Top Ten Tuesday is a meme started and run by the awesome Broke and Bookish blog. This week's lists are the top ten books I've read that deal with tough subjects.
Warning, there may be slight spoilers!
1. A Lesson Before Dying. I loved this book, but there were times it was very difficult to read. It was not only about racism, overt and institutional, but also the internalization of said racism - the way the oppressor can get the oppressed to do half the work for them by instilling self-doubt and even self-hate.
2. The Earthquake Bird - The main character in this is so unsure of herself - of what she's done, what she might have done, how she even really feels. It's a story about a woman who feels lost and is foundering utterly
3. Monstrous Regiment - There's going to be a bit of Pratchett on this list. I could have probably made a top ten just out if his work. This one deals with sexism in a sometimes hilarious, sometimes somber way, with a fantastic side order of the meaning of war, the problems with blind zealousness and the deep impact of war on those left home.
4. A comic that grabs you by the feels and doesn't let do. Its so impactful because of the little things.
5. Night Watch - Faith. Honor. Duty. Doing what one must vs. doing what one wants. What is justice? What is "right"? there was a lot tied up in this book, which I found both fascinating and moving.
6.The Eye, the Ear and The Arm - The tension between modern life and history, between honoring the past and growing from it, is a running subtext throughout this book.
7. In My Hands - A Holocaust memoir. I think that's all that needs saying.
8. Small Gods - Faith, zealotry and honor are at the heart of this story about a fallen god given one final shot at pushing itself back to power.
9. Old man's war - You could make the argument that this doesn't deal with any REALLY tough issues, but I thought it did - with the idea of identity and what makes a person themselves, with issues of youth vs experience (and the attempts to meld the two)
10. The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Not in Hugo's story so much, but for a side character, in whom we get to see the impact of business, capitalism, money on creativity. On the way that humans claim to love art, but are often more than happy to destroy art and abandon the artist without a second thought. It was heartbreaking.
Showing posts with label Top Ten Tuesday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Top Ten Tuesday. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Books You Read When You Need Something Light & Fun
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme started and run by the awesome Broke and Bookish blog. This week's lists are the top ten books I go for when I need a light, fun read.
1. Howl's Moving Castle - Love this book. Love the characters. Love the fantasy. Love what a quick read it is.
2. Retribution Falls - Adventure and steampunk and piracy! Backstabbing and double crossing! Hilariously flawed characters? Yes please!
3. Any Night's Watch book - Terry Pratchett has written so many great books, but the ones that speak most to me are the Night's Watch ones, and especially early in the series, they're incredibly fun and funny, endlessly rereadable.
4. The Hobbit - A children's tale, written as such, it's definitely a breath of fresh air after my normal diet of generally serious and often lengthy fantasy books. It's just a tale that makes me smile.
5. Jig the Goblin series - Especially the first one. Skewering the tropes and tendencies of fantasy stories while turning the narrative on its head? I loved this story and return to it reasonably often.
6. The Perilous Gard - Light and fun more because it's a children's book than necessarily because of themes, but I always found it to be a quick, upbeat read.
7. The Moist Von Lipwig books - Yeah, yeah, more Terry Pratchett. So sue me, these books are great!
8. Fairy Tail manga - Much like Retribution Falls, it's the sense of fun and adventure that mkes this an easy one to come back to when I need something to breeze through and enjoy.
9. The Parasol Protectorate series - To greater and lesser extents depending on the volume, but I thought overall the series had a wonderfully wry sense of humor that generally kept things moving along at a great and often funny clip.
10. Any of the Redwall books except for Loamhedge - I loved these books, though in Loamhedge the somewhat disturbing themes that I could mostly enjoy books in spite of spiked to a point I couldn't enjoy it anymore.
1. Howl's Moving Castle - Love this book. Love the characters. Love the fantasy. Love what a quick read it is.
2. Retribution Falls - Adventure and steampunk and piracy! Backstabbing and double crossing! Hilariously flawed characters? Yes please!
3. Any Night's Watch book - Terry Pratchett has written so many great books, but the ones that speak most to me are the Night's Watch ones, and especially early in the series, they're incredibly fun and funny, endlessly rereadable.
4. The Hobbit - A children's tale, written as such, it's definitely a breath of fresh air after my normal diet of generally serious and often lengthy fantasy books. It's just a tale that makes me smile.
5. Jig the Goblin series - Especially the first one. Skewering the tropes and tendencies of fantasy stories while turning the narrative on its head? I loved this story and return to it reasonably often.
6. The Perilous Gard - Light and fun more because it's a children's book than necessarily because of themes, but I always found it to be a quick, upbeat read.
7. The Moist Von Lipwig books - Yeah, yeah, more Terry Pratchett. So sue me, these books are great!
8. Fairy Tail manga - Much like Retribution Falls, it's the sense of fun and adventure that mkes this an easy one to come back to when I need something to breeze through and enjoy.
9. The Parasol Protectorate series - To greater and lesser extents depending on the volume, but I thought overall the series had a wonderfully wry sense of humor that generally kept things moving along at a great and often funny clip.
10. Any of the Redwall books except for Loamhedge - I loved these books, though in Loamhedge the somewhat disturbing themes that I could mostly enjoy books in spite of spiked to a point I couldn't enjoy it anymore.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Books I thought I'd like more or less than I did
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme started and run by the awesome Broke and Bookish blog. This week's lists are the top ten books you either ended up liking more or less than you thought you would going in.
1. The Thirteenth Tale (Liked less) - I was VERY excited about this book in book club, and in the end, this is one of the biggest literary disappointments in my life. I didn't find it compelling, or well written, or possessing of particularly interesting characters. The mysteries were awful and it was less homage to classics than it was stealing plot points to the point it ruined its own plot.
2. The Help (Liked less) - Everyone talked about how amazing this book was. I got about halfway in and wasn't terribly gripped. It felt like the book wanted me to applaud a pretty basic understanding of institutional racism, and I thought the characters were kind of flat and left me uncomfortable and not in the thought-provoking good way. It's one of the few books I stepped away from without finishing, and I don't regret it. I read "A Lesson Before Dying" instead, which I found far more engrossing.
3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Liked better) - A friend in college loaned me this book. I'd been heading about this Harry Potter thing for a while and stayed away because of the hype and because I felt like I'd already read this premise twice before - both in the Circle of Magic books and the Wizard's Hall book. but I was bored, out of other books, and gave in to her urgings. SO glad I did, it's now one of my favorite series. :)
4. One Piece (Liked better) - This looked SO stupid! A pirate made out of rubber having cartoony adventures on the high seas? I caught some of the 4 Kids dub of the anime and that only cemented my opinion. But then I had a chance to read the first volume, and I fell in love. In love with Luffy and his outlook, with the quirky cast of characters, and most of all with the sense of hope and optimism that threaded through the manga.
5. The Secrets of Jin-Shei (Liked less) - A story set in a fantasy version of China, populated by female characters and focused on their interactions and friendships, lives and struggles? Count me there! But some writing decisions that just didn't work for me left me pretty ambivalent about this book by the end.
6. Hogfather (Liked less) - I'm a fan of Terry Pratchett, and Hogfather is widely considered one of his best books. Everyone I knew who liked his stories liked this one and recced it. So I finally read it and... it was okay? I mean, it was well-written and engaging, the characters were fun and the themes it explored were very interesting to explore. But it just never grabbed me.
7. Kushiel's Dart - I hadn't ever read a fantasy book that read so much like a romance at the time. I didn't think I'd like it, but I was very, very wrong. And while Carey isn't one of my top five authors or anything, I've enjoyed to one extent or another everything I've read from her since.
8. Santa Olivia (Liked less) - After reading the Terre d'Ange books, I was ready to give anything Carey wrote a go. and while I liked Santa Olivia and its ties to superhero literature, it never captured me the way Kushiel's Dart had.
9. Crimson (Liked more) - I always thought of comics in a particular and not terribly flattering way in my high school days. But after graduating from college, I had a local comic book store which I sometimes went into for some of the games and other stuff they offered. And in there as well was the first trade of Crimson. I bit back my pride, bought the book, and started not only giving comics books an equal chance, but to check out anything Ramos did.
10. Goblin Tales (Liked less) - I love Jim Hines' work. I loved the Jig novels, I loved the Princess books and to only a slightly lesser extent, I loved Libriomancer. But for some reason, I just couldn't get into this collection of short stories. Probably part of the issue being that I don't really like reading short stories. I want a story I can immerse myself into for a while.
1. The Thirteenth Tale (Liked less) - I was VERY excited about this book in book club, and in the end, this is one of the biggest literary disappointments in my life. I didn't find it compelling, or well written, or possessing of particularly interesting characters. The mysteries were awful and it was less homage to classics than it was stealing plot points to the point it ruined its own plot.
2. The Help (Liked less) - Everyone talked about how amazing this book was. I got about halfway in and wasn't terribly gripped. It felt like the book wanted me to applaud a pretty basic understanding of institutional racism, and I thought the characters were kind of flat and left me uncomfortable and not in the thought-provoking good way. It's one of the few books I stepped away from without finishing, and I don't regret it. I read "A Lesson Before Dying" instead, which I found far more engrossing.
3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Liked better) - A friend in college loaned me this book. I'd been heading about this Harry Potter thing for a while and stayed away because of the hype and because I felt like I'd already read this premise twice before - both in the Circle of Magic books and the Wizard's Hall book. but I was bored, out of other books, and gave in to her urgings. SO glad I did, it's now one of my favorite series. :)
4. One Piece (Liked better) - This looked SO stupid! A pirate made out of rubber having cartoony adventures on the high seas? I caught some of the 4 Kids dub of the anime and that only cemented my opinion. But then I had a chance to read the first volume, and I fell in love. In love with Luffy and his outlook, with the quirky cast of characters, and most of all with the sense of hope and optimism that threaded through the manga.
5. The Secrets of Jin-Shei (Liked less) - A story set in a fantasy version of China, populated by female characters and focused on their interactions and friendships, lives and struggles? Count me there! But some writing decisions that just didn't work for me left me pretty ambivalent about this book by the end.
6. Hogfather (Liked less) - I'm a fan of Terry Pratchett, and Hogfather is widely considered one of his best books. Everyone I knew who liked his stories liked this one and recced it. So I finally read it and... it was okay? I mean, it was well-written and engaging, the characters were fun and the themes it explored were very interesting to explore. But it just never grabbed me.
7. Kushiel's Dart - I hadn't ever read a fantasy book that read so much like a romance at the time. I didn't think I'd like it, but I was very, very wrong. And while Carey isn't one of my top five authors or anything, I've enjoyed to one extent or another everything I've read from her since.
8. Santa Olivia (Liked less) - After reading the Terre d'Ange books, I was ready to give anything Carey wrote a go. and while I liked Santa Olivia and its ties to superhero literature, it never captured me the way Kushiel's Dart had.
9. Crimson (Liked more) - I always thought of comics in a particular and not terribly flattering way in my high school days. But after graduating from college, I had a local comic book store which I sometimes went into for some of the games and other stuff they offered. And in there as well was the first trade of Crimson. I bit back my pride, bought the book, and started not only giving comics books an equal chance, but to check out anything Ramos did.
10. Goblin Tales (Liked less) - I love Jim Hines' work. I loved the Jig novels, I loved the Princess books and to only a slightly lesser extent, I loved Libriomancer. But for some reason, I just couldn't get into this collection of short stories. Probably part of the issue being that I don't really like reading short stories. I want a story I can immerse myself into for a while.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Rewind
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is rewind - we get to pick an earlier topic we missed. So I picked top ten literary jerks.
1. Courtland Gamboge, Shades of Gray series - Nothing redeemable about this guy. Heck, in the story I didn't even like reading about him. I never got the feeling he was going to win. I never got the feeling he'd do serious harm. He was just a hateful, horrible jerk without purpose for me.
2. Luke, Freakangels comics - Only reason he's not no. 1 is that he serves as an actual tension-building character in the series so his jerkness serves a purpose. But this guy... ugh. he obtains the ability to control minds, so just guess what he uses it for. Just guess. :-/
3. Matoba Seiji, Natsume's Book of Friends series - You work for him? It means you're expendable and he'll use you as he sees fit. You're a yokai captured by him? It's slavery or death? and you're completely unattached to and unafilliated with him but he wants your help? He'll make it happen. Whatever he has to do, say or threaten, consider it done. Ugh.
4. Cordelia Delgado, The Dark Tower series - Sold her neice to a much older man to bear his child, against her wishes and by coersion, likely to get a comfortable life for herself. she's terrible to Susan all the time , she's horrible to most other people around her, and at the end... just ugh.
5. Joffrey Baratheon, A Song of Ice and Fire - Perhaps the paragon of jerks. Only this far down the list because he's in a world that sort of manufactures jerks, and you can see how his came about and was fostered.
6. Carcer, Night Watch (Discworld book) - One of those guys who never cops to understanding just what it is he did. Oh, he knows. He gets that he's a murderer. Revels in it even. But drapes himself in claims of innocence like a robe, and it's infuriating.
7. Izaya, Durarara series - He's willing to do just about anything for his own amusement.
8. Percy Weasley, Harry Potter series - Here's my moment of shame - I actually really like Percy. I found his arc pretty strong. I sympathized with someone who loved his family but didn't want to be like them, didn't want to live so poorly, to be laughed at by people with power, to be harnessed by his name his whole life. So he struck out on his own, and while he made massive mistakes and made choices that made him a true-blue jerk, he learned from it and I can't hate.
9. Hal Jordan, DC Comics/Mr. Fantastic, Marvel Comics - I'm sorry, I can't help it. They're jerks!
10. Quentin Coldwater, The Magicians - I don't necessarily mind when a jerk is our main character. But I want the jerk to have some redeeming qualities. Quentin managed none. I hated him by the end and wished for nothng more than his death. Alas, I was disappointed in even this.
1. Courtland Gamboge, Shades of Gray series - Nothing redeemable about this guy. Heck, in the story I didn't even like reading about him. I never got the feeling he was going to win. I never got the feeling he'd do serious harm. He was just a hateful, horrible jerk without purpose for me.
2. Luke, Freakangels comics - Only reason he's not no. 1 is that he serves as an actual tension-building character in the series so his jerkness serves a purpose. But this guy... ugh. he obtains the ability to control minds, so just guess what he uses it for. Just guess. :-/
3. Matoba Seiji, Natsume's Book of Friends series - You work for him? It means you're expendable and he'll use you as he sees fit. You're a yokai captured by him? It's slavery or death? and you're completely unattached to and unafilliated with him but he wants your help? He'll make it happen. Whatever he has to do, say or threaten, consider it done. Ugh.
4. Cordelia Delgado, The Dark Tower series - Sold her neice to a much older man to bear his child, against her wishes and by coersion, likely to get a comfortable life for herself. she's terrible to Susan all the time , she's horrible to most other people around her, and at the end... just ugh.
5. Joffrey Baratheon, A Song of Ice and Fire - Perhaps the paragon of jerks. Only this far down the list because he's in a world that sort of manufactures jerks, and you can see how his came about and was fostered.
6. Carcer, Night Watch (Discworld book) - One of those guys who never cops to understanding just what it is he did. Oh, he knows. He gets that he's a murderer. Revels in it even. But drapes himself in claims of innocence like a robe, and it's infuriating.
7. Izaya, Durarara series - He's willing to do just about anything for his own amusement.
8. Percy Weasley, Harry Potter series - Here's my moment of shame - I actually really like Percy. I found his arc pretty strong. I sympathized with someone who loved his family but didn't want to be like them, didn't want to live so poorly, to be laughed at by people with power, to be harnessed by his name his whole life. So he struck out on his own, and while he made massive mistakes and made choices that made him a true-blue jerk, he learned from it and I can't hate.
9. Hal Jordan, DC Comics/Mr. Fantastic, Marvel Comics - I'm sorry, I can't help it. They're jerks!
10. Quentin Coldwater, The Magicians - I don't necessarily mind when a jerk is our main character. But I want the jerk to have some redeeming qualities. Quentin managed none. I hated him by the end and wished for nothng more than his death. Alas, I was disappointed in even this.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Books I Read Before I Was A Blogger
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the books I read before I started blogging that I count in my top 10.
I'm not really sure where to take this one. I've been blogging as far as a personal blog since about 1997, gbut only started writing in earnest about books and reading in maybe 2011. So I'm going with that second number, since the first would make forming the list VERY difficult.
1. The Waste Lands, Stephen King - My favorite book of all time, at this point in my life. I reread it regularly - just reread it last month as a matter of fact! I love the characters, love the setting, love the tension of many of the scenes, the only thing I hate about it is the memory of having to wait for 4.
2. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynn Jones - not for Howl, but for Sophie and, to a lesser extend, Michael and Calcifer. I read the book because of the movie, and loved the book so much more than the movie. I loved the wonderfully practical and yet deprecating way Sophie looked at the world, and I loved the language. Wynn painted pictures with words.
3. Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavrial Kay - A love triangle? Usually a massive turnoff for me, but the way it was woven around a tale of love and loss and trying to find something to cling to in a world that feels like it's falling apart around your ears was incredible to me.
4. Candide, Voltaire - Satire is not always my thing, but the flow of this narrative just irresistably drew me along.
5. Watership Down, Richard Adams - A tale about a bunnyquest. Somehow, this always seemed more vibrant and harrowing and exciting to me than any number of lost princes on save-the-world quests. Everything seemed scary and their triumphs seemed all the more worthwhile for that fear.
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling - I know a lot ofm people hated this book, but for me, it was the one that most fleshed out one of my favorite characters, Neville, and therefore positioned itself firmly at the top of the series for me.
7.The Last Unicorn, Peter Beagle -the atmosphere of whistfulness and a memory of things lost and out of reach permeated this story. Even as a kid, it left me with a bittersweet, melancholy feeling and a tendency to consider the meaning of immortality and of life. And you know? Even now, I can read this book and be left with that same feeling.
8. Eyes of the Dragon, Stephen King - Another fantasy from King, but this one a standalone. I love his fantasy far more than his horror, and I think the only thing that kept this book so low on the list was that I wanted MORE from it.
9. The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Pope - I don't often like romances, but at its heart this isn't really a romance, but a story about a young woman coming into her own, finding ehr own strength, and accepting romance as a part of it.
10. Mattimeo, Brian Jaques - Yeah, yeah, Redwall, but before I found Discworld, the Redwall books were my brainless candy, the ones I read when I needed something unchallenging and comfortable but wtill with a little bit of excitement and fun (and food porn, yummmm),
I'm not really sure where to take this one. I've been blogging as far as a personal blog since about 1997, gbut only started writing in earnest about books and reading in maybe 2011. So I'm going with that second number, since the first would make forming the list VERY difficult.
1. The Waste Lands, Stephen King - My favorite book of all time, at this point in my life. I reread it regularly - just reread it last month as a matter of fact! I love the characters, love the setting, love the tension of many of the scenes, the only thing I hate about it is the memory of having to wait for 4.
2. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynn Jones - not for Howl, but for Sophie and, to a lesser extend, Michael and Calcifer. I read the book because of the movie, and loved the book so much more than the movie. I loved the wonderfully practical and yet deprecating way Sophie looked at the world, and I loved the language. Wynn painted pictures with words.
3. Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavrial Kay - A love triangle? Usually a massive turnoff for me, but the way it was woven around a tale of love and loss and trying to find something to cling to in a world that feels like it's falling apart around your ears was incredible to me.
4. Candide, Voltaire - Satire is not always my thing, but the flow of this narrative just irresistably drew me along.
5. Watership Down, Richard Adams - A tale about a bunnyquest. Somehow, this always seemed more vibrant and harrowing and exciting to me than any number of lost princes on save-the-world quests. Everything seemed scary and their triumphs seemed all the more worthwhile for that fear.
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, J.K. Rowling - I know a lot ofm people hated this book, but for me, it was the one that most fleshed out one of my favorite characters, Neville, and therefore positioned itself firmly at the top of the series for me.
7.The Last Unicorn, Peter Beagle -the atmosphere of whistfulness and a memory of things lost and out of reach permeated this story. Even as a kid, it left me with a bittersweet, melancholy feeling and a tendency to consider the meaning of immortality and of life. And you know? Even now, I can read this book and be left with that same feeling.
8. Eyes of the Dragon, Stephen King - Another fantasy from King, but this one a standalone. I love his fantasy far more than his horror, and I think the only thing that kept this book so low on the list was that I wanted MORE from it.
9. The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Pope - I don't often like romances, but at its heart this isn't really a romance, but a story about a young woman coming into her own, finding ehr own strength, and accepting romance as a part of it.
10. Mattimeo, Brian Jaques - Yeah, yeah, Redwall, but before I found Discworld, the Redwall books were my brainless candy, the ones I read when I needed something unchallenging and comfortable but wtill with a little bit of excitement and fun (and food porn, yummmm),
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Characters I Would Crush On If I Were Also A Fictional Character
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the characters I would crush on if I were also A fictional character.
1. Eddie, The Dark Tower - I love this series, and Eddie was a large part of it. He's not perfect, not terribly gentlemanly some of the time, and can be a right idiot at times. But he's funny - so funny! - and once he can care, he does so genuinely and deeply.
2. Talia, Jim Hines' Princess books - I love this woman. She was focused and immensely capable, and while she didn't always know how to express it, she cared fiercely for her friends and would do anything for them without smothering them with that knowledge.
3. Michael, Howl's Moving Castle (BOOK please!) - First off, I'd have to assume myself back in teenage-ness like I was when I first read this because otherwise... ew. I suppose this one is more of a product of the story in which he appears, but there was something charming about the way he was trying to figure out his own life and keep Howl's on track as well.
4. Booster Gold, DC comics - Yeah, yeah, a man in spandex.A man in spandex who's known, essentially, for being a humbug and, in private, often highly insecure. But when the chips are down he gets the job done regardless of what everyone else thinks, which I think is great.
5. Aoki, X/1999 - Definitely a distant crush in this case, as he has a family already and cares about them very much. He's kindhearted, brave and honest, with a willingness to put himself on the line for others but a manner of doing it that doesn't feel quite as aggravating to me as those types sometimes can, especially in manga.
6. Christopher, The Perilous Gard - Another one of those strong-willed sorts, but the one who also comes across as a verbal sparrer, one who enjoys fencing wiht phrases. It's that largely, his wit, that puts him on this list.
7. Robin, One Piece - This lady's aloof and studious and more than a little pessemistic - at least about the possibilities. But I think that's part of what makes her so fun. :)
8. Genevive, The Parasol Protectorate - Smart and curious and loyal and totally willing to step outside the box of approriate behavior tom see her ends met? I find that very attractive, thank you. :)
9. Jez, Tales of the Ketty Jay - I almost feel like I could cut and paste Robin's entry here, except that Jez has a different skillset and is less self-assured.
10. Kohaku, Grand Guignol Orchestra - In a sort of tongue-in-cheek way. With a CLAMP boy on the list I needed one of Kaori Yuki's as well for fairness.
1. Eddie, The Dark Tower - I love this series, and Eddie was a large part of it. He's not perfect, not terribly gentlemanly some of the time, and can be a right idiot at times. But he's funny - so funny! - and once he can care, he does so genuinely and deeply.
2. Talia, Jim Hines' Princess books - I love this woman. She was focused and immensely capable, and while she didn't always know how to express it, she cared fiercely for her friends and would do anything for them without smothering them with that knowledge.
3. Michael, Howl's Moving Castle (BOOK please!) - First off, I'd have to assume myself back in teenage-ness like I was when I first read this because otherwise... ew. I suppose this one is more of a product of the story in which he appears, but there was something charming about the way he was trying to figure out his own life and keep Howl's on track as well.
4. Booster Gold, DC comics - Yeah, yeah, a man in spandex.A man in spandex who's known, essentially, for being a humbug and, in private, often highly insecure. But when the chips are down he gets the job done regardless of what everyone else thinks, which I think is great.
5. Aoki, X/1999 - Definitely a distant crush in this case, as he has a family already and cares about them very much. He's kindhearted, brave and honest, with a willingness to put himself on the line for others but a manner of doing it that doesn't feel quite as aggravating to me as those types sometimes can, especially in manga.
6. Christopher, The Perilous Gard - Another one of those strong-willed sorts, but the one who also comes across as a verbal sparrer, one who enjoys fencing wiht phrases. It's that largely, his wit, that puts him on this list.
7. Robin, One Piece - This lady's aloof and studious and more than a little pessemistic - at least about the possibilities. But I think that's part of what makes her so fun. :)
8. Genevive, The Parasol Protectorate - Smart and curious and loyal and totally willing to step outside the box of approriate behavior tom see her ends met? I find that very attractive, thank you. :)
9. Jez, Tales of the Ketty Jay - I almost feel like I could cut and paste Robin's entry here, except that Jez has a different skillset and is less self-assured.
10. Kohaku, Grand Guignol Orchestra - In a sort of tongue-in-cheek way. With a CLAMP boy on the list I needed one of Kaori Yuki's as well for fairness.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Recommend The Most
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the books that would get my biggest endorsement, the ones I would most recommend to other people.
1. The Lions of Al Rassan - a beautiful story with political machinations and military might wrapped around a love triangle that feels like a real love triangle. Filled with characters who feel fully realized and sympathetic most of the time, it really just is a strong, wonderful book.
2. Eyes of the Dragon - I love King's Dark Tower books, but because King is an acquired taste for some I don't feel okay recommending them indiscriminately. However, Eyes of the Dragon has much the same feel as The Dark Tower books without the length, the serial nature and some of the continuity issues.
3. Rosemary and Rue - I had this one recommended to me a couple years ago and dearly loved it. While the series following private detective/knight October Daye (Toby to her friends and most enemies) won't be for everyone, I cannot stress enough how lovely a story I find her adventures, and if the first book grabs you in any way, it only gets better from there.
4. The Perilous Gard - A children's book, bet one that has retained its place on my shelves since I first read it. I've often said it was the first and one of the only romance books I've ever loved, and that remains true. but it's also a tale of friendship and adventure, of finding yourself and not judging yourself against others. A fairy story. I love it and think most others would too.
5. The Hobbit - Another kids book! I don't care, people write some great stories for kids! I love the Lord of the Rings and all its beautiful language, but I love this book so much more for its simple adventure and the conversational tone Bilbo uses to relate everything to us.
6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Beautiful and frank and real. I read this book and found myself re-examining my own life and considering more carefully my own choices. I found it to be a truly powerful piece of writing in all the best ways.
7. Old Man's War - A brilliant and emotional piece of sci-fi writing. The thing that got me back into reading sci-fi actually, after Dune's ponderousness nearly drove me out once and for all.
8. The Stepsister Scheme - You knew there had to be some Jim Hines on here. I prefer his Jig the Goblin series, but I feel like the stories of princesses kicking ass and taking names was more universally enjoyable and therefore I tend to recommend it ahead of Jig.
9. Retribution Falls - Sky pirates and adventure! A tarnished but essentially good crew of people with histories they're trying to run away from? This touches a lot of things I adore, but I know some people don't share my love for Indiana Jones-style adventure tales.
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - I love the Harry Potter series quite a lot. Not the technically best book on this list by a long shot, but the world and characters made up for it, for me. Reading book 1 gives you a good idea if this series is for you and it's not overly long or difficult.
1. The Lions of Al Rassan - a beautiful story with political machinations and military might wrapped around a love triangle that feels like a real love triangle. Filled with characters who feel fully realized and sympathetic most of the time, it really just is a strong, wonderful book.
2. Eyes of the Dragon - I love King's Dark Tower books, but because King is an acquired taste for some I don't feel okay recommending them indiscriminately. However, Eyes of the Dragon has much the same feel as The Dark Tower books without the length, the serial nature and some of the continuity issues.
3. Rosemary and Rue - I had this one recommended to me a couple years ago and dearly loved it. While the series following private detective/knight October Daye (Toby to her friends and most enemies) won't be for everyone, I cannot stress enough how lovely a story I find her adventures, and if the first book grabs you in any way, it only gets better from there.
4. The Perilous Gard - A children's book, bet one that has retained its place on my shelves since I first read it. I've often said it was the first and one of the only romance books I've ever loved, and that remains true. but it's also a tale of friendship and adventure, of finding yourself and not judging yourself against others. A fairy story. I love it and think most others would too.
5. The Hobbit - Another kids book! I don't care, people write some great stories for kids! I love the Lord of the Rings and all its beautiful language, but I love this book so much more for its simple adventure and the conversational tone Bilbo uses to relate everything to us.
6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Beautiful and frank and real. I read this book and found myself re-examining my own life and considering more carefully my own choices. I found it to be a truly powerful piece of writing in all the best ways.
7. Old Man's War - A brilliant and emotional piece of sci-fi writing. The thing that got me back into reading sci-fi actually, after Dune's ponderousness nearly drove me out once and for all.
8. The Stepsister Scheme - You knew there had to be some Jim Hines on here. I prefer his Jig the Goblin series, but I feel like the stories of princesses kicking ass and taking names was more universally enjoyable and therefore I tend to recommend it ahead of Jig.
9. Retribution Falls - Sky pirates and adventure! A tarnished but essentially good crew of people with histories they're trying to run away from? This touches a lot of things I adore, but I know some people don't share my love for Indiana Jones-style adventure tales.
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - I love the Harry Potter series quite a lot. Not the technically best book on this list by a long shot, but the world and characters made up for it, for me. Reading book 1 gives you a good idea if this series is for you and it's not overly long or difficult.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Books I HAD To Buy...But Are Still Sitting On My Shelf Unread
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the books I grabbed off the shelf when I saw them - and still have not gotten around to reading.
1. Bob Moore: Desperate times - I have had this book on my Nook for AGES. I bought it as soon as I finished No Hero, which I loved. But somehow, there's just never been a good time to get around to it.
2. Scarlet - Another one that's frustrating me with my inability to just GET to it. I suspect I'll really enjoy it when I try.
3. Barbara - I love Tezuka's work, to varying degrees, and I've had this one sitting around for about six months. It's right by my bed, but somehow other things always seem to move up in the queue.
4. Invasion - In contrast, I've never read any Mercedes Lackey, but I got this one in a Humble Bundle a while ago and was really looking forward to reading it. Sadly, I've just not gotten to it yet.
5. One Thousand Years of Solitude - I'm certain I will enjoy this classic once I get around to reading it. But just the word classic is sometimes enough to make me put something down and reach for a comic book instead.
6. The Wizard of Oz comics - Scottie Young's art makes these books VERY cute, and while I didn't buy them - my sister did - I've been meaning to borrow and read them for a while and keep failing to remember.
7. Princess Knight - Another Tezuka book, held off this time because my order of Vol. 2 came in but Vol. 1 got cancelled. Usually that's not a big problem for me, but I've found comics can be harder than novels to get into later.
8. Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence - I picked this one up at a comic con TWO YEARS ago! I think it might be a winner of longest holdout award.
9. Pirate Cinema - Another book from the same Humble Bundle as Invasion, but much lower since while it's been waiting longer, I wasn't as gung-ho about it in the first place.
10. Ghosts of Manhattan - I actually tried to read this one once. I think I was just not in the right mindset to enjoy it though, and failed after about 20 pages. Still staring at me from the shelf.
1. Bob Moore: Desperate times - I have had this book on my Nook for AGES. I bought it as soon as I finished No Hero, which I loved. But somehow, there's just never been a good time to get around to it.
2. Scarlet - Another one that's frustrating me with my inability to just GET to it. I suspect I'll really enjoy it when I try.
3. Barbara - I love Tezuka's work, to varying degrees, and I've had this one sitting around for about six months. It's right by my bed, but somehow other things always seem to move up in the queue.
4. Invasion - In contrast, I've never read any Mercedes Lackey, but I got this one in a Humble Bundle a while ago and was really looking forward to reading it. Sadly, I've just not gotten to it yet.
5. One Thousand Years of Solitude - I'm certain I will enjoy this classic once I get around to reading it. But just the word classic is sometimes enough to make me put something down and reach for a comic book instead.
6. The Wizard of Oz comics - Scottie Young's art makes these books VERY cute, and while I didn't buy them - my sister did - I've been meaning to borrow and read them for a while and keep failing to remember.
7. Princess Knight - Another Tezuka book, held off this time because my order of Vol. 2 came in but Vol. 1 got cancelled. Usually that's not a big problem for me, but I've found comics can be harder than novels to get into later.
8. Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence - I picked this one up at a comic con TWO YEARS ago! I think it might be a winner of longest holdout award.
9. Pirate Cinema - Another book from the same Humble Bundle as Invasion, but much lower since while it's been waiting longer, I wasn't as gung-ho about it in the first place.
10. Ghosts of Manhattan - I actually tried to read this one once. I think I was just not in the right mindset to enjoy it though, and failed after about 20 pages. Still staring at me from the shelf.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Books At The TOP Of My Spring 2013 TBR list!
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the books I'm most looking forward to reading this spring!
1. Scarlet - the sequal to the fantastic sci-fi story Cinder, I've had this book for a while but other things keep cropping up. Still I NEED to get this read. the first one was a sci fi story that reminded me why I love sci fi so much.
2. The Iron Jackal - The Tales of the Ketty Jay has seriously wormed its way into my top five favorite series ever, and it may be vying for spot no. 1. The opportunity to get back to this world is seriously exciting.
3. King Peggy - A nonfiction book? In MY reading list? Truth is I've been looking forward to reading this one for ages and ages, and my hold at the library finally came through so now it's sitting near my bed, waiting for me to finally peek into it.
4. Bob Moore: Desperate Times - I've had this one on my Nook since the middle of last year, but other things keep getting in the way of my reading it. I loved "No Hero" and I have no reason to think I won't adore this one as well.
5. Watership Down - Have I read it before? I definitely have. But that doesn't mean I'm not tickled about reading it again! (And with book club!)
6. Legend of Oz: Wicked West vol. 2 - The first volume of this was beautiful, a comic book that I even share with my non-comic-reading friends,a nd I'm terribly excited to see where we go next.
7. Shades of Gray - Another book club selection, but one I've been recommended by Good Reads' recommendation matrix for ages now, so I'm very excited to read it!
8. The Janus Affair - The first Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences was a deeply flawed book technically that I loved emotionally. So while I haven't picked it up yet, there's a piece in the back of my mind that keeps asking, "When are we gonna read THAT?"
9. Fairy Tail 25 - Feels a bit like cheating, since I'm excited for EVERY volume of this manga. :)
10. Bob Moore: Hostile Territory - See no. 4, with the caveat that this one is much lower because if Desperate Times turns out not so good, I may revise my interest in reading it.
1. Scarlet - the sequal to the fantastic sci-fi story Cinder, I've had this book for a while but other things keep cropping up. Still I NEED to get this read. the first one was a sci fi story that reminded me why I love sci fi so much.
2. The Iron Jackal - The Tales of the Ketty Jay has seriously wormed its way into my top five favorite series ever, and it may be vying for spot no. 1. The opportunity to get back to this world is seriously exciting.
3. King Peggy - A nonfiction book? In MY reading list? Truth is I've been looking forward to reading this one for ages and ages, and my hold at the library finally came through so now it's sitting near my bed, waiting for me to finally peek into it.
4. Bob Moore: Desperate Times - I've had this one on my Nook since the middle of last year, but other things keep getting in the way of my reading it. I loved "No Hero" and I have no reason to think I won't adore this one as well.
5. Watership Down - Have I read it before? I definitely have. But that doesn't mean I'm not tickled about reading it again! (And with book club!)
6. Legend of Oz: Wicked West vol. 2 - The first volume of this was beautiful, a comic book that I even share with my non-comic-reading friends,a nd I'm terribly excited to see where we go next.
7. Shades of Gray - Another book club selection, but one I've been recommended by Good Reads' recommendation matrix for ages now, so I'm very excited to read it!
8. The Janus Affair - The first Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences was a deeply flawed book technically that I loved emotionally. So while I haven't picked it up yet, there's a piece in the back of my mind that keeps asking, "When are we gonna read THAT?"
9. Fairy Tail 25 - Feels a bit like cheating, since I'm excited for EVERY volume of this manga. :)
10. Bob Moore: Hostile Territory - See no. 4, with the caveat that this one is much lower because if Desperate Times turns out not so good, I may revise my interest in reading it.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Series I'd Like To Start But Haven't Yet
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the series I'd like to start but have not found the time yet. Since I actually do get around to most of what I want to read, I've limited this week's list to five.
1. The Malazan Book of the Fallen - The sheer lenght has kept me away from it at the moment, but I've had it recced by several people.
2. The Long Price Quartet - I'm told it's very different from the sort of fantasy I usually read, which might make for a nice break. I love fantasy, but sometimes, if you read too amny similar authors you get bogged down.
3. The King Killer Chronicle - Rothfuss has been on my radar for a long time, but I've still yet to get anything of his, which sometimes feels like a personal failing on my part.
4. The Farseer - This is a series I actually *have* the first two books of and I STILL haven't gotten around to actually reading them. It makes me feel very very lazy.
5. New Crobuzon - Mieville, like Rothfuss, has long been in the camp of "I need to read this but I just haven't gotten around to it."
Honorable mention: Magic Bites, the Bartimeus trilogy and The Broken Empire
1. The Malazan Book of the Fallen - The sheer lenght has kept me away from it at the moment, but I've had it recced by several people.
2. The Long Price Quartet - I'm told it's very different from the sort of fantasy I usually read, which might make for a nice break. I love fantasy, but sometimes, if you read too amny similar authors you get bogged down.
3. The King Killer Chronicle - Rothfuss has been on my radar for a long time, but I've still yet to get anything of his, which sometimes feels like a personal failing on my part.
4. The Farseer - This is a series I actually *have* the first two books of and I STILL haven't gotten around to actually reading them. It makes me feel very very lazy.
5. New Crobuzon - Mieville, like Rothfuss, has long been in the camp of "I need to read this but I just haven't gotten around to it."
Honorable mention: Magic Bites, the Bartimeus trilogy and The Broken Empire
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Authors That I'd Put On My Auto-Buy List
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the authors that I'd put on my auto-buy list. I may be cheating a little, as I'm splitting out series in some cases,w here I'd be an insta-buy for some books but not always for others.
1. Jim Hines: At this point, I'm a first-week purchaser for any novel he releases. I'm not sure I'd hop in for short stories or collections, but I've yet to be disappointed by one of his full-length books.
2. Chris Wooding (Tales of the Ketty Jay): Probably my favorite current series out there. Steampunky adventure. <3 font="">
3. Seanan McGuire (Toby Daye): I adore Toby's stories and since being introduced to them have purchased each new book as it's come out. Very much looking forward to this year's entry!
4. George R. R. Martin (Game of Thrones): While the last couple were not as good, in my opinion , as earlier volumes, I'm still heavily invested in this series and always looking for the next bit.
5. Brandon Sanderson: While I haven't picked up his Wheel of Time books since I'm behind on that series, I try to make a point of picking up everything else he's put out.
6. Guy Gavriel Kay: He's another whose earlier books I liked much better than his later work, but I still like his later work enough to never regret getting it.
7. Seanen McGuire (Incryptid): She may be the only author who has two series I absolutely adore and another that I couldn't care less to continue reading in. Speaking of this series, March 5!!!
8. CLAMP: They are very hit or miss, but I try to give at least the first volume of every new series a chance.
9. Kaori Yuki: A very specific brand of hilariously awesome that I embrace quite happily. :)
10. J. K. Rowling: While I haven't yet read Casual Vacancy, I had to get it when it first came out and I suspect I will continue doing so.
1. Jim Hines: At this point, I'm a first-week purchaser for any novel he releases. I'm not sure I'd hop in for short stories or collections, but I've yet to be disappointed by one of his full-length books.
2. Chris Wooding (Tales of the Ketty Jay): Probably my favorite current series out there. Steampunky adventure. <3 font="">
3. Seanan McGuire (Toby Daye): I adore Toby's stories and since being introduced to them have purchased each new book as it's come out. Very much looking forward to this year's entry!
4. George R. R. Martin (Game of Thrones): While the last couple were not as good, in my opinion , as earlier volumes, I'm still heavily invested in this series and always looking for the next bit.
5. Brandon Sanderson: While I haven't picked up his Wheel of Time books since I'm behind on that series, I try to make a point of picking up everything else he's put out.
6. Guy Gavriel Kay: He's another whose earlier books I liked much better than his later work, but I still like his later work enough to never regret getting it.
7. Seanen McGuire (Incryptid): She may be the only author who has two series I absolutely adore and another that I couldn't care less to continue reading in. Speaking of this series, March 5!!!
8. CLAMP: They are very hit or miss, but I try to give at least the first volume of every new series a chance.
9. Kaori Yuki: A very specific brand of hilariously awesome that I embrace quite happily. :)
10. J. K. Rowling: While I haven't yet read Casual Vacancy, I had to get it when it first came out and I suspect I will continue doing so.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday - Favorite fantasy characters
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the top 10 favorite characters in X genre. I've picked Fantasy, but for some interesting reading I highly recommend heading over to their blog - they collect links from more than a hundred other bloggers with their own lists,a nd the things that draw people to particular characters can be fascinating.
1. Neville from the Harry Potter series - I liked him from the first book, and by the time the series was over he was one BAMF. He had bad things happen to him in his life, but he always carried a sort of innate desire to see good in people and not to rock the boat unless it was important. His interaction with his parents in Book 5 just broke my heart, but I loved how well that scene encapsulated him - the compassion and unconditional love for his parents, his willingness to take his grandmother's barbs without comment, and then the steel underneath when he realizes Harry and co. have seen it - that absolute certainty Harry has that he won't brook anyone laughing at what they went through.
2. Jehane, from The Lions of Al Rassan - This is not my favorite of Kay's books, but she is definitely my favorite of his characters. I love her no nonsense attitude. I love her devotion to her patients. I love that I could relate to almost every step of her story, that at no point was there a decision she made that I could look at and go "why?" I loved the way she tried not to love, and the way she eventually surrendered to the feeling without surrendering her own autonomy or subverting it and becoming just a love interest. she was fantastic.
3. Sam Vimes of the Night Watch Discworld books - His frustration with life and society and the world in general makes for a fantastic bit of snark, but his position also allows him to see the entirety of society as a web, and this knowledge seems to be some of what breaks him early on. I love the way he can cut through all that bullshit when the moment counts though. He can think of the rich and the poor in the same exact way, and while it may pain him to do it, he almost always drags himself back from the precipice of going too far when any number of others might have gone over. And it's always a struggle for him, which I think makes me like him all the more. :)
4. Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle - She's all business and has no time for frivolous things like love or, occasionally, politeness. She sees herself as having a particular role in her world, and there was something both heartbreaking and heartwarming at the way she insisted she was stuck in that role while at the same time defying it. The relationship with Howl is probably one of my favorite character relationships in all of fiction.
5. Eddie from the Dark Tower books - Even when he was a junkie focused on his brother almost to the exclusion of all else, there was something steely and sarcastic and fascinating about Eddie to me. He went at even the most hopeless situations with an almost manic sense of humor, and he didn't always do the right thing, but that just made him feel more real to me. King's good at that in general, but I really found Eddie to be a grounding force in the series.
6. Molly from The Last Unicorn - From the moment she gives her speech to the unicorn when they first meet, I knew this would be a character who would stick with me. The magician may know more of the world as a thing, but Molly knows about people and emotions, and she's a source of staid wisdom and a sharp tongue, each depending on the need of the situation. Her clear love for Amalthea shone through a lot of the murkiness and heaviness in the plot around her.
7. Quentin from the Toby Daye books - There's something I and I think a lot of other people find compelling about a character with a fairy-tale view of honor having to come to grips with the realities of life in a world which is decidedly not a fairy tale. Quentin's idealism doesn't get ripped out from under him as it if some so many characters like him - but the slower pace of his adjustment to reality I think makes for a much better story. In a series filled with incredibly interesting characters, he just barely edged Toby as my favorite.
8. Breeze from the Mistborn trilogy - He was never really a main character, but I loved the gray morality of Breeze - the way he insisted on the finer things in life, the way he pretended he didn't really care and was doing everything for the money, but the way he always showed that he really DID care, when the chips were down. The way he'd put his life on the line despite not really having any useful offensive abilities. I thought he was one of the most interesting in a varied and compelling cast.
9. Sansa from the Game of Thrones series - I know a lot of people hated her for being so weak-willed, but I always thought she was a very strong person - just also a very young one. She displays an adaptability and a fortitude that a lot of other characters might not have managed even had they lived past their stopping point. Sansa endures and she learns. And in the world of GoT, those can be some of the most powerful abilities a person can have. But most of all, I just really felt bad for her - a child who was allowed, for a time, to retain her childhood and who was ripped out of it at a much older age and reacted accordingly.
10. Toby Daye from the series of the same name - I said earlier that Quentin just barely edged her for my favorite character, but I still like her enough to make an overall top ten right now. :) I love her determination and her ability to make do with less magical gifts than the people around her often have. I love the way she's so devoted to children especially - it makes sense in the world of Faerie, but it seems with her it's even more pronounced. I love how she can both embrace her feelings and completely misread them. I always look forward to the next book she's in with great gusto!
1. Neville from the Harry Potter series - I liked him from the first book, and by the time the series was over he was one BAMF. He had bad things happen to him in his life, but he always carried a sort of innate desire to see good in people and not to rock the boat unless it was important. His interaction with his parents in Book 5 just broke my heart, but I loved how well that scene encapsulated him - the compassion and unconditional love for his parents, his willingness to take his grandmother's barbs without comment, and then the steel underneath when he realizes Harry and co. have seen it - that absolute certainty Harry has that he won't brook anyone laughing at what they went through.
2. Jehane, from The Lions of Al Rassan - This is not my favorite of Kay's books, but she is definitely my favorite of his characters. I love her no nonsense attitude. I love her devotion to her patients. I love that I could relate to almost every step of her story, that at no point was there a decision she made that I could look at and go "why?" I loved the way she tried not to love, and the way she eventually surrendered to the feeling without surrendering her own autonomy or subverting it and becoming just a love interest. she was fantastic.
3. Sam Vimes of the Night Watch Discworld books - His frustration with life and society and the world in general makes for a fantastic bit of snark, but his position also allows him to see the entirety of society as a web, and this knowledge seems to be some of what breaks him early on. I love the way he can cut through all that bullshit when the moment counts though. He can think of the rich and the poor in the same exact way, and while it may pain him to do it, he almost always drags himself back from the precipice of going too far when any number of others might have gone over. And it's always a struggle for him, which I think makes me like him all the more. :)
4. Sophie from Howl's Moving Castle - She's all business and has no time for frivolous things like love or, occasionally, politeness. She sees herself as having a particular role in her world, and there was something both heartbreaking and heartwarming at the way she insisted she was stuck in that role while at the same time defying it. The relationship with Howl is probably one of my favorite character relationships in all of fiction.
5. Eddie from the Dark Tower books - Even when he was a junkie focused on his brother almost to the exclusion of all else, there was something steely and sarcastic and fascinating about Eddie to me. He went at even the most hopeless situations with an almost manic sense of humor, and he didn't always do the right thing, but that just made him feel more real to me. King's good at that in general, but I really found Eddie to be a grounding force in the series.
6. Molly from The Last Unicorn - From the moment she gives her speech to the unicorn when they first meet, I knew this would be a character who would stick with me. The magician may know more of the world as a thing, but Molly knows about people and emotions, and she's a source of staid wisdom and a sharp tongue, each depending on the need of the situation. Her clear love for Amalthea shone through a lot of the murkiness and heaviness in the plot around her.
7. Quentin from the Toby Daye books - There's something I and I think a lot of other people find compelling about a character with a fairy-tale view of honor having to come to grips with the realities of life in a world which is decidedly not a fairy tale. Quentin's idealism doesn't get ripped out from under him as it if some so many characters like him - but the slower pace of his adjustment to reality I think makes for a much better story. In a series filled with incredibly interesting characters, he just barely edged Toby as my favorite.
8. Breeze from the Mistborn trilogy - He was never really a main character, but I loved the gray morality of Breeze - the way he insisted on the finer things in life, the way he pretended he didn't really care and was doing everything for the money, but the way he always showed that he really DID care, when the chips were down. The way he'd put his life on the line despite not really having any useful offensive abilities. I thought he was one of the most interesting in a varied and compelling cast.
9. Sansa from the Game of Thrones series - I know a lot of people hated her for being so weak-willed, but I always thought she was a very strong person - just also a very young one. She displays an adaptability and a fortitude that a lot of other characters might not have managed even had they lived past their stopping point. Sansa endures and she learns. And in the world of GoT, those can be some of the most powerful abilities a person can have. But most of all, I just really felt bad for her - a child who was allowed, for a time, to retain her childhood and who was ripped out of it at a much older age and reacted accordingly.
10. Toby Daye from the series of the same name - I said earlier that Quentin just barely edged her for my favorite character, but I still like her enough to make an overall top ten right now. :) I love her determination and her ability to make do with less magical gifts than the people around her often have. I love the way she's so devoted to children especially - it makes sense in the world of Faerie, but it seems with her it's even more pronounced. I love how she can both embrace her feelings and completely misread them. I always look forward to the next book she's in with great gusto!
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite romances
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog.
This week's list is a look at the top 10 favorite romances. Though in my case, it's a top five because romance is just not my thing, and the romances in books I've read and enjoyed even where the romance isn't front and center tend to slip out of my mind rather quickly.
1. The Perilous Gard - I think this may be the first book in which I ever registered the romance and it didn't bug me. It just felt so natural and beautiful, so ingrained a part of the story without supplanting it or being the point of the book. Christopher's words to Kate have always stuck with me - "If you were any other woman, I could tell you I loved you easily enough, but not you - because you've always seemed to me like a part of myself, and it would be like saying I loved my own eyes or my own mind. But have you ever thought of what it would be ]to live without your mind or your eyes, Kate? to be mad? Or blind? I can't talk about it. That's the way I feel." <3 font="">
2. Ashes of Honor - After five books of them messing around and avoiding coming out and saying it, Toby and Tybalt finally step forward in their relationship, and the care they show one another, the fierce protectiveness and trust, really struck me.
3. The Lions of Al Rassan - Notable for being the only love triangle I've read that I truly and deeply bought into, I get so tired of love triangles which are really a couple and then a third wheel with some claim on the proceedings. In this? I could understand why she loved both men. I could see her finding happiness with either, and finding heartbreak with either. The way that decision got made broke my heart.
4. Mistborn - I enjoyed the turnaround in Vin and Eland's relationship, the way they played off one another and the very real insecurities each of them dealt with. Another one that felt very organic and real to me.
5. Library Wars - Guilty pleasure time! This is not a very good manga and I won't claim otherwise. The romance is contrived as anything, and I'll admit that too. But something about the two characters just draws me in and makes me cheer for them even as I'm laughing at the ridiculousness of the story.
1. The Perilous Gard - I think this may be the first book in which I ever registered the romance and it didn't bug me. It just felt so natural and beautiful, so ingrained a part of the story without supplanting it or being the point of the book. Christopher's words to Kate have always stuck with me - "If you were any other woman, I could tell you I loved you easily enough, but not you - because you've always seemed to me like a part of myself, and it would be like saying I loved my own eyes or my own mind. But have you ever thought of what it would be ]to live without your mind or your eyes, Kate? to be mad? Or blind? I can't talk about it. That's the way I feel." <3 font="">
2. Ashes of Honor - After five books of them messing around and avoiding coming out and saying it, Toby and Tybalt finally step forward in their relationship, and the care they show one another, the fierce protectiveness and trust, really struck me.
3. The Lions of Al Rassan - Notable for being the only love triangle I've read that I truly and deeply bought into, I get so tired of love triangles which are really a couple and then a third wheel with some claim on the proceedings. In this? I could understand why she loved both men. I could see her finding happiness with either, and finding heartbreak with either. The way that decision got made broke my heart.
4. Mistborn - I enjoyed the turnaround in Vin and Eland's relationship, the way they played off one another and the very real insecurities each of them dealt with. Another one that felt very organic and real to me.
5. Library Wars - Guilty pleasure time! This is not a very good manga and I won't claim otherwise. The romance is contrived as anything, and I'll admit that too. But something about the two characters just draws me in and makes me cheer for them even as I'm laughing at the ridiculousness of the story.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Best Bookish Memories
Top Ten Tuesday is a regular feature on the Broke and Bookish blog. This week's list is a look at the top 10 bookish moments in our literary lives (I could unfortunately only come up with 9). I feel I may have cheated a little bit in my list, but I'll leave that judgement ultimately up to you :)
1. I had the good fortune to be invited to Balticon some years ago by a friend who wanted to go and listen to Neil Gaiman, one of the guests, speak. Now, travesty of travesties, at the time I had never read any of his work. But even if I had, while I find Gaiman to be a technically amazing writer, his stories just do little for me emotionally. I was thinking about saying yes anyway just for the experience, but then I glanced over the rest of the guest list and saw Peter Beagle was also going to be in attendance. Suddenly, I was VERY interested.
We got to listen to a very interesting Q&A by the pair of them together, then went and got in line for autographs. When I got up to the front of the line, I had only a copy of Tamsin in my hands so, to the somewhat amusing surprise of some of the other people in line, I offered a polite wave to Mr .Gaiman and went directly over to Mr. Beagle, who was in the second seat at the table. He was not the first author I've met in person, nor the last, but I think he may have been the nicest. He saw I was a little tongue tied, so he signed the book and asked how I came to be a fan and told a story about the writing of Tamsin.
I was walking on air the rest of the day :)
2. Midnight release of the fifth Harry Potter book. I'd never done a midnight release party for anything besides movies before. the energy was incredible, as was the knowledge that the people around you were all fans of the exact same thing so you could geek out to your heart's content and no one would give you That Look. It was all I could do when I got home to tamp down the energy of the evening and go to sleep.
3. Getting my hands on the fifth Dark Tower book. After the long breaks between books and then the accident, I had sort of thought that it would never come to pass that I'd be able to move with the characters of the Dark Tower books past the end of Wizard and Glass. While I would not characterize any of the 5th-7th books as among my favorites, the ability to finish that journey was incredibly satisfying.
4. Peter Beagle again! He came to Otakon one year. While the animated Last Unicorn movie is not really a book, I was a fan of it because of the book. The con played the movie on a big screen, and Peter Beagle had a microphone at the front and told all manner of stories about the book itself, the process of getting it animated and the people he worked with. It was incredible. (As was meeting him afterward and being treated to stories about his time in Japan during the making of the movie.)
5. My first library book sale. I was just little at the time (maybe first grade?), but I still remember that I was given a small amount of money (50 cents I think) and told I could pick out books on my own. I looked around and it just hit me in a weird way - there were so, SO many books out there, and I could choose to read whatever of them I wanted - it was completely limitless. Of course, at the time, I wasn't interested in anything without pictures, but the principle stands. :)
6. Reading "The Long Walk" for the first time. I have no idea what it was about that book, but when I finished it, I was left with this weird, profoundly sad feeling. We were driving to Kentucky at the time, and I remember looking out the window and thinking how weird it was, all those houses we were passing had people in them who were living lives that I would never know anything about, that would never contact mine in any way, and they were probably facing the same sorts of disappointments and loneliness and everything else that I did. And even though that really has nothing to do with The Long Walk, I still get that feeling to a lesser extent every time I read it.
7. Getting the first volume of "Crimson." I knew of comics as something that nerds in movies read sometimes, but I'd never really had any contact with them myself. But I was deep in a vampire phase and the story sounded interesting so I picked it up. That book opened up the world of comics to me, and I'm now a very happy comics fan.
8. The first time I had a chance to read a published book by a friend of mine. I actually get this happy feeling every time someone I know gets published. There's just something about looking at the author's name on the cover and having a wealth of personal experiences and good times to remember with them.
9. The first time I got positive feedback from a comment I made on Jim Hines' blog. I respect him very much as both an author and a person, and while it's a totally small and simple and human thing, it gave me quite the little thrill.
1. I had the good fortune to be invited to Balticon some years ago by a friend who wanted to go and listen to Neil Gaiman, one of the guests, speak. Now, travesty of travesties, at the time I had never read any of his work. But even if I had, while I find Gaiman to be a technically amazing writer, his stories just do little for me emotionally. I was thinking about saying yes anyway just for the experience, but then I glanced over the rest of the guest list and saw Peter Beagle was also going to be in attendance. Suddenly, I was VERY interested.
We got to listen to a very interesting Q&A by the pair of them together, then went and got in line for autographs. When I got up to the front of the line, I had only a copy of Tamsin in my hands so, to the somewhat amusing surprise of some of the other people in line, I offered a polite wave to Mr .Gaiman and went directly over to Mr. Beagle, who was in the second seat at the table. He was not the first author I've met in person, nor the last, but I think he may have been the nicest. He saw I was a little tongue tied, so he signed the book and asked how I came to be a fan and told a story about the writing of Tamsin.
I was walking on air the rest of the day :)
2. Midnight release of the fifth Harry Potter book. I'd never done a midnight release party for anything besides movies before. the energy was incredible, as was the knowledge that the people around you were all fans of the exact same thing so you could geek out to your heart's content and no one would give you That Look. It was all I could do when I got home to tamp down the energy of the evening and go to sleep.
3. Getting my hands on the fifth Dark Tower book. After the long breaks between books and then the accident, I had sort of thought that it would never come to pass that I'd be able to move with the characters of the Dark Tower books past the end of Wizard and Glass. While I would not characterize any of the 5th-7th books as among my favorites, the ability to finish that journey was incredibly satisfying.
4. Peter Beagle again! He came to Otakon one year. While the animated Last Unicorn movie is not really a book, I was a fan of it because of the book. The con played the movie on a big screen, and Peter Beagle had a microphone at the front and told all manner of stories about the book itself, the process of getting it animated and the people he worked with. It was incredible. (As was meeting him afterward and being treated to stories about his time in Japan during the making of the movie.)
5. My first library book sale. I was just little at the time (maybe first grade?), but I still remember that I was given a small amount of money (50 cents I think) and told I could pick out books on my own. I looked around and it just hit me in a weird way - there were so, SO many books out there, and I could choose to read whatever of them I wanted - it was completely limitless. Of course, at the time, I wasn't interested in anything without pictures, but the principle stands. :)
6. Reading "The Long Walk" for the first time. I have no idea what it was about that book, but when I finished it, I was left with this weird, profoundly sad feeling. We were driving to Kentucky at the time, and I remember looking out the window and thinking how weird it was, all those houses we were passing had people in them who were living lives that I would never know anything about, that would never contact mine in any way, and they were probably facing the same sorts of disappointments and loneliness and everything else that I did. And even though that really has nothing to do with The Long Walk, I still get that feeling to a lesser extent every time I read it.
7. Getting the first volume of "Crimson." I knew of comics as something that nerds in movies read sometimes, but I'd never really had any contact with them myself. But I was deep in a vampire phase and the story sounded interesting so I picked it up. That book opened up the world of comics to me, and I'm now a very happy comics fan.
8. The first time I had a chance to read a published book by a friend of mine. I actually get this happy feeling every time someone I know gets published. There's just something about looking at the author's name on the cover and having a wealth of personal experiences and good times to remember with them.
9. The first time I got positive feedback from a comment I made on Jim Hines' blog. I respect him very much as both an author and a person, and while it's a totally small and simple and human thing, it gave me quite the little thrill.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Most frustrating characters ever
As taken from Broke and Bookish! Here's a list of the characters that just made me want to throttle someone or throw a book across the room.
1. Margaret Lea from The Thirteenth Tale - One of my least favorite characters of all time, from one of my least favorite books of all time. I finished reading this and was hard pressed to think of a single decision this character made, a single action they took other than the completely banal, that didn't make me long, YEARN for a different and better protagonist. Her endless whining about her lost twin, her drifting through her investigation, even her decision to do the autobiography in the first place left me wanting to claw furniture.
2. Felicity from Changeless/Blameless - In the first book, she was a flighty socialite with her eyes on the prize - not my favorite thing, but an interesting counterpoint to her sister, our main character. But when we get into the second book and thus far in the third (I am about 15% done) she has made a hard turn at being-a-jerk-ville. She's needlessly nasty to those around her, undercutting others just to spite them while never really seeing to have any goals of her own. It makes her frustrating and bothersome.
3. The male leads from the Vampire Knight manga - I can't believe I got 9 volumes into this series. It was completely the background characters that kept me engaged - if I'm actually said my piece to the leads, espeically the two blokes, I would have been forced to say "You're acting stupid" or "That was foolish" or some variation roughly every five pages. It was like they were trying to out-angst one another in some strange Olympic-level self-defeating competition.
4. Horace Slughorn from Harry Potter - Now this character I actually quite liked, but I kept hoping he would actually grow a backbone and do something instead of hemming and hawwing and trying to deflect blame for his own mistakes on others rather than admitting to the knowledge he'd given Riddle back in the day.
5. Perrin Aybara from the Wheel of Time books - When this series started, I really loved it, and I found a lot to like about most of the cast, but Perrin.... eh. And you'd think him becoming a wolf brother would help, but ... eh. You'd think Faile, a perhaps divisive but certainly interesting woman, coming to be part of his story would help, but... eh. I just found his internal conflict completely lacking in impact and emotional connection. and in a series as wordy and retready as this one got I had a LOT of time to ruminate on him, to the point where he frustrates me more than most characters of this type normally would.
6. Romeo from Romeo and Juliet - I despise the main couple in this play, but out of the two, I find myself frustrated with Romeo a bit more. Juliet at least had the excuse of this being her first love or lust or whatever. Romeo had all the information to help him realize he needed to take a step back and ask himself if maybe he wasn't going a little overboard since his emotions seemed to pretty much just transfer to a new woman. Gah!
7. Thomas from Eyes of the Dragon - I get why he turned out the way he did. Flagg is a powerful persuasive force. but there were so many moments - SO many moments in this story I wanted to reach in and throttle him while screaming "Thomas! Look at your life! Look at your choices! You are better than this!"
8. Superman - I'm going to come out and say it - I don't like Superman. It feels like the DC world is separated into people who like Batman better than Superman and who like Superman better than Batman, and I am definitely in the first category. He works best when he is being an ideal, a person for us to strive to emulate, but those same traits that work best on him are also some of my least favorite. I've read stuff with him in it I enjoy, and there are objectively a TON of fantastic Superman stories, but of all the characters in all of comics, he's probably the one whose name being on the cover is most likely to give me second thoughts.
9. Marco from The Night Circus - This one is a little like Thomas, in that the frustration came from wanting and expecting him to be better than he ever was. He used people, looked down on them in a detatched way, messed with their minds and almost never seemed to have an inkling that maybe he was behaving poorly.
10. Bella from Twilight - I think she doesn't belong at 10 based on annoyance factor, but since I didn't actually finish the book, I didn't feel right putting it any higher. As for the reasons, there's a whole internet worth of people who have articulated it well and at length. No need to be repetitive.
1. Margaret Lea from The Thirteenth Tale - One of my least favorite characters of all time, from one of my least favorite books of all time. I finished reading this and was hard pressed to think of a single decision this character made, a single action they took other than the completely banal, that didn't make me long, YEARN for a different and better protagonist. Her endless whining about her lost twin, her drifting through her investigation, even her decision to do the autobiography in the first place left me wanting to claw furniture.
2. Felicity from Changeless/Blameless - In the first book, she was a flighty socialite with her eyes on the prize - not my favorite thing, but an interesting counterpoint to her sister, our main character. But when we get into the second book and thus far in the third (I am about 15% done) she has made a hard turn at being-a-jerk-ville. She's needlessly nasty to those around her, undercutting others just to spite them while never really seeing to have any goals of her own. It makes her frustrating and bothersome.
3. The male leads from the Vampire Knight manga - I can't believe I got 9 volumes into this series. It was completely the background characters that kept me engaged - if I'm actually said my piece to the leads, espeically the two blokes, I would have been forced to say "You're acting stupid" or "That was foolish" or some variation roughly every five pages. It was like they were trying to out-angst one another in some strange Olympic-level self-defeating competition.
4. Horace Slughorn from Harry Potter - Now this character I actually quite liked, but I kept hoping he would actually grow a backbone and do something instead of hemming and hawwing and trying to deflect blame for his own mistakes on others rather than admitting to the knowledge he'd given Riddle back in the day.
5. Perrin Aybara from the Wheel of Time books - When this series started, I really loved it, and I found a lot to like about most of the cast, but Perrin.... eh. And you'd think him becoming a wolf brother would help, but ... eh. You'd think Faile, a perhaps divisive but certainly interesting woman, coming to be part of his story would help, but... eh. I just found his internal conflict completely lacking in impact and emotional connection. and in a series as wordy and retready as this one got I had a LOT of time to ruminate on him, to the point where he frustrates me more than most characters of this type normally would.
6. Romeo from Romeo and Juliet - I despise the main couple in this play, but out of the two, I find myself frustrated with Romeo a bit more. Juliet at least had the excuse of this being her first love or lust or whatever. Romeo had all the information to help him realize he needed to take a step back and ask himself if maybe he wasn't going a little overboard since his emotions seemed to pretty much just transfer to a new woman. Gah!
7. Thomas from Eyes of the Dragon - I get why he turned out the way he did. Flagg is a powerful persuasive force. but there were so many moments - SO many moments in this story I wanted to reach in and throttle him while screaming "Thomas! Look at your life! Look at your choices! You are better than this!"
8. Superman - I'm going to come out and say it - I don't like Superman. It feels like the DC world is separated into people who like Batman better than Superman and who like Superman better than Batman, and I am definitely in the first category. He works best when he is being an ideal, a person for us to strive to emulate, but those same traits that work best on him are also some of my least favorite. I've read stuff with him in it I enjoy, and there are objectively a TON of fantastic Superman stories, but of all the characters in all of comics, he's probably the one whose name being on the cover is most likely to give me second thoughts.
9. Marco from The Night Circus - This one is a little like Thomas, in that the frustration came from wanting and expecting him to be better than he ever was. He used people, looked down on them in a detatched way, messed with their minds and almost never seemed to have an inkling that maybe he was behaving poorly.
10. Bella from Twilight - I think she doesn't belong at 10 based on annoyance factor, but since I didn't actually finish the book, I didn't feel right putting it any higher. As for the reasons, there's a whole internet worth of people who have articulated it well and at length. No need to be repetitive.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Top Ten Tuesday: Settings I'd like to see
I'm thinking I may restart this blog with a bit of a meme, to ease back into trying to keep it up on a regular basis. And so, I decided to take a crack at this week's Top Ten Tuesday. This week the list is focused on the top settings you'd like seeing more in books.
I'm not sure I can come up with 10, especially since I'm mostly a fantasy reader, so I'll go with my top 5. :)
1. Snowy or icy countries: I grew up in upstate NY, so while we had plenty of warm times during the summer, there was also a great deal of snow. A GREAT deal. There are so many ways snow could be used to shape a plot and affect the atmosphere. Heavy snows that bar people inside can give you a claustrophobic feeling. The simple difficulty of walking down the street can add to tention. Let's see it!
2. Deserts: Same as above, but with a whole different set of difficulties. People sometimes go into a desert in fantasy, but a good chunk of the time it's just to have them almost dehydrate to death for some drama. But if something were largely set in a desert, with the different sorts of buildings, the different survival skills, etc? Fantastic opportunities.
3. Industrial Revolution New York: So much steampunk takes place in England! Why? I know they got much cooler and more fancy clothing, but I'd love to see some set in the fantasy-romanticized version of NY!
4. Grasslands: Open spaces, Hissing winds. Why are there always so many trees in fantasy? Everywhere people go, there are trees! I want to see the lands opened up, the horizon stretched out. I want to see what sort of towns would spring up without a lot of trees around. I want to know what sort of cultures would grow up around there. That could be fun.
5. Kitchy restaurants: A lot of fiction and urban fantasy takes place in diners, and some of it takes place in the nice, upscale restaurants, the sort of $30-plus-a-plate places that display the means of the characters involved. But we almost never get someone chowing down in an Applebees, surrounded by families, with the ballgame playing in the background. and I feel like this sort of setting could offer a lot of both humor and characterization (Especially for characters who might not usually choose to be in such a setting!)
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