DREAMCATCHER'S LAIR

Waiting On Wednesday (#1)

2012-02-08T17:00:00.000+05:30

So, I've decided to join the bandwagon and do a weekly meme.
I like the concept of Waiting On Wednesday (started by Jill from Breaking the Spine) because:

featuring books that I so-can't-wait-for seems like fun.
I get to talk about more books!
you get to hear about more books!
and...well, I'll have a weekly something to look forward to posting. Without fail :)

...and therefore, you see, this is the perfect thing to do every week. Hope you'll stick around.

This week I'm waiting for -

Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink

by Stephanie Kate Strohm

Expected publication - May, 2012

From the author's website:
Libby Kelting had always felt herself born out of time. No wonder the historical romance-reading, Jane Austen-adaptation-watching, all-around history nerd jumped at the chance to intern at Camden Harbor, Maine’s Oldest Living History Museum. But at Camden Harbor Libby’s just plain out of place, no matter how cute she looks in a corset. Her cat-loving coworker wants her dead, the too-smart-for-his-own-good local reporter keeps pushing her buttons, her gorgeous sailor may be more shipwreck than dreamboat — plus Camden Harbor’s haunted. Over the course of one unforgettable summer, Libby learns that boys, like ghosts, aren’t always what they seem.

Why I'm waiting for this:

Firstly, I was sold at 'Jane Austen-adaptation-watching'. I mean, I like Ms. Austen's books a lot, but I think I like the screen adaptations even more. I don't give a damn about how the critics rate them, they function like pick-me-ups and are hugely entertaining. Plus, the men are swoony.

Secondly, there's a museum and CAMDEN HARBOR IS HAUNTED! So ghosts. I love ghosts! Especially in contemporaries where they make a guest appearance. I mean, seriously, what's not to love?

Thirdly, see those other characters mentioned? I *want* to read about them. I want to read about the hostile coworker, the supersmart reporter and the pretty sailor. Wait...what?! A sailor? Where did he come from? WHY AREN'T THERE MORE BOOKS WITH SAILORS? Authors, are you listening?

The moment I came across this book on one of my lurk-sprees, I almost sang out. This book is for me, me, me. It sounds fun and quirky and there's Jane Austen and ghosts and - oh damn, I need this right away.

What are you waiting for?

Drowning Instinct

2012-02-06T20:05:00.002+05:30

Drowning Instinct
by Ilsa J Bick
Released: 1st Feb, '12.
From Goodreads:

There are stories where the girl gets her prince, and they live happily ever after. (This is not one of those stories.)
Jenna Lord's first sixteen years were not exactly a fairytale. Her father is a controlling psycho and her mother is a drunk. She used to count on her older brother—until he shipped off to Afghanistan. And then, of course, there was the time she almost died in a fire.
There are stories where the monster gets the girl, and we all shed tears for his innocent victim. (This is not one of those stories either.)
Mitch Anderson is many things: A dedicated teacher and coach. A caring husband. A man with a certain...magnetism.
And there are stories where it's hard to be sure who's a prince and who's a monster, who is a victim and who should live happily ever after. (These are the most interesting stories of all.)
Drowning Instinct is a novel of pain, deception, desperation, and love against the odds—and the rules.

A word about the cover: For some reason, one glance at the cover made me think this was a paranormal. Of course, I hadn't read the book description or anything then. And, well...I passed it up, because I wasn't really in the mood for a paranormal. After reading the description, though, my reaction went along the lines of Holy shit! How could I pass up THIS book? Now that I look at it, I think the cover captures the mood of the book rather well. I mean, to me, it kinda looks like the girl has just washed her face after a run and that's...significant. You know what I mean? No? Well, find out.

My Thoughts:

Drowning Instinct is one of those books that can't exactly be summed up in a review. But there are certain things I can tell you. Like,

While the book description tells you a few things, it doesn't prepare you with expectations. At least for me, it didn't. Which means, that the experience that Drowning Instinct packs within those pages, may, in plain-speak, blow your mind.
There's self harm and all kinds of abuse and other twisted things that will take you to dark places and make you squirm and keep you awake at night. And keep you thinking. Thinking is always a good thing, right?
Surprises. There are lots of them. Sometimes these are small bumpy ones, sometimes they are roller-coaster-plunge worthy-ish. Either way, it's a ride.
If you have expectations from Jenna Lord, dump them with the garbage. Jenna Lord is not a very reliable narrator. She might also be insane. Mostly though, you won't be able to forget her.
Even before the threads of the relationship - yes, that forbidden relationship - manifest, you will be saying, oh no no no no no, don't even go there! back off! But then, long past those early scenes, somewhere in the middle of the story you will probably wonder if you said that 'back off' out of concern or jealousy.
Oftentimes, especially in the latter half of the book, you will think how very twisted Mitch Anderson is and will want to scream What is up with that man?! Sooner or later, that might alternate with Why can't I have that man?! Oh, yes, Mitch Anderson in inexplicably swoon-worthy.
While the rest of the book will probably keep you in page-flipping-frenzy mode, the last quarter will make you hyperventilate alongside. But be careful. If things get too serious, remember you can't really blame your medical condition on a book.
Soon you might stop breathing.
Then, you'll probably experience an overwhelming outpouring of emotions.
Later, you will be wondering who was to blame. If anyone was to blame. What you condoned and what you disapproved. If you even have the right to. What was right and what went wrong. If you are even in a position to judge. If you can even point a finger at anybody. The dilemma won't really leave you with an answer.

Then again, this story is not only about Jenna and Mr. Anderson. There are several more players, each with their own desperate obsessions, twisted pasts and existence of half-truths.
Primarily though, Drowning Instinct is a story that weaves through the lives of broken people looking for something to grasp on to, before they drown in the desolation of their own existence. It is also incredibly brilliant.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that it somersaulted straight up my favourites list.

What upcoming release do you want to drown in?

This is me...+ contest winner

2012-02-03T19:43:00.000+05:30

This is me right now:

And, naturally, it's not been pleasant.

So I've been looking at things like this:

And these:

...and alternately laughing and swooning and snickering.

Anyway.
Remember the New Year contest I had throughout Jan? Well, it's time to announce the winner.
So, the e-copy of Kelley York's HUSHED (review here) goes to....

*drumroll*

Emily R. King

Congrats, Emily. You will be hearing from me soon.

As for the rest of you guys?
Thanks for being so amazing.
You're ALL superstars.

.....and now I shall go back to talking to the ceiling.

May B.

2012-01-31T02:15:00.000+05:30

May B.
by Caroline Starr Rose
Released: January, 2012.
From Goodreads:

May is helping out on a neighbor's Kansas prairie homestead—just until Christmas, says Pa. She wants to contribute, but it's hard to be separated from her family by 15 long, unfamiliar miles. Then the unthinkable happens: May is abandoned. Trapped in a tiny snow-covered sod house, isolated from family and neighbors, May must prepare for the oncoming winter. While fighting to survive, May's memories of her struggles with reading at school come back to haunt her. But she's determined to find her way home again. Caroline Starr Rose's fast-paced novel, written in beautiful and riveting verse, gives readers a strong new heroine to love.

My Thoughts:

Verse is the most beautiful form of writing EVER. Seriously. Prose can be made beautiful but anything that verse touches is instantly beautified. It's easy to go wrong with verse, but if you get it right, the result is nothing short of dazzling.

Caroline Starr Rose's May B. is one such beautiful novel. The verse is stylistic, yet simplistic and makes for a read that is oh-so-compelling, it begs to be completed quickly. And that's easy, because it is fast paced and May's voice is very engaging.

May's resilience is arguably the best thing about this novel. She is so young and it hurts to read about her struggles. Her struggle with her reading disability that brings out her insecurities before sniggering classmates and a very discouraging teacher. Her struggles with the downsides of being a girl in the 19th century, witnessing her brother get the little privileges she is denied. Struggles with being separated from her family, then being abandoned in the midst of nowhere and having to face nature's fury by herself. Her struggle for survival.

Most of the time I just wanted to give her a hug. And it broke my heart that there wasn't anyone to give her that. Seriously, this girl needed it. But the thing about May B. is that in spite of being severed off from known civilisation and having to do without any human companionship, she has a quiet strength, a fighting spirit that manifests itself against all odds. It's empowering and it unfurls itself not dramatically, but gradually.

I liked how the author juxtaposes May's struggle with dyslexia with the challenges imposed by the approaching winter. The setting, infact, is brilliant. I could literally hear the blizzard. And it terrified me. That says a lot about the author's skill, doesn't it?

Caroline Starr Rose's May B. could be called an adventure tale featuring a very brave and unusual heroine, that makes for a heartwarming and enduring read. Whether verse is your thing or not, I recommend this.

How often do you pick up a verse novel?

Graphic Novel Spotlight: Princess Reborn - Chapter 1

2012-01-24T20:43:00.000+05:30

Princess Reborn: Chapter 1 (Graphic Novel)
by Lee Tidball

Lari’s puzzled. What’s Mom’s secret? And could it have anything to do with Lari’s, secret? Lari’s family will never be the same again when an unspeakable evil is unleashed on the world. a dark nemesis from mom’s phantom past, bent on ruling and revenge. The world will stand helpless against it.
The time for heroes has come again. One must be born, though she has no idea who she is. And the other must, against all odds, be REBORN.

This is the first graphic novel I'm featuring on my blog.

I don't read as much of them as I'd like to. Although Neil Gaiman's graphic novel version of Coraline will always be a favourite.

Princess Reborn is a superhero story. And even better? Female superheroes. We don't get to see much of them as their male counterparts, do we? So this immediately scored brownie points for that.

It's a very slim novel and considering that it's a graphic novel, a quick one, too.

Seventh grader Lari has always suspected there's something strange about her mother, who has maintained a discreetness about her past ever since she can remember. What Lari doesn't realise is that there are bigger secrets and conspiracies at work than she can imagine. And it all builds up to a pulse-racing climax.

I cannot elaborate much for fear of giving anything crucial away. And there's a lot of that - crucial details.

Princess Reborn: Chapter 1 is filled with action, suspense and a lot of excitement from start to finish. It is very well illustrated and structured - which means that I didn't have trouble following the conversation bubbles which I sometimes have. I think the illustrations capture the action sequences particularly well.

The only thing that frustrated me is the ending. It ends on such a cliffhanger. And I'm not a fan of the big cliffhangers. They bug me to no end. I guess the fact that this is just 'Chapter 1' implies there's a long adventure to come and I have to wait for Chapter 2 before I get the answers to at least some of the questions raised.

Overall, this was fun to read. I let my 14 year old brother read it after me. He enjoyed it and called it 'exciting'. So if you are a graphic novel nerd or know someone who is, here's a new recommendation to consider picking up next time you have hours to kill :)

Author website
Goodreads
Amazon <-- there's an excerpt available here, if you're interested.

Do you read graphic novels?

The Review Debacle

2012-01-20T02:09:00.000+05:30

(I have a lot to say, so bear with me)

This has been going on far too long. I think every year there comes a time when the eternal debate of whether authors/aspiring authors should be book reviewers too comes up. This generally sparks off several more posts regarding reviews (blogger reviews, to be specific) and how positive or negative they should or shouldn't be. And it's alright to have these discussions. That's why we are human beings. We have the power to reason and discuss, test and explore new ideas. And every year we have some very interesting discussions on said topics, which leave us with greater understanding of things, even if our fundamental beliefs remain unchanged.

This time, though, something went wrong. Something spiraled beyond discussions and took on an ugliness of its own - where certain authors ganged up on certain reviewers, certain agents conspired with certain authors to rig the review rating system on Goodreads and Amazon, mudslinging and bitch-slamming in public took place - it's been one hot mess after another.

And it's been very, very disappointing. This is NOT the book world as I know it. The book world I've grown to love and respect is the one where writers and reviewers and readers co-exist in harmony - occasionally going to tea with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare, engaging in Wildean witty banter, tipping their hats to each other when they gather at book clubs or pen clubs (where they brainstorm ideas. This doesn't officially exist by that name). There are differences of opinions, yes. As long as there will be people there will be opinions and everyone has a different opinion and everyone's entitled to it. But this is done with a respect for each other, with the thought that - 'Yes, I understand that's what you think about me/about this book and while I don't necessarily agree with you, I appreciate your thoughts'.

Unfortunately, that's the ideal. Which obviously, also makes it unreal. The ugly truth of it is that somewhere that line between public and private has been crossed and dirty linen is being washed in full view of the rest of the world.

I mean, look at us. I'm assuming (and rightly so) that we are all literature lovers here. And literature preserves the ideals of humanity. It's supposed to give us a better understanding of life. Supposed to sensitize us to people and their situations. Of all people, we, readers and lovers of literature should know that jumping at each other's throats is not the way to go about things. And creators of literature? You should know better.

My biggest dream is to be a published author. I want to hold a book in my hands, which has a shiny new cover and my name on its spine. A book that people will want to read and hopefully, some of them will love a little. Yes, that's what I really hope happens someday.

But you know what? I was a reader first. It's my love for reading, for books, that made me want to be a writer. I love talking about them, what they made me and didn't make me feel. What worked and what didn't work for me. Would I be reading it again or would I be putting it aside? I like the process of reviewing, evaluating a book and then interacting with fellow readers and getting to know their thoughts on said book.

But when someone tells me that by putting forward my honest thoughts about a book I may as well be killing off my future career as an author, that disappoints me. You're asking me to choose between my love and my dream. I ask you: WHY? Why does it have to be a choice between either? I understand that the writers of the books I don't fangirl over might become my colleagues when/if I do get published, so it might get awkward, but whether I deal with it by simply deleting all reviews I've written or not, is entirely my decision. If I'm not mistaken, whether or not I become published or not depends entirely on my own merit and not because I may not have liked a book by a fellow author and publicly said so. Unless there's a conspiracy of some sort brewing in the industry.

Which brings me to a post by a certain very well-respected author that saddened me a great deal. The author made some interesting points but it all boiled down to her perception that book bloggers aren't real reviewers. That, I vehemently disagree with.

Now, guys.
I understand where she's coming from. She talks about jerk-fests - personal attacks that come under the guise of reviews. That is wrong. That is just very, very wrong. Yes, we live in a free world (at least most of us do) and we are allowed freedom of speech (at least, till now) but that's NOT to be exploited. Reviews that go: "Oh jeez, I think this author wrote this book simply to annoy me! She should be locked up in an asylum and that goddamned book should be barbecued!" NO. That is NOT how book reviews should go, no matter how much you hate a book. Be snarky, yes, use funny gifs, have a good laugh - heck, yes, that's fine - but you cross the line at cruelty and meanness. I get that. And I'm totally against it.

But what I don't get is the distinction she makes between paid reviews and unpaid ones. Between how real the professional reviews (say, ones that appear in The Guardian and the New York Times and other literary publications) and how not real the unprofessional reviews (say, on Goodreads and book blogs) are. I mean, seriously? That's like saying that books that don't win awards aren't real books.
Blogger reviews are NOT all jerk-fests that take potshots at the author's personal life. NO. They probably comprise only 2% of the blogosphere. So clubbing every blog reviewer under the 'jerks' umbrella is biased and wrong.

The author also says:

Let's talk about the negative "reviews" that authors have been lashing out at. They often involve animated gifs, swearing, and snark. They're often quite funny. But here's the thing, though. When a blogger writes a biased, hilarious, snarky rundown of a book they despised, he/ she is not writing a review. They are writing a post about a book. I'm not saying that bloggers shouldn't write biased, hilarious, snarky rundowns of books. I'm saying that those rundowns are not reviews. Bloggers who regularly write them cannot expect to garner the same respect and treatment from authors that pro reviewers or non-pro reviewers do. They can't expect authors to read their posts and learn something from them. And they cannot expect authors to not take it personally. They've made it personal.

Um, hello - WHAT?
So because they are informal, these are not reviews? I don't get it. How I evaluate is book is entirely up to me. And what's the deal about these being personal? DUDE, art is personal. Everything about art is personal. There can't ever be anything such as looking at a book 'objectively'. I mean, how can it? The way you respond to a book is entirely yours. You and I might love a book but on a deeper level, in almost all probability we love it for very different reasons. EVERY REVIEW IS SUBJECTIVE. It is personal, because it it about how I personally feel about the book. Irrespective of whether or not I mention the 'I' in my reviews, it's omnipresent. It would be ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

I realise it's very hard to let your book - your sweat and blood and tears - out there and watch other people take a swing at it, but that's what happens when you go public with your work. If you want the fangirls, you have to accept the non-fangirls as well. You are allowed to be secretly angry with them but don't lash out at them. Don't demean the bloggers who are putting forth a thought on your book because of their love of reading, irrespective of which way their opinions might swing. I stumbled upon this blogger's post while writing this. Go read it. It's more articulate than I can be at this point.

As for the reviewers, you're allowed to be honest. You're allowed your opinions. You're allowed to like or dislike a book (don't let anyone threaten you otherwise) but be careful not to turn that dislike into a personal attack. Don't. Do. That.

Guys. Look at us. We're Literature lovers. All of us. Lets not indulge in such pettiness. It's unbecoming and savage and puts Literature to shame.

We are all doing something we love. Bring on the respect, guys. And be a sport.

A New Year's Gift for the Blogstars!

2012-01-02T22:47:00.000+05:30

The calender on my laptop screen says 2012. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? Year of the Apocalypse - ALREADY?

Also, I will be 22 this year. In about 7 months time. Sheesh, I'm getting old *clutches on to youthful self*

To be honest, I feel like this:

But for the sake of this being the time-of-the-year-to-spread-cheer, I'll push aside the cynic to quote Oprah:

For all that the last year has given me and taken away from me, I'm thankful for one thing.

I'm thankful for you.

Yes, YOU guys. My blogstars.

This blog wouldn't have been anywhere, if you guys hadn't stuck around with me. I could have rambled on and on with no followers or readers and then I'd have gotten bored of..well, just talking to myself (I mean, I can do that in my room. I don't need a blog for that), so I guess I'd mope about, secretly listening to emo music and occasionally crying out 'Woe is me. Nobody wants to listen to me. Nobody cares.' And then eventually I'd have left blogosphere.

Now THAT would have been terrible for me. Because, honestly, belonging to this blogging world has made me a better writer AND reader. Don't ask me how, but it has. Maybe it's just your awesomeness rubbing off on me.

So.

I'm celebrating.

Not in a big way, cause big celebrations call for a lot of money, which I don't have (what with me being a poor university student and all that), but celebrating, nevertheless. I'm giving away an e-ARC of Kelley York's HUSHED. Yeah, that book I gushed about in December. This is how it looked like. Remember?

If you don't know the book I'm talking about, click on the links above. There's plenty to make you want to read it ;)

There are two requirements to enter:

1. Be a follower - because, really, this is a thank you of sorts to my followers who really are the blogstars.

2. Be a blogger - because they are awesome. And they have made my stay here, awesome. So, I'm sorry non-bloggers, this is only for the blogger folks.

There are a few ways to earn extra entries, too, but that's up to you. I won't love you less if you don't go that way, but it is appreciated. Also, like all giveaways on this blog, this is open to everyone with a valid email address :)

You'll find the form at the end of the post.

Anyway. Now that that's out of way, I've been thinking a lot about wishes and goals for 2012. I mean, every year I go, 'Oh dear lord, please, PLEASE, see that I get published this year' - it's kind of become the usual thing. Of course, I still want that. Will always want that more than anything else. As much as I want to go to New York. Or get a beach house. Or marry Tom Felton. You know the drill. This time, though, I'm not really expecting anything specific. I just want this to be a really good, unforgettable year.

This is what I want out of 2012.

This year I want to be surprised. With good, magical things.

What about you?

Have a good year, folks! :)

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Cover Re-creation: Help Me? Round II

2011-12-29T19:18:00.000+05:30

Okay, so this comes in quick succession, but I need your help again. To help me pick a cover. For the cover recreation contest at Confessions of a Bookaholic.

So, yesterday I posted 6 covers I re-made for Holly Cupala's new book Don't Breathe A Word. And I asked for your opinions regarding which you thought would make the best entry (for the contest, ie). If you have no idea what I'm talking about, refer here. Well, THANK YOU for your suggestions! I really appreciated it :)

Anyway, based on what you said, I narrowed it down to the top three. I reworked one, tweaked another and let one just be. And now I need you to tell me which ONE you think should be my contest entry, okay?
So, here's the actual book cover:

In Holly's own words, these are visual ideas from the book:

Streets, darkness, light (I love the bokeh lights in the final official cover!). Asher, the abusive boyfriend, is obsessed with crows, and Joy feels like she is trapped like one. He gives her a Tiffany I.D. bracelet with a crow dangling from the edge. At the beginning of the novel, Joy cuts off her long, dark hair and bleaches it to disguise herself on the streets. There is a romance, too, with Creed—a talented musician who is on the streets for reasons of his own.

Taken from here.

And here are the ones that I made:

Cover#1

Cover #2

Cover #3

Please choose just ONE cover. It would make my job easier AND I will love you forever. For reals.

Help Me Pick A Cover?

2011-12-28T18:34:00.000+05:30

So, Confessions of a Bookaholic is hosting a re-cover contest for Holly Cupala's upcoming 2012 release, Don't Breathe A Word. Which obviously means, that it's the fun fight over recreating the cover of Don't Breathe A Word. Recreating THIS cover.

I really like this cover. There's a certain subtle fierceness to the way the girl's hair is whipping about her face. And I love the font used. Overall, I think it really captures the mood of the book, from what I get out of the summary. For those not in the know, this is what it's about:

Joy Delamere is suffocating...
From asthma, which has nearly claimed her life. From her parents, who will do anything to keep that from happening. From delectably dangerous Asher, who is smothering her from the inside out.
Joy can take his words - tender words, cruel words - until the night they go too far.
Now, Joy will leave everything behind to find the one who has offered his help, a homeless boy called Creed. She will become someone else. She will learn to survive. She will breathe... if only she can get to Creed before it’s too late.
Set against the gritty backdrop of Seattle’s streets and a cast of characters with secrets of their own, Holly Cupala’s powerful new novel explores the subtleties of abuse, the meaning of love, and how far a girl will go to discover her own strength.

So, as you must have guessed by now (unless you're skimming through this - which I can't really blame you for. I ramble a lot), the Queen Procrastinator in me took over (as it does, most of the time) and *I* decided to participate. Of course there's the added perk of winning a signed copy of Don't Breathe A Word. I mean, who wouldn't want that? I really, really liked Holly Cupala's debut novel, Tell Me A Secret, so of course, I'd read every book she comes up with. And, DUDE, this one's a *signed* copy!
This happens to be the first time ever that I'm recreating a cover. Any cover, at all. It's just that, I always knew I wanted to read this book, but there's the matter of *when*. I need to be not-broke, like I perpetually am, so I can pre-order/buy it. And ever since I read an excerpt from the novel I was a goner. It was THAT good. Which brings me to this contest. With the recreation, I actually ended up creating several different covers for Don't Breathe A Word. I'm obsessive like that. Sadly, it's only one cover per person, so I need to choose. Which I can't. So I need you. To choose for me. Can you do that? Please? I've told you what the book is about and I've showed you the original cover - well, my covers are waaay different from that, I think, but I need you to tell me which you think works best for the book. Okay?
Here goes.

Cover #1

Cover #2

Cover #3

Cover #4

The next two aren't in book cover size only because it's distorting the photograph. But don't chuck them out because of that! :)
Cover #5

Cover #6

So, there.
Tell me which one you like best. Choose one to make it easier for me ;)
Tell me if you like something but think it could be better. I appreciate suggestions.
Tell me if you hate them all. Then I'll think about reworking them.
Sound off in the comments!

See how much I want that book?

The Christmas Post

2011-12-24T22:11:00.000+05:30

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home ~ Charles Dickens

It's Christmas eve in my part of the world.
Which means I'm full of that giddy joy that accompanies the 24th of Dec. Which also means that I'm so bubbling with, well, feelings, that I don't quite have the words, for a proper post.

So I'm gonna let other things do the talking.
Like Safe & Sound - the Taylor Swift ft The Civil Wars song from the official The Hunger Games soundtrack. WHO KNEW? I mean, I'd never associate Taylor with HG (c'mon, she's so sweet and fairy tale-ish, while HG is..well, HG) but..GAH, THIS IS PERFECT.

I can imagine so many instances for this song to be featured. Like, when Katniss tries to console a crying Prim before leaving for the Hunger Games - I don't remember if there's such a scene in the book, but if there's one in the book, and this song is played in the background, it would be so fitting. Or after Rue dies and Katniss sings her a lullaby, this could be the background score - it has such a lullaby-like quality to it. Also, I just know it's going to rip my heart to shreds. In fact, this song can even fit in when Katniss and Peeta are alone together and Peeta's certain that he would die. I just this song would be compelling anywhere.
I only, really, hope they actually use the song in the movie. Unlike what was done with Christina Perri's A Thousand Years from Breaking Dawn (it was part of the official soundtrack but didn't feature anywhere in the movie).

It's crazy, but this song just made Christmas a little more perfect :) And if for some reason you are down and sad and lonely, I hope these photos make you smile. Because photos kinda do that.

Don't tell me that last one didn't crack you up ;)

My comfort read for this Christmas is Trisha Ashley's The Magic of Christmas.

In the pretty Lancashire village of Middlemoss, Lizzy is on the verge of leaving her cheating husband, Tom, when tragedy strikes. Luckily she has welcome distraction in the Christmas Pudding Circle, a group of friends swapping seasonal recipes – as well as a rivalry with local cookery writer Nick over who will win Best Mince Pie at the village show…

Meanwhile, the whole village is gearing up for the annual Boxing Day Mystery Play. But who will play Adam to Lizzy’s Eve? Could it be the handsome and charismatic soap actor Ritch, or could someone closer to home win her heart? Whatever happens, it promises to be a Christmas to remember!

(And that cover? It's got sparkly bits all over it!)

Have a great Christmas, blogstars! And make sure you're under the mistletoe when there's a smexy boy/girl (whichever you prefer) around ;)

(All photos taken from here)

Hushed

2011-12-14T18:09:00.000+05:30

He’s saved her. He’s loved her. He’s killed for her.

Eighteen-year-old Archer couldn’t protect his best friend, Vivian, from what happened when they were kids, so he’s never stopped trying to protect her from everything else. It doesn’t matter that Vivian only uses him when hopping from one toxic relationship to another—Archer is always there, waiting to be noticed.

Then along comes Evan, the only person who’s ever cared about Archer without a single string attached. The harder he falls for Evan, the more Archer sees Vivian for the manipulative hot-mess she really is.

But Viv has her hooks in deep, and when she finds out about the murders Archer’s committed and his relationship with Evan, she threatens to turn him in if she doesn’t get what she wants… And what she wants is Evan’s death, and for Archer to forfeit his last chance at redemption.

This book? MIND. BLOWN.

It was this crazy, crazy ride through the lives of psychotic teenagers with very, very dark secrets that are so disturbing, they'll leave you breathless. Keep an inhaler handy.

So, what we get from the book description is that Archer's a sort of teenage Dexter who is killing people (actually killing the people who've hurt his friend Vivian), thinking it's the right thing to do.
It's twisted.
It's creepy.
And it heightens your curiosity quotient. Because any thinking person will want to know 'why' Archer is so crazy twisted. And what is his deal with Vivian, that he would go this far for her. And what on earth had happened to Vivian.
What? Why? How?
Hushed quickly raises numerous questions, and while you flip through the pages at phenomenal speed, it spinballs into a black hole of anticipation that might just give you a mini heart attack. And then, it'll hit you back with answers. Answers that will make you squirm and bite your lips till they bleed.

Hushed made me go through a range of emotions. Dark emotions, mostly, but dark has its range - rage, jealousy, despair. There's a lot going on there.

And oh man, Kelley York writes killer characters (no, the pun wasn't intended). She turns convention on its head and gives you brainsick teens in parasitic relationships, trapped in the role-plays they have created for themselves. Goes without saying, they are not your usual guys-and-girls-next-door. No.

Archer - Going into the book I had no idea what to think about Archer. Except for the fact that I'd be scared around him. Come on, the guy kills! (even if he's doing it for the benefit of his friend). And the book opens with a rather graphic-of-sorts scene of Archer murdering someone. But, you know, as with skillful storytelling, this man-killing-antisocial grows into somebody who deserves your sympathy. Archer is amazingly written. There's no black-and-whiteness about him. Archer walks in smoky grey haze, wanting so desperately to be loved by Vivian and doing all the wrong things to make things right that he sometimes makes your heart bleed a little.

Vivian - WHERE DID THIS GIRL COME FROM? I don't remember having detested any contemporary character (besides the mother in Tabitha Suzuma's Forbidden) as much as I detested her. She's so manipulative, so unstable, so emotionally abusive and misguided, most of the time I wanted to slap her left, right and centre. But as with Archer, I could tell where she was coming from. I never liked her, but I didn't hate her as much as I started out doing. And that's where Kelley York scores. Because Vivian wasn't meant to be a character to be liked (at least I don't think so) but not understanding where her motivations and insecurities arose from would have totally defeated the purpose of her presence. It's no surprise, perhaps, that she felt like the most REAL among the three main characters. She breathed right out of the pages.

Evan - Good heavens, I LOVED this guy! And his family. And the things he did. And the things he said. He is the reason his pair-up with Archer has moved into my list of Favourite Contemporary Couples (right next to Tessa and Adam from Before I Die and Lennie and Joe from The Sky Is Everywhere and Anna and St. Clair from Anna And The French Kiss). I loved how their relationship progressed. Not love at first sight, but gradually, unwinding layers and layers of each other, sometimes accidentally, sometimes with that intent. And, OH DEAR LORD, there is a Shower Scene which is probably the hottest thing I've read in ages. (Read, I tell you, READ!)

What. Can. I. Say.
I've never finished another book on netgalley as quickly as I did this. Characters that creep you out but make you remember them, taut writing that keeps you flipping and flipping pages, Hushed is a stellar YA Contemporary Thriller. READ.

Be warned: this ain't your bedtime fare. It'll keep you up ALL night. I speak from experience.

Also, Kelley York put up an amazing cast for Hushed, on her blog --> Check. It. Out.

What's the best YA Thriller you've read?

DARKER STILL: Magic Most Foul #1

2011-12-01T21:07:00.000+05:30

The Picture of Dorian Gray meets Pride and Prejudice, with a dash of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
New York City, 1882. Seventeen-year-old Natalie Stewart's latest obsession is a painting of the handsome British Lord Denbury. Something in his striking blue eyes calls to her. As his incredibly life-like gaze seems to follow her, Natalie gets the uneasy feeling that details of the painting keep changing...
Jonathan Denbury's soul is trapped in the gilded painting by dark magic while his possessed body commits unspeakable crimes in the city slums. He must lure Natalie into the painting, for only together can they reverse the curse and free his damaged soul.

I was on the cheering squad for this book even before I'd read it, when only the title, the cover and the summary had been released. I felt a kinship with it. Because -

Dorian Gray! That's the first thing that crossed my mind. And I'm so fascinated with anything and everything to do with/related to Dorian Gray, I HAD to read this. And this clearly had the Dorian Gray concept going for it. Suffice to say, Oscar Wilde (that man I LOVE!) is right on top of the author, Leanna Renne Hieber's acknowledgment list.
I have a thing for the Gothic. So naturally, Gothic romance appeals to me greatly. See that summary above? Perfect Gothic romance fodder for me.
Magic Most Foul. That's the tagline for this new series. What's not to love? Magic (um, ghosts, too) is the thing I love above all fantastical or paranormal elements. It has my heart. So this book had it, too.
Dude, cover love!

I have to say, right from the beginning, I've thought this book has a very clever concept. And Leanna Renne Hieber works on that well. The book starts off as very, very intriguing. It's in epistolary format, and while the majority of it is written as part of Natalie's diary entries, there are a few excerpts from the New York City Police Record Case Files and letters exchanged between the characters.

A mysterious - and delicious - new portrait of a handsome young Lord moves into town (actually, into the Art Association on Twenty Third street, New York) and catches the fascination of many, including Natalie, thus triggering off a series of unexpected happenings involving magic most foul.

I like Natalie. A trauma at a young age took away her speech, rendering her mute. She is gutsy (remember this is the 19th century we are talking about, so gutsy now is different from gutsy then, but gutsy nevertheless), thoughtful and a heroine to commend.

And Lord Denbury? (I prefer calling him that than by his first name) He is delicious. For some reason, I kept picturing him as Ben Barnes. I'm guessing its the Dorian Gray effect.

Except for the fact, you know, Denbury lives in a portrait. I wasn't really crushing on him (as much as I was on my fantasy Barnes) but I think the author does a good job of putting across to the reader why Natalie was so taken by him. Fact is Denbury is delicious in his own way.

Darker Still is well-written and the author does a good job of capturing the 19th century suitably. And the added magic bit to it does wonders.

However, while the book got off to an exciting start, it was, well, kinda bland in the middle. Not to say there weren't things going on. There were. Secrets were being discovered and all that jazz, but for some reason, it left me feeling a little underwhelmed. I'm thinking that while the diary format is an interesting addition, the book could have done with being written in the present tense. It could have added an immediacy to the action. Thing is, the middle made me stall. It almost made me give up reading (although I blame that on the fact that this was on netgalley and I HATE e-reading).

Fortunately, I didn't. Because hells yeah, the last quarter's a romping ride of excitement. I really liked how Darker Still ended. It didn't leave me with a cliffhanger but it left me with the possibility of a lot more exciting and magical stuff to come.

Although it has its ups and downs, Darker Still is intriguing with a magical mystery at its core that will keep you on its pages. I'd say you give this book a chance. It's the new Dorian Gray on the block. And a pretty cool homage-of-sorts to Wilde.

I'm already looking forward to the next installment :)

Goodreads

Author Website

What classic story would you like to see given a new twist?

I LOVE DARK YA Blogfest: The Next Generation

2011-11-30T19:32:00.000+05:30

Today brings the curtains down on the I Love Dark YA blogfest hosted by the team of smart and amazing writers and bloggers over at YAtopia, all throughout the month of November.

And today, I get to talk about the dark YA book I'm most looking forward to reading.

Well, you know, there's this treasure-house of YA books out there that are brilliantly thought-provoking, atmospherically evocative and totally punch-in-the-gut worthy. There are. YAs are full of them, cos this genre is awesome.

And there's a Next-Generation of such books queuing up, and queuing up fast. Brimming with kickassery.

But can you guess which book runs away with the I'll Give Up Dinner If I Can Have This Book Right NOW Award? Can you?

THIS one.

What Goodreads says: He’s saved her. He’s loved her. He’s killed for her.
Eighteen-year-old Archer couldn’t protect his best friend, Vivian, from what happened when they were kids, so he’s never stopped trying to protect her from everything else. It doesn’t matter that Vivian only uses him when hopping from one toxic relationship to another—Archer is always there, waiting to be noticed.
Then along comes Evan, the only person who’s ever cared about Archer without a single string attached. The harder he falls for Evan, the more Archer sees Vivian for the manipulative hot-mess she really is.
But Viv has her hooks in deep, and when she finds out about the murders Archer’s committed and his relationship with Evan, she threatens to turn him in if she doesn’t get what she wants… And what she wants is Evan’s death, and for Archer to forfeit his last chance at redemption.

Goodreads also says that it is expected to be published on the 6th of Dec, 2011.

Doesn't that creeptastic summary make YOU want to give up dinner just to have this book right now as well? Do. Not. Lie.

And you also have to give it to the publisher for not keeping you hanging there with a faaaar-off release date. See, they understand my enthusiasm.

Oh, and you know what's totally amazing? Kelley York's one of the contributors at YAtopia. That is testimonial to how awesome YAtopia is. It's the hub of awesome :)

A huge THANK YOU to them for hosting such a great tribute to Dark YA!

And to all those who played along for your lovely company.

And now. You. Which book would you give the I'd Give Up Dinner For You Award? (Can be something you've already read/looking forward to, non-YA/YA, dark/not) Just to settle my curiosity.

I LOVE DARK YA Blogfest: Casting Up Thirteen Reasons Why!

2011-11-16T20:49:00.000+05:30

So this week's I Love Dark YA topic kinda makes me stop and feel a little squeamish about going ahead with it, because it's about choosing a Dark YA book and posting your own movie cast for it or soundtrack. And most authors already have soundtracks for their books somewhere around their websites. And they even have movie casts made-up in their heads, even if they aren't officially posted. So putting up my own soundtrack and movie-cast kinda feels like intruding upon the author's territory.

Also, it's hard.

Most of the times, when I read, the characters take shape in my head as figments of my imagination, on the basis of the author's descriptions. I don't necessarily think in terms of, you know, movie stars.

And where music is concerned, I kinda have this staple dark music (comprising a lot of Evanescence, Within Temptation, Death Cab For Cutie, Broken Social Scene, Nirvana, Nightwish etc) which work for almost all dark YA books, so I kinda suck at putting together something for a specific book.

Anyway.
Considering how I have to do this and also considering I missed this last week cos of a busy school schedule, I'm going with a movie cast. One for Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why.
I know Selena Gomez has been cast as Hannah Baker and Logan Lerman is rumoured to have been cast as Clay Jenson, but here's who *I* consider the perfect and the almost-perfect Hannah and Clay.

HANNAH BAKER - Kaya Scodelario

Every time I think of Hannah Baker she is the one who BAMS! into my mind. And it helps that my favourite Thirteen Reasons Why fan-made trailer has her in the lead:

And my CLAY JENSEN would be --> Steven R. McQueen

Plus, these two can act. Can play suffering characters so well.
There are a lot more characters in this book, most of whom appear via Hannah's tapes and then again, sometimes in Clay's world. But if the main characters fall into place, the rest of the cast work fine for me. Mostly.

Who would YOU cast as Hannah and Clay?

Because.

2011-11-15T01:08:00.000+05:30

Because in spite of my previous reservations about the cast, this is perfect. And I still have goosebumps.

Thoughts?

Spotlight on STRING BRIDGE! + Michelle Gives Away 50 (!)

2011-11-11T20:19:00.000+05:30

So remember my last post about Jessica Bell's debut novel, STRING BRIDGE?
And remember the little fact where I mentioned that Jessica's also a musician? And that the song used in the book trailer was sung by her? And that she has an ENTIRE album compiled for String Bridge?

Yeah that.

Well, guess what?

If you help STRING BRIDGE get to the amazon bestseller list (by purchasing a copy, of course), you get to receive the all-original soundtrack, (aptly titled) Melody Hill: On The Other Side, written and performed by Jessica (naturally) for free. Did you get that? For FREE.

And all YOU have to do is purchase a copy of STRING BRIDGE (paperback or ebook) today. Yes, TODAY, ie, November 11th. And then email the receipt to jessica.carmen.bell(at)gmail(dot)com
You will then be emailed the link to download the album at no extra cost! How cool is that!

You can purchase the book on Amazon.

And you can listen to samples of the songs on iTunes

And just so you remember what book and what music I'm talking about, have a look at the trailer, which combines the best of both.

Personally, I think having a soundtrack (that too the soundtrack of the MC herself) to listen to before/while/after reading a book makes for a particularly, um, wholesome experience. So I REALLY REALLY think you'd want to check it out. And, also, you know, generosity goes a long way. So help STRING BRIDGE and Jessica :)

Jessica Bell String Bridge Goodreads Jessica's Blog Jessica's Twitter Jessica's Facebook
Also, if you like you can check out reader reviews of String Bridge and mine, too.
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And because you guys are all very generous and kind and listen to my rants so patiently, I will direct you to some really squeal-worthy awesomeness. Ready?
A good blogger friend of mine, Michelle from Windowpane Memoirs is holding a contest where she is giving away 50 books. YES, 50.

Do you realise how totally amazing she is?

And do you know what you have to do to, you know, win? All you have to do is follow her. Yes, that is all. Just follow her. And if you're nice enough to comment on her posts as well, she will be giving away ARCs all throughout November.

Some of the stash :)

Excited enough?
Go give her some love, and she'll give you some too.

The STRING BRIDGE Blog Tour is here!

2011-11-03T19:38:00.000+05:30

The book: String Bridge
The author: Jessica Bell
The publisher: Lucky Press, LLC
The genre: Women's Contemporary Fiction/ Literary Fiction

Jessica Bell's debut novel, String Bridge released on the 1st of Nov and is now on sale!

So basically, from the 1st to the 20th of Nov it'll be one helluva of a blog tour party, where you can hop from one blog to another and check out what everyone's saying about String Bridge and what everyone's saying about Jessica.

HERE IS THE SCHEDULE FOR THE STRING BRIDGE BOOK AND MUSIC BLOG TOUR
(Mark your calenders!)

Are you surprised with the 'music' part of it? Well, maybe I should first explain a bit about Jessica to make it easier for you.

Taken from her bio:

Jessica Bell is a literary women's fiction author, poet and singer/songwriter who grew up in Melbourne, Australia, to two gothic rock musicians who had successful independent careers during the '80s and early '90s.
She spent much of her childhood travelling to and from Australia to Europe, experiencing two entirely different worlds, yet feeling equally at home in both environments. She currently lives in Athens, Greece and works as a freelance writer/editor for English Language Teaching publishers worldwide.
Jessica has published a book of poetry called Twisted Velvet Chains, and a novel String Bridge, with Lucky Press, LLC. A full list of poems and short stories published in various anthologies and literary magazines can be found under Published Works & Awards.

She is a singer AND a songwriter AND a poet AND a novelist. How wickedly talented is that?

And String Bridge being a book that deals a lot with music (the main character being a musician), Jessica Bell has an entire soundtrack to the book which she wrote and sang and recorded herself. Details here.

Not quite believing? Check out the String Bridge trailer, that features the song 'Famous' sung by the author herself.

So what exactly is String Bridge about?

Greek cuisine, smog and domestic drudgery was not the life Australian musician, Melody, was expecting when she married a Greek music promoter and settled in Athens, Greece. Keen to play in her new shoes, though, Melody trades her guitar for a 'proper' career and her music for motherhood. That is, until she can bear it no longer and plots a return to the stage--and the person she used to be. However, the obstacles she faces along the way are nothing compared to the tragedy that awaits, and she realizes she's been seeking fulfilment in the wrong place.

And what do I think of it?

Dare you call this chicklit. And as much as I adore chicklit, this is not the tale of a single girl, lost in the city, romping about to find HER MAN. String Bridge goes beyond that. This is after the girl has found her man, her family and is pushed over as she is made to face the hard realities of life. You could call this the after-the-fairy-tale part of life.

Familial love, marital drudgery, long suppressed dreams - Jessica Bell brings it all in and questions it all. What really is more important?

The writing is awe-inspiring. It's easy to see that she's a poet. Don't get me wrong. There's no floweriness. Bell's writing hits hard and yet there's an underlying musical cadence to it.

I was so surprised with this book. I'm a YA book whore. So much so that other genres often get neglected. But reading this reminded me how much I love a good women's fiction. And this wasn't just good. It was effing brilliant.

Bell picks at the nuances of life. The little things magnified. She isn't afraid to mention things that often go unmentioned. Like, sometimes getting irritated with the demands of the daughter you love so much that you'd wish she'd shut up. Or feeling jealous when you see her smiling with her father. Or wanting to throw utensils at your husband like a stark raving lunatic even though he's not really the villain you think of him to be. Or make him out to be. Emotions run high here, so high they spiral into cracks in the main character, Melody's life and her relationships with the people around her.

The author deftly paints relationships like she is really exhibiting the pages out of the tormented mind of a woman trying to find an identity for herself beyond being a mother and a wife. Melody's relationships with each and every character that appears in the book is explored in such depth, it is as real as it gets. The strains with her mother. The annoyance with her husband, Alex. The love for Tessa. The need for music. The fluttering feelings for a certain 'button boy'. Bipolarity, anxiety, depression. It's raw but dealt with a sensitivity, much like the one used to deal with the oddity of love.

And if you think you have it all figured out, think again. Because String Bridge veers off the path of predictability and throws you off your seat in such a way it makes you gasp for breath.

String Bridge is evocative of music that comes from a sad place then rises above the din and makes you appreciate the beauty of the world we live in and the time we have here.

I highly recommend this.

And HUGEST CONGRATULATIONS to Jessica for debuting with such a remarkable novel.

I LOVE DARK YA Blogfest: The Books I Love

2011-11-02T23:42:00.000+05:30

Today heralds the beginning of the I LOVE DARK YA Blogfest hosted by YAtopia. Be sure to check them out!

My love for Dark YA is no secret. While what is dark is often debatable, for me they are those books that punch me in the guts and make me teeter on the edge of psychological cliffs. They are on a perpetual quest for the truth and when they do find it they make me weep for the human condition, for the teenagers trapped in them. And sometimes in those quiet moments they make me stop to listen to everyone breathe. For me, they have always been cathartic, sometimes finding beauty in ugliness and pain in prettiness. Here are a few of my favourites:

Ballads of Suburbia - Stephanie Kuehnert

This book officially made Stephanie Kuehnert my hero. What an achingly beautiful, heartcrushing, roller coaster ride of a journey through the shattered lives of a motley group of Chicago teens having to resort to self-injury and substance abuse to get through each day. And they record it all in their book of ballads - the stories of their fucked up lives singing out of the pages.
This is what author Melissa Marr had to say on Goodreads - "No sugarcoating. No BS. She writes beautiful terrible truths." Enough said.

Before I Die - Jenny Downham

Possibly the bravest book I've ever read. And my most favourite ever! About what it means to live and what it means to die. And also asks that question that doesn't get asked often - how far would you go to experience it all?
I cannot express what I felt reading Before I Die. Anguish, despair, hope, loss, love. And over it all hangs the inevitable curtain of death. Damn, death. This was a celebration of Tessa's life amidst the darkness of running out of time. And the way the book moves towards the ultimatum...a wowzer of a read.

Forbidden - Tabitha Suzuma

If a book has ever made me feel claustrophobic, this was it.
Forbidden isn't just a sibling incest story. It deals at length with depression, paranoia, alcoholism and the author is so visual in her depiction, the whole time I felt like the walls were closing in on me and had to put it down to take deep breaths.
Reactions to this book have mostly swung to the extremes and I fall into the lot who consider it a powerhouse of a book. This is as dark as it gets.

Ink Exchange - Melissa Marr

The only urban fantasy in this list, every time I think of this book it makes me ache. It's one of those few ones that take you to those dark places that aren't only literal.Leslie is a rape victim, living with a mostly-absent father and a brother who pushes her to 'make sweet' with his friends. To escape, she is drawn to beautiful tattoos and in turn, to the captivating world of fay, where she becomes a pawn in the dealings of the courts. And her soul is fed on, her body is fed on. Gah, this book is unforgettable. Melissa Marr doesn't reveal it all in one go. She holds back some, whispers into your ear some more, keeps you on the edge.

The Hunger Games trilogy - Suzanne Collins

This is reality tv of the future. At a time when the world is a deadly, dark place. Where the threat of death hangs at every corner. Where life is really a game that you play or die. And children and teens are pawns at the centre of it.
This is a masterstroke of a series where almost every sentence felt like a cliff-hanger. A heart-stopping tale of angst and suffering and hard fought victory of the human spirit.

You Are Not Here - Samantha Schutz

There are so many books written on grief. And I've read a lot of them. I have a lot of favourites among them, but none depicted grief and ALL it's stages as convincingly and painfully as this did. On a personal level, I was in exactly the same dark place as the main character when I read it and I was stunned with how exact it seemed. What it's like to lose someone who wasn't really yours to begin with. And no one really knows how much you're hurting. This verse novel was heartbreaking, and so very cathartic.

Her And Me And You - Lauren Strasnick

I cannot pin-point what it is about this book that makes me think about it at very odd hours. When I first read it, I really liked it, but it fell short of being loved. Now though, I keep going back to it, reading short scenes from it and thinking.
It's very ambiguous, this book. The fragments of sentences leave the reader to fill in the blanks.An alcoholic mother in tow, town newbie develops a strange attraction to brother/sister twins Adina and Freddie. There are hints of twincest but the nature of the relationship between the twins is never fully explained. Neither is the main character, Alex's sexuality spoken about out loud. The atmosphere of the book is exactly like how the cover depicts it to be - quietly dark, the rain hitting you a little harder as you go along.

What are your favourite dark YAs?

Sisters Red

2011-10-30T14:14:00.000+05:30

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris--the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She's determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts ferociously alongside her. But even as more girls' bodies pile up in the city and the Fenris seem to be gaining power, Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves. She finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax and Scarlett's only friend--but does loving him mean betraying her sister and all that they've worked for?

I do love the idea of fairy tale re-tellings. There's this element of nostalgia attached to them + the anticipation of finding something new and exciting in an old, oft-heard tale.

Sisters Red is, you guessed it, Red Riding Hood retold. With kickass heroines and a lot of originality.

“I am confident, I am capable, and I will not wait to be rescued by a woodsman or a hunter.”

The Sisters. Scarlett and Rosie's gruesome ordeal with a werewolf in their childhood shaped their futures. Hardened by their past, they thrive on killing werewolves, eliminating their evil from the world. They fight alongside and find comfort in it. In that, they share one heart. But Jackson Pearce tells their story in dual PoVs. And with that she lays down two individuals, so similar, yet so utterly different from each other. Scarlett, 18, scarred and so tough, who won't rest until the world is rid of every single Fenris. Rosie, 16, who adores her sister and would follow her till the end of the world, but secretly wishes for a life beyond the continuous hunts. Pearce skillfully digs into the nuances of this sibling bond, while exploring their very different personalities and the underlying insecurities beyond the tough exterior. Oh, the sisters March are characters to be loved and remembered. I liked reading from both their perspectives. While Scarlett's held most of the action sequences, Rosie's were interspersed with romantic musings about their woodcutter friend who is all hot-and-hunky now, of seeing more of life. I loved the juxtaposition of these two perspectives. I think it provided the perfect blend.

The Woodcutter. Silas. Their childhood friend and fellow Fenris fighter. Who had disappeared from the scene to live a different life for two years, and then arrives suddenly, setting off all kinds of thoughts in Rosie (and me). Silas is swoonworthy. Not the body-baring, brawn-flexing, sexual-innuendo-quipping kinda swoonworthy. Silas is hot, yes, but he's also so very sweet. And grounded. And real. And a woodcutter. Which means he can do things with his hands. All kinds of things. Add to the fact, that he is also able to hold intelligent conversations with his love interest. Yes, swoonworthy.

The Werewolves. They are called Fenris. And they are EVIL. Very, very evil. And yes, some of them are perfectly angelic looking, but the girls don't go oh-i-don't-care-how-bad-you-are-you-are-hot-i-love-you. Nah, they aren't that easily deceived. They have common sense enough to know that behind the face-and-the-flex lie the fangs and the lust and the desire to kill. So they kick ass. And they kick so hard they could give Buffy a run for her money.

The Magic. I may be tired of the regular paranormal romance, but I love myself a good urban fantasy. I love magic. I love stories with magic. And for me, the paranormal element here, didn't feel very paranormal-ish. It felt magical. Now, magic can be the good, the bad, the ugly, or perhaps, the gray. Scarlett and Rosie's world, prowling with Fenris felt somewhat like a magical world, one that is deeply rooted in ours. And it is exactly that what makes this so worthy of being called a 'fairy tale retelling', because fairy tales above all, are magical.

The Epilogue. Wow. That is one of the classiest epilogues I've ever read. Just the right punch of bittersweet.

When you look at it, it really is a classic good vs evil story - dirty bad guys vs swashbuckling heroines. But what also sets Sisters Red apart is Jackson Pearce's willingness to create heroines that break the stereotypical mold. Scarlett is scarred and has only one eye. Which is possibly an anomaly in YA fiction scattered with shy-heroines-not-aware-of-their-extraordinary-beauty-till-a-boy-tells-them. But it's an anomaly that's required. Because it tests how much readers can accept a main character who is physically repulsive. And Rosie? Yeah, pretty girl she is and one tough chica, too. That quote way up there? That's hers.

I absolutely ADORED this book. It suited my mood perfectly. Kickass, fun, and like I said, magical. I have read Jackson Pearce's As You Wish, and while I liked it, I didn't particularly love it. But with Sister Red, you can put a stamp across me as a Jackson Pearce Fan. I'm sold. I cannot wait to read her other Fairy Tale Retellings. She has what it takes to write one with punch.

What's a fairy tale you want to see retold?

This is what you shall be seeing soon

2011-10-27T13:42:00.000+05:30

It's been a bit quiet around here and that's mostly cos it's October, the Festival Season of Awesome. So we had a string of festivals, like Durga Puja and Laxmi Puja and then yesterday it was Diwali a.k.a. the Mega Festival of Lights. And even though, it's most often than not a one-day fest, celebrations begin the day before and stretch on to the day after and till Bhai Phota, which is on Friday, which kinda brings the curtains down on the festivities.

Basically that means that all throughout this month I've been running around town with my friends, although the roads have been choc-a-bloc like this

Of course, we weren't merely running around, just for the sake of doing so. We were pandal-hopping, setting off firecrackers (and every possible firecrackers we could get our hands on), hogging on the festival-special platters...and going deliriously bonkers doing it all!

Did I tell you that the Diwali night sky is a most magnificent sight?
And, you know, this is a satellite image of India on Diwali night:

So, anyway. This month has been perfectly perfectly amazing, even though I also managed to set my laptop on fire in the process. Yeah, don't even ask me about that. And while it recuperates in the service centre I have to make do with the Ancient Family PC From The Jurassic Age, which I am not much friendly with at the moment.

HOWEVER, there are things coming up here (how exciting is that? :P)
Like, The String Bridge Book And Music Blog Tour on November 3rd.

Where I shall be talking about this author and this book,

And this trailer where the author, who is a musician herself, sang the absolutely beautiful song.

And starting November 2nd, there's the Dark YA Blogfest. If you love dark YA, you know that's where you're expected :)

Meanwhile, I suppose no one's forgotten NaNoWriMo. So who's taking the plunge this year? :)
I have something in mind, something very different from the kind of thing I write. I don't know how far that'll go, but if you're hanging around the forum, add me.
My username: Bidisha
Maybe we can peep into each other's works and be jealous. Haha. I'm such a naturally slow writer, I've never had a successful NaNoWriMo. The no-quality-all-quantity policy kinda doesn't work for me, but every year I do join in. With hope.

And while all that will be going on, I have lots of reviews coming up as well. And some of them might even be non-YAs if you're up for that.

So. Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

The Carrie Diaries

2011-10-09T18:00:00.000+05:30

Before Carrie Bradshaw hit the big time in the City, she was a regular girl growing up in the suburbs of Connecticut. How did she turn into one of the most-read social observers of our generation?

The Carrie Diaries opens up in Carrie's senior year of high school. She and her best friends -- Walt, Lali, Maggie, and the Mouse -- are inseparable, amid the sea of Jens, Jocks and Jets. And then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture. Sebastian is a bad boy-older, intriguing, and unpredictable. Carrie falls into the relationship that she was always supposed to have in high school-until a friend's betrayal makes her question everything. With her high school days coming to a close, Carrie will realize it's finally time to go after everything she ever wanted.

Rabid fans of Sex and the City will love seeing Carrie Bradshaw evolve from a regular girl into a sharp, insightful writer. They'll learn about her family background -- how she found her writing voice, and the indelible impression her early friendships and relationships left on her. We'll see what brings Carrie to her beloved New York City, where the next Carrie Diaries book will take place.

I haven't read the Sex And The City books.
I didn't watch the Sex And The City TV series because I was too young back then. I caught some episodes but I don't remember much of them.
But I did watch the SATC movies and I liked them. A lot.

So when Carrie appeared in a YA version of herself, I had a good mind to read it. It did take a while, but I did read it. The Carrie Diaries does not show the Manolo-Blahnik-totting, Prada-wearing fashionista/writer trotting down New York City. This is Carrie Bradshaw, before the glamour, before New York, fledgling writer, navigating the waters of high school in the 80s. This is Marlboro-smoking, beer-drinking Carrie in her last year at high school.

The book doesn't have one life-changing event around which everything revolves, it has lots of episodes in this girl's life that changes her dynamics with the people around her, changes the way she sees the world, gradually. Truth be told, I was rolling my eyes when the book began with Carrie and her friend starting senior year and worrying about not having boyfriends and I was like same old, same old story. The first couple of chapters didn't do much for me. I only read along because, well, I wanted to read a Carrie Bradshaw book *shrugs*

But I'm glad I did. Because things got deeper and so much of the book is introspective. I didn't like many of the characters. There wasn't much to like, plus they seemed rather one-dimensional. The Mouse and Walt were the only characters who held my interest among the secondary characters, but there wasn't really much about them either. All that kept me going with this book was Carrie. Carrie, charmed by a boy she doesn't know what to make of. Carrie, worrying about her future and secretly grieving but carrying around her rejection letter from her dream writing school. Carrie, harbouring big dreams, dreams of a bigger life. Carrie, Carrie, Carrie.

Yes, there were times when I wanted to shake her for being boy-blind, scream at her for not realising how traitorous her friend could get (when I guessed so much earlier!) but..oh, well, it happens to the best of us.

There are some inconsistencies between the book and the tv series/movies. For instance, in the show it's her father who had left them, but in here it's the mother who has died. But if you get past that and stop trying to relate the two together, it's quite enjoyable.

I liked the juxtaposition of the trifle and the profound and the equal seriousness with which almost both are handled at times. I think therein lies the very realism of the book. Although, somewhere along the line, I also think Carrie got very, very lucky with something that set her up for the rest of her life.

Oh, the ending? That's one helluva ending. The last line's a killer. If you're familiar with atleast the characters of Sex And The City, you'd know why. And it sets up the tone perfectly for the sequel, which I'm definitely reading.

Smart one liners, wry humour, the 80s generation, a coming-of-age story that deals with everything from grief to sexuality, ambition and betrayal - you'd want to read this Candace Bushnell offering :)

See, even Tom Felton thinks so ;)

Goodreads
Browse inside Amazon
Candace Bushnell

Have you read/watched Sex And The City?

A wish. And a stare-fest.

2011-09-22T21:57:00.000+05:30

Happy 24th Birthday to this 'Hawaii' singing, wand-swishing, Voldemort-hugging piece of perfection :)

Today I'll just let you stare.

And listen in, if it be to your liking.

Love Story

2011-09-10T18:00:00.000+05:30

She's writing about him. he's writing about her. And everybody is reading between the lines..

For Erin Blackwell, majoring in creative writing at the New York City college of her dreams is more than a chance to fulfill her ambitions--it's her ticket away from the tragic memories that shadow her family's racehorse farm in Kentucky. But when she refuses to major in business and take over the farm herself someday, her grandmother gives Erin's college tuition and promised inheritance to their maddeningly handsome stable boy, Hunter Allen. Now Erin has to win an internship and work late nights at a coffee shop to make her own dreams a reality. She should despise Hunter . . . so why does he sneak into her thoughts as the hero of her latest writing assignment?

Then, on the day she's sharing that assignment with her class, Hunter walks in. He's joining her class. And after he reads about himself in her story, her private fantasies about him must be painfully clear. She only hopes to persuade him not to reveal her secret to everyone else. But Hunter devises his own creative revenge, writing sexy stories that drive the whole class wild with curiosity and fill Erin's heart with longing. Now she's not just imagining what might have been. She's writing a whole new ending for her romance with Hunter . . . except this story could come true.

This was my first Jennifer Echols. And I was SO eager to read her!
And what better way to start than with an older YA that takes place in college where the protagonist is a creative writing major?

I knew this story was right up my alley. And no surprises there, it was :)

Some random facts about Love Story:

It's written in first person past tense. Which was pleasantly surprising, because I'm on a present tense binge almost all the time, so it takes a while to get into the past tense thingy now, but this worked really, really well for me.

Interspersed with excerpts from stories written by Erin and Hunter. And which besides being entertaining also serves the purpose of hinting at the history between these two characters. The stories range from the frivolous and giggly-ish to the dark and serious and very sexy ones to the outright hilarious -- and do a fine job of peeling back layers and layers of their complicated relationship till you're left with the bare bones of it.

The main character has a nose-piercing, which looks just so cool on the cover. Yeah, it sounds a bit cheesy, but I can't help mentioning it.

There's an eclectic mix of characters. And one of them has a fascination with 'cutting heads' :D

Other things:

I have to say, Jennifer Echols does relationships just so, so well. It was complex and unpredictable and at a point I just stopped wondering what might happen and just allowed myself to go with the flow. Friendship and gorgeous chemistry fall into place like a jigsaw and you realise how necessary they both are in depicting a credible love story. And did I tell you how much I loved Hunter? He was SEXINESS. Seriously, I swooned every time he spoke and gah...major crush-in-the-making ;)

And Erin? I fell into her story quick and easy and loved the ride. Lots of things happen in this book. There's family history and domestic complexities and a lot of crazy things which make it rather difficult for these two.

And there's so much snazzy, sexy dialogue between Erin and Hunter it made me giggle and laugh and want to use use them as pick-up lines. Heh.

So, I've heard things being said about the ending. Well, it's ambiguous in the sense that it doesn't exactly tell you what's gonna happen, but there's a lot of optimism and that gives the readers a lot of freedom to think out their own endings. Well, my only complaint is that it happened a little too quickly, but once I got past that, I liked it.

All I can say is that, I'm floored. And I can't wait to get my hands on the other Jennifer Echols books asap.
If you want a fun-yet-a-bit-serious love story, with the older YA vibe, and drama that makes you giggle and twists your heart a bit, you might want to pick up Love Story.

Want more?
Author website
Goodreads
Browse inside on Amazon

What's your favourite Jennifer Echols book? Or, if you haven't read her, what's your favourite love story?

In which I complain and ramble about changes (+PHOTOS!)

2011-08-26T16:52:00.000+05:30

There's been too many things that happened this past month, which should be blamed for the lack of reviews, or teasers, or just blog posts in general.
Too many changes. Big and small and inbetweens.
The biggest probably is the fact that I've enrolled in Grad School. So basically I'm studying for an M.A. in English degree from the University of Delhi. Which means, I've shifted cities. From Calcutta, which is in the east, to Delhi, that's in the north. And, well, it's this really really big change for me because I've lived in Calcutta all my 21 years of life. My college was near home, so I commuted daily and basically, I've just never lived alone in my life. Although I wanted to. And now that I am, well, it's kind of depressing.
I know, I know, it hasn't been that long, and it'll take some time getting used to it and all that, but, um, I'm not very sure right now. The accommodation facility? Terrible. But I hear the other places are worse. Everything's so damn different. Net conn's so bad in my room it makes me throw my slippers at the wall. Room's all squalid and I have to queue up at 5 in the morning to take a bath. Yes, it's a common bathroom. And oh my god, people study here ALL THE TIME. Yeah, I know they are all here to study and get that damn degree, but what happened to 'all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'? Also, I have a crackhead for a roomie, who scares me because she wants all my things and I have to use five locks even if I'm stepping out of the room for a minute 'cos she might just vanish with my stuff.

And most importantly, really?
I miss my family. I've never stayed away from my brother for so long. And he's like my best friend. And it's weird being away from Mum, although I'd always tell her and Dad that I wanted to get away. Oh, I don't know, maybe this could work out if it was my kinda place, but no, it's like this alienish sphere where I feel the constant urge to pull my hair.

I'm gonna give it some time, I guess, like everyone says. Or I might just move back home. Next week's crucial. I was so excited about this thing and it turned out entirely different from how I thought it would. It's disappointing.

Anyway.
Some good did end up coming out of being in Delhi for a while. I got to visit the Taj. I've been in Delhi about 7 times earlier, but there never was time to plop into Agra for a visit. And there were all these very interesting squeal-worthy things that made my day, in spite of the city being absolutely dust-drenched.
Like, this tonga,

And this camel-carriage thingy

And there was this long snaky queue, which frustrated me because it was insanely hot. But, damn, that first glimpse of the Taj!

It was all white and gorgeous and a bit sad considering it's actually a tombstone and oh my, it was time for all that epic squealing. There's the Yamuna river right behind and..GAH! I couldn't believe I hadn't been there earlier. It was a crazy wish fulfillment. And THEN, we went to the Agra Fort, which was home to the Mughal Emperors and has all these VERY INTERESTING tunnels and secret passageways and enormous gold-plated rooms and gigantic grounds which held man-fights and beast-fights and I was so blown away.

And that's only one of 22 such parts of the fort. The best thing though, turned out to be this,

The view of the Taj from the fort. It was so bloody stunning, this photo doesn't do it any kind of justice.
So yeah, some good did come out of shifting here, although I'm going crazy bonkers thinking how I am to survive two whole damn years here.
Also, I'm gonna get back to the regular blogging thing asap to get into the hang of things. Provided, of course, that the net conn doesn't make me throw more than my slippers at the wall.
Also, the writing. That needs to be taken care of.
And the TBR pile. Oh yeah.
So, this is what I'm reading:

And you?

Happy Birthday ENID BLYTON!

2011-08-11T20:38:00.000+05:30

She was the reason I bothered with books in the first place,
And then became an addict.

She was the reason I tried my hand at writing,
And then fell in love with it.

She showed me a world of adventure -
Where castles hid treasures waiting to be discovered,
Princes' were held hostage in the house-next-door,
An island could be owned by a girl and her dog,
Secret passages existed right under your nose.

She showed me a world of enchantment -
Where trees took you to magical lands,
Wishing chairs traveled far and wide,
Moonface, Silky, Saucepan Man and Dame Washalot
could be your friends,
And swish you away to the
Land of Take-What-You-Want,
Or the Land of Birthdays,
Right according to your wish.

She took me to exciting boarding schools,
To Malory Towers, St Clare's and Whyteleaf school,
To midnight snacks and sneak-outs and circus mayhem,
Befriending artsy scatterbrains and brainy pranksters,
Who dabbled in stink pellets and invisible chalk.

She taught me life's lessons,
Amidst nabbing smugglers,
And finding tunnels behind bookshelves,
And fairy folk inside your neighbour's basket.

She made me believe that,
Toys could talk,
Trees could dance,
And chairs could grant my wishes.

Kidhood couldn't have been more fun!
And it all I owe to her.

My Invented Life

2011-07-28T17:40:00.000+05:30

With Roz and Eva everything becomes a contest—who can snag the best role in the school play, have the cutest boyfriend, pull off the craziest prank. Still, they’re as close as sisters can be. Until Eva deletes Roz from her life like so much junk e-mail for no reason that Roz understands. Now Eva hangs out with the annoyingly petite cheerleaders, and Roz fantasizes about slipping bovine growth hormone into their Gatorade.
Roz has a suspicion about Eva. In turn, Eva taunts Roz with a dare, which leads to an act of total insanity. Drama geeks clamor for attention, Shakespearean insults fly, and Roz steals the show in Lauren Bjorkman’s hilarious debut novel.

Oh didn't I just adore this novel. It has to be one of the most open-minded novels written. And I'm not saying so because of the issues embraced and talked about. There are a lot of issue based books out there but what the open-mined aspect of it really comes through because of the characters, I loved them. Every one of them. Even the mean girl. Yes, can you believe that? I didn't start out loving her. I mean, she was a meanie and a bully of sorts but Lauren Bjorkman does such an amazing job with all the characters, they all have rich backstories to them and it worked out oh-so-well for me as a reader.

Roz is a most endearing protagonist - fickle, impulsive, overtly imaginative with an odd tendency to insult in Shakespearean slangs (!) Don't you just love her already? She is out and ready to pretend to be gay to help her sister come out of the closet - who she believes is really gay after finding a book about lesbian lovers in her possession. It starts as a trifle dare spurred on by impulsiveness that sets off a a random set of events that make up this book. And it's a hell of a ride.

The thing about My Invented Life, is that the atmosphere of the book is light and pleasant in spite of the difficult things the characters have to face up to. It doesn't bog you down. Yet keeps you hooked so you can't stop reading and then makes you wish it didn't end so you could keep reading it. As soon as I finished it, I wanted to read it all over again.

The writing is utterly delightful. You know the author's done a fine job when the writing, the story, the characters are all handled skillfully. And really, Ms. Bjorkman's characters are indeed ones to be boasted about. Roz, Eva, Jonathan, Bryan, Nico all had distinct personalities and the collison of them all in the school production of As You Like It is insanely amusing. And Andie. Eyeliner Andie has to be one of the most dynamic characters ever created in YA fiction. Oh, how I loved her. She may only be a supporting character but she is a genius in creation. It shows a lot of responsibilty on the author's part to create someone like her. Because books and what you portray in them send you signals, and they may be wrong ones or right ones. And authors have such great influence over readers it is important to portray things in the right light. And Lauren Bjorkman's handling of Andie's sexuality...wow, just wow.

Way back last year, I interviewed Lauren Bjorkman but I didn't get to read her book till now. And, for me, this is a book to hold on to. My Invented Life is clever, outrageously hilarious, big-hearted and has that funky vibe which just makes it very, very cool. I adored it to bits. And I had a lot of Shakespearean fun doing that :)

To give you an idea, have a look at the book trailer:

What's the most fun book you've read recently?

Disappearing acts..and not.

2011-07-11T14:08:00.000+05:30

This is just a quick wave to say that I haven't disappeared.
But I'm currently computerless and also, internetless. My hard drive crashed and with it, took everything else to the drain. So basically I've lost everything that was in my comp. If I've been beta-ing for you, I'm so, so sorry. But I'm gonna make it up to you. Promise.
My comp's currently being ressurected, but um, my internet connection's taken a toll as well. It's crazy. I have no idea when this thing will be fixed, but I'm kinda going bonkers over here - not being able to blog, read your blogs etc.

Anyway, here's what I've been up to:
- looking at postgraduate courses and lots of tests, in turn, and basically, losing a lot of sleep.
- in respect to the above, I've also been away - to a totally different city - where I got lost and found my way back. I'm storing that up on my 'experience' file.
- getting lost is what I ended up doing on my 21st birthday, too - which was on the 3rd of July. And yeah, this was the weirdest birthday I've ever had. More on that later. Or, uh, lets just skip it.
- reading. Lots. And there's a lot of Meg Cabot involved. Yeah.
- writing. Lots. As much as I've been grumbling about being internetless, it's come to some good. I've done more writing recently than I can remember. That, perhaps, is the only thing that's been keeping me sane.
- Harry Potter. Basically, I've been moping about it and squealing about it. I can't wait for Deathly Hallows - II, and I also can't believe that it's all going to come to an end. Soon. And that's very troubling. You see, since the time I was 9 (I started reading the series two years after the first book came out) it's been something to look forward to. First there were the books, and then there were the movies. And then the books ended, so there was the mourning for that. But there were still the movies to look forward to. Now they, too, are coming to an end, and well, there's just nothing to look forward to anymore. It's unnerving. Meanwhile I've also been re-watching all the Harry Potter movies over and over again and it's so much fun watching the Daniel-Rupert-Emma fluctuate between kiddies and biggies. No, I'm not watching the movies in order, so that should explain it.

Which makes me wonder, which is your favourite Harry Potter movie?

until, my internet makes an appearance again, I'll let you sit on that.
oh, and in case you're wondering, I'm at a library computer. Which is not much fun, while writing blog posts.

Cayman Summer

2011-06-16T14:57:00.000+05:30

In Morrison's debut young adult novel, TAKEN BY STORM, Michael faces incredible loss, but he finds Leesie. UNBROKEN CONNECTION is Leesie's story. By the final page, she is broken and battered--physically and spiritually. Morrison vowed to her readers not to leave her that way. CAYMAN SUMMER recounts Michael and Leesie's final journey.

Michael takes Leesie to the Cayman Islands to heal. Time, sunshine, and Michael's devotion free her of physical pain, but grief and guilt haunt her. Michael will do anything to find the old Leesie who prayed, spoke of visions, and kept the rules. For Leesie, that girl is lost forever. Rules? What's the point now? She's ready to break every one.

Morrison wrote CAYMAN SUMMER with fan critique and input at http://caymansummer.blogspot.com.

Isn't that a beautiful cover?

Cayman Summer is the much-awaited finale to Leesie and Michael's story that began with a high-school romance in Taken By Storm, travelled through Thailand and BYU in Unbroken Connection and sweeps you to Cayman on the final leg of the journey.

Whilst Taken By Storm was a personal struggle for Leesie between faith and desire, between saving the grief-stricken Michael and keeping her feet on the ground in the process, Unbroken Connection was a test of their relationship, taking the two to the opposite corners of the globe. The second book ends on a horrific tragedy for Leesie, and I couldn't wait to find out what happens to them after-this.

The level-headed Leesie from Taken By Storm is lost and Cayman Summer shows her scarred, both physically and emotionally. While her faith is thoroughly shaken, Michael tries to find the Leesie he had fallen in love with in the puzzles of her grief. What makes Angela Morrison such a good writer is her ability to portray relationships with lot of tenderness and realism. Leesie and Michael's isn't a love-on-the-first-day story. Theirs is an attraction that evolves to love and then matures to so much more during the course of their journey. Cayman Summer is perhaps their biggest struggle, because the struggle is within. Overridden by pain Leesie is keeping the secret of her guilt from Michael and doesn't seem to care about her Mormon rules anymore, while Michael desperately pulls away from her so he doesn't take advantage of her while her guard is down. And oh yeah, they are Cayman now, away from the prying eyes of their family and friends, having run away from the place of the tragedy.

Angela Morrison continues with the writing style employed in the earlier two books. Michael's PoV appears in his dive log entries, while Leesie's is etched in poetry. The poems here often come in fragmented lines, shadowing her mental state. Chat-logs with Leesie's online-friend-who-she-has-never-met, Kim, are longer here and show a deep development in the friendship.

Oh, and I adored the introduction of several new characters. There's an entourage of super-hot dive instructors from various parts of the world, who you'd totally fall in love with at first read. They bring in a lightness to the atmosphere with some added drama of the fun, exciting kind. The oddball fusion works wonders for the book.

I can't reveal much, without giving away the entire book. Morrison's writing, as usual is something to savour. She strings together sentences that are almost like phrases, in a crisp manner that sends across just the right kind of emotion. Cayman Summer is a lovely summation of an endearing journey of two very strong individuals that ends with the right amount of flourish.

And yeah, Angela Morrison is hosting a humongous contest as part of the M + L Forever Blog Tour. Get thee there quick! Lots of books and goodies to be won for several winners :)

You can read my conversation with Angela, Leesie and Michael. How's that for an incentive?

So tell me, what are you reading now?

Celebrating CAYMAN SUMMER with Angela Morrison, Leesie and Michael

2011-06-13T17:23:00.000+05:30

If you've been hanging around my blog for a while, you would know how much I adore Angela Morrison and her books. Her debut novel, Taken By Storm inspired my blog and now that the third book in the series, Cayman Summer is out, I decided to celebrate not only with Angela but with the two main characters, Michael and Leesie as well.

Just so you know, the series consists of Taken By Storm, Unbroken Connection and Cayman Summer.

Okay, now that that's out of the way, you can welcome the three here and read what they say. This kicks off the M + L Forever Blog Tour and Contest. Enjoy :)

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A journey worth three books. Lets rewind back. Leesie and Michael, how did you guys meet Angela?

Michael: I started as a disembodied "what if" that haunted Angela after she heard about a real scuba accident during a hurricane like what happened to me and my parents. My voice made it out of her head and onto paper her during her first residency at Vermont College. She was sitting in a big circle with her new classmates and was challenged to free write from the prompt, "Remember a sound." And I slipped out. She says it's the first free write she ever wrote. She loves them now. Freak, she got me out of the deal. I guess she should love them. She saved the free write. Do you want to read it? Okay. These are my very first words . . . and the very first words that eventually became TAKEN BY STORM.

"I jump in and start breathing through my reg. The sound of sucking in, blowing out fills my head. My gut tightens like it always does. Sploosh. Swoosh. Bubbles flow out the back. Face down. Air out. Descent. Suck in. Long count. Don’t hold it. Blow out, blow out, blow out, smooth and slow. My bubbles interrupt the deep blue serenity of the world below. Then a short blast of air for buoyancy control. Quiet fin strokes. Arms glued at my side. The ocean of wonders opens to my view. Coral fronds of orange yellow pink green sway . . . "

It's kind of rough. I think I got better, don't you?

Leesie: I came on the scene when Angela decided to send Michael to live in her Grandmother's house in the rural Washington town where she grew up. She created his Gram and made him go to Tekoa High School. She needed someone to fall in love with him, so she let me join the story. He showed up, devastated, in my physics class. And I couldn't take my eyes off him. Angela let me live on the farm where she grew up and gave me a lot of the issues she dealt with growing up in one of the few Mormon families in that tiny town. That was okay, to an extant, but then she tried to make me suffer all of her worst adolescent tragedies in the space of about five chapters. I think I had to cry through the entire opening act. Not good. I was ready to bail on the whole thing, except, I mean, Michael. Who could bail on him? And Angela was working with an amazing mentor, Ron Koertge (STONER AND SPAZ), who got her to cut the waterworks and a few over the top scenes. A huge relief. She never really got me, though, until her daughter, the wise and wonderful Rachel who all of Angela's characters love and adore, gave Angela a Kelly Clarkson CD with the song, "Beautiful Disaster," on it. Yes. That's me. A hundred percent.

And Angela, why did you choose to tell their story?

Angela: As soon as I introduced Michael and Leesie, they started talking in my head and wouldn't shut up. I had to scribble it down or go insane. And then I fell in love with them. I invited them back and coaxed them to keep talking. When I finished CAYMAN SUMMER, I knew their story was finally complete because they don't wake me up in the middle of the night anymore. I sleep better, but I miss their voices.

I've always thought the stylistic devices employed are unique. Michael, when did your 'dive log' turn into a reveal-it-all journal?

Michael: My mom's dive logs were amazing. She put photos of me and Dad and all our dives in them and wrote a lot about us and our trips. She bugged me to do the same since I was a little kid. By the time we went on the trip to Belize, it was second nature to pour my guts out in my own dive log. Kind of embarrassing that you guys read all that stuff.

Why choose poetry, Leesie?

Leesie: The first gazillion drafts Angela had me speak through first-person prose chapters. The only one of my poems she included was the poem about my Grandmother. Michael's dive logs were so intense and cool that my chapters seemed lame in comparison. She and I both love to write poetry and were trying to figure out how to include more. We experimented replacing entire scenes with narrative free verse poems, and, wow, that made it so much better. I still think Michael's dive logs are the most intense and amazing part of the collage Angela created to tell our story, but I got so much deeper with my poetry than the prose scenes that I didn't feel stupid letting you read them along with his entries.

You're the writer, Angela. What made you stick with these modes of expression?

Angela: TAKEN BY STORM is the first novel I ever attempted. And I made the huge mistake of trying to write it as a dual first-person narrative. Not a good idea for the first time out. It's way harder than it looks to write a novel in two voices. The concept for Michael's dive log came first. I loved the idea and wrote a draft using the dive logs, but I got sidetracked when an editor from Candlewick requested that I rewrite the whole novel just from Michael's point of view. She didn't like that--she missed the dive logs. She asked me to rewrite it using a dive log to open each chapter and third person narration to tell the rest of the story. Bleck. But I did it. And she turned that down, too. Huge, huge rejection. And that point I had three very different versions of the same story. It felt broken. So I sat back and asked myself how I wanted to tell this story. That's when I began to let Leesie speak through her poems. I married her "Most Private Chapbook" with Michael's Dive Log and their ChatSpot transcripts. The result was far better than any of the other versions I'd written. And it was different enough to catch an editor's attention. (It didn't hurt that she was a poet herself!)

Beyond the love story, a major part of the trilogy is faith - staunch belief in it and even the lack of it. How has your perspectives evolved (if at all) over the course of your journey?

Leesie: Ladies, first. Michael, you can't really say anything without spoiling CAYMAN SUMMER.

Michael: I'm not an idiot.

Leesie: I never thought anything could shake my faith. Even Michael. Even some of the mistakes I made when I fell crazy in love with him, didn't make me doubt my faith. I felt guilty, like I wasn't living up to the promises I'd made to the Lord, but I believe in repentance. I knew the way back. And then, well, you guys who've read UNBROKEN CONNECTION know what happened to me. Guilt and grief overwhelmed me. That's all I let myself believe. That I was evil. I never stopped believing in God, but I didn't believe in myself anymore. Michael did. He never stopped believing in me.

Michael: And that's not a spoiler?

Leesie: It's a teaser. There's a difference.

Angela: I think you two have said enough.

Michael: My parents and I weren't religious. We believed in diving. My gram went to church all the time. Not me. Leesie's church stuff drove me crazy at first.

Leesie: The truth comes out.

Michael: Come on, you knew that. But then stuff would happen, inside me, that I couldn't explain. I shrugged it off until, well, I guess I can't say anymore.

Angela: And all I'm going to say is writing is a spiritual thing for me. I can't do it without prayer and inspiration.

Michael: You mean I came from a prayer? You never told me that.

Angela: Now you know. I pray and stuff--good stuff like Michael and Leesie--bubble up in my brain and I attempt to capture it. Some people would call that my imagination or subconscious, but I know it's more than that. Throughout Michael and Leesie's entire journey, from the rough free write of Michael scuba diving to the final epilogue in CAYMAN SUMMER, I relied on that process. Why did I write Michael and Leesie's story? Why did I cling so stubbornly to it when my editor, publisher, and agent all bailed on the second and third books? Because it's the story I was given by my Father to tell. And I would be an ungrateful daughter to ignore such an amazing gift.

Michael, did you ever think this could happen to you?

Michael: "This?" You mean star in a book? Of course. I'm waiting for the movie.

Angela, we know Leesie and Michael's story publicly brought you recognition as an author, but on a more personal level, what kind of impact has it had on you?

Angela: I never realized what a huge impact my readers would have on me. I love you guys. You've shared--and through the CAYMAN SUMMER blog--even taken part in the creation process with me. Every time I get a comment or an email or a new friend on FaceBook or Goodreads, it touches my heart that you've taken Michael and Leesie and me into your lives. Losing my editor at Penguin and then my agent was so hard. But my readers turned what could have been a depressing unproductive time, into a joyful collaboration. That was and always will be a HUGE blessing in my life.

Leesie, tell us a fun fact about Michael that we didn't know.

Leesie: He has really long toes--can pick up stuff like a monkey.

Your turn, Michael. Spill one of Leesie's best kept secrets.

Michael: No, she'll kill me. Okay. Un-a-brow.
Leesie: Shut up. I do not.
Michael: Oh, yeah. And the more she plucks it the faster it grows back.
Leesie: I can't believe you.

All three of you have struggled in some way - whether personally or professionally - and inspiringly overcome it all. What would your advice be to those going through a difficult time now?

Michael: Hang on to the people you love. Nothing else really matters.

Leesie: I hope you mean me? What if you lose the person you love?

Michael: Then pray to find somebody like Leesie.

Leesie: That's so sweet. I'd say, remember that none of us are ever really alone. No matter what you believe, there is a higher power waiting to help us through. Don't turn your back on that. Don't ignore it.

Angela: Ah, my creations. You took the words right out of my mouth. Now I have a confession. Many times over the last year I asked myself why I keep writing. It's so hard to get published, and then when you do get published it gets even harder. I decided that my life would be way too easy if I didn't write. I needed the challenge or I'd get lazy. But then I was talking with a friend who wants to create a foundation that helps the less fortunate, and I realized that I don't write for just myself anymore. I write for you, my readers, now. Nothing thrills me more than getting an email from a reader that says one of my books has helped them with one challenge or another in their own lives. That makes all the hard stuff and the setbacks worth it.

Bonus question [SPOILER]: Leesie, did Britney Spears inspire you to shave off your hair?

Leesie: I wasn't thinking about her when I did that, but it was probably in the back of my mind.

I knew it!
Loved having you here, guys, as much as I loved reading your story. Thank you for being so awesome :)
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EDIT: As part of the M + L Forever Blog Tour, the all-too-awesome, Angela is organising a humongous contest. Head over now to win the complete set of the STORM series, M + L M&Ms and lots of books. Yes, it's that awesome.

Championing Contemporary YA: Playing Hurt

2011-06-08T18:16:00.001+05:30

Championing Contemporary YA is a movement in celebration of June as the Contemporary month over at The Contemps. Dreamcatcher's Lair will be championing Contemporaries that deserve being talked about.

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Star basketball player Chelsea "Nitro" Keyes had the promise of a full ride to college-and everyone's admiration in her hometown. But everything changed senior year, when she took a horrible fall during a game. Now a metal plate holds her together and she feels like a stranger in her own family.
As a graduation present, Chelsea's dad springs for a three-week summer "boot camp" program at a northern Minnesota lake resort. There, she's immediately drawn to her trainer, Clint, a nineteen-year-old ex-hockey player who's haunted by his own traumatic past. As they grow close, Chelsea is torn between her feelings for Clint and her loyalty to her devoted boyfriend back home. Will an unexpected romance just end up causing Chelsea and Clint more pain-or finally heal their heartbreak?

I regret having missed out on Holly Schindler's debut, A Blue So Dark (the book got lost in the mail) but I'm so glad I got a chance to read her sophomore novel. Because Playing Hurt was a lovely read.
Why?
It's got
an ex-star basketball player
a hot boot camp trainer
heating things up
in the midst
of summer.

Easy, eh? I thought I had it all worked out. And yet I loved reading it.

Playing Hurt owes its success to characterization. Chelsea and Clint, the two main characters, whose PoVs you get to read in alternating chapters, are wonderfully written. They are these two young, sporty people who have been hurt and are broken so much that even sport can't save them. No, they aren't really moping all that. They are getting on with their lives, at least trying to,but that feeling of 'wholeness' that they had felt earlier is missing. The characters are complex. As you read you peel back layers that reveal what is really going on with them. For instance, I thought Clint's past and the impact it's had on his present was skillfully made known to the reader. The main characters are so life-like that the other, although equally well-drawn often diminish in comparison. Nevertheless, Schindler infuses originality in every character who enters her story.

And the writing? It's gorgeous. Often poetic in places, deeply insightful in other, girlishly giggly at times, the author's writing voice is not just strong, but embodies a variety of emotions.

BUT...
What really rocks this book is THE ROMANCE. It's smokin'. Clint and Chelsea share such hawt chemistry, I literally had to fan myself. But unlike in a lot of YA books, it isn't just sexual tension that sparks things off, these are two people who have so much in common beside their 'hurt' pasts that if they were pieces of a puzzle they would fit together perfectly.

*His skin radiates so much of the day's heat that touching him feels like wading into the lake, opening my hand, and catching one of the white shimmers of blistering afternoon sunlight bouncing across the water.

*Just touching her makes me want to immerse myself, put my head completely under the surface of her. I want to drift, to let her carry me away, down her current.

Other things I liked:
1. There's a boyfriend back home for Chelsea. And he is not vilified.
2. Two very different family dynamics are explored. Chelsea's relationship with her family palpitates with tension, especially with her Dad. Clint's family, though is different.
3. The main characters are athletes! How cool is that? And with Chelsea, Schindler eats the girl-jock stereotype.
4. It's older YA. The main characters are 18 and 19. And I loved that.
5. The last few chapters get shorter and shorter, as if wanting to make the reader feel ine urgency in the situation. And it succeeded in making me feel that way.

I'm now a Holly Schindler fan.

Because with Playing Hurt she didn't just write the perfect summer romance with the most perfect ending (yes, it's as perfect as it is plausible), she made me fly through her book with my heart racing in my throat, dying to find out what happens to Clint and Chelsea after the summer is over.

This is a sparkling story of love and trauma, need and desire, summer and sun, fear and courage that culminates into a perfect clandestine romance. I suggest you read it.

What do you think makes the perfect summer romance?

PS. I'm sorry for having missed blogging the past two days. I've been ill and I don't schedule posts so I lost out on those days. Nevertheless, I shall continue championing contemporary YA and I hope you will, too.

Championing Contemporary YA: The Duff (Designated Ugly Fat Friend)

2011-06-05T23:17:00.000+05:30

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Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper is cynical and loyal, and she doesn’t think she’s the prettiest of her friends by a long shot. She’s also way too smart to fall for the charms of man-slut and slimy school hottie Wesley Rush. In fact, Bianca hates him. And when he nicknames her “the Duff,” she throws her Coke in his face.

But things aren’t so great at home right now, and Bianca is desperate for a distraction. She ends up kissing Wesley. Worse, she likes it. Eager for escape, Bianca throws herself into a closeted enemies-with-benefits relationship with him.

Until it all goes horribly awry. It turns out Wesley isn’t such a bad listener, and his life is pretty screwed up, too. Suddenly Bianca realizes with absolute horror that she’s falling for the guy she thought she hated more than anyone.

The Duff has been up and about in blogosphere for a while now and you could say I'm late in joining the party. But I think it's fitting I waited for a while till I read it, so now its on the Championing Contemporary YA list, which I think it deserves, because this loud-mouthed debut raises a lot of issues.

There's a lot going on here - like, high-drama family problems, being labelled the 'designated ugly fat friend' by the hottest-guy-cum-serial-lets-get-laid star in school, blasts from the past and all that jazz. Yes, it's a high-on roller-coaster ride in the life of the super-skeptical Bianca Piper. And yeah, there was room for improvement with the prose, but that's something you get over quickly because Keplinger is more concerned with sending the point across than pretty writing. Which, really, is the purpose of books in the end.

The back cover might read like the usual foes-turned-foes-turned-something-more story, but the thing about The Duff is that it packs in a lot more. Like social labelling, slut-slamming, breaking stereotypes and conventions. 'Fat' is not the literal fat here. Fat stands for feelings of unworthiness and self-loathing that once in a while everyone of us go through. Heck, Bianca's pretty-as-strawberry cheerleader best friends, too, admit to feeling like the 'duff' more often than not. Fat, skinny, tall, short, medium - the duff issue applies to all.

Keplinger's heroine is a fresh, young badass who doesn't shy away from saying things as she feels it, doing things as she sees it (like kissing Wesley and more). She isn't your sweet-talking seventeen year old afraid to do things that would throw her under the 'wrong' light. Yet she is your thinking-YA-teen-with-zing. And the success of this novel rests more on her than anything else.

The Duff may not be a book for everyone. Reactions have stretched to both extremes. Heck, I didn't have any love lost for it initially, but the brash honesty with which it chooses to speak to the reader makes this a commendable read.

Is there a loud-mouthed badass you love? Any book featuring one that I should read?

Championing Contemporary YA: Fury

2011-06-04T18:13:00.000+05:30

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Let me tell you my story.
Not just the facts I know you want to hear.
If I’m going to tell you my story,
I’m telling it my way.

Strap yourself in...

Eliza Boans has everything.
A big house.
A great education.
A bright future.

So why is she sitting in a police station confessing to murder?

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have won this book, because it's Aussie YA, which hasn't been released internationally, and if not for the giveaway I might not have got my hands on it, which would have been horrible because Shirley Marr's Fury is a BRILLIANT debut.

Sample the first line: My name is Eliza Boans and I am a murderer.

And for the rest of the book you get to know why this propah- young girl from this seemingly perfect suburban town ends up being a 'murderer'. In fact, the East Rivermoor rich estate that Shirley Marr presents exists under the guise of an Utopia. Proper people live in perfect houses with perfectly manicured gardens. Think an Australian Upper East Side. It's a world segregated from the rest of the towns and cities by super-high walls built around its perimeter. Underneath though, East Rivermoor isn't as shiny as it looks, and neither are its residents. It's a world where people refuse to acknowledge the very ugliness that exists along with them, holding up the facades of perfection they choose to live under. Marr does a fantastic job with the setting and the atmosphere she evokes from the first chapter, heck, the first line itself, grabs you by the neck and doesn't let go till you have finished the book.

Fury begins with a lot of questions. You don't know what exactly is the deal with Eliza or who she has murdered and why, and why on earth she is even confessing to it in the first place. And the answers to all that and more unfold in a breathtakingly tantalising fashion that could be possible for only a highly skilled writer to pull off. Let me tell you, Shirley Marr does that with perfection.

And what can I tell you about Eliza? She's smart, witty, brash to-the-point-of-being rude yet so charming. I have to say ELIZA BOANS IS ONE OF THE BEST CHARACTERS CREATED IN YA FICTION. EVER. Eliza's voice keeps you captivated throughout and along the way you end up loving her so much, you're sad to see her go when the book is over.

Fury lives up to its name. It isn't just angst. It's fury that runs throughout the novel. Fury towards the attitude of society to ignore whatever it chooses to ignore and fury at oneself for being helpless about it. Yet, the author's talent lies not in giving voice to such pent-up rage, but balancing out the anger and skepticism with the characteristic frivolity and love in teenage girl-girl friendship. It's a delightful combination of dark humour, drama of the violent kind, gorgeous dresses and nail polish, guns and policemen and boys of the good and not-so-good kind.

I would say, READ THIS BOOK. NOW. What are you waiting for? It's an entertaining romp of a thriller that should be on your must-reads list. I don't care if you have to go to Australia to get it or pay extra for shipping, get thee some Fury now. This is YA fiction at its best. Don't miss it.

Read a sample of Fury.

Visit Shirley Marr

Oh, look at that cover. I LOVE IT. I love the girl's mask and the splatters of blood on her hand. It evokes such strong imagery, so fitting for the book.

Championing Contemporary YA: Empress Of The World

2011-06-03T13:31:00.000+05:30

Championing Contemporary YA is a movement in celebration of June as the Contemporary month over at The Contemps. Between, the 3rd - 10th of June, Dreamcatcher's Lair will be championing Contemporaries that deserve championing.

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Nicola Lancaster is spending the summer at the Siegel Institute Summer Program for Gifted Youth-a hothouse of smart, articulate, intense teenagers, living like college students for eight weeks. Nic's had theater friends and orchestra friends, but never just friend friends. And she's certainly never had a relationship. But on the very first day, she falls in with Katrina the Computer Girl, Isaac the West Coast Nice-Guy-Despite-Himself, Kevin the Inarticulate Composer...and Battle. Battle Hall Davies is a beautiful blonde dancer from North Carolina. She's everything Nic isn't. Soon the two are friends-and then, startlingly, more than friends. What do you do when you think you're attracted to guys, and then you meet a girl who steals your heart?

With a summary that ends with a last line like that, how can you not pick up Empress Of The World? I've always been curious about the book that has a seemingly hetrosexual girl suddenly falling for a girl. You don't get to see many of those, because, sadly, not very many authors like experimenting with the protagonist's sexuality in mainstream YA. Such books get marginalised into the sub-genre of LGBT fiction, out of the general reading public.
That is just plain unfortunate.
Because books like these are little gems. Yes, the initial chapters felt a bit wobbly to me, with being introduced to many different characters at one go, but Sara Ryan does a fine job of telling the story of a different kind of first love, friendships lost and won at summer program, much like a summer camp, except with academics.

The cast of characters were quirky, and I loved them all because they were so well fleshed out in such a short span of time. I could guess who was saying what without looking at the dialogue tags. The friends-circle of the bohemian, serial-smoker, computer nerd Katrina, the good guy with political aspirations Isaac and the perpetually soporific music-composer-with-sunscreen Kevin, make up a wonderful supporting cast. They reminded me of the circle of friends in Anna And The French Kiss in many ways.

Anthropologist-in-the-making, Nic has a funny, observant eye and she's the kind of character who makes you wish you were friends with her. Sara Ryan blesses her with a great sense of humour, and oh, I absolutely adored her!
As for the love interest, Battle - well, her characterization is vague. There's a lot more to her than meets the eye. And I guess, a lot more about her is revealed in next book, Rules of The Heart, which is being called 'a book about Battle'. I just wish she wasn't so much of a mystery throughout the book. I'd liked to have known her more.
And the romance between the two? It played out like a real teen relationship. From friendship, to more to complications and much more, the depiction was perfect.For me, the exploration of the relation between the two more than made up for Battle's vagueness of character.

Nevertheless, Sara Ryan must be commended for the ending she drew out. It was the best kind of ending Nic and Battle could have had. She kept to the realism of it with a sweetness and nostalgia that was quite fitting.

Set against the unique background of a Summer Program for teens at a college, Sara Ryan's Empress Of The World is an intelligently written summer romance that redefines labels (Nic has a tendency to label everyting, even herself) with its light-heartedness and humour, and should be worth a read :)

What's the best book with LGBT characters that you've read? Any that you would suggest I read?

Championing Contemporary YA & more

2011-05-31T13:51:00.000+05:30

Yes, I can explain being MIA: Finals. That should sum it up, shouldn't it?
Good thing is, they ended today. And I'm back and I promise to be a good blogger for a while. So, thank you, for sticking with me and as a reward I'm going to little giveaway for you guys, sometime soon.

Now that the apologies are out of the way, here are two things that happened while I've been away. And I'm sure you guys know all about them, but I'll add them nevertheless so that my blog looks pretty.

Yeah, that's Jennifer Lawrence's 'first look' as Katniss. I admit I was apprehensive when they first cast her, but now that I see her with that dyed hair and the bow and arrow..I have to say, that's close. And it's made me wonder what they are going to do about the guys now, because Josh Hutcherson? No, he isn't exactly my Peeta. But I now have hopes.

And then this happened. (Actually this happened before Katniss)

And while I'm truly excited about Deathly Hallows 2, that trailer made me so sad. It's gonna be a bittersweet goodbye really. Harry Potter was my childhood and so much more. After the books, the movies have been something to hold on to that magical world, but that saga's gonna come to an end soon.

All I hope is that the Narnia movies don't end at the same time. That would mean an epic butchery of my soul.

Meanwhile, there's the blog topic to consider.

About half a month back, my Contemporary WiP hit a wall and I had to put that on the back-burner. And instead I had a new non-contemporary that had sudden taken over my mind. And while I have been totally in love with this new idea, I missed my contemp. I don't know, there's just something about the contemporary genre that pulls me back each time I go a different way. I adore this new idea, but I mist finish the first one first. Which takes me to Lisa Schroeder's post at The Contemps.

And I'm going to rip the exact same thing she quoted. An excerpt from Mandy Hubbard's blog, which is:

Another thing I heard all day, every day? Realistic/Contemporary YA is a tough sell, but almost every editor really, really wants it to rally and come back in a huge way. Some editors joked that they are going to force it to come back by buying some killer Realistic/Contemp. Successful books like ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS By Stephanie Perkins and PERFECT CHEMISTRY by Simone Elkeles make everyone very hopeful that this trend continues. The more contemps that break out, the more likely this trend can actually pan out. So if you’re a contemp lover, get thee to the bookstore. If the readers don’t buy it, the editors can’t buy it.

See, that's the thing. Contemporary YA's a gem of a genre, yet more often than not, it is so underrated. Mostly, all you get to hear about are the big names, the one trending with what's 'in'. And it's a weird thing, but I've never heard of Contemporary trending and that's really sad. There are so many great contemporary novels out there, and so many of them raise such important issues. They talk about the world as it is. In the moment. Yet, the trouble is, sales are low. They don't sell like hot cakes as the other more popular genres do. And like Mandy Hubbard said, unless readers actually buy them, a lot of good books-in-the-making won't be seeing the light of day.

So, I'm going to champion contemporary YA for a week, between the 3rd to the 10th of June. Each day, I shall talk about a contemporary book I've recently read, I'm going to 'champion' it (of course, providing that it deserves championing). The cause I'm hoping to achieve? Make people aware of some of the contemporary YAs out there. You can join in too, if you'd like, and maybe then, we can turn this into a blogfest, and then, atleast for a week, we can make contemporary rule! What do you say? Are you in?

I've designed two badges you can put up if you'd like.

Speaking of which, what's the latest contemporary YA you've read? I'd like to hear your thoughts on it :)

The Sick Handbook

2011-04-19T20:24:00.000+05:30

I caught a stomach bug and that's what kept me away from blogging. But I have been lurking and snooping around yours..(did you get a hint?) :)

And well, I got pretty of being sick. So, I did things. Like these:

1) Listened over and over again to the theme music of Harry potter and The Chronicles of Narnia. Yes. Over and over and over and I'm still listening. It makes me a bit sad (and excited, in a twisted way) that Deathly Hallows 2 will be out this year and that's it, no more HP movies and I'm so gonna miss

About Narnia, I hear the next movie will be based on the first book, ie, The Magician's Nephew, which I've read and I know doesn't feature any of the Pevensie siblings and I'm gonna miss them.

On the bright side, it'll still be Narnia, and hopefully, there will be more movies. And the soundtrack for both these series? So uplifting. Makes you believe there's an unicorn right outside your door. Or better, a Narnian Prince ready to sweep you off to Hogwarts!

2) Watched all (that have been aired) of The Vampire Diaries (Season 2) episodes successively. What can I say? that's seriously, the best show ever. I'm obsessed. And it worked on some positives as well. It brought back my paranormal love in a rush. Yes, paranormal/urban fantasy and I had a long affair, but then we had to break up, cos we (rather I) got bored of the same-ness I saw in most f the books. But. Big 'BUT' here. We're gonna give our relationship another try, cos I've realised, I'm in a way, still in love with it.

3) Reading. My current shelf has been influenced by the good things VD's done. So what am I reading right now? Maggie Stiefvater's Ballad. And it is absolute gorgeousness. You should go here and listen to the music titled 'Nuala'. Seriously.

4) Brainstorming a Shiny New Idea. If anything comes off it, I'll include you in the bigger story. Wish me luck that the Muse plays no more tricks on me.

5) Bloghopping. Yes, I'm keeping an eye out for all of you. Seeing what you all are up to. Hope all's good.

So, your turn. What do you do when you're sick?

The Bermudez Triangle

2011-03-26T19:43:00.000+05:30

"Their friendship went so far back, it bordered on the Biblical-in the beginning, there was Nina and Avery and Mel." So says high school senior Nina Bermudez about herself and her two best friends, nicknamed "The Bermudez Triangle" by a jealous wannabe back on Nina's eleventh birthday. But the threesome faces their first separation when Nina goes away the summer before their senior year. And in ten short weeks, everything changes. Nina returns home bursting with stories about Steve, the quirky yet adorable eco-warrior she fell for hard while away. But when she asks her best friends about their summer romances, an awkward silence follows. Nina soon learns the shocking truth when she sees Mel and Avery . . . kissing. Their friendship is rocked by what feels like the ultimate challenge.

This was a very pacey read. The book's about 384 pages long and things are not rushed along, which was fine with me as I wasn't in any hurry to finish it.

The Bermudez Triangle started out as a book about friendship which turned into one about coming to terms with one's sexuality and ultimately a test of the changing dynamics of friendship between the closest of girl friends.

Generally, it takes some time for me to get into a third person narrative because 90% of the time I read first person narratives. Which is not to say I don't like third person narratives, I like them very much if they are written well, as is applicable to all other books. It just so happens that most YAs are written in the first person. As for this book, it took me no time at all. The crisp prose and the vividly fleshed out characters pulled me right in. There is so much heart in Maureen Johnson's understanding of characters -- Nina, struggling with feeling left out by her best friends on her return, Avery, confused and angry about her sexuality and the repercussions of it in her world, Mel, coming out to her family and friends and nurturing a broken heart.

The character development is really well-done. You can really feel the changes in the three girls as they face perhaps, one of the biggest challenges of their life - coming to terms with what/who they really are. For instance, Nina has always considered herself as someone who isn't homophobic. Yet, when she sees her best friends making out, her emotions contradict her reason and that struggle within herself makes her so very real.
In fact, the dynamics change so much that my favourite character at the beginning became my least favourite as the reading progressed. Not that I disliked her (that would be villainizing) but I liked the others more.

This was my first Maureen Johnson novel (yes, it was long awaited). It didn't exactly shoot up to my favourites list, but I liked reading it.

It was well-written, honest and a wonderful study of the test of friendship.

I will be looking forward to reading more books by the author. I'm especially curious about her upcoming title, The Name Of The Star (Shades of London #1). I think it has an interesting story. And do you see the Briton on the cover? ;-)

Have you read any Maureen Johnson book? What are you reading now?

Anna And The French Kiss

2011-03-17T19:28:00.000+05:30

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris—until she meets Étienne St. Claire: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.

As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near-misses end with the French kiss Anna—and readers—have long awaited?

Where do I start with this book? It had my heart melting to the ground and I squealed and swooned and invited crazy faces from my brother. Sure I heard great things about this book, but I had to read it to know what they were talking about. This book made me SO HAPPY, like giddy-schoolgirl-in-a-killer-crush happy. I'm majorly crushing on this book. Just like I'm majorly crushing on Stephanie Perkins.
We even had a little marriage-proposal-ring-exchange-merry dance ceremony on twitter. I swear. And I'd plug in those tweets if only I was tech-savy enough to do so.

Anyway.

Anna And The French Kiss. ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS. I want to print the name across the sky, 'cause this is that book which makes you giggle and gurgle in delight. If you're down and out, pick this up. I swear this works as therapy. If you're not down and out, never mind, pick this up - an overdose of happiness is always appreciated.

I don't know how I feel about out and out romances. Especially ones where you can guess what's gonna happen. And lets be honest, the title here doesn't make much of a secret of it. You can get the feeling where this book is headed. But don't let that stop you, DON'T. 'Cause, oh my, this is a joy of a read. Crushes are the sweetest thing and Perkins' portrayal of that does-he-like-me-does-he-not feeling is done to perfection.

Anna is a most charming narrator. Her voice is spot on. At times she reminded me of Meg Cabot's Mia Thermopolis - smart yet so teenager-y. And then there's St. Clair. Etienne St. Clair, who in spite of his shortcomings is so droolworthy. And the best thing? The friendship between the two, and how important is friendship is before it transpires into anything else.

The entire cast of characters are diverse and multi-faceted and I have to go back to re-read to analyse how she constructed such great chemistry between them all. Despite the length of the novel, this chemistry is what kept me on my edge, making me feet tingle, turning the page in the rush to know what happens next.

Other things I liked in this novel:

~Paris! PARIS! Need I say more?

~ The setting is evoked beautifully. I could feel myself out on the streets there.

~ Oh good lord, the food. I just want to be in France right now.

~ Anna's obsession with films. It was interesting and original.

~ Pretty much of the global guy in St. Clair. French name, British accent, American citizen.

~ The friendships.
~ The host of lovable and relatable secondary characters.
~ The conversations between Anna and Etienne.

I loved this book to bits. It still has me goofily smiling at the screen as I write this. The author's skill in making a rather ordinary storyline into such an unputdownable read makes this book yummier than a chocolate eclair.

Stephanie Perkins recently revealed her next book:

For budding costume designer Lola Nolan, the more outrageous the outfit—more sparkly, more fun, more wild—the better. But even though Lola's style is outrageous, she's a devoted daughter and friend with some big plans for the future. And everything is pretty perfect (right down to her hot rocker boyfriend) until the dreaded Bell twins move back into the house next door.

When the family returns and Cricket—a gifted inventor and engineer—steps out from his twin sister's shadow and back into Lola's life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door.

(Taken from here)

I know I can't wait for September already.

I just wanted to say...

2011-03-14T13:44:00.000+05:30

And...

Have a nice day.

(Photos: Source)

The Thing about Book Trailers

2011-03-03T14:16:00.000+05:30

You can like them or you can hate them but they are everywhere.
Books are like the movies now, you have promo trailers now which can either work in their favour or just make you go meh.

Personally, I like book trailers. The visual impact they offer can sometimes overshadow even the book blurbs and just make you go all out to buy the book. Sometimes they are like those beautiful covers that you see, which alone are enough to instigate the reader into picking up a book and heading over to the sales counter with it.
However, not all book trailers have such results. There are those lousy ones or ones that fail to channel the book and can often turn the reader away from the book in question.

More often than not, it is the blurb/summary which will make you pick up a book, but there might be times when it's just the book trailer alone. Has that ever happened to you?

It has happened to me, with the following trailer, which is still my favourite book trailer to date. The first time I fell in love with this book was via THIS TRAILER.

My Sister Jodie (by Jacqueline Wilson):

This is another trailer that is so full of beautiful people and tantilising music it has me pining for the book. Don't you just love it?

Another Faust (by Daniel and Dina Nayeri):

Here are some other trailers which caught my eye.

Prada And Prejudice (By Mandy Hubbard)
It has a Jane Austen-y feel to it (is that Regency music?). Plus, dukes.

The Body Finder (by Kimberly Derting)
It gives me the creeps, which, I figure, is the eventual purpose of it.

Hold Still (by Nina LaCour)

I love this one SO much. The girl's commentary reminds me of the Before I Fall trailer, which I liked too.

Thirteen Reasons Why (By Jay Asher)

This book that some fantastic fan made trailers on YouTube. This is one of them.

Which trailer is your favourite? Have trailers ever made you go all out to buy a book?

For my Valentine: A Verse of Love

2011-02-14T20:15:00.000+05:30

Guess who I'm loving this year?

The gorgeous Samantha Mabry !

In case you missed out, this is all part of the Valentine's Day Lovefest happening around blogosphere. And Samantha, happens to be my secret valentine (yes, yes, it's a cyber rendezvous as you can well see!). For the full list of secret valentines, check out Kate Hart's blog.

Back to my lovely valentine..

This one goes out to her:

She sighs like the wind

When overwhelmed by guilt

But often doesn’t that happen

When the ghosts find themselves sharpened

Cos write about the paranormal does she

And Dracula finds a special place in her heart, oh wee!

Old romances she hearts

From The Black Crowes she wouldn’t dart

And in her husband’s arms she finds her place,

Alas, that gives me no solace!

Cos she’s a girl like no other

And with them I wouldn’t bother

But Samantha Mabry stole my heart

And from her I can’t stay apart.

So, on this day of earthly love

With this dove, I send my glove

Oh, sweet dame

Will you keep playing my game?

I hope Cupid's arrow went to the right direction. Wish you all a Very Happy Valentine's Day!

Teaser Tuesday: The Bonfire

2011-02-01T14:02:00.000+05:30

I shared this on YAWN yesterday, just thought since it's Tuesday, I'd share it for Teaser Tuesday. This is Ronni and Ashley on the beach.

‘You’ve got gooseflesh,’ Ashley points out. ‘Want to go somewhere warmer?’ She gestures toward a group surrounding a bonfire, singing along to a boy strumming a guitar.

We don’t have to join them. If we get near, we’ll be warm enough. I nod.

They are singing along to a song by Lynrd Skynrd, laughing and slapping each other’s backs. They seem to be a bunch of college-goers. It feels nice sitting near them.

Ashley talks about school, wanker Conrad and Blake and how they are trying to give each other space but it’s proving hard for her, and it’s no problem to hear all that until the group picks up ABBA and is singing along to Fernando.

It’s like having an unsuspectingly ordinary day until a car suddenly runs you over.
Because all I can hear now is Mum and me singing along to Fernando over the stereo and dancing in our PJs because Mum loved ABBA and made me a fan too.
Ashley’s saying something but I can’t look at her ‘cause suddenly my vision is hazy and I can’t have her seeing me crying. I can’t have anyone seeing me crying. So I turn toward the bonfire party ‘cause these are people who don’t know me and are too busy with themselves to notice anything else. I stare into the fire, hoping the heat will dry me up but one traitor tear wretchedly rolls down and falls on the sand between my legs.

The fire dances with the wind and kisses the moon and as I wait, my face turned to it, I spot Antisocial Boy in the group. Sitting with a girl. And they are talking and she's laughing and he looks so happy socialising, it all makes me terribly depressed and I tell Ashley I have to go home as I have an art project to work on.

She doesn't question me. Art is important. It's what got me into this school.

Only, when I get home I dry retch in the toilet till my stomach hurts and curl up on the floor.

Verse and the Novel

2011-01-24T17:21:00.000+05:30

Even a few years back, I had no clue what a verse novel was.
Infact, the idea kind of scared me away. How can an entire novel be written in verse? Methought it was perhaps for the ones more poetically inclined. Don't get me wrong. I love poetry (it's what got me into this whole writing thing), but I was confused as to how I'd feel about reading a novel in verse.

But verse novels are becoming increasingly popular. I'd put it on the fact that readers are more open to experimental writing forms now. With writers like Lisa Schroeder and Ellen Hopkins, who dabble in verse novels alone, it's found a steady fan-base in the YA market as well.

I've been curious about the whole deal about verse novels. I've been wondering about lots of things - do characters have normal conversations in verse novels? Do the feelings conveyed always have to be 'poetic'? How are details explained in such little verses? etc.

All that was until I read Samantha Schutz's You Are Not Here, which was a lovely gift from Melissa Walker, at a very difficult period of my life. You Are Not Here is the story of a girl grieving the death of the boy she shared an indefinable relationship with and it is told in stunning, haunting verses. It's such a beautiful book, re-reading it acts as a sort of therapy. This was my first full-length verse novel, and guess what, I'm a total fangirl now. All that confusion and doubt, they don't stand a chance, 'cause, verse novels despite their brevity convey so much in so little.
From Samantha Schutz, I shall move on to Lisa Schroeder (her books look and sound lovely!) and Ellen Hopkins (Her books sound just my thing) and explore this whole new territory, 'cause now I'm hooked.

Besides full length verse novels, there are novels which do sprinkle verses throughout them but keep the balance between prose and poetry. The first name that comes to mind? Angela Morrison. Her Taken By Storm trilogy (Taken By Storm, Unbroken Connection, Cayman Summer) tell the story of Leesie and Michael. The unique element? Leesie's PoV is told in verse, while Michael's PoV is expressed via his dive journal entries. This same writing technique is applied throughout the three books.
Verses do not just add a 'poetic' element to the book. Their sole purpose is not to be merely beautiful or decorative. In Jandy Nelson's The Sky Is Everywhere, Lennie's verses do not just sing about her grief but also give a glimpse of the past she shared with the sister who is no longer there. Denise Jaden's Losing Faith has been said to have employed a similar technique.

No, verse novels are probably not for everyone, but they have a fan-base that swears by them. For me, in spite of the questions that might have crossed my mind, it isn't so much about what kind of a novel it is, but about the story it tells me. All these books, in spite of their differences, tell us the human story. Each in itself is a study of human relationships and these are the relationships that I want to understand. This is why I read.

And this is why I shall continue to read forever and ever.
And someday, I hope I can write a verse novel too. For the life of me, I can't understand how talented these writers are to say so much in so little words. But a verse (or semi-verse) novel now definitely falls into the dream bag.

What do you think about verse novels? What are some of your favourites?
I'm expanding my list. So tell me.

What Might Interest You (And Break You)

2011-01-14T19:45:00.000+05:30

I thought this particular news might interest you if you have a manuscript complete and polished, ready to be shipped off for querying. Or for that one that has battled the query wars and needs some new love. Whatever you're writing about, as long as you have a finished manuscript, this might just be your call.

Because, have you heard of this thing called the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award?

This one's a gamble which, if all goes well, will fetch you the reward of your dreams. Because then, you can go from this

To this:

Because, there's a contract with Penguin on the line. Oh yes.
Here's an extract straight from the website announcement:

Amazon.com, along with Penguin Group (USA) and CreateSpace, is pleased to announce the fourth annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, the international competition seeking the next popular novel. The competition will once again award two grand prizes: one for General Fiction and one for Young Adult Fiction. Each winner will receive a publishing contract with Penguin, which includes a $15,000 advance.

The Breakthrough Novel Award brings together talented writers, reviewers, and publishing experts to find and develop new voices in fiction. If you're an author with an unpublished or previously self-published novel waiting to be discovered, visit CreateSpace to sign up for regular contest updates. Open submissions for manuscripts will begin on January 24, 2011 and run through February 6, 2011.

So yes, there's not much time. And there are official rules, which you need to check out. But give it a shot, and even if lady luck isn't shinning on you, there's the chance of you doing something like this:

See, good things happen.

Not always however. The bad things always drop in unexpectedly. Which brings me to the tragedy the entire writing community has been heartbroken by. L. K. Madigan, author of Flash Burnout and The Mermaid's Mirror, has been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer and she has shared a very brave and heartrending post about it.
I have yet to read her books but Flash Burnout is on my list. Also, she's a friend on Facebook and Twitter.
For all the losses I've experienced in the last two years, I cannot for the life of me imagine what she's going through. We all die and we all know it. But it's not something that's at the back of our mind every waking second. Losing someone close breaks that invincibility we build around us and when that someone is you, it's just something I cannot fathom dealing with. Which is what makes me want to salute Lisa for her courage and the eloquence with which she painted her words at such a difficult time.
It's a terrible thing. But perhaps it makes us realise how important every moment of this life is because inevitably there are things we regret, things we wish we'd done another way but wishing to change the past frankly doesn't change anything. Which is why it is necessary to hold on to the important things that make us happy. I'm rambling, really, but sudden bouts of epiphany does that to me.

I hope you will keep Lisa in your prayers and send her some love.
And I hope good things happen to you.

A Teaser for Tuesday

2011-01-04T14:16:00.000+05:30

Day Four of the new year, and I shall share a fresh snip - which isn't really a teaser - from What Was Mine. A rough draft, but this might just give you a feel of the novel.

Also, I'm currently experimenting with blog layouts, this being a new year and it's all about starting anew yadda yadda, so you might just see a different template next time you hop around. Or probably not.

Hope the start of the year's been good.

Lunch begins with the usual greeting sand backslaps, high fives and cigarette exchanges between the day scholars and the boarders. Ashley passes a pack of Marlboro Lights under the table and Hayden, who is one among the two hundred students living i the campus residential halls, hides it under her skirt.

Bridget, who shares a room with her, announces that there is a moth in the bathroom, to which Hayden turns death pale since she is not particularly fond of flying creatures and the bathroom is the only place in Baumbury where she dares to smoke up.

'No Dylan tonight?' Mel asks inbetween scoops of yogurt.

Hayden recovers enough to inform her - ' We fucked up the bedsheets last time and he got into trouble with the matron.'

How she manages to sneak into the residential halls of Baumbury Boys in spite of the high security beef-up around the academy, is beyond me.

With bedsheets now the topic of conversation, Shirley, who is also Mel's neighbour, launches into a full-blown account of her escapades with a thirty year old French divorcee, who apparently is researching a paper on Freud.

I have to chew around my gum to keep myself from throwing up my food. Between Principal Heyer's threats, Mr. Smith's announcements and Shirley's bedroom chatter, I'm tired. And the headache's getting worse. I can hardly stretch my eyes open and here I have to pretend everything is cool and I' having a great time.

And then, before I can feel the under-the-table nudge from Ashley, I'm nose-to-nose with Carole Davies, big brown curls dancing around her face, eyes narrowed to slits. She inhales loudly and says, 'Friday night, Conrad and I shall spend some quiet time together at my place. We shall do things together and my parents will not be home.'

Wow, breaking news.

Her nose looks so huge up close, I let out a chuckle. I lean forward and let the bubblegum go pop right infront of Carole's face and say, 'Friday night I'm going skinny dipping with my own band of boys. Quiet popcorn and movie time? Lame.'

Not true, but lies are what I live on. It leaves everyone at the table laughing and Carole red-faced just like I want.

A Year In Book Titles

2011-01-01T17:17:00.000+05:30

I came across this on The Naughty Book Kitties blog and it seemed like fun, so I decided to try it out. All you have to do is fill in the blanks with the titles of books you've read in 2010. Your answers can be funny or serious :)

Describe Yourself: The Ghost And The Goth
How do you feel: Feeling Sorry For Celia
Describe where you currently live: The Sky Is Everywhere
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Montacute House
Your favorite form of transportation: The Bell Jar
Your best friend is: Wicked Lovely
You and your friends are: The Lonely Hearts Club
What's the weather like: Perfect Chemistry
Favorite time of day: Blue Moon
What is life to you: Cracked Up To Be
Your fear: I Know It's Over
What is the best advice you have to give: Never Cry Werewolf
Thought for the Day: Tell Me A Secret
How I would like to die: Sing Me To Sleep
My soul's present condition: Dreaming of Amelia

With this, I usher in the new year on Dreamcatcher's Lair. I really can't do the resolutions bit 'cos they never work out for me. I was a bit sad to see 2010 go. It was an unforgettable year of sorts, but here's hoping 2011 turns out to be more full of the happy-memorable moments than the sad-indelible ones. So,

HAPPY NEW YEAR, BLOGSTARS!

Which, does seem ironic considering that now we're a year closer to the Apocalypse. Hmm. Oh heck, the spurt of dystopian fiction will send that 2012-doom-factor flying out of the universe ;)

Never mind, party on till the cows come home.

Ballads of Suburbia (+ contest link)

2010-12-27T22:07:00.000+05:30

I'll be honest. I haven't been blogging 'cause I wanted to talk about Stephanie Kuehnert's Ballads of Suburbia, yet I didn't know how to say anything. I took some time off so I could come up with something coherent that would really explain how I felt about this book.

And I couldn't. Come up with anything, that is.

So truth be told, I can't review this book. A review wouldn't be worth it. Because just so you know, I read Ballads of Suburbia at a difficult time of my life. A time when things were changing and good or bad, they could only swing to extremes. A time when the only way I was trying to deal with things was by binge-reading. And Ballads appeared with a back cover that read like: Kara hasn't been back to Oak Park since the end of junior year, when a heroin overdose nearly killed her and sirens heralded her exit. Four years later, she returns to face the music. Her life changed forever back in high school: her family disintegrated, she ran around with a whole new crowd of friends, she partied a little too hard, and she fell in love with gorgeous bad-boy Adrian, who left her to die that day in Scoville Park....

Amid the music, the booze, the drugs, and the drama, her friends filled a notebook with heartbreakingly honest confessions of the moments that defined and shattered their young lives. Now, finally, Kara is ready to write her own.

I can't dissect this book in a mere review. It's been a while since I read it, but it still overwhelms me. It's so atmospheric and heartbreakingly painful and packed with such stellar characters, reading Ballads was like experiencing everything that Kara and her friends went through. I could talk about so many things -- how the Chicago suburbs of the 90s came alive on the page, how unbelievably hard it was to read about these teens watching everything crumbling around them, how singularly dependent they were on substance yet in spite of the self-abuse involved, they stuck together like a group of lost young people trying to salvage whatever they can of their young lives and how they each recorded haunting personal "ballads" that showed so much raw vulnerability that I'm left awed at the brilliance of this book.

There are so many ballads. Achy breaky country songs. Mournful pop songs. Then there’s the rare punk ballad, the ballad of suburbia: louder, faster, angrier . . . till it drowns out the silence.

Yes, this book is hard because the author isn't afraid to hold back anything. She bluntly talks about cutting, overdoses and death. It's dark and probably difficult for some but the little hopes and dreams of this gaggle of disillusioned teens shine through occasionally and make this powerhouse of a book, a luminous and coming-of-age tale.

Nothing I say can sum up how much this book affected me but Stephenie Kuehnert is officially my hero now and I can only thank her for writing it.

Here's the book trailer. And though I think the actors look a bit too old to play the characters, take a look:

And while you're here, the lovely Jen Daiker from Unedited is hosting a giveaway where you have the option of choosing between books, bookmarks, magnets and bath salts, lotions, candles. How awesome is that? Obviously, I want to win, but I'm being generous enough to direct you there as well, so drop by and show her some love.

And I hope you guys had a fantastic Christmas :)

Her And Me And You

2010-12-11T17:33:00.000+05:30

This was one of those books which I had been seeing a lot around blogosphere and which instantly caught my attention, with a cover jacket that says something like this,

I met Fred first.

Fred: Hot. Enigmatic. Alex’s first friend in her lonely new town. Maybe her first…everything.

I met Adina the following Monday.

Adina: Fred’s twin sister. Cold. Troubled. Trouble.

I kissed him.

She pressed her mouth to my mouth.

People warn Alex to steer clear of the twins, but Alex is drawn to them. She wants to be part of their crazy world…no matter the consequences.

Do you see what I see?

First crush, friendship, heartbreak, twincest ~ Lauren Strasnick packs all this and more into this slim offering.

The writing is sparse, very sparse and this is what is most striking about Her And Me And You - a lot is conveyed in very few words and almost everything is played out in dialogue.
Nothing immensely dramatic happens in here. It's one of those books that are filled with moments - passing moments that end up defining you. When her parents fall apart, Alex is obligated to leave her best friend and relocate to a another town with her mother. And things heat up when she meets the twins - Fred and Adina.

This book is in many ways a study of relationships. Alex is an oddly endearing protagonist and her relationships with the people around her form the crux of this novel: the father who fails to make things right, a downright broken mother, a best friend whose evolving dynamics with boys is changing the dynamics of their friendship and the strange and unpredictable twins Alex can't help being attracted to.
The relationship between the twins is something that the reader is left wondering about. It's hinted at, but actually putting a name to it is left to the reader.

This is a quick read, one that you'd finish within the hour.
My only complaint was that I wished to see at least some ore complete sentences. Don't get me wrong, I love sentence fragments, but somehow too many sentence fragments, kind of make it appear choppy.
Also, I wish it hadn't ended so abruptly. I kept turning the pages to check if I had missed anything. I didn't realise the book was over.

Overall, I liked this little off beat book, though I didn't love it. I'll still be looking forward to reading more from Lauren Strasnick.

Extra Comment: I love the title and the cover. They perfectly fit the book.

Read more reviews on Goodreads
Lauren Strasnick

I won this book over at writer Sydney Salter's blog. She hosts giveaways with almost every post, so you might just want to go check her out.

Meanwhile, the YA Fiction nominations for the 2010 Goodreads Choice Awards are in. They have put together a great list, including some of my favourites this year - Sing Me To Sleep, The Sky Is Everywhere etc. It also includes By The Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead, which is high up my wishlist (have you read it?). Anyway, the whole purpose of this is that you go and vote for your favourite. There's also the YA Fantasy list, but I'm pretty clueless there, aside from Mockingjay. It's been long since I've read any fantasy. I'm in a whirlwind relationship with contemporary and we're going strong.

What are you reading currently? Recommend any YA Fantasy a Contemp-a-holic like me would enjoy?

RTW: Six Word Memoir.

2010-12-08T15:36:00.000+05:30

Road-trip Wednesday is a weekly blog carnival hosted by YA Highway.

This week's topic: Your six-word memoir. Literally, your life story in six words.

The story of all those years of your life in six words only.

One life. Six word memoir.

Here goes,

I tattoo pages with my words.

Alright, so that's just one aspect of these two decades of my life, but it's perhaps the most important one. If I have to really sum up my life, there would be multiple six word memoirs. Which brings me to ask, are six words enough to your memoir? If so, spill yours.

Hitting Back With A Holiday Read: TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

2010-12-03T20:46:00.000+05:30

As some of who you've been around here for a while already know, I've been through a really bad time. And I'm still trying to deal with it. Which is why I've been M.I.A. for so long. I couldn't blog. I couldn't write. Heck, I even quit NaNoWriMo. It hasn't been easy, but I'm trying to get back to blogging. Blog posts have been sporadic lately, but I'm gonna try fixing that. So, for now, I welcome you back with a very Christmassy recommendation!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christmas has always been a sad time for young widow Holly Brown, so when she's asked to look after a remote house on the Lancashire moors, the opportunity to hide herself away is irresistible – the perfect excuse to forget about the festivities.

Sculptor, Jude Martland, is determined that this year there will be no Christmas after his brother runs off with his fiancée and he is keen to avoid the family home. However, he will have to return by the twelfth night of the festivities, when the hamlet of Little Mumming hold their historic festivities and all of his family are required to attend.

Meanwhile, Holly is finding that if she wants to avoid Christmas, she has come to the wrong place. When Jude unexpectedly returns on Christmas Eve he is far from delighted to discover that Holly seems to be holding the very family party he had hoped to avoid.

Suddenly, the blizzards come out of nowhere and the whole village is snowed in. With no escape, Holly and Jude get much more than they bargained for – it looks like the twelve days of Christmas are going to be very interesting indeed!

Seven months after the release of Chocolate Wishes, Trisha Ashley emerges with the perfect read for this season. Twelve Days of Christmas is a heartwarming tale of letting go of the past and finding love in the least likely place.

Since the death of her husband, Holly has been engaging herself in house-sitting activities in winter in order to isolate herself from Christmas celebrations. Christmas is a sad time for her, and the farther away she is from merriment, the better. What she did not bargain for is being welcomed easily into the Martland family, whose family home she is meant to look after. Soon, or rather, out of nowhere, the large empty house, is suddenly populated by a motley group of people and a delightful romantic comedy ensues.

Once again, Trisha Ashley wins over the reader with her brand of humour and sparkling one-liners. The large cast of characters is oddly endearing, and even the snotty Coco makes you feel sympathetic towards her. Ashley shows a lot of kindness in her work, which is why even the less likable characters do not end up villainous.

Holly is different from Ashley's other heroines. She's a house-party chef by profession who doubles as a house-sitter in winters. And you know why reading this book is like having a sumptuous feast? The descriptions of food will kill you in its deliciousness. In fact, there are additional Christmas recipes at the back of the book that you can try out at home. I'm guessing Ms. Ashley herself, is a chef by her own rights, considering the importance (a welcome importance!) food gets in her novels. If Chocolate Wishes had chocolates and confectionery, this has some mouthwatering delicacies.

Make-You-Fall-In-Love-With-Them Characters + A Humourously Heartwarming Story You Can't Get Enough Of + The Christmassy Feel + All That Food = WIN. WIN. WIN.

Twelve Days Of Christmas is the kind of book you'd want to curl up with on the sofa. It's one of those feel-good, cosy reads with a lot of heart. I. It's one of the best Christmas books I've read. It's perfect for this time of the year. And equally good all year round.

Psst! See that cover? It's got sparkly bits all over it! It's adorable.

Author Elizabeth Gill wrote a lovely little tribute post for Trisha Ashley. Here's the link if you want to check it out.

Blog Bash WINNERS! (+ Sneak Peek)

2010-11-11T14:38:00.000+05:30

My blog made it through one year and all you cool kids out there made that possible. Which is why if you guys remember, I was hosting a giveaway of dreamcatching proportions. And the response from all of you was so amazing, I honestly wish I had enough stuff to giveaway to ALL of you. You guys make me feel oh-so-good. Blogosphere really is a fun place to be a part of.

I had 208 entries in all and picking out four (!) was hard, so I left it to a magic hat to do the job.

And the magic hat says, that the first winner is: Karla Kalalang

The second winning hat goes to: Jen Daiker

The third magic wand waves over: Jennie

The Honorary Fourth winner is: Kai A

And because I feel kinda sad that I couldn't make all of you winners, I decided to add two more winners to the honorary list. They will get bookmark and swag like the fourth winner. And they are Mika and Chrizette.

The winners will hear from me shortly. Please keep check on your emails. Thank you everyone for entering and making this such a success.

This in turn makes me come to the second part of this post and share some pictures that inspire my WiP-turned- NaNo project, What Was Mine.

And here's an excerpt I thought I'd share:

Smoke tendrils swirl above her and around the kitchen, Deidre’s kitchen, from where we watch masked faces flirt and flow into the hall.

‘I’m not going in there unless someone takes off their mask.’ Mel rummages through the cabinets – open, slam, open, slam.

Sarah flicks the ash out of the window. ‘Not happening anytime soon.’ Turns to her. ‘Why you here then?’

Mel pops open a bottle, pours out the drink, raises the glass and flashes a crooked smile. ‘Free champagne.’

Sarah throws back her head and laughs. Mel pours us each a drink. It’s wicked fizzy and bubbles in my stomach, stirring up my nerves, making them sit up. I sit up, watch the masked faces flit around the hall, float with the music and feel myself drifting.

It’s like a labyrinth. A labyrinth of people to get lost in.

I get off the counter. ‘I’m going in.’

‘Coming after I finish,’ Sarah croaks.

I pull the black and silver mask over my face and step in with the dancers. What’s playing is a very squeaky waltz, probably picked up at the secondhand record store, but nobody cares. As long as the music rolls they can dance all night.

‘May I?’ He is tall, blond – very blond, almost white – with blue eyes dancing in desire.

I see my opportunity.

Tantalise. Make someone want me. Make him want me, for now.

His hands are around me, lifting me with the rhythm, throwing me with the air. I'm crap at dancing but he doesn't seem to notice. If there's one thing I've mastered, it's the art of masking.

(All photos taken from here)

How have you been doing with your WiPs?

Cracked Up To Be

2010-11-05T18:27:00.000+05:30

When "Perfect" Parker Fadley starts drinking at school and failing her classes, all of St. Peter's High goes on alert. How has the cheerleading captain, girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, consummate teacher's pet, and future valedictorian fallen so far from grace?
Parker doesn't want to talk about it. She'd just like to be left alone, to disappear, to be ignored. But her parents have placed her on suicide watch and her counselors are demanding the truth. Worse, there's a nice guy falling in love with her and he's making her feel things again when she'd really rather not be feeling anything at all.
Nobody would have guessed she'd turn out like this. But nobody knows the truth.
Something horrible has happened, and it just might be her fault.

Reading Cracked Up To Be is like a whiplash. It's like a high school documentary. No moralizing, sugarcoating incidents and mincing words. Courtney Summers presents it like it is.

Parker is troubled, very, very troubled. And it all goes back to something horrible that's happened, for which Parker might be all too responsible. Parker is a character you won't forget as soon as you finish the book. She is someone who hooks you in, makes you turn the pages of this novel and stays with you long after you finish it. Her voice is THAT good.

And that's where Courtney Summers' debut novel sticks with you. With the character voices. Nothing about high school or high school-ers is romanticized here. The potential love interest(s) aren't knight-in-shining-armours. They are guys who can be jerks one moment and cute and kind the next moment, not walking-talking moral tales high on hotness.

The prose is sparse. No purple prose, a few words are enough to convey just what is meant to be conveyed. This style makes Summers' writing haunting and to some extent, disturbing, which is exactly what Parker's mental state is.

I already knew what the big secret was, thanks to a very spoiler-ish review I'd read online, but I couldn't stop reading Cracked Up To Be, firstly for Parker and secondly, for, well, everything else. The flashbacks are easy to connect with, considering they are done in italics, and Summers' masterfully connects them all together as a lead up to the climax.

The best thing about this book is how everything feels very natural. for instance, Parker's actions are not dominated by thought first. She does things on impulse. Sometimes a lot of the things she does or says doesn't make sense, but that's what makes her so intensely real.

The cover doesn't do much to capture the powerful content of this book. It deserved something more than a girl resting on the bench.

Cracked Up To Be did not do something as dramatic as change my life, but it's an important book. One the needs to be read. I hope you read it.

PS. Blog Birthday Bash Giveaway!

TELL ME A SECRET ~ Holly Cupala

2010-11-01T20:31:00.000+05:30

Tell me a secret, and I'll tell you one…

In the five years since her bad-girl sister Xanda’s death, Miranda Mathison has wondered about the secret her sister took to the grave, and what really happened the night she died. Now, just as Miranda is on the cusp of her dreams—a best friend to unlock her sister’s world, a ticket to art school, and a boyfriend to fly her away from it all—Miranda has a secret all her own.

Then two lines on a pregnancy test confirm her worst fears. Stripped of her former life, Miranda must make a choice with tremendous consequences and finally face her sister’s demons and her own.

In this powerful debut novel, stunning new talent Holly Cupala illuminates the dark struggle of a girl who must let go of her past to find a way into her own future.

Tell Me A Secret is one helluva read. I read it in one sitting. I took it out to dinner with me, cos I absolutely had to see where this was going.

I had to know how Miranda was going to end up.

I had to know what was going to happen to the other haracters.

I had to know everything. And I had to know fast.

The treatment is very different from most other reads. The narrative swings between Miranda's past, with her sister Xanda, her boyfriend, Kamran, her friend, Essence..and her present, devoid of them all. How this happened is not revealed in a flash.As Miranda or Rand's PoV oscillates and attempts to explore and understand what happened and what is happening now, the real faces behind the masks the characters are wearing emerge.

Characters are Holly Cupala's strength. They have depth. They are multi-dimensional. They are unforgettable. Even the minor characters do not fall flat. It's almost like everyone in this novel has a hidden agenda, an untold secret. Which should explain the reason I was up half the night finishing this book.

The prose is vivid and powerful. Here an excerpt:

"Crammed inside the house was every person under eighteen I knew, bodies crushed liked cigarettes and pulsing to the beat of a ginormous stereo. As I looked around the room, lit up by a red bulb in the corner, faces slowed down into grotesque laughter and shouts of greeting. Everyone was glad to see us - the leggy one, the curvy one, and the one who could stop Elna Mead traffic. I reached inside myself and pulled out "party girl", modeled after Delaney and Xanda herself. I smiled at the faces around me, calling out loudly and giggling. The real me floated up to the corner of the room."

Other things I liked:

-- Some characters belonged to different ethnic backgrounds. The author never deliberately tells the reader so, but you just know. Like when Xanda's boyfriend, Andre is described as cafe con leche, it's kinda cool.

-- Rand and her art. Rand's art mostly consists of labyrinths, perhaps representing her search for her own identity in her world of chaos. And her association with art is not merely shown through "splashes of paint" or with the glimpse of a "pencil tucked behind her ear". Art comes through somewhat like this:

"Vanity was a tall beautiful woman with a face like a mask. Envy was a treasure-hoarding dragon, dainty and diabolical. As I sketched in the dragon's face, I gave her eyebrows like mine, my turtle necklace around its scaly neck."

-- The character names. Essence. Delaney. Andre. Kamran. Xanda. Rand. I had a thing for them.

-- The entire canvas the novel covers. The setting isn't restricted to a panoramic view of high school. It stretches on beyond. Important scenes take place in the workplace and at home, where the parents aren't absent. Rand shares a particularly trying relationship with her parents, but in no way is the parental aspect compromised upon. The parents loom large no matter how negative vibe-y they are. Just like the setting, the characters too come from far and wide.

-- I never knew where the story was heading. Sometimes it took giant leaps, sometimes unexpected twists and they all had me surprised (or shocked).

This might not be a book for everyone. It's a dark book. There are no light and sparkly moments. At times Rand's future as the pregnant teen, deceived by her friends and unaccompanied by her family, looks gloomily bleak. But then again, Rand isn't a character to just give up. And in spite of the gritty realism of Tell Me A Secret, Holly Cupala doesn't shake away hope from the story. There is hope and there is love. Just not from sources you go looking for.

A fast paced novel about one girl's attempt to find the truth about her sister's death and in turn unravel the tangles of her life, Tell Me A Secret is one of those debut novels that leave an indelible mark.

PS. In the meanwhile, it's November or rather, NaNoWriMo month. So, who's going the 50,000-word-this-month way? If you are, buddy me: Bidisha

PPS. Also, my blog's birthday giveaway is open till the 10th of Nov. There shall be four winners and you can join in by clicking on the link just below the header.

Blog Birthday of DreamCatching Proportions!! CLOSED

2010-10-21T16:50:00.000+05:30

Oh, yes.

Dreamcatcher's Lair turns one today.

Exactly a year ago, I decided to do something about the time I spent thinking about books and pondering about writing. Tried bringing them together. And BAM! this blog was born.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't so dramatic. But there was this particular book I loved, which instantly sparked off the I-must-tell-people-about-this-book-I-must-blog feeling, which of course made me rush online and attack blogger.

My commentless inaugeration post is still on display, if you're interested in reading and laughing.

So is the review of the book which made me start this blog in the first place.

And for sticking around and bearing with my rants and rambles, I have something for you.

Something like this:

So here's the deal. There are three things up for grabs:

1) A set of signed copies of Taken By Storm and Sing Me To Sleep by Angela Morrison.

2) A copy of Trisha Ashley's upcoming new book, Twelve Days Of Christmas.

3) The Language Of Flowers book. It's illustrated and very Victorian.

Which means, there shall be three winners. The first winner gets to choose between 1, 2 and 3. The second winner gets to choose out of the remaining two and so on. An Honorary fourth winner will get to win some signed/unsigned bookmarks of my choice.

Here's what you have to do to participate:

First, follow my blog.

Second, leave a comment on this post.

Third and most important, fill out this form. All three steps are absolutely necessary.

This contest is international and open till the 10th of November.

For being here. For sticking around. For making me stick around :)

You guys rock.