10.05.2006

Okay, should be doing the actual mountains of laundry (I do believe they shall be able to be declared mountains shortly) but instead here I am blogging. It's all Becca's fault as I had to come into blogger to explain some html stuff for her and now that I'm here I have to post. Funny how I of all people am explaining html for someone. It is to laugh.

Okay, my picks for YA fantasy for this fall:

Twilight and New Moon by Stephanie Meyer. These are two vampire novels and though I can't honestly claim that the writing style is particularly good, they are incredibly addictive. She needs some work on her writing chops, but she's obviously a fab story teller. I read both 500pg novels in two days, and I really don't have the time to be a novel a day kind of person anymore but these were just too intriguing to put down. The first novel, Twilight, is better than the second. It's about a cheeky girl moving to a small town and meeting and falling in love with this vampire. Now yes, there is some similarity there to Buffy, but really I don't find the stories or the mythology that Meyer creates to be that similar. Her vampire mythology is quite interesting actually, I like what she's done with it. The only problem, as Kirtles pointed out, is that she makes these vampires so damn sexy and you just keep reading because it's pretty damn hot, but then you find out Meyer is a mormom so they're probably never going to boink. Yeesh.

Droughtlanders by Canadian author Carrie Mac. I put this book in here with a bit of a warning as it has many instances of rape in it, so might be better for some of the older YAs out there. It's a fabulous book about two brothers who are born in a priviledged part of a world and then are forced to recognize that they are a part of the Droughtlands, the land and people banished to the barren, disease-ridden wastelands outside the rich cities. One brother is the sensitive type and the other, not so much, but both have to learn things about their lives that force them to drastically re-evaluate themselves. It's well written and doesn't pull too many punches, which is nice to find in YA.

Avatars Book 1: So This Is How It Ends by Tui t. Sutherland. This book should be coming out this month and all I can say is READ IT! I'm calling it American Gods Lite. The unfortunately named author creates a world like ours where some weird stuff happens and all that is left are a bunch of teenagers who have been chosen as Avatars of gods from all different pantheons. I don't want to give too much away, because she's just creating the story here, of how the world changes and who these teenagers are but it's just such a great read. There's an actual geek character, not something you see so much in fantasy anymore, a guy who makes references to Buffy and new Battlestar Galactica episodes. So nice to see us represented in the lit that we read. But it's well researched, well-written, and so much fun to read. She knows that things must be somewhat less subtle because of her reading audience but in no way does it feel like she's dumbing things down.

1 Comments:

Blogger Pixie said...

Avatars came in to work yesterday (that's right, we now get new books to put away on Saturdays) and I did a little dance of happiness. Noreen looked at me funny. Some people just don't get it....

11:06 a.m.  

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