher who informs her that he has actually been possessed the whole time and that she has never actually met the human half.  Understandably this devastates Madeline, but she keeps her head as the alien who now calls himself Theodin (yep after the king in Lord of the Rings) tells her that he has a plan to help her rid her world of aliens as he has come to love their group and want to protect them.  He makes her angry enough to "soul punch" the alien out of the body, killing the alien in the process.  She learns how to transfer energy into the human host so that he survives the transition and discovers that the host knows and remembers everything that happened while possessed (as my brother would say Awkward).  Putting aside her teen angst for later, Madeline and the newly released Fisher go and free the others, finding out the alien plans in the process.  I'm still not 100% sure what everything meant, but I did get that the aliens would come back every eight years, so just trying to wait out the promised two years wasn't going to help anything.  Using there new found fighting techniques the group (who have been calling themselves The Blue Musketeers) teaches the world how to fight of the aliens.  At the end Fisher tells Madeline that he does have feelings for her, and point blank tells her the difference between himself and the alien.  He gives Madeline the choice to come with him, or go with the other group.  Madeline chooses to see what happens with him.  The epilogue shows the group five years later, all with happy endings and a free if slightly torn up planet.

Whew, that was honestly just a bare bones plot synopsis, this book is so so so much more.  I loved this book, I couldn't put this book down, much work was not completed because of this book.  I think I liked this book so much because it was so gosh darn practical, especially for a young adult scifi book.  Let's start with the writing.  The first chapter of two totally confused me, it dumps you right into this confused, painful, wait did I just miss something moment.  At first I thought I had missed something because it was just like..what the hell?  This ended up working really well because that is exactly what our main character was feeling and right of the bat you had some insight into her new life.  I loved that other than glimpses here and there this story was mostly about the here and now, and a possible future.  The pacing of this book was really great, a mix between action, dialogue, humor, introspection and a lot of food. The author makes use of Shakespeare, Tolkien, Dumas, and Barrie in a way that fits beautifully into the story (I'm a sucker for an author who loves and respects other authors), and turning the group into The Blue Musketeers gave the reader a sense that the group found a way to be
cohesive. The words of course were vastly important, and this author does not shy away from words, but on the whole she is not overly flowery either, a very good balance.  On to the characters.  The characters were my favorite part of this book, the author did an amazing job making them seem authentic, everything they did or said seemed to make sense and have a real life motive.  Nobody was given words or actions just to further the plot.  The underlying feel of the group was that they were all friends, there was no unnecessary drama, no pointless misunderstandings, just a group of people who were trying to survive and along the way formed unbreakable bonds.  Even the romances were low key and plausible.  The main romance between Madeline and Fisher was even discussed as being the result of the situation, more than a long term development.  Madeline was a great main character (though I use that term loosely as almost all the characters were very well developed).  She was never the leader, never the most beautiful, her talent, while amazing, was not one that necessarily saved lives, she had a hard time not withdrawing and her tightest relationship was not with the boy she fell in love with, but the discovery of a best friend in Noi.  Noi was awesome, that is all I can say.  She is my favorite type of character, capable but willing to ask for help, strong and caring, bossy and able to bake.  She is the type that reminds you that you can be more then the strong, sexy shooter girl, or the quiet shy, yet oh-so-good girl.  Noi is as human as they come and I love her for it. Emily the young girl, full of young anger, this character really showed the difference a few years and some maturity can make. She was portrayed as 12/13 year old girl, not in the sense that she was whiny, but that her emotions would swing from clingy and scared, to unreasonably angry over the slightest thing.  I liked this contrast to the older more mature members of the team.  Fisher was a good character, possessed or not I loved the idea of the main romantic interest being a smarty mcsmarty pants.  Again he never belittled people for not knowing as much as him, and his joy came from learning, not so much knowing.  Nash was the perfect mix of strong and sweet, somebody who should

be around in any crisis.  Min...well we all know a Min, a guy who covers everything up with a sarcastic joke, but will be the first one to defend you when it comes down to it.  Gav was about as boy next-door as you can get, probably the most laid back character, willing to do what needed to be done. Then there is Pan, he is my other favorite character in the book.  He is constantly "performing" always quoting lines from plays and keeping the groups spirit up.  Tyler is the other character that is used in this book, though we don't get to know him very well as he is off-stage most of the time, but he is the epitome of staying true to oneself in the most extreme of ways, I'm not sure how effective this was in this type of story, but I'm glad he was in there anyways.  Overall the author figured out how to put in a ton of diversity, ethnic,
sexual orientation/identification, personality, gender, location in a manner that did not seemed forced.  The concept of the aliens was pretty cool, for some reason though, they kept reminding me of the book The Host (but that may be because of all the trailers that are out) I like that most of them had a complete disregard for human life, it made the killing of them easier to stomach.  I wish the history and current events of there race was a little clearer, but I don't think it mattered in the end.  I do however want my own dandelion dragon. The ending was a bit to pat and happy, but not implausible and after everything that had happened to these poor kids I guess they deserved a happy ending.  In case you couldn't tell, I loved this book and would recommend it to almost anyone.  I give it 9 out of 10 dandelion dragons.
What makes a book unputdownable for you?  How would you survive an alien invasion?  Why are Aussie teens so much more mature then American teens?

Spring Is The Time For Austen...And Iced Coffee

It is supposed to be 70 degrees here in the Capital today!!!! My most sincere heartfelt apologies to the rest of you and any yucky weather you may be having.  Weather like this means something very special is about to happen, that's right folks the annual cracking open of Jane Austen books!!!!  Now even thought Ms. Austen's books tend to cover whole years, I always feel the urge to read them in the spring.  I usually don't get a chance to read each and every one of them every year, but I do get a couple of them done so I have read them all several times (does that sentence make sense...I think I need more coffee).  Here is a quick summation of these great works, maybe this year you can pick a couple to read and we can discuss them whilst sipping tea and nibbling scones brought to us by our chambermaids...

Sense and Sensibility-Jane Austen's first published adult novel tells the tale of a family who after there husband and father dies are left with very little.  The mother Mrs. Dashwood moves with her girls the responsible eldest Elinor, the unbridled Marianne, and the young Margaret to a cottage on the estate of her cousin.  The girls fall in love, out of love and all around love.  Every possible combination of man is presented in this book in every possible situation.  In the end the girls end up with there true loves and life is lived in some semblance of contentment.  This is probably the most romantically romantic of books in my personal library.




Pride and Prejudice-Easily my favorite and probably most reread of Ms. Austen's books, at some point I will do a full post dealing only with this book, but until then here is the quick and dirty.  The Bennet sisters are all in need of husbands according to there mother as their estate is entailed away from the female line.  This book follows the parallel paths and perils of falling in love with someone against your better judgement with three of the five sisters finding a man of their own each in vastly different ways.  Ms Elizabeth Bennet is probably one of the most recognized characters in literature and it makes me happy that this icon is a feisty, smart girl who is not the acknowledged beauty of the family. Seriously I could go on and on...but i would rather you go read it for your self.


Mansfield Park-This book is a bit of a Cinderella story, focusing more on the shy, quiet gentle heroine Fanny Price, instead of Ms. Austen's other heroines who tend to be a bit more fiery.  This book is a great one for scandal's and multiple love triangles and not everybody gets there happy ending in this one (except of course our heroine and her love)






Emma-This is probably my second favorite, second most read book of my Austen's.  This book is entirely contained in Highbury, without the heroine traveling to resolve or push issues to the forefront as in the authors other books.  I love Emma because she means well, but she is really a bit of a self-righteous busy body.  She is the heroine who has the most personal transformation instead of other people changing there minds about her, and accepting her, she must change how she views herself and work on improving herself and only then does she get her true love.  This book is probably the funniest one as well as the most light hearted of the bunch.



Northanger Abby-This book is a play on the popular Gothic novels at the time (think Twilight for the 18th century) Our heroine and Gothic novel addict Catherine Morland goes to Bath and meets many interesting people, among them the Tilney siblings Henry and Eleanor. They eventually invite her back to Northanger Abby which supposedly harbors a dark secret, this coupled with Catherine's love of Gothic novels has her convinced of things that are not there.  As with all Austen novels much confusion and adventure ensue, again ending with the prevalence of true love.  This book is a bit tongue and cheek which makes me love Jane Austen all the more.


Persuasion-This is the last novel Ms. Austen completed before her death and along with Northanger Abby was published posthumous .  This novel is a bit quieter then previous ones, showing a more mature and sensible heroine then in previous books.  Anne Elliot is the middle daughter of a baronet who we find out had been talked out of marrying her true love because of his supposed unsuitability. The young man Wentworth left understandably upset at Anne's inability to stand up for them.  Anne's father Sir Walter is forced to rent out there estate as it comes to light he has overspent for many years. With her altered station Anne does some traveling eventually running into Mr.Wentworth and after many mishaps and heartbreaks ends up as always and finally with her true love.

Ok so obviously there is a lot more to these books then my little blurbs, but I could write 100 page posts about each of these so this is what we get for today.  Some of my thoughts on why I like Jane Austen so much.  I was kind of surprised how much I did enjoy all of her books, since I am not usually the romantic type, but I think as far as fictional always happy in the end novels go, she tries to add a sense of feasibility to each situation.  She gives reasons that might actually occur to why a person would marry below there station not just "true love" which was much less a consideration in her day.  I also love the variety in her heroines, some are feisty, some are quiet and shy, some are silly, some are loud, some are sensible.  Again to me it gives a sense of realism that not all her characters are cookie cutter icons.  She usually has multiple story lines so you don't get to bored and her sense of humor is still funny even today.  I love how she has become an icon for a different era, a way to fuse a femininity with being a strong woman.  I think her novels show the idea that you don't have to choose one or the other that you can be just as strong in a frilly pink dress while sipping tea, as you can be utterly absurd while spouting non-realistic girl power nonsense. Another really cool thing is that they are all available for free on e-readers, so no excuses!

What Jane Austen book is your favorite?  Which character are you most like?  Who really wants to go drink some tea and eat some crumpets while wearing a feathered hat?