Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Obsidian in Paperback

Read from December 26 to December 30

I know my reading page said I was still reading Days of Blood and Starlight, but I had to set that one aside because I just wasn't getting into it. Maybe it was because it didn't quite live up to the first book, or maybe I just needed a break from that world, but I had to put it back into the rotation of books to read. And in the mean time, I picked up Obsidian.

I can't say it was recommended by anyone, but my favorite book vlogger has talked about it, and when I saw the first two books on sale on Amazon, I jumped at the chance to get them. Because I'm addicted to buying books, of course. I'm sure you guys have figured that out by now. Anyway, I started reading it with only a vague idea of what it was about. Something about hot aliens living next door. I wasn't really paying attention while I read it, either. I just sort of picked it up when I felt like reading, and didn't invest much effort into it. It was good, but for what I could tell it was not the best thing I had ever read.

But then something surprising happened. I found myself picking it up a lot. I read it during commercial breaks while watching my favorite drama (Spring Waltz, if you're curious), I read it before passing out at bedtime,  and any other moment I could convince myself it was okay to read -- meaning not a work, unfortunately.

There was just something about the main character, Katy, and how she reacted to everything. Honestly, the whole story was just a tiny bit like Twilight, but better. Sure, it was about a teenage girl who moves to a small town and meets a hotter-than-humanly-possible teenage boy and things happen. The differences were many, and I think the author of Obsidian handled the whole thing a lot better than Stephenie Meyer did. The biggest reason I say this is because Katy, unlike Bella, doesn't take any crap from anyone. She is a spunky teenager who kind of reminds me of myself, and even as she is physically attracted to the main guy, Daemon, she refuses to let that physical attraction get in the way of telling him off when he's being a jerk.

And he's a jerk to her a lot. He definitely runs hot and cold around her, but after reading the whole thing, including the bits of bonus chapters at the end that are told from his point of view, it all makes sense. He is a whole person, a well rounded character who acts consistent with his personality. He's not going to be my favorite book guy, no matter how gorgeously he's described, but he feels like a real character, and that's what counts.

The world building was great, the plot flowed fairly well, and the language wasn't horrible. It had it's moments of being overly flowery when describing how Katy felt about Daemon, but it did so in a way that made sense, so it can be forgiven.

My favorite part of it all? The fact that Katy saved the day in the end. Other than the obvious ones like Hunger Games and Divergent, it's been my experience that if there is a guy who can do everything and is hotter than hot, he's going to be the one saving the day, even if it's from the girl's point of view. Sure, the girl sometimes helps, but that's about it. With this one, not only did Katy save the day once, but she did it twice.

And then there's a little something at the end of the book that made me squeal and want to read the sequel, Onyx. It's a spoiler so I'm not going to say more, but it was really good and well done.

Rating: Keeper. Possibly Re-readable.

Have you read anything where you didn't like the guy but you could understand why the girl did? How about when you couldn't understand why the girl liked the guy? Tell me about it in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

You, Who Came from the Stars

In the void left by The Heirs ending on SBS here in S. Korea, a new drama has started. In Korean it's 별에서 온 그대, and the English translation is You, Who Came from the Stars. Since I needed a new drama to watch, and now had my Wednesday/Thursday drama slot open, and because the ever handsome Kim Soohyun is the star, I decided on this particular drama. And from the first moment I knew I had chosen right.

Sometimes it takes me a few episodes to really get into a drama. Sure, the handsome guys sort of keep me coming, just to watch them, but after getting through the first few episodes the actual story and other characters have to interest me, or else I stop watching. And with Stars, man. It was love at first sight.

The story is about an alien who came to Earth -- and S. Korea -- 400 years ago and has been living in S. Korea, waiting for the next opportunity to return home. Except he has now fallen in love with the biggest Hallyu star in Korea. At least, that's the story. He hasn't fallen for her yet. If you're curious, Hallyu is the word used to describe the wave of Korean media spread throughout most of Asia and some of the world. Like K-Pop and the K-Dramas. I have a blog post about that planned for the future.

So far, I've only see tfour episodes of this new drama, so I can't really explain what it is that has me so enthralled. Other than Kim Soohyun, I mean. I haven't see enough to figure it out myself. I know that I like the female lead, which is important in my book, and I really like the worldbuilding that has been done to give Kim Soohyun super powers, but aside from that, I can't put it into words. I just love it.

Sometimes drama episodes can seem really long. Well, they are really long, compared to American TV. And sometimes it is kind of boring, so I glance at the clock to see how much time I have left. Or it's really exciting and I want to check the clock to see how much time I have left. Either way, I'm looking at the clock to see how much time I have left.

During thee out of four of the episodes I've watched so far, my eyes have been so glued to the screen I haven't even thought to look at the clock. Which of course leads to surprise and a little bit of outrage when the episode ends seemingly out of the blue because I wasn't paying attention to the time. But the drama is just too good to complain about something like that. The fourth episode was just tad boring, with a lot of talking and discussing a death that happened. 

I highly recommend watching this drama, at least so far. There are still seventeen episodes to go, but I have a feeling it will continue to be good. And who doesn't want to watch Kim Soohyun and his amazing acting? (You can't see it, but I'm smiling like a goof just thinking about Kim Soohyun.)

What K-Drama are you currently watching? Tell me about it in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Wicked or How I Rejoined the Civilized World

Sunday I went with a friend up into Seoul to see Wicked. It was my first time in at least three years going to see a musical or anything else shown in a real theater -- other than The Nutcracker two Christmas' ago -- and the first time I've seen Wicked. I've heard a lot about it, and for a very long time, but since it's never been showed near where I've lived, then I haven't had a chance to go see it. And while the tickets were a tad expensive, as Broadway or Off-Broadway tickets are wont to be, I jumped at the chance to get a good dose of sophistication and culture. I may be a nerd and a giggly fan girl and a military woman, but I'm also a woman who enjoys things like art museums, orchestral concerts, and musicals.

Going into Wicked, I wasn't sure if it would be in English or Korean. All the advertisements for it that I had seen on the TV showed clips from the original Broadway cast, and there was nothing I could find anywhere that gave me a clue, at least until we got to the theater and saw the posters of the actors, who were all Korean. Also beforehand, I didn't know anything about the story. I knew that it was supposed to be a prequel to the Wizard of Oz, and I knew it was from the Wicked Witch's perspective, but that was all I knew.

I'm not going to try to explain what it's about, because I tried to tell my mom about it, and I think it all came out wrong. So I'll just say it was amazing. The story was exactly the kind of story that I love to hear about, and the stage was phenomenal. I'm really not used to seeing stages like that. I usually can't afford $60+ tickets so I used to go to high school musicals and local theaters, and their stages wouldn't be able to even come close to everything the Charlotte Theater did for Wicked. And the costumes were beautiful and very colorful and really showed off the characters' personalities quite well. And the VOICES. Oh heavens the voices were just amazing. I don't normally like female singers, particularly Korean female singers, but the woman who played Elphaba -- the Wicked Witch -- had such a beautiful, full voice.

The only problem I had was the entire musical was in Korean, and I've said this before, my Korean isn't all that great. I understood enough to know what was going on, but there were some parts where I missed things and so didn't understand motivations and the like. And with no previous experience with the show, I had no frame for reference. But with that said, I did understand more than I had expected, which was a pleasant surprise.

There are a few more musicals I want to see that are either playing right now or will be playing in January and February. It will be expensive, but I've been craving sophistication -- especially surrounded by unsophisticated military men -- for so long that I think I can pull together enough money to pull it off. So in the next couple of months I'm going to go see S. Korea's production of Ghost, The Three Musketeers, and The Moon Embracing the Sun, which is based on a Korean drama which in turn is based on a Korean novel. And I loved the drama, and am trying to read the book, so of course I have to go see the musical!

Do you enjoy musicals and concerts? If so, what was the last one you went to? Tell me about it in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Winter

So winter is finally here in the wonderful country of South Korea. There’s snow on the ground, the average temperature is in the teens, and people are slipping and sliding on the ice like it’s a skating ballet. It’s been a long time since I lived through a real winter, and I've discovered I really like winter. Yeah, it’s cold, it’s slick, and it’s really cold, but still. It’s beautiful.

On the way home from work on Thursday, it was snowing. It was the big, fluffy kind of snow that muffles everything in the world. It was late in the evening as it was, so there few people out and about, and with the snow and my thick, heavy coat the whole world was quiet and peaceful. It was beautiful, and atmospheric, and so many other words that I can’t think of that would adequately describe how I felt walking home. 

I haven't really been able to appreciate the beauty of winter in a long while. Several years, at least. Yes, each Christmas for the last two years I've spent time at home in Iowa with my family, but one of those years it didn't snow very much, and the other year I wasn't really paying much attention. And the year before that I was getting ready to joining the military so I wasn't really focused on the world around me, the year before that we were in Utah, and it's not always a White Christmas there. So to have all this snow and to have the time and opportunity to really enjoy it, it really makes me think.

It's moments like this that inspire me. Moments when I feel like I'm all alone in the world, isolated by the weather and shown a new way to look at things, either through fog or snow or rain or moonlight. It's a perfect time to reflect; on my life, and on my place in the world.

That sounds so philosophical and mature and grown up, but really while I'm walking through moments like these all I'm thinking is "This is so beautiful and peaceful and quiet, it's like there are no other annoying people disrupting my world. This is perfect for some story setting."

Winter is not my favorite season. That distinction goes to Autumn, although with the climate change there is becoming less and less of that everywhere. But for all the downsides to Winter, it really is a beautiful time of year and I wouldn't skip it for anything.

What is your favorite season and why? Tell me about it in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

K-Dramas or How The Heirs Blew Me Away

It's no secret that I love watching Korean Dramas. Not many Westerners do, so whenever I talk about them at work I always get people telling me how dumb or clique or silly or any other adjective that described their dislike. But for me, K-Dramas are a refreshing breeze and are much cleaner than most American TV. There are some American shows that I like, but a lot of stuff now a days are either full of things I don't want to watch or have been going on forever and there is no way I'd be able to watch it all.

K-Dramas though, only last one season of 16-24 episodes. They are like a novel, one story that has a beginning and an end, instead of a series of mini stories that have no ending. I don't get to watch them much anymore, after arriving in S. Korea, because the website I normally watch them on doesn't have the rights to play them in Korea. However, I do get to watch a few when they are playing live. While this is a lot of fun and keeps me from marathoning them like I have in the past, there is the downside of no subtitles, and my Korean isn't that great. It's good enough, but not great.

So far, I've watch two dramas as they aired. The first one was called Two Weeks, and started Lee Min Ki as a former gangster who gets framed for a very violent murder and has to escape the police and the gangsters who want him dead long enough for him to go through a surgery that will save the life of his daughter. It was a very emotional drama and it had a great ending.

Then I watched The Heirs. There was so much expectation going into this drama. First the lead male was played by Lee Min Ho, who is a very popular, very tall, and very handsome actor from the likes of Boys over Flowers and City Hunter. Then the lead male's older brother was played by an actor I recently noticed and fell in love with because of his FANTASTIC deep voice (I'm a sucker for deep voices; must have been all that late night NPR) and his absolutely brilliant smile -- when he happens to smile, anyway. Then there was the second string male, Kim Woo Bin from one of the School dramas, who also has a deep voice and this exotically handsome face that I wasn't sure about at first but fell head over heels for by the end of the show.

What made me love this drama, other than the wonderful male cast, was the writers turned most of K-Drama stereotypes head over tail. Main guy was good, second string was jerk. Main guy's (real) mom was good. Horrible girl rival mellowed by the end. Etc. Yes, this is a drama about rich teenagers, so there's a lot of pettiness and  teenager-y things, but half the time  the teenagers were all making mature choices and decisions, and then dealing with the consequences like adults. For the most part, anyway. Lee Min Ho had a moment of weakness where he just self-destructed, which was really hard to watch.

But there was a lot of themes of different kinds of love, repairing relationships, and family throughout the whole drama, as well as a good thread of becoming better people and learning to get along. It was so phenomenal that I will most definitely buy it and watch it again, and this time hopefully be able to understand a lot more about motivations and the like, most of which I missed because they used vocab I am not familiar with.

If anyone wants to watch a good, cutesy romance that is a refreshing change from most out there, this is the one to watch.

The only problem I really had was with the English in the first two episodes, which are set in L.A. S. Korea's idea of what American's are like is really sad and depressing.

Have you seen The Heirs? Have you seen anything else with the main actors, Lee Min Ho and Park Shin Hye? Tell me what you thought in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor

Read from December 10 to December 12.

Now this is the kind of book I love to read. Where the language is beautiful and lyrical and evocative, almost on the verge of becoming Purple Prose. This is also the kind of book I want my novels to be like.

The beginning was... interesting. There were a few things that I raised my eyebrows at, but they were quickly over and I moved past them. After that, everything was a wild, mysterious, and wildly beautiful ride towards the end. I loved how except for a few scenes, the entire book was set in Prague, which is not a usual setting for a young adult novel. And one one scene out of the whole thing was in the United States. A certain aspect, not unlike one I made up a month ago for my own trilogy, gives the book the world as its stage.

The story was just fabulous. I was thrown for a loop on several twists, although I did predict one big one pretty far in advance. It was a story unlike anything I've ready before, and in YA that's always refreshing. Because like it or not YA tends to recycle the same story with different settings and characters. It has nothing to do with the lack of imagination of the writers and everything to do with the market. Teens tend to read the same type of story, gobbling up as much as they can get of what they like. And so the publishers try to churn out as much as they can of that kind of story until the market gets overrun with the same story. It's the nature of the game. So when I find something that is unique, a trend starter if you will, I always get a little thrill. This is something new, something original.

There were a couple of things I had a tiny problem with. One; There was no such thing as an average looking person. Everyone was beautiful or hideous. There was no in between, which isn't like real life at all. Mind you, this is a fantasy though and through, and there were definite reasons for the beauty and horror, but at the same time, it would have been nice to have at least a few characters who were normal. Two; It seems like writers don't know how to do real first aid.

Let me elaborate. In Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children one of the characters get's shot in the shoulder area. At least, that's the impression I got with the description. The other characters put a tourniquet on him. In Daughter of Smoke and Bone, a character get's mauled from "collarbone to bicep" and another character puts a tourniquet on him. Now, I'm not an expert, but I have been certified in professional level first aid before (years ago). And you don't put tourniquet's on injuries on those locations. It's physically impossible. So either I am imagining the injuries wrong, or the authors didn't do their research properly.

Those two things were minor compared to all the good things about this beautiful, haunting novel.

Rating: Re-Readable.

Have you read a book where the author didn't do their research and you could tell? What book was it? Tell me about it in the comments!

Have you read Daughter of Smoke and Bone? If you have, tell me what you thought in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

I Should Have Known

So sometimes I bite off more than I can chew. I'm just going to go ahead and say that right now. Chances are, I'm probably not going to end up finishing 2014 with six novels. I'm going to try, but as commenter Melody pointed out, I'm at a pretty exciting time in my life and I should be LIVING life, not sitting holed up in my dorm room all day every day.

I'll give you a quick example of how things usually go.

For NaNoWriMo last month, I hit the 50k mark on the 21st. It was pretty exciting, but it was also a little depressing, because I wasn't even halfway done with the story and I only had a week and a half left in the month. Since I wanted to finish the novel before the end of the month, I set up this elaborate plan that involved writing between 6,000 and 9,000 words a day so that I would be able to finish on time. It was a little bit intense, but I figured I would be able to do it.

I was able to keep up with this plan for maybe two days. And that wore me out, so the next couple of days I wrote nothing. Which put me even further behind. So I set new, crazier goals to finish on time, and that worked for one day. And I exhausted myself and didn't write for another few days and then the month was over.

And since the end of the month, I haven't really touched it again. I need to, because I have to have it finished before the new year so that I can start my new story, but I have to recognize that I can't set ridiculously high goals for myself, because I won't be able to reach them.

And I think that is a good thing. Even in life, I always have high expectations and plans for things like college and jobs and stuff like that, and I usually make it too hard for myself, and nothing ends up actually getting done. As in everything, moderation is the key.

So I'm setting a new goal for myself and for the coming year (a little early, I know.) From now on, I'm going to do my best to keep my goals realistic so that I can actually reach these goals. If this means I have to adjust previously made goals (like my Six in 14 Project) then so be it. Because I want to be reached goals, and it is so much better to surpass goals than to fall short.

What are ways you keep goals realistic? I would love to hear about them in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Eleanor & Park, by Rainbow Rowell

Read from December 6 to December 9.

Back in October I read Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell. It was a fabulous book that I couldn't put down. I could really relate to the main character, and while it wasn't the kind of book I usually read (it's contemporary YA) it was just such a wonderful read. It left me with a bit of a book hangover afterwards of course, but sometimes the best books do.

Since I loved Fangirl so much, I wanted to read Rowell's other books. So when I saw Eleanor & Park on the shelves at the English bookstore, I jumped at the chance to get it. And I started reading it as soon as I could.

At first, it took a little bit of getting used to. Within the first couple of pages there was a surprising plethora of vulgar swear words, and on top of that I wasn't entirely sure I liked how the romance started. So I only read a little at a time, and for the most part it just sat on my night table unread. I wanted to finish it though, because I wanted to be able to say that I read it. I don't want to be the reader that doesn't finish books anymore.

So I sat down after work and started reading, determined to make at least a little headway. And then I pushed past the awkward beginning and couldn't put it down. First I was sure that I would be able to finish it on the 10th. I would read a little past the halfway point and then read the rest tomorrow after work. But I couldn't put it down, I just kept reading. I had to find out what happened to Eleanor, I had to find out how the relationship turned out.

It's heartbreaking. It's a really heartbreaking story about first love and real life and growing up. But it was the best teen romance I have read in a really long time, if ever. Because most of the time I don't like teen romance. Maybe it's because I'm cynical towards romance in general, but I really don't like it when teen romances (especially played up in YA fantasy) have the couple staying together. And feeling like they would die without the other. Because it's not realistic, and I have to have some realism in all the fantasy I read.

On top of that I really dislike insta-romance that happens a lot in YA fantasy (which is my normal genre.) Insta-romance is also very unrealistic and it always leaves me wondering why the couple are together. What makes them stay together? What do they even know about each other?

Eleanor & Park was not like this. The romance between the two grew slowly and naturally, kind of like how my first relationship had grown. It was refreshing, and because the story was told from both points of view I could see why each side liked the other and how they fell for the other. It made sense, and it was a beautiful first love.

Rainbow Rowell is very quickly becoming a favorite author because the relationships she writes about feel so real and natural, and her writing style just draws me right in.

Rating: Re-Readable

What do you think about the romances in books you've read? What are some of your pet peeves about romance?

Have you read Eleanor & Park? I would love to hear your thoughts! Tell me in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Allegiant, by Veronica Roth

Read from December 2 until December 6.

I started reading this with a lot of trepidation. I really liked the previous two, and I read Insurgent (book two) in one sitting. And when Allegiant came out, all of the book bloggers I follow didn't know whether to love or hate the book, so I knew something really big was going to happen at the end. I knew that it would be something potentially book hangover inducing, so I was a little reluctant to actually get into it. I wanted to see how the story ended, but I didn't want the story to end. I wasn't ready to part with Tris and Tobias, not ready to leave the world they lived in. So it took me a couple of days to really start reading, and then to really gain the momentum needed to reach the end.

The first two hundred pages I took pretty slow. It wasn't that the book was slow, far from it. But like I said before, I wasn't sure if I was going to like the ending, and I didn't want to be let down. I had so many expectations, most of them pretty high. And I didn't want to be let down, so I took the book at a slower pace than I normally read.

And then today I had two long train rides so I decided that it was time to finish it. I finished it a few stops before returning home.

The ending was not what I expected. And I can understand why people would be unable to decide between loving it or hating it. I'm not going to say anything that would spoil it, because I personally hate spoilers, but I will say that the ending fit perfectly. It was a bittersweet ending, but there was no other way to do it. Veronica Roth was able to do what few authors can pull off well. If she had done it any differently I wouldn't have liked it as much. And I really liked the ending. Sure, the couple didn't end up together, and sure there was a lot of sadness, but it felt like the right ending. You know?

Rating: Keeper

Have you read Allegiant? If you have, tell me what you liked or didn't like about it in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Hello, my name is...

Before I continuing posting any more, I figured I should introduce myself. Hello everyone, my name is Rabbit.

So, I'm going to do this in just a quick, bullet list because I don't actually like talking about myself too much. I'm not a very interesting person -- at least I don't think so -- and I just wanted to make a quick post so that you call have have a little idea about me while you read my posts.

• I was born in 1989. Meaning I'm 24 right now. This will change in the future, but as of right now, I'm 24.
• I am the oldest of five children, and the only girl. This means I am slightly more comfortable talking with guys than I am with girls.
• I was homeschooled until the middle of my junior year of high school.
• I am shy and a bit of an introvert.
• I learned how to read later than most people.
• But once I started reading I became a bookworm.
• My favorite book genres are Fantasy, Science Fiction, and some Mystery.
• I am a very enthusiastic and positive person. Sometimes too positive.
• I think I started writing stories when I was 11. I'm not exactly sure.
• Growing up I wanted to be a journalist, veterinarian, marine biologist, paramedic, ballerina, etc.
• Ever since starting to write stories I have wanted to be a published writer. It's been the only constant in my life.
• I am addicted to buying books.
• I am a great listener, and usually end up making friends with people who other people don't like.
• I discovered K-pop (S. Korean pop music) at the beginning of 2011 and it's become my favorite music genre.
• I learned how to play the piano for about five years before quitting, and quitting is one of my life regrets.
• I usually go more for the lean, almost skinny pretty boys than I do muscular manly men.
• I studied Korean and speak it pretty well. Although I could always use improvement.
• I am currently serving in the US Air Force, following in a family tradition of military service.
• I love watching Korean dramas.
• Lastly, and probably most importantly (at least to me) I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and a Christian.

If you have any questions about me or what I do or what I plan on doing with this blog in the future, please don't hesitate to ask me in the comments.

And thanks for reading!

City of Glass, by Cassandra Clare

I swear, I don't normally read this much, or this fast. Honestly, I shouldn't be, either. I have a novel to finish writing, and I need to start planning my projects for next year. But I must have caught a bad case o the reader bug, because I can't stop reading, no matter what I get my hands on.

City of Glass is the third book in what was supposed to be a trilogy. It even has an ending that wraps everything up pretty nicely, with only a few thin treads sticking out, waiting to be plucked out and woven into a new story, which comes in the later books. Which I probably won't read.

First, I'd like to give some kudos to Cassandra Clare for writing a story and plot that pulled me along and kept its grip on me right up to the end, despite the fact that I hate the characters. Not just a few of them, no, I really hated all of the characters. That doesn't mean I didn't care what happened to them. No, Clare is a good enough writer that I couldn't help but care and worry and fret about what was going to happen to them, which is why I couldn't put it down. But I still disliked just about every last one of them. Which is hard to do, because I don't normally dislike people.

The characters weren't the only thing I had problems with. I still don't really like a lot of the language that Clare uses to describe things. They aren't natural descriptors, and sometimes it throws me off. I can't say it doesn't work, because she's published and I'm not, but it's just not something I like to read very often.

And once again, I have to say good job to Clare, because I am more than a little jealous of her ability to write actions scenes. They flow so well and draw you forward until you are reading and flipping pages frantically, desperate to know how the characters make it out of the horrifying mess.

Overall, it was okay. I was glad to finally reach the part where the thing that disgusted me from the first book was refuted. Admittedly I saw it from a million miles away from all the foreshadowing, but still. I was glad to finally get that over with. Now they can finally get together without all the whiny, mopey, guilty feelings getting in the way. Hallelujah!

Also, I still hate teenagers.

Rating: Keeper. For now.

Have you read City of Glass? If you have, tell me about your experience reading it in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs

Again, this was written back on December 2nd, but scheduled for today because of reasons stated before.

I didn't mean to read this book. Honestly, I didn't. I had heard good things about it, sure, and I knew I wanted to read it at some point in the future, but I didn't think that would be today. Or yesterday, really, because I started and finished it on December 1st. But I was at the library to do something on the computers, and I can't go into a library without checking out the shelves, whether I plan on getting something or not. And then I saw Miss Peregrine sitting on the shelf.

It was like trying to resist a siren's song. So even though my current To-Read list is long and I have a little bit of order in what I plan on reading, I grabbed Miss Peregrine and checked it out. Again, I wasn't planning on reading it right away. I had two books on my urgent read list, and I wanted to finish those first before reading anything else. And on top of that I still had to finish my novel and start planning my novels for next year, so needless to say I was going to let it sit on my library shelf until I had a little more time.

And it didn't happen like that. After finishing City of Ashes, I was a little reluctant to jump right into City of Glass, which was at the top of my urgent read list. I needed a breather from all the bad similes and from Jace's jerk-ness. So I decided to start reading Miss Peregrine. I thought I could just read a handful of pages to get started. I didn't really know what to expect, because the blurb on the inside cover is VERY misleading.

So instead of just reading a little bit, I found myself devouring the book. I couldn't put it down. There was just something about the way it was written, something about the tone of the book that dragged me under like a riptide and refused to let me go. I was so enthralled by the book that -- even though I had a very important test in the morning that I needed to be well rested for -- I stayed up late reading until I finished it.

Part of it was the language. It was like a breath of fresh air after reading City of Bones and City of Ashes back to back. The language flowed so smoothly I never had to stop to wonder what I was reading or what the author was trying to describe.

The characters were believable as well. I felt like I could connect with the main character, Jacob, because he is an ordinary person -- to some extent -- and he had the reactions of a normal person.

The only real problem I had with Miss Peregrine was it was over too soon. Thankfully, book two -- Hollow City -- comes out in January.

Rating: Re-Readable. This is definitely a book I will be purchasing -- since I read it as a library book -- and I will probably read it again and again and again.

Have you read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children? If you have, I want to hear what you thought about it! Tell me in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

City of Ashes, by Cassandra Clare - Review

Just a quick note, I wrote this review on December 1st, because that's when I finished the book. But because I wanted to wait to post this until after my post about my plans for reviewing the books I read, I scheduled it for later.

Let me preface this review by talking a little bit about my history with The Mortal Instruments. I read the first one, City of Bones, years ago. I think I was twenty. I had picked it up at the bookstore because it looked like something I could get into. I like these kinds of books, about hidden supernatural worlds with monster and monster slayers and things like that. So I read it.

City of Bones was okay. I had read worse, and I managed to finish it, which was a good sign. But I HATED the ending. So much so that I refused to read the books that came after it. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. So, I donated the book to a thrift store, forgot about it and moved on with my life.

Cut ahead to early 2013. My best friend and I were at the movies and we saw the preview for the City of Bones movie. I commented on how I hadn't like the book, and my best friend got really mad at me for not finishing the rest of the books. She said the horrible ending I had read fixed itself in later books, I just had to get there. So, because my best friend insisted, and because the movie preview looked really good, I picked up the book again and started reading it for the second time, so I could remember what happened before reading the next book.

And this time around I couldn't get past the first hundred pages. Maybe it was because I was older and more mature and had gotten into this 'I hate teenagers' funk, but the dialogue grated on my nerves and I couldn't stand how the main guy treated everyone. So I stopped reading, resigned to never reading the books again.

Of course, then the movie came out and while I missed seeing it in theaters, when it came to iTunes I bought it in a fit of boredom and watched it. And I loved it. The movie took all the best parts of the book and made all the bad parts better, and the actors took all the bad dialogue and made it believable. I liked the movie so much that as soon as it was over I started watching it again.

So, with the movie fresh in my mind, I hesitantly started reading City of Bones again, and this time I was able to get through the book easier. I could see in my head the actors and hear their voices, and it made the book a little better. I still hated the ending, but since the movie kind of spoiled the twist, I knew it wasn't real and could get past it.

So then I started reading the next book, City of Ashes. This is where the review starts.

I'm not going to talk a whole lot about it, because I'm not the greatest at reviewing things. I did like the book, to some extent, though there were a few things that I didn't like. It was a fairly quick and easy read, especially after my sudden bout of reading recently, and with all the point of view changes, it was cool to see through the eyes of all the characters, to see what made them tick. The plot line is really interesting, and it flows pretty well. As I have heard other people say, Cassandra Clare really does have good grasp of how to handle action scenes well. I never felt lost, and it seemed logical.

Now, here are the things I had problems with. I still don't like Jace, the main guy. In my opinion -- and I know I'm going to get hate for this -- he is a jerk and overly demanding and only thinks of himself. He has a mouth that always gets him in trouble and he has no idea how to control it, which always made me yell at the book every time his lack of brain/mouth filter got him in trouble.

I dislike the way the romance is handled in City of Ashes, as well as in City of Bones. And this is a problem I have with a lot of Young Adult books. The romance doesn't feel real to me. It feels too much like either puppy love or lust, not real love, and a lot of the times there isn't a natural development of the relationship. It's more like insta-romance. And then on top of that how the teenagers feel about the romance is always blown way out of proportion. I can't live without him. I would die if she died. He is the only reason I can go on. My whole life revolves around you. Now I'm not saying that isn't a normal thing. I think a lot of teenagers feel like that when they are in their first relationships. I just don't like it because I have a bit of a cynical view on relationships and romance.

The last thing I didn't like was the way Cassandra Clare handled Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane. Now, I am not against homosexual people. I realize that people make choices, and I'm not going to say anything about those choices. That's not what this is about. I am going to say that, at least to me, Alec and Magnus felt less like a legitimate thing that developed in a normal way, and more like the author giving Alec someone to get his mind off of his unrequited love for Jace. Yes, they are side characters, but I expect even side characters to be like real people, not like cardboard cut outs just thrown in here to cover all the bases.

Overall, the book was good. I finished it, which says a lot considering my finished/didn't finish record with a lot of books, and it will probably stay on my shelf alongside City of Bones.

I have made the decision not to rate books, at least not in the traditional sense. Mostly because I don't feel qualified to do that to books that are published, when I have nothing to my name. So instead, I'm just going to put all the books I review into three different categories; Re-readable, Keeper and Pass-Along. Re-readable is self-explanatory.  For Keepers, it will stay on my shelf, at least until I run out of room and have to weed things out. And for Pass-Along, I will donate it to the library for other people to enjoy it. Hopefully this will be a better way of 'rating' the books I read, and will make it easier for you to make a decision about whether you want to read it or not.

Rating: Keeper

Have you read City of Ashes? If you have, tell me what you thought about it in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

On Reading

While I may be a writer, first and foremost I am a reader. I started reading a little late in life, but once I was reading, I devoured everything I could find that interested me. And a lot of it, to my mother's chagrin, was fantasy. And that has stuck with me my entire life. Fantasy is what I gravitate towards when picking books to read. And this includes all the different kinds of fantasy; Lord of the Rings style high fantasy, Harry Potter style contemporary fantasy, The Dresden Files style urban fantasy.

For the last few years, I haven't read much. The demands of my training and job didn't leave time for frivolous activities like reading. So I fell behind in a lot of areas. And this last October I decided to get back into reading, because I started to have time again.

I've never tracked my reading before, but in October I read nine books. Admittedly some of them I was just finishing what I had already started, but I finished nine books. And it felt so good to be getting back into reading. I discovered Book Tube online, and lots of fun book reviewers, and learned of a whole community of readers that share their love of the written word with everyone. This lead me to discovering books I never would have read otherwise, some of which have become my favorite books of the year.

There are a lot of books out there that I want to read. Too many to read in one lifetime. And so many of the novels I have read in the past have been lost in a fog of memory. I can remember vaguely what I read, but I can't remember what I liked about it, or disliked, and some I can't remember what they were called even if I remember liking it.

In an attempt to keep this from happening again, I have decided to start documenting my reading and writing short little reviews for future reference. As I read things and finish things I plan on posting these brief reviews on this blog, for both reader and writer to benefit from.

I have already decided that I will have scheduled posts every Sunday and Thursday. Interspersed among these posts I will have the book reviews as I finish reading, and updates on my various writing projects, in an attempt to keep myself accountable and moving forward.

Man, I sound so stuffy today. I promise future posts will be more fun to read!

And For 2014...

As I have said before, I'm starting to set some goals for my writing that will help push me towards my ultimate goal of being a published writer. This is going to be hard with my job, because I work 12 hour days when I do work, and my weekends tend to be full of things that have to get done while I have free time. But if I'm ever going to be a published writer, I have to bite the bullet, put my shoulder to the wheel, my nose to the grindstone, etc., and just write anyways.

I've thought about trying all different NaNoWriMo related or inspired challenges. I've even thought about doing milwordy, which is an insane challenge to do one million words in 365 days. Now THAT is a challenge. But I have to be realistic with myself, and as much as I want to try milwordy, I already have a full time job, and I can't add a second full time job into the mix. It just isn't going to work.

So, working with my limitations and abilities, I've come up with my own project/challenge for 2014. I decided to call it 'Six in 14', because I'm going to attempt to write six novels in 2014. That comes up to a novel every two months, which is doable. If I write on all my days off, of course.

The biggest reason I decided on six novels instead of a specific word count for the year is my favorite author and my hero, Brandon Sanderson, wrote six novels before publishing his first -- his sixth was Elantris. I can't consider myself on the same level as him -- because I'm not even close -- but I figured it was a good place to start. If anything, at the end of 2014 I will have six un-publishable novels and a better understanding of what works and what doesn't, as well as the knowledge that I can sit down and write novels.

Of course, this will also be accompanied with my attempt to get back into reading again. Because writers have to read. And I haven't been very good at reading -- finishing, really -- anything for the last couple of years. So I want to try to keep it a decent, doable amount of four books a month. Minimum of course, because I can read more than that. Which should come out to about 48 books for the whole year. So six novels written, 48 novels read. This is going to be an interesting year.

NaNoWriMo, a history report

As someone who wants to be a published writer, I take every opportunity I can to find an excuse to write. For the last seven years one of the biggest excuse has been NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a month long 'event' that started in 1999 with the goal of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. It started out with less than 30 people participating the first time, and this year over 300,000 people have made the leap into writer-dom.

Like I said, I've been doing this for seven years. I started in 2007 when I discovered it while looking for writing contests on the internet. I didn't do so great that first year. I was still a teenager, and back then I had almost no stick-to-it power. I think I wrote maybe 600 words on a story about a young girl who discovered she was a witch -- after dressing up like one for Halloween -- and she traveled to the Witch World, which was very much Halloween inspired. Needless to say it was a failure, but I hadn't really invested much into the NaNo-ing community and I quickly put in out of my mind.

2008 was the first year I won. I wrote just a little over the required 50k about a girl who discovers that she is the reincarnation of the Greek goddess Artemis. I even named the novel Huntress. It was a fun story to write, and a lot of my friends liked it a lot. And this was around the same time that Greek mythology was all the rage with the Percy Jackson series, so theoretically I could have done something with it. But, again, I was still young and in an attempt to actually reach the 50k, I had padded the story like crazy. There were descriptions of books the main character was reading, the most elaborate birthday party I could think of, I refused to use contractions, and because I finished the actual story before 50k, I started the -- horrible-- sequel to fill in the end. When I went through and took all the fluff out and fixed the lack of contractions, I reduced the word out to a poor 20k. I still consider it my first completed novel, but it has gone through so many revisions since the beginning that it is barely recognizable as the same story.

2009 and 2010 were not the best years. Life got in the way a lot, and even though I had finished a novel before, I somehow was unable to recreate the magical circumstances that allowed me win previously. In 2009 I tried my hand at a mystery with a generous dash of fantasy. It was about a detective whose -- unknown -- younger sister could see the past because walls kept echos of everything, and she could see those echos. I got maybe 25k into the story before I gave up. It wasn't entertaining, and the characters were all too much like cardboard cutouts. So instead, I tried switching to something else and jumped around maybe ten different stories for the remaining 25k. I sort of considered it a win, because I reached 50k, but I didn't finish a novel, so it wasn't the same.

Then I did about the same thing in 2010. Only this time I was trying to work with high fantasy. The story was interesting, about a young lady who -- through her various adventures -- becomes the Shieldmaiden Empress of the land. If I had a better understanding of writing and plotting and important things like that, I suppose I would have been able to finish this story. But, I didn't get more than 10k, and probably not even that. And like in 2009, I finished the rest of the month jumping from story to story, unable to stick with any one idea. It was another disaster, and I ended the year feeling like a fraud.

2011 was when life decided to really kick things into gear and I joined the United States Air Force. This has been one of the best decisions of my life, but it meant that for a few years I wouldn't be able to write with any kind of consistency. 2011 I was learning Korean for my new job, which didn't leave much time for writing. I tried, because the siren call of NaNoWriMo is hard to ignore. But the story I decided to go with was not the best thing I could have gone with. It was about a group of people who accidentally get sucked through a wormhole into a fantasy world, and all the dangers they face there. Half of my characters were based on real people, which made them incredibly hard to write, and while I probably would have finished it, my homework load at the time was such that I had zero time left over to write. Because homework had to come first. It was my job, after all.

Then in 2012, I was determined NOT to do NaNoWriMo. All of my learning and studying Korean was heading for a major test in the middle of November, and if I didn't pass this test, my life would take a horrifying nosedive. So, I wasn't going to do it. I wasn't going to do it right up until I was doing it on November 1st. I'm telling you, it's hard to say no to NaNoWriMo. So in between studying for this test and my homework, I tried to write a story about a group of farmers and fishermen in a little bay being the only thing that is stopping a massive invasion from a land across the sea. I broke personal records with this story. The first Saturday of the month I wrote an amazing 17k, the most I had ever written in one day. But after that day, I couldn't get myself to write anymore. I hated the main female character more than I had ever hated a character before, and I had no idea how the farmers and fishermen were going to repel this army that was supposed to come through. So I stopped and just focused on my studies.

This year, 2013, has been an amazing year. I passed all my tests and graduated from my two schools, then started working at my real job with the Air Force. I moved to a new country, and FINALLY had time to really write. So this year, I was determined to win, for real like in 2008. And I tried something new.

For the most part in the past, I've been more of a hobby writer, and a pantser -- which is a term used in the NaNo community to mean someone who writes by the seat of their pants. Just pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and writing whatever comes to mind. While thinking about my writing and during a particular writing crisis I had -- did I really want to write and publish for a living? What was I doing to accomplish this? -- I decided that pantsing was not working for me. And while I had always kept it in my mind that I wanted to publish, my real attitude towards writing has always been leaning more towards hobby instead of profession. So this year I wanted to work towards being a real writer. So for NaNo 2013 I sat down in October and spent the entire month plotting and outlining and getting things ready so when November came around, I just had to write the story. I wouldn't have to think about what happened next, I would just have to write.

And it worked. This year I chose a story about twin brothers who live in a modern era of a fantasy world. And these twins get sent back in time with the goal of stopping a Godwar from happening. And because I had plotted everything already, it was easier to write. Of course, I let myself do a little pantsing, because where's the fun in just following the outline, so some things I wrote ended up surprising me. But overall, it's been loads easier than any year I've done before. And I reached 50k on November 21st, which made me giddy and excited, even though the story wasn't even halfway done.

And then, because I had reached the month's word count goal, I stopped. I knew I still had to finish the novel, but I spent a few days recovering from my intensive writing days and just basking in the wonderful feeling of reaching 50k 9 days early. Then I dove back into the story and tried to finish. Of course, life still got in the way with a major Doctor Who event, and Thanksgiving and the like, but I pushed forward and kept moving towards that goal of finishing the novel.

Unfortunately, I haven't finished the novel. I went too many days with writing nothing, and was over 20k left in the story, it wasn't possible to finish in time.

But I learned something this year, something important that makes me want to keep writing no matter what. I learned that even though writing is hard -- which I knew already -- writing and reaching goals and finishing things is so rewarding and worth doing. I learned that -- despite my misgivings in the past and my 'do I really want to publish' crisis -- I do want to write and publish and that if I just work hard on it, as hard as I have worked at my job in the Air Force, then I can reach my goals, and I can fulfill my dreams and I can become the writer I want to be.

So this NaNoWriMo has been an amazing year of discovery and learning, and I can't wait for next November so I can keep learning more and more.