Cover Reveal: MORTAL GODS by Kendare Blake

Today, it is my pleasure to be part of Kendare Blake's on-going cover reveal for Book 2 of her latest GODDESS WAR series: MORTAL GODS.

Most of you might be more familiar with Blake's YA horror duology ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD and GIRL OF NIGHTMARES. Both Alz and I were fans of these books because of their interesting plots, endearing characters (we adore the main character Cas and featured ghost Anna), great voice, and of course, the blood and scares.

So I was understandably excited to hear that Blake's post-Anna project would be a modern day riff on Greek gods based on a very intriguing short story she'd written previously about the slow death of said gods. Those of you who have been poking around this blog for a while will know that I am a HUGE Greek mythology fan, but I've found most YA adaptations I've heard of uninteresting in premise or not very...on point (i.e. everything seems to be a retelling of the Persephone/Hades myth, which isn't exactly happy or what I would call romantic?).

But like I said, I enjoyed Blake's original short and was excited to see how she would expand that premise into novel-length works. Plus, her version of the gods (while younger-appearing than I would have thought) doesn't gloss over the often terrible things the gods have done in myth or that they are a contradictory bunch. Blake's horror chops are put to good use here too, unsurprisingly.

Book 1 is ANTIGODDESS. The original hardcover featured a more symbolic treatment, but the paperback was redesigned so that it would match the new design of MORTAL GODS (Book 2).



And now, here is the cover of MORTAL GODS, Book 2 of The Goddess War! SHINY!

Here are Kendare's thoughts on the redesign and her new cover.

When I heard the cover was being redesigned, I got immediately more attached to the existing cover. Because of course, you fear what might become of it. I loved the dark trees and the creepy owls and the overall black and blue feel of the first cover. But I tend to roll with things, and was excited to see what the talented folks at Tor would come up with next. And it's cool. The Mortal Gods cover I like especially because of the colors. I love those golds and chocolate tones. And the lightning! And Olympus! And Cassandra loud and proud. Careful readers might notice that Cassandra is not blond in the book, but the blond hair looks great with the rest of the cover, so let's just pretend that Olympus lighting is weird and makes her blond.

Thanks for letting us be part of your cover reveal, Kendare! SO excited to read the next chapter in Cassandra's (and everyone else's) story!


What do you think of the cover? Have any of you read ANTIGODDESS?

P.S. If you haven't read any of Kendare Blake's books, I think you should remedy that. :) Happy weekend!

ROOMIES Story & Giveaway

Right before Christmas 2013, a book about two girls who form a friendship over the summer when they find out their going to be freshmen roommates at the University of California, Berkeley had its book birthday. That book was ROOMIES by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando.

Unfortunately, since I've been in a reading funk I haven't read the book yet, but I was intrigued by the premise, the cute cover, and the fact that the two MCs were headed to my Real Life alma mater: UC Berkeley (Cal). On top of that, I was fortunate enough to have had incredible roommates for my entire college experience. So when I received an email asking bloggers to share a "roomie story" to help launch Sara and Tara's book tour for ROOMIES, I felt I had to participate!

AND at the end of this post, there's a chance for you, dear readers, to win a copy of the book!

But first, see if Sara and Tara are stopping by in your town and go out and see them if they are! Here are their tour dates:

January 12, 2014 – New York, NY: McNally Jackson
January 15, 2014 – Salt Lake City, UT: The King's English
January 16, 2014 – Provo, UT: Provo Library
February 4, 2014 – San Francisco, CA: Books Inc, Opera Plaza
February 5, 2015 – Petaluma, CA: Copperfield's Books


As I mentioned, I was super lucky when it came to my college roommates. I essentially lived with the same girls the 4 years I was there. Let's call my roommates M, S, and R. (There was a 5th roomie and she was wonderful too, but she only lived with us for the year that S was studying abroad.) I went to high school with M, my first roommate (the one I dorm-ed with), and after freshmen year, we moved out together to an apartment, which we shared with S & R.

Sure there were moments of frustration- undone dishes, trash that wasn't taken out before it started smelling up the place, pretty sure I hogged the TV (and that one corner of the couch)- but overall any roommate drama anxieties we might have had remained thankfully and mercifully in our heads. (At least, I thought so?)

We had so many fun and odd times that I don't know which one to pick - from living room picnics to late night cram sessions helped along by late-night sushi deliveries to seeing the newest Harry Potter movie at midnight! So instead of ONE story, I'm just going to share 3 incidents I recorded in my journal from our years living together at Cal.


From sophomore year of college: Toilet Troubles

This afternoon as I sat around doing whatever it is I do in the living room, I heard a cry for help. Literally. It went something along the lines of "HELP! BRING THE MOP!"

And then the phone rang, and I had a split-second moment of being torn between getting the mop and getting the phone. Then S said, "Believe me. THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT."

But I managed to get the phone (telemarketers) and the mop and ran to the bathroom, where there was a full blown Situation. It's not as nasty as it sounds. It was just toilet water, but it had overflowed and spilled out onto the tiles and was creeping its way across the tiled sink area. Luckily, our floor mats were unharmed.

So S and I spent a good hour (or so...or more) mopping it up and then Pinesol-ing that shizz, and the reason it took so long was because we tried to flush the toilet again. Bad idea.


From sophomore year of college: Finals Week

R went off to the library to study. She IMed me around midnight. The following ensued:

R: naked people!
Me: what?! where are you?!
R: did you know every semester during finals, naked people run through the library?
Me: i think i've heard that before...
Me: IT'S TRUE?!
R: LOL
Me: It's not even safe in the libraries!
R: it's sooo funny
R: embrace the berkeley culture.


From sophomore year of college: RE: Finishing a final

S: We went and we conquered.
M: Um, I don't know about conquered.
S: No, we vanquished that final. Destroyed it.
M: Annihilated.


From our senior year: A Momentous Occasion

November 28, 2007: We finally ran out of trash bags.

[Context for this is that at the end of freshman year, I had a ton of meal points left over. But at the time, meal points were basically like money at campus restaurants, cafes, convenience stores. So I used my considerable meal points to help furnish our new apartment. Basically, I bought a ton of trash bags - so much that we didn't need to by any until mid-way through our senior year!]

Over the course of 4 years, I lived with a bunch of smart, funny girls with minimal drama. I am so, so lucky to have had them as my roomies and to have them for friends.


GIVEAWAY Details: To enter to win a copy of ROOMIES from Little & Brown Books, please fill in the rafflecopter info below. Name and mailing address are required. Sorry international peeps, this is US only. Winner will be announced next Wednesday, 1/15.

a Rafflecopter giveaway



Q4U: What's your Roomie Story? Everyone's got one.

Randomosity on Fridays: Poetry Edition (Again)

Since it is still National Poetry Month, we thought we'd have another poetry post to see you through to the end of the month. Here's a poetry-themed Friday 5!

Ever since Lydia Kang and April Genevieve Tucholke poetry prompted each other to "atropine" last week and I joined in, we've been on a roll with the Twitter poetry prompts. We even had a few more people join in, namely Tere Kirkland and Erin Bowman. It's challenging and fun and a quick exercise for your literary muscles.

Lydia blogged about it at the Lucky 13s blog here: Three Notes on Poetry You can find us on Twitter under the hashtag #twtpoem. We'd love for your to join in!

The prompts so far: atropine, stitches, pulse, nicotine.

1) Here are our Twitter poems:

2) In other poetry news, this award-winning spoken word piece by Rachel Rostad has been floating around on the internet, and it's pretty badass. It's a good example of poetry as a platform for passion and discussion. Here's "To JK Rowling, from Cho Chang." (Disclaimer: I love the heck out of the Harry Potter series, but you gotta admit, Cho Chang kind of got shafted as a character, and for someone like me who was both surprised and pleased that for once an ASIAN GIRL was the hero's love interest, she ultimately was quite disappointing.)



And Rachel's thoughtful response to critiques of her piece. (In summary, she IS a Harry Potter fan and doesn't hate JK Rowling, but Harry Potter is a good place to start discussions of social justice because it's popular.)




3) Alz has shown herself to be quite the poet on the blog before. You can see her funny book haikus and rhymes if you click the "poetry" tag in the sidebar.

4) Last week, for Pocket Poetry Day, Elena did a really cool post at Novel Sounds pairing poetry with popular YA books.

5) My love for you is true. So here's more Tom Hiddleston reading poetry.

Tom Hiddleston - When You Are Old by W. B. Yeats

Shared from sweating-like-a-cornered-nun using Embeddlr

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Leave a few #twtpoems for us on Twitter just by using the hashtag or leave some in the comments! We'd love to see them! OR do you have any thoughts on Rachel Rostad's spoken-word piece?

Happy weekend, lovelies!

New Year / New Look

Happy Wednesday! I hope everyone had a marvelous weekend. I did because I got President's Day off, which meant 3 day weekend for reading, writing, and general lazing about. Mostly, reading and lazing happened.

BUT something else happened to. In fact, some of you may have already noticed that things look a little different here...

No, I didn't get a new look and go Dark Side.

After a couple of years (has it been that long, really?!) of birds on a wire, A NUDGE has finally gotten a blog makeover!

Farewell, sweet birdies!

I've been wanting to update the look for a while (though we did really love those birds), but I've not had the time or energy to find and implement something we both liked. Neither of us are designers or coders, so we're often limited to what we can find and google.

Enter the talented, generous, and wonderful Caroline Richmond! She writes and photographs already, but lucky for us, she recently delved into web design and is pretty flipping good at it! My internet addiction totally paid off when I happened to see her post offering free blog designs go up, and it was first come first serve. I had been thinking about changing the blog look again, so the timing could not have been more perfect.

All 3 designs were so cute it was hard to choose, but we settled on her Le Bold Design. I'm a fan of the clean, minimal blog look, but we're also all about the whimsy here. So I wanted some cute elements and/or bright colors. So Le Bold was perfect.

Caroline's "Le Bold" design mock-up.

Caroline was so supportive and cooperative in helping us get things looking just right - from pointing us to color palettes (this was a time-suck, let me tell you) to tweaking text for us to customizing our Page banners and sidebar social media buttons. AND she worked on and implemented the design over the long weekend while she was sick! (Caroline, I hope you're resting and much better now!)

So thanks to her hard work and to my figuring out how to make some simple elements/buttons myself, A NUDGE is debuting its new look today! Looking fresh and new, yes?

I encourage you to poke around the other pages, as I've made some updates to content there and in the sidebar (and also so my little flags get some attention, haha).

Check out Caroline's Designs Pinterest board and her blog to see more of her work.

THANK YOU, Caroline! We are so happy with our blog makeover! You are The Best, or as my sister and I like to say in German, die beste! :)


Q4U: What other talents do you have OR what skill/hobby have you been meaning to pick up?

Fancy Flower Friday

Krispy and I have an incredibly talented friend whose floral arrangements are all the more beautiful because she handcrafts every flower out of paper--scrapbooking paper, tissue, coffee filters, Q-tips, wire, and floral tape all come together with paint and bleach and hot glue and scissors to make a thing of beauty.

And then she does it again.

 

And again and again.

She does make some very gorgeous flowers and not only that, she arranges them too!  Her creations are so beautiful that people are always asking her to decorate.  I say she should charge them by the hour, or at least by the vase.  I mean look!  All the flowers in this post are for one particular event.  Our friend is a flower-making machine.

We all have our creative outlets.  For Krispy and me, it's writing and manatees and penmanship, among other things.  I tried out flower-making under our mutual friend's tutelage and, er, I haven't quite her patience or her nimble fingertips or experience, so mine are not pictured here.  They didn't come out half-bad, but that's largely because our friend did all the majority of the work painting and drying and folding and cutting and after she showed me how to assemble them, I merely finished up what she had done.

(This is the same friend who baked butterscotch Dalek cupcakes for Krispy's sister in the last post, by the way.)

She does some great stuff, eh?  She should get that Etsy store of hers open so she can send her flowers out into the world.  These won't wither and shed petals!  Good thing she gave me a tissue flower because I have a black thumb and murder every living flower I touch.

Have you tried any new crafts lately or learned crafts from a friend?

A Reflection on Ray Bradbury

Instead of randomosity this Friday, you're going to get something a little more serious.

As many of you have probably heard Ray Bradbury passed away earlier this week. He was 91, a ripe old age, but you wouldn't have known it from the youthfulness of his demeanor. I suppose that's why I was surprised by the news and then deeply saddened that I never did get to meet him.

Ray Bradbury is one of my literary heroes. I've long been interested in writing, but a door fell open when I read Bradbury. I thought, "THIS is beautiful and wistful and dark and provocative and, most importantly, unafraid. This is the kind of emotion I want to evoke. This is how you play with language."

My first introduction to Bradbury was in 7th grade. We read his short story "All Summer in a Day" about a classroom of children in a colony on Venus. The planet is very cloudy, and so the sun only shines on the surface once every seven years. I can tell you, it wasn't a very happy story and left me feeling uncomfortable, despite the story's resolution. And it's one of his stories that has stayed with me since then; it was powerful. Bradbury drew me in, despite the initial sci-fi trappings - sci-fi (for some reason) has always been a hard sell for me, even though I usually end up liking whatever it is I read/watch - because he wrote about something familiar and true like children in a classroom and their capacity for careless cruelty and put it in a strange, new landscape.

The next time I encountered Bradbury's work was in 10th grade Honors English, when we had to read Fahrenheit 451 for class. I'll be honest, I wasn't that into it at first. The writing style was a tad weird - much more loose with the metaphors than "All Summer..." had been - and I just didn't know what was going on. Also, it was a summer reading assignment. But the story grew on me, and while it's still not my favorite book, it is a compelling, important one with themes that continue to resonate today - perhaps more so now than before.


And then I read The Illustrated Man and became a fan. I bought the beautiful hardback book From the Dust Returned and was delighted to find something equally beautiful inside. I fell in love with Bradbury's eternal family of ghouls, vampires, and dream seers. I stood in human Timothy's shoes and wished and wished that I could fly with Uncle Einar as I listened to the dry whispers of A Thousand Times Great Grandmere. I fell in love with the slippery, fluttering words, and the way they strummed my heartstrings.

I was hooked.

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” - Ray Bradbury

His writing and his attitude towards life and creativity taught me so much. His stories took me out into space and far into the future and showed me the worst of man, but they also showed why we're worth saving. They taught me about madness and love and longing and cruelty and kindness. They taught me families come in all shapes, sizes, and species, and that there is magic in ordinary places - that dark carnivals can roll into sleepy, little towns. They warned, enchanted, provoked, and moved me. I learned to cherish the past and look towards the future but to always live in the present.

A few years ago, when I was still in college, Ray Bradbury did a book tour with his biographer, Sam Weller, for his biography. I was, unfortunately, up at Berkeley at the time for school, but the Sister did me a huge favor and went for me. I never got to meet Ray Bradbury, but at least I have an autograph and a cat thanks to my sister. (Also, it's possibly better this meeting never happened because I probably would have said/done something embarrassing, haha.)

The world is a dimmer place without him, but it has certainly benefited from his prolific work.

"If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you."

Well, Mr. Bradbury, I want to grow up to be like you. Wherever you are, I'm sure you're already spinning new yarns about greater, shinier horizons. Thank you, sir, for the fantastic worlds, timeless summers, and for sharing your vibrant imagination. Thank you for the adventures, for filling my eyes with wonder, and for the memories. You're already missed.

Not sure who did the art, but img source: Goweli

Q4U: Have you read any Bradbury, and if so, what's your favorite?


QUOTES

"Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories."

"You must live life at the top of your voice! At the top of your lungs shout and listen to the echoes."

LINKS

• Ray Bradbury Quotes: Wisdom From 'Fahrenheit 451' Author
• My original reaction to the news - A Few Words on Ray Bradbury
• Beth Revis' post Ray Bradbury and his Gift of Hope
• Bradbury Story in The New Yorker -"Take Me Home"

APA Month Feature: Beverly Ealdama

My, my, May is just flying by! I had no idea it was already so close to the end of the month! So many apologies for slacking a bit on the blogging and APA Month front.

I'm here to make it up to you dears in a big way! I've got some APA book-related ideas, lined up a guest post, AND we'll be doing a Day in the Life feature at Sophia's blog in the very near future.

And TODAY, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing you all to a sweet and talented gal from my hometown, Miss Beverly Ealdama! Not only is she a Harry Potter-loving, adorable dog-owning, and inspiring Asian American lady, she's also a fabulous artist/doodler!

1" bookworm pins

memories by beverly ealdama

Photo Courtesy of Beverly

1. A little about Beverly in her own words.

I am a artist/doodler/bookworm from southern California. I’ve spent the last 3 years following my creative pursuits including illustration, collage, zines, and mail art. I’m currently participating in Sketchbook Project 2012 and Sketchbook Project Limited Edition. I live for live music, my two dogs (Nacho and Wiggles), and spontaneous road trips.


2. Ah, spontaneous road trips! I need some of those in my life! I love that you have a degree in chemistry, but you're pursuing art. How did you get started on this path?

I went into the chemistry major with plans of continuing to pharmacy school. I heard it was a growing field with good pay so I went with it. I didn’t take into account what I wanted because truth be told, I had no idea. I learned that I liked art a LOT more than I liked science. I spent a lot of time doodling in my notebook during lecture and sketching portraits of my professors and classmates. I scribbled down lyrics from memory and experimented with letters. I enjoyed illustrating my assignments more than being in the laboratory. But I still finished my chemistry degree. Why? I’m still figuring it out, but I know a big part of it was fear. I was too concerned with what other people thought. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to provide for my mother later on. I was afraid I wasn’t good enough.

After I graduated, I realized that I’d rather follow my heart and see where it takes me than spend my whole life wishing I did. A few months later I enrolled in art classes at a community college. Being in the studio was a welcome transition and I was ecstatic to have the chance to focus solely on building my creative muscle. The classes gave me the confidence to start posting my drawings on Flickr and Tumblr. I received a big positive response, which I was not expecting at all. I started submitting my images to blogs and began participating in collaborative projects. Then I opened an Etsy shop to sell zines, artwork, and buttons. I’m happy to say it’s grown steadily over the last few months! I’m extremely grateful for all the support I’ve received.


3. That was a brave choice and very inspiring! Being in the wanting-to-write-books field, I can say I've had those feelings and doubts too! Heck, I still have them. What inspires your pieces?

Everyday life. Relationships with family and friends. A stranger at the supermarket. Geometry. Music. The euphoria from seeing my favorite bands in concert and singing along with them to a song that helped me through rough times.

4. So what exactly are 'zines'?

Zines are small circulation magazines or books that are self-published. They be about anything: politics, poetry, comics, photos, drawings, recipes, you name it. I started my zine A Million City Lights about two years ago. I’d never done anything like it before. It definitely was a challenge to go from an idea in my head, to choosing which drawings to use, to printing, and then to finished product. Lots of trial and error!

I draw all the elements on paper and scan them into Photoshop where I clean up the images. I print and assemble each issue then bind the pages together using embroidery thread. I think the hand-stitched element adds a special touch to my zines.


5. Self-published AND hand-bound! Since you're an artist, as well as a fellow bookworm, what are some of your favorite book covers?

The Harry Potter series as illustrated by Mary Grandpre, particularly the cover for HP and The Order of The Phoenix. I also love The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Actually all of Eric Carle’s covers are great.


6. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of my favorite picture books because of the wonderful art, so I can't agree more about Eric Carle's art! Can you please recommend a book you've read recently?

Unwind by Neal Shusterman. Thought-provoking, suspenseful, slightly disturbing YA dystopian fiction.


7. The month of May is Asian/Pacific Islander American Heritage Month. As such, I'd love to know, does your heritage play a role in your art/creative pursuits?

It does. I put a lot of personal stories in my drawings so naturally my heritage is a part of that. I am a first generation Filipino American and I still struggle with my sense of identity. It’s difficult growing up with two different sets of cultural norms and values. One thing that has inspired me lately is the importance of family in the Filipino culture. My triangle drawings create a visual of this, with each shape supporting one another. The triangles range in sizes and each has an important role in creating the bigger shape.

triangles no. 4 by Beverly Ealdama / Flickr

8. Bonus fun question: Which House would the Sorting Hat put you in?
Ravenclaw!

9. Zombies or Unicorns?
Zombies, hands down.

Oh boo, I'm totally Team Unicorn, but that's okay. Zombies are cool too, and in the end, we're still both Ravenclaws! ;) Thanks for the interview, Beverly!

Be sure to check out Beverly and her art on the web! You can find her at:

Beverly Ealdama on etsy
BeverlyEaldama.com
Twitter: @beverly_e

And if you have any questions for Beverly, feel free to contact her directly or leave them in the comments here! We hope you enjoyed this feature!

Q4U: What's your Harry Potter House / Zombies or Unicorns?


P.S. Check out another awesome APA feature at Sophia's: SubtleSkeptics and Kien Lam Photography

Spring Into the Future Book Tour 2012

I feel like I haven't chatted with you guys in a while, probably because my last two posts were word-vomit Walls of Text about the Hunger Games movie (HG Part 1, HG Part 2). THANK YOU, btw, for sticking through those. I loved hearing your opinions, and I totally meant to reply to those of you who left comments, but it's been busy-busy in Real Life.

Now, we're sort of back to our regularly scheduled programming!

Last week, Alz, Sophia, and I went to the LA stop of the Spring Into the Future Book Tour, featuring Anna Carey (Eve), Cynthia Hand (Unearthly and Hallowed), Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me), Veronica Rossi (Under the Never Sky), and special guest Marie Lu (Legend).

This was very exciting for me because it was my first YA Q&A/signing event. I know, I live in the Los Angeles area, how is this possible? Well, I hate driving (I know - totally crazy for a So-Californian to say, but I do), and many of the other YA book tours that have come through that I've been interested in going to have been relatively far away from me, which would force me to navigate unknown freeways and neighborhoods. Also, this is not ideal when it is a weekday night (infamous LA Rush Hours are infamous for a reason). SO, I was quite pleased to learn the LA stop was going to be in a familiar locale for me! :D

Also exciting was meeting Miss Tahereh in person because I feel like I've been chatting with her forever over blogs and Twitter.

Anyway, PICS:

Sophia picked up a copy of Under the Never Sky, a signed bookmark, and a signed poster.


Signing all the things...


So a few months ago, Sophia met Marie Lu on the Breathless Reads tour and helped me get my copy of Legend signed. The "Boba4Life" shout-out was a bonus. Marie Lu remembered this encounter, and somehow this led to everyone on this end of the table finding out Sophia was the first iPod silhouette. Which led to...

Sophia signing an autograph for Tahereh!

Finally meeting Tahereh in person.

Tahereh is as sweet and funny as she is online, though perhaps a tad less CAPS LOCKY, but awesome nonetheless. She also has amazing, very height-advantageous shoes. Hugs were exchanged and I was glad I wore shoes with heels. It was also revealed that my real name is not actually @kangaru.

She also brought cool swag - namely this super shiny, metallic bookmark with very appropriate quote from the book. Isn't it pretty?

I was also sporting "Shatter Me" nails, mostly because I had this nail polish set I hadn't used yet, and they were appropriately the colors of the book cover. For those interested in nail things: base coat was Chanel "Black Satin", followed by a coat of OPI "Spark de Triomphe" (a shimmery gold glitter), topped with OPI Shatter in White, and then top coated.

Me & Sophia- I don't know why we match.

Have you been to any book tours / signings? Or met internet peeps in real life? See you all Friday for a return to randomosity and schneizeleffort! :)

Randomosity on Fridays

Happy Friday, everyone! Thanks for the book recs and for the birthday wishes to Alz! I'm actually reading The Fox Inheritance because it's due back to the library soon, but I think I'll either hit up THE NIGHT CIRCUS or DEATHLESS next!

Another thing, we're having a SPECIAL GIVEAWAY of ali cross' debut novel BECOME. It's running for a week, meaning we're closing the giveaway on NOV 23, right before Thanksgiving!

There are plenty of chances to win the novel from ali's blog tour and the Become epic giveaway organized by Christine Fonseca and Elana Johnson, but our stop is the only one where you can get an ALZ DOODLE BOOK COVER to go with it! Just sayin'. :)

So do check that out. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment (and contact info if your email is not linked to your blogger profile) on Alz's review!

Now, FRIDAY 5 of things I am happy about this week.

1. Birthdays! This week marked Alz's birthday, my facebook wifey's birthday, and my college roommate's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, all you amazing, lovely women!

2. I finally finished my stupid section of Alz and my joint noveling venture. I know, it's taken me long enough, but in my defense, I totally forgot I was supposed to write the carnage section! Instead, I was too busy having my Heroine-in-Distress argue with a Demon Dog and banter cutely with a Punch Clock Villain, who really isn't a villain at all. He's just really dedicated to the job. So maybe he's more of an Obstructive Bureaucrat?

(Yeah, I've been reading too many TVtropes.)

3. New posters for The Avengers came out Thursday. That means a new picture of Loki, whom I love and therefore I probably wouldn't mind his whole plan to take over the world and make himself our Norse godly overlord. I mean look at him in all his golden green mischievousness.

4. SPEAKING OF MISCHIEF, I was part of a Scavenger Hunt team this weekend aptly named the Mischief Managers. We did the Watson Adventures Wizard School scavenger hunt at the Getty museum (which incidentally was used as an Asgardian location in THOR). The hunt used Harry Potter references in the clues to lead us to pieces of art that were reminiscent of things in the books, and then we had to answer questions about the art. Our team was competing against 2 teams of small children (and their guardians) and a couple.

Uh, so WE WON the hunt, which means we destroyed small children this weekend. I am both slightly ashamed and proud - the first because some of those small children were pretty disappointed and the second because um, WE WON WITH A PERFECT SCORE. Yeah, that's right. Mischief SO managed.

5. RELATED SEGUE, there's a new episode of Potter Puppet Pals out. It's called Neville's birthday. I like drunk!Snape and the birthday song. Oh, and the special appearance of one Cedric Diggory (aka Rpattz aka Edward Cullen - oh yeah, look at me working in a Breaking Dawn reference too because that's out today, I know.)




WHEW, and that's all the brilliant segueing I have left for today. Alz thinks my boba milk tea must be super special today given all the connections I'm making. Hah!

OH AND ONE MORE CONNECTION, speaking of boba, tune in next week for another episode of my co-vlog with Sophia: Boba 4 Life. We'll finally be answering Lori's 5 Question Meme!

That's it for realz this time. Have a great weekend, everyone! Remember to ENTER THE GIVEAWAY and watch out for Twihards. ;)

What Happy Things have happened to you this week?

Blog Tour & Book Review: BECOME by ALI CROSS

Welcome to the next stop on the Dark C.A.R.M.A. Tour! Here we'll be having at Ali Cross's new YA novel Become.

A little story first: Ali Cross asked Krispy to review Become and sent her a copy. Krispy started to read it but was too busy to get very far, whereas I had a little more time and read the whole thing. Ali asked for honest feedback and so we told her the truth: Krispy hadn't gotten far enough to form a real opinion and I had a number of issues with the book and therefore didn't feel comfortable reviewing it.

Herein shines Ali's awesomeness and literary integrity: She asked me to review the book anyway, and proposed a very special giveaway for this stop on her blogalicious tour. Her candor, humor, and stance on honesty should be lauded and applauded. Ali is fearless. No wonder she runs a ninja dojo.  From my understanding, she looks a little something like this:
 

Only, you know, she's like 10,000x more awesome.

Anyway, dear folks, here's info on the amazing giveaway we have courtesy of the equally amazing Ali! Comment on this post (and include your email if it's not linked to your blogger profile) and you will be entered to win an exclusive paperback edition of Become with a special Alz "this book sucks" cover. The giveaway will be open for a week, with a winner picked at random and announced on Nov. 23rd.


Buy the book:
Amazon! Paperback style!
Amazon! Kindle lovin'!
Barnes & Noble! Nookie nook!
Smashwords! Ebooktabulous!

Meet Ali Cross:
Blog!
Twitter!
Facebook!

Now, onward to the review!

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Become by Ali Cross

Pros: Interesting take on combining Christianity and Norse mythology; touches upon issues such as teenage alcoholism and suicide; protagonist does struggle with making choices.

Cons: Some very important plot points and worldbuilding details are glossed over, never sufficiently explained, or inexplicably vanish; many characters are archetypes with no real personality, including the heroine; the clop-clop-clopping of drama llama hooves echoes within the vaults of the protagonist's cathedral of angst.



Okay, so this is St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, but I imagine
Desolation looks like this deep inside, llama included.


Intellectual Rating: 2.75 out of 10 stars
Emotional Grade: F+

Book Blurb: (from Goodreads) Sixteen-year old Desolation Black wants nothing more than to stay in Hell where it’s cold and lonely and totally predictable. Instead, she’s sent back to Earth where she must face the evil she despises and the good she always feared.

When Desi is forced to embrace her inner demon, she assumes her choice has been made—that she has no hope of being anything other than what her father, Lucifer, has created her to be. What she doesn’t count on, is finding a reason to change—something she’s never had before—a friend.

Alz's Take: This book definitely feels like it has a bigger picture in mind than the simple angel-demon-forbidden-romance-mysterious-past that plagues the world of YA. Themes of morality, faith, friendship, fidelity, redemption, teenage suicide and alcoholism, and the good ol' struggle to find yourself in a confusing and dangerous world—these are high goals, and I respect that.

And therefore I weep, weep tears of blood that the story never actually scores a goal with regards to any of those themes. They're there, and they're touched upon, but the actual exploration thereof is shallow at best—the book dips a toe into these deep waters and then draws it back with an angsty sigh, instead choosing to wade through the shallows.

Desolation hates her father and doesn't want to embrace her dark side and Become a Sith Lord true demon because…I'm not really sure why, actually. Her teenage rebellion seems to be teenage rebellion for the sake of teenage rebellion, and she hates her father because he's Lucifer. Which sounds fairly reasonable until you start to think about it because he actually seems like one of the more decent YA fathers I've read: he cares about his daughter's welfare and has concern for her future, is encouraging her to pursue an active vocation (albeit one that involves evil), he provides for her emotionally and even materialistically to the point that this girl living in Hell has an iPod, Doc Martens, and tons of teenage human stuff in her room.

I always picture her with emo hair.


Lucifer doesn't appear all that threatening or evil. In fact, after a while my sympathies actually began to lie with the Father of Lies because sheesh, this guy has to deal with such an emo rebel-without-a-cause daughter—and yet he does so with fondly amused tolerance and relative good nature. Yes, Alz has sympathy for the devil, folks. I'm sure that will surprise none of you, especially Krispy.

At any rate, the story seems to be banking on preconceived notions of of-course-Lucifer-is-evil-and-Desolation-should-hate-and-rebel-against-him instead of actually developing a conflicting relationship between them based on personality, morality, and character. Desi doesn't want to become evil, but why? Is it because she doesn't believe in evil? Is it because the thought of torturing souls horrifies her? Does she secretly just want to be free of her father and live her life as she chooses?

I finished the whole book and I don't know. And since this is the central conflict of the story—Desolation's struggle between good and evil—that's not good.

On the flipside, does Desolation even want to be good? What is the difference between light and dark? Is there a gray side to any of this? Can the "right" choice sometimes be a dark one? What is morality? Does how we define ourselves have an effect upon what we choose to perceive as good and evil?

Again, I don't know. It feels like the story was based on these themes and kind of nibbles around the edges of them with no actual thematic exploration. This was particularly frustrating since the setup is so great: a girl struggling with her inner nature and trying to find herself in a world that sees her as a force of evil.

Desolation's character and conflict are interesting conceptually but the execution leaves something to be desired the way an unsalted soup leaves something to be desired: it's missing a surprisingly crucial ingredient that adds savor generally taken for granted.

A steaming bowl of Desolation soup.

I was frequently puzzled by Desolation. She'd swing from feeling Love and Light and Wanting to Do the Right Thing to Anger and Emo and Wanting to Be Alone within the space of a single page, and I never understood why. She's a snarky teen one moment and a despairing demon of woe the next. I actually thought for a while that maybe she was bipolar, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

There's a very important scene that I'm going to see if I can carefully skirt around right now because I'm avoiding spoilers. Let's see how specifically vague I can be. Basically, something really horrible happened and Desolation took matters into her own hands, meting out what I personally thought was a big glass of richly-deserved fresh-squeezed justice.

Once Desolation realized what she had done though, she was just horrified and mentally beat herself up for what she had done. Which I kind of understand—it's a reasonable reaction—but never once does it ever cross her mind that maybe she did a good thing, or that this situation warranted her actions, or feel some sense of satisfaction that comeuppance got served, hell yeah, hot off the lunchline.

So that's Desolation Black (no relation to Sirius Black). There are other characters whom come forth like perfectly formed chocolates from the silicone molds of stereotypes: Desolation's BFF/maternal figure is the Hooker with a Heart of Gold, Michael is the Noble Warrior, Akaros is the Cruel Forbidding Mentor, Daniel is the Criminal Millionare Douchebag.

Speaking of Daniel, I have no idea what he looks like. The guy is a tool in more than one sense of the word, though mainly he's a tool that provides ritzy lodgings and everything a teenage girl could materialistically desire for Desi, is occasionally a jerkface, and is generally so unimportant that he vanishes near the end of the book for no explicable reason.

Daniel is never, ever described physically. I have no idea if he's dwarfishly short or gigantically tall, Herculeanly athletic or a big fat ball of lard. He might have seventy-five feet of gloriously golden magical hair and like to cross-dress for all I know.

Daniel?

This is an example of the technical issues the book has—sometimes characters and places aren't described enough or even at all. The magical/theological system is interesting as it mixes Nordic and Christian elements, but important plot points are so vaguely described I didn't understand what Etc. meant or why it was so important, even though it's so very important and powerful that Lucifer even now is fighting for it. What is it, exactly, and how does it work?

Looking at the book in terms of story construction, I was pleasantly surprised when I went back and reread some sections—there were a few clues to Desi's past and true nature tucked in here and there that I had totally missed because they were so innocuous at the time. That was cool, though I do feel like maybe they were a little too obscure to set up for the Big Reveal.

On the other hand, the pacing is more all over the place than an ADHD-afflicted duck on a disco dance floor. It's slow and then it's fast and then it's slow and then it's confusing and then it's more confusing and then it's all rush-rush-rush to the end. Characters suddenly appear but they've got terminal cases of Told-Not-Shown because we're told they're important and told why and told that they care about what's going on because…uh, because. Things happen suddenly! And then other things happen! And now it's time for a dramatic end, see you in book two!

But enough of all that. Let's talk romance! If you're a fan of the Destined Troo Luv type o' romantic entanglement, you'll probably like what's offered up here. Unfortunately, some narrative flaws muck up the story to the point where I was never entirely sure how much Desolation knew about Michael and her own mysterious past. It jarred me quite a bit because one moment she was pondering who Michael was and why she seemed to know him, and then suddenly a few pages later she was talking about him like she'd remembered everything and I'd somehow missed her mnemonic epiphany—and yet later, she seemed to have forgotten, only to remember.

And since the book is first-person narration, all that's a problem. I was confused.

The story involves numerous plotlines and ideas that never quite build up to a perfect whole. As I read I kept on expecting details and plot points to be explained and come together, since it seemed like the book was taking the immersive worldbuilding approach, which is my favorite. But by the end, I was still confused—about Desi's past, her motivations, why she hates her father, the mechanics of the world mythology and magic, where these other characters came from, and what, in general, the hell is going on.




Alz's Conclusion: Keep in mind that I am Alz, AKA Picky McPickerson, Lord of Judgment and Demon of Criticality. Unlike other books that actively pissed me off or disgusted me because they treated delicate issues offensively and went for shock value above good storytelling, Become is based on philosophical questions and thought-provoking themes that are never quite done justice. Technical and narrative flaws bog down the rest of story to the point that it becomes a whirlpool of confusion into which I was trapped, helplessly trapped and spun around, grasping for something to ground me and being frustrated because so many things tantalizingly brushed my fingertips before I was again swept away.

All that aside, I can honestly say that while the book didn't suit my taste, the trappings of angels, teenage angst, and a semi-anti-heroine will probably appeal to any number of people. This Alz just ain't one of them.

All pictures not doodled by Alz are courtesy of Wikipedia.