His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

Did you like the movie Master and Commander?
Do you enjoy the Napoleonic War?
Do you like dragons?


If you answer yes to any of these, read this book. The dragons are endearing and the relationship that they form with their riders is wonderous and often heartbreaking in its sincerity.

This is the story of a British Naval Captain, Laurence who takes a French ship as a prize and finds there is a dragon egg on board. Dragon protocol is well known in this world, so they realize the egg will hatch soon and someone will need to harness the dragon or else England will lose a valuable war comodity.

A lower ranked shimpan draws the unlucky straw to harness the dragon, but the hatchling has none of him, and chooses Laurence instead. Because of this, Laurence is forced to give up his position as Captain and become an aviator. The book chronicles the start of his dragon riding career, and the beginning of an amazing friendship, and the birth of an unique and amazing dragon. (The dragon is named Temeraire, and you will fall in love with him!)

An Apocalyptic Trilogy by Susan Pfeffer

(clicking on the book images will take you to their Amazon sales page...
in case you want to buy em)

Let me begin by saying I'm a fan of the cheesy apocalypse movies. You meet some average guy who just happens to have all these crazy connections to the people who know what's actually going on, and through luck and circumstance, he ends up saving his entire family thanks to those connections.

Cheesy. Always Cheesy. But I love them... yet at the same time, other than the question of which characters are most expendible, you know the main guy will most likely make it through, and things will be fine in the end.

These books are NOT like that. Perhaps somewhat shockingly, these are young adult books... although the issues they deal with are very adult. Unlike the goofy movies about the end of the world, these books follow the lives of two different teenagers who *don't* have those magical connections that save their lives.

As I describe the plots of these books to friends and family, I keep getting the same reaction, "Wait... these books are meant for kids?"
This series deals heavily in the issues of Life, Death, Religion, Guilt, Sin, Pride, and on and on... and they do it well.

The books are meant to be read in the order of:
Life As We Knew It
The Dead And The Gone
This World We Live In

However, I read them in this order (at a friend's suggestion):
The Dead And The Gone
Life As We Knew It
This World We Live In

I think I kind of preferred them in the order I read them...

First off, the cataclysmic event that causes the Apocalypse is an asteroid crashing into the moon... it turns out that the object was more dense than scientists thought, and ends up pushing the moon closer to Earth. This sets off a chain reaction of tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, volcano erruptions, and on and on.

The main character in The Dead And The Gone, 17 year old Alex Morales, a Puerto Rican youth living in NYC with his family, really has no clue what's going on... he goes through the book and hears things by word of mouth... for me, his experience felt a little more realistic. He experiences true, heart-breaking loss and is forced to be a man much sooner than he expected. He is the one keeping his family alive, shouldering the responsibility, making what future he can.

In Life As We Knew It, the main character, Miranda (who is about Alex's age) is really a typical teenaged girl. She whines, fights with her mother, is greedy and thinks mostly of herself for quite a bit of the book. Miranda, unlike Alex, does not survive on her own skills, she lives because her Mother has an amazing survival instinct and does all of the right things the minute she *thinks* she might know what's happening. If Miranda had been in Alex's situation, she would have been dead... but that isn't to say Miranda is unlikable. She is an honest representation of a typical teenager, so for a reader such as myself, I could easily understand her motivations and the difficulty she had in grasping the seriousness of things... when "Mommy" was still there to take care of everything.

In the final book, the two characters and their families come together through random circumstance... and more apocalyptic revelries ensue... the author left it so that another book, if she wanted, could be written... but honestly, if she stays true to this premise, I'm ok with this being the last book, and I'm not sure I could bear to see what happens to these characters in another book.

These are not sugar coated apocalypse books. There is no magical ending where they find they know one of America's top climatologists, or the President of the United States or anything... these are people like you or I, regular people, and what happens to them when the world falls apart.

They are touching, heart breaking, heart warming, amazing books. I recommend them.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

This book is beautiful. It explores everything from savage death to beautiful life... so many things are ended and then started, started and then ended in this book, it rings so truly of real life that it will help anyone get through rough situations, no matter what they may be.

I want to believe in Alice Sebold's... in Susie Salmon's heaven.

This book's writing style drew me in immediatly, and I could not put it down from the moment I picked it up. Being the week before Christmas, there have been a lot of social obligations I have been forced to attend to, but had it not been for them, this book would never have left my hand.

I fell alseep with it open, I woke up to the words that I'd left behind to dream, and began devouring them once more.

It takes something sad and horrific and turns it into this beautiful understanding... discovering... rebirth.

I never would have suspected that, by reading the story of a violently murdered 14 year old girl, I would walk away feeling so uplifted.

Read. This. Book.

The Princess and the Frog ~ Movie

Disney has taken a little step back in time, pushed aside the flashy new digital animation that has done so well for them (I LOVE Up) and reverted back to their roots.

The Princess and the Frog is a hand animated piece... done the old fashion way, cell by cell... and it is BEAUTIFUL. The story is lovely. For a children's movie, it is great. There are points where I wish they would have spent a little more time, really delving into the character... but since this is, essentially, a movie for small children, I understand and am fine with the simplification.

One thing I truly enjoyed was that they didn't tip-toe too much around racism, or pretend that it didn't exist. The main character definetly had to face issues that were brought about by the color of her skin.

The 'Princess', Tiana, is lovable, relatable, someone you root for entirely and just very endearing.

The Shadow Man (the main villian) is creepy, dealing with 'the other side' which is quite spooky (and one of those things I really wish they could have gone deeper into) and a lovely design.

The Prince is both likable and arrogant.

The best friend is FANTASTIC.

Seriously, if you're a fan of traditional Disney work, GO SEE THIS MOVIE.

For those of us who grew up on it, it's heartwarming and nostalgic. For the little ones just getting to know Disney, this is a GREAT introduction.

The Ruby Key by Holly Lisle

I'm going to be brief with this one, but not because of any dislike for the book.

This book is part of a series. The first book does have a conclusion, but also ends by flooding the path with several new problems.

This is an interesting faerie/human relations story in which the main character, Genna, learns how little she knows of the world she'd been living in.

I enjoyed all of the characters, and the worlds that they tripped through.

My only complaint is that there was one betrayal I simply could not buy into, and proved to be right in doing so.

Other than that, I enjoyed this story.

If you're a fan of faerie adventures with prophecies that must be fullfilled... and talking cats, then you'll enjoy this.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

The Forest of Hands and Teeth was handed to me by a friend... actually, it was more thrust at me, pages already open, ready to pull me in, with an excited exclamation of "This book is FANTASTIC!"

The name alone would have had me hooked. The Forest of Hands and Teeth? It sounds mysterious, it sounds horrifying, it sounds painful and inescapable!

The book doesn't need the catchy title, though, because the main character, Mary, is a strong, determined young woman who *knows* there is more to life than the caged-cattle existence she is living.

This is confirmed for her when the mysterious Gabrielle arrives from outside of the village.

This would be a good time for a bit of backstory. This book is set years (possibly hundreds) after a zombie apocalypse, which in and of itself is refreshing. These people already have figured out how to survive, and are very set in their ways. Our old history (the life we live now, which is known as 'before the Return') is forgotten by all but a select few, who keep the truth of it well hidden. This village is so far removed from the rest of the world that most of them don't even believe in the ocean... and more importantly, most of them believe they are the last people on Earth... so the arrival of an outsider (who is kept hidden from almost everyone) confirms Mary's belief in there being more to be had of life.

If you're looking for a lot of back detail on the powers that be, you're not going to get it. They remain mysterious and full of knowledge that Mary cannot piece together because she doesn't even know where to begin. However, any clued in reader who has ever seen or read a Zombie Apocalypse piece can pretty easily formulate a rough sketch of what happened... and how this village ended up where they are today.

Now, this part doesn't really break from the norm of a zombie story, but... as you probably suspected, Mary's world is disrupted by a zombie invasion into their little village (although the circumstances leading up to the zombies breaching the wall is fantastically intriguing)... and here in lies my only "Well, isn't that convenient" moment of the story... I won't elaborate... but I will say it has to do with who ends up gathered at the fence.

Where this book could have easily fallen into the dregs of every other teenage 'coming of age-love triangle-twilightish drama'... it does not. Mary stays true to herself, questions her relationships no more than one would expect, doesn't make you want to gag with silly teenage sentiment... and most importantly, is unshakable in her beliefs.

I hope this wasn't too vague... I suppose if anyone stumbles across this blog and has a question, then please ask it!

I loved this book, and I recommend it.

Oh, and it has a sequel due out next year.

The Beginning

I am going to use this blog to write about the books I read.

I have a blog for crafts, I have a blog of silliness... now it's time for books.

I try to read a lot... I often don't succeed... or I read half books and half comics... but I'm going to review it all here.

You have been warned. :)