YA Superlative Blogfest 2013: Head of Class

It's Monday and there's a blog post! Why? Because it's Day 1 of the 2013 YA Superlatives Blogfest!

About the blogfest: The Class of 2013: YA Superlative Blogfest will run Monday, December 16th – Thursday, December 19th and will highlight our favorite books of 2013. This year, the lovely hosts Jessica Love, Tracey Neithercott, Alison Miller, and Katy Upperman will also be giving away books to bloggers who participate in all 4 days of the fest. Click the banner for more info!

If you join in, don't forget to link up at one of the host blogs! There's a prize for participating every day!

*Disclaimer: We tried to choose books published in 2013, but it's possible we used some older books since we were both more diverse in our reading this year. In some cases, it was the last book in a series that came out in 2013, but we may talk about the series as a whole.

The topic of the day is HEAD OF CLASS, and we're sharing our favorite 2013 YA books.

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Favorite Dystopian: The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken & Dualed by Elsie Chapman

Alz: I had some plausibility detail issues with The Darkest Minds, and really there wasn't much of a plot since 80% of the book was wandering around/traveling, but I have to admit that it was pretty gripping while reading.  Also, the romance aspect was definitely much better done than typical YA dystopia as it wasn't insta-love and the dude love interest wasn't douchey, angsty, or stalker-possessive.  He was actually a nice guy.

Krispy: I had a few issues with Dualed, much of which ended up being the fault of preconceptions I had going into the book. I expected Dualed to follow the path of many a YA dystopian before it, but the book didn't and once I let my own expectations go, it was a fun ride.

You can get my full thoughts by looking at my full review of Dualed.



Favorite Science Fiction: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

Alz: Krispy loooooved this book way more than I did, one of the few instances where we disagree by more than a star's worth on Goodreads.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed The Fifth Wave even if I found it to be predictable and not really anything new as far as the alien invasion aspect goes.  It had interesting characters, tons of action, and post-apocalyptic survival.

Krispy: There was a lot of hype for this one, which always makes me wary. But once I started this book, I could hardly put it down. It was thrilling and epic and also quite moving in parts. This one was a bit of a genre bender too because it's quite post-apocalyptic and action-y/adventure-y.



Favorite Fantasy: The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

You might remember from last year's Superlatives blogfest that both of us loved Maggie Stiefvater's 1st Raven Cycle book, The Raven Boys. This year's follow-up The Dream Thieves was no exception. We actually read quite a few great fantasy novels this year, but the reason this one takes the top spot is the fact that though we may not know (or have any idea) where the story is going, we would follow these characters anywhere. The premise is unique, the world-building seamless, and the characters are each so complex and distinct, with equal amounts wit and heart and despair. We can't wait to see what they'll discover.


Pick 2 for Alz: The Girl with Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti - This book doesn't have a plot, and so the hints of bigger worlds and fantastic creatures remain mostly hints--the focus is on the protagonist and her relationships with people like her psychologically abusive father, her expressionless closest-thing-to-a-friend, and the free-spirited shapeshifter who learns as much from her as she teaches him.  The complexities of character interaction coupled with some truly beautiful and poetic writing made for one astonished but happy Alz, who is normally disinterested in plotless/contemporary romance books.

Pick 2 for Krispy: The Lumatere Chronicles by Melina Marchetta - I was a complete Marchetta newbie until this year when I finally read Finnikin of the Rock, Book 1 in The Lumatere Chronicles. I was completely blown away by how mature the themes were (how many fantasy books discuss the effects of diaspora on a people's national and cultural identity?) and how deftly Marchetta navigated the well-trod waters of traditional fantasy while handling a big ensemble cast and multiple story lines. The storytelling in this trilogy is masterful. I have never cared so much about so many different people in one series, and she made me feel for them all. She made me change my mind about characters I didn't even like!



Favorite Contemporary: The Girl with Borrowed Wings by Rinsai Rossetti and Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Alz: I already gushed above about The Girl with Borrowed Wings.  I just really unexpectedly loved it.  There it was on the library shelf with its cool title and pretty cover and I picked it up and read a few pages and was like, Hey, this is pretty well-written, and I took it home and I read it and I loved it and now I actually own a copy because it just hit all the right notes and didn't try to be anything other than what it was.  Ah!


Krispy: I read a bit more Contemporary this year than usual, but the one that moved me the most was probably Just One Day. It sounds like a typical contemp-romance, but it turns into a story about how sometimes chance encounters can transform a person's life. I related a lot to Allyson's struggles and her feelings of being sort of stuck in her life. And it's Gayle Forman, so the writing was wonderful.

Check out my full review of Just One Day for my more detailed impressions.



Favorite Historical Fiction: The Peculiars by Maureen Doyle McQuerry and The FitzOsbornes at War by Michelle Cooper

Alz: All right, so technically The Peculiars falls under "alternate history" and "steampunk" more than what you'd think of when you hear "historical fiction", but I'm chucking it under this category because this was yet another book that I read on a whim and unexpectedly liked.  For one thing, that pretty winged girl on the cover is not the protagonist, who is afflicted with goblinism--which is to say she has very, very long fingers and toes, and worries that she might have the petty-mindedness and thieving nature associated with goblins.  The plot follows Lena Mattacascar hieing out on her own and dealing with a society that views her as less than human, which makes for some great social and cultural worldbuilding.  Ignore the over-hyping book blurb because most of the exciting stuff doesn't happen until the last quarter of the book, but that doesn't mean that what comes before isn't still interesting.

Krispy: The FitzOsbornes at War was probably the only historical I read this year (I never did get around to ROSE UNDER FIRE, the companion to my favorite historical last year CODE NAME VERITY). However, I did enjoy this 3rd book in Michelle Cooper's Montmaray trilogy. It was a fitting conclusion to the tale of the fictional family of impoverished Montmaray royals living in England during World War II. I loved these characters enough to follow them through 3 books, and it was nice but sad to see where they ended up and to say goodbye to them.


Favorite Mystery: 17 & Gone by Nova Ren Suma

  

Krispy: It looks like I was the Mystery reader this year! While 17& Gone wasn't exactly a traditional mystery, it is the mystery of a missing girl that gets the main character Lauren's own journey going. In a very well-crafted use of magical realism, Nova Ren Suma mixes the missing girl mystery with the slow unraveling of Lauren's mind while also exploring the larger theme of missing girls and how society treats them. It was fantastic, not knowing what was relevant or what was real or not.

Honorable Mention: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke gets a mention because like any good gothic, there's a creepy mystery at the center of the book's small, sea-swept town. But it was really the setting and voice that drew me into this story.


Favorite Paranormal: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Krispy: Just me again for this category too! Read more paranormals than usual this year too, but my hands down favorite was Holly Black's latest The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. I'm always so impressed with Holly Black's seamless worldbuilding, and this book was her at her best. She integrates the supernatural into our world in such a natural, logical way that I could believe that if vampires were to come out into the open, this might be a way our society would handle it. Beyond that, the character development and thematic exploration of humanity and monstrosity in this book was top notch. Holly Black hits that sweet spot of giving us vampires who are seductive and romantic but also unquestionably dangerous and inhuman.

Honorable Mention: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Gothic + paranormal kind of goes hand in hand, no?


Favorite Family Drama:The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

Yep, we do really love the Raven Cycle books. This makes it in this category because like we said before (and last year), the relationship dynamics of the characters is compelling and it keeps us coming back. Besides, in The Dream Thieves, we get a lot more of Blue's quirky, endearing family of psychic women. So there's drama there and of course drama with Blue's new family of Raven Boys, and of course there's dear, dark Ronan with a metric boatload of family drama in this installment.



Pick 2 for Krispy: Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn. This deserves a mention because while this book is very much about Win's struggle to reconcile his present and his past and to come to terms to the tragedy in his life, his family plays a large part in this. While they mostly appear as characters in his past, his siblings and parents have a far-reaching impact on Win's present and likely his future - and their absence in his present is only emphasized by their presence in his past.

My complete thoughts on Charm & Strange in my original book review.



Favorite Genre Bender: The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson.

Krispy: I didn't really know where to put this, but I was so impressed by this book that I had to mention it somewhere. Genre bender actually fits quite well. The book is Sci-Fi and post-apocalyptic and its main city-setting has dystopian elements. It's a book that presents a society that actually looks utopian, and it's only when you look closer that you see things are not as perfect as they seem and that there is unrest. But this is sort of a subplot that only comes to the forefront because the main character June has a character arc that intersects these bigger, societal issues. In her quest to become a true artist, to discover herself and her feelings on love, family, and tradition, she realizes she wants to be an agent of change. So in that way, this book is also very much about self-discovery and identity. It's a plus that we also get trope subversions, gender subversions, a diverse cast (including POC main characters), and the non-traditional setting of future-Brazil.

My deeper thinky thoughts can be found in my review of The Summer Prince.

Honorable Mention: Charm & Strange Like 17 & Gone, this one really utilized magical realism to explore its themes. The book seems almost like it'll be a paranormal-contemporary, but the paranormal elements are really just an incredibly effective use of extended metaphor.

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Woohoo for Day 1 of Superlatives!  Krispy read many books this year and Alz not quite so many.  We're looking forward to the rest of this yearly book tradition of title-dropping, favoriting, and re-squeeing.  Join us tomorrow for Day 2!

Randomosity on Fridays: Pre-Holiday Friday 5

It's been a while since we did a Friday 5, especially since I'm all about the What's Up Wednesday meme these days. But the Friday 5 is an oldie but a goodie, and it's helpful for random announcements.

So here we go!

1. During all the Black Friday/ Cyber Monday sales, the Sister and I managed to buy a bunch of Christmas presents for friends, family, and ourselves. Specifically, we snagged some coveted BlackMilk items, and I bought some Shadowplaynyc dresses I've been eye-ing for a long time.

Blackmilk AT-AT dress for the Sister; Hamlet leggings for me!

Shadowplaynyc Crimson Galaxy Dress for me; Stardust Galaxy dress for the Sister.

2. It has been freaking COLD here, which I know isn't that cold all things considered. But I am a Californian born and bred, which means I am so weak to coldness, haha. But the coldness has given us quite beautiful, clear and crisp skies.

3. The Sister bought Loki a new toy. It's a red dragon, and it's pretty tough (or so we thought)! Naturally, we named it Benedict Cumbersmaug.

Loki looks cute here, but he is actually chewing off CBSmaug's arm with his back teeth. We stopped
him before he managed to get all he way through the arm.

Speaking of Loki and that Loki poster in the background, Alz noted that the sheer size of the display is not obvious from pictures alone. One of my friends thought we'd taken puppy!Loki out somewhere and took a pic of him in front of a Loki display.

Nope, this giant cardboard side of a display is in my house. Here is a picture of the Sister standing in front of the fully unfolded Loki side.

The top is scraping the ceiling of this room.

4. Last weekend, the Sister and I pulled out my books and built a book tree. We made one last year and wanted to make another one this year. We even bought more lights for it!

Progress shots of the book tree. We wore holiday socks until the Sister
changed into her shark onesie, complete with shark feet. 

There are Capt America & Spiderman ornaments in there, but since this pic was taken
Lokis have taken over. They're currently at the top of the tree.

5. Need gift ideas and general holiday amusement? The Sister and I wrote some helpful Buzzfeed articles!

From me: Affordable And Clever Gifts For Your Writer And Bibliophile Friends.

From the Sister: 15 Travel Themed Gifts To Give Your Favorite Globetrotter

Also from the Sister (and it's really funny): 6 Studly Fabrics To Gift Those On Your Naughty List. Yeah, it's surprising what you can find at craft stores...


Oh and finally, almost all next week from Dec 16-19 is the YA Superlatives Blogfest. It's a great way to see what people read over the year and to add new books to your TBR lists. It's super fun and is seriously my favorite blogging event every year. I do hope you'll join for some of the days if not all of them! We'll be trying to participate every day! Click on the banner below for more info.

Q4U: Can you believe it's already the 2nd week of December? Will you be seeing The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug?

Name That Character Answers!

It's that time again, by which I mean that time to post the answers to Friday's Name That Character post.  Here we go!

1. Karou from Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor.

Her blue hair! Her sketch pad and pencil! I was going to draw

her necklace/bracelet of scuppies but it ended up looking

like she was wearing Lisa Simpson's pearls so I left them out.

2. Ismae from Grave Mercy by R. L. LaFevers.

Behold her extra special hairnet of poisoned pearls, AKA cool-sounding

but kind of impractical and not-utilized-to-its-fullest-extent plot device!

Also, featuring Ismae's miniature hideable-under-a-skirtable collapsible crossbow.

3. Katsa from Graceling by Kristin Cashore.

It's kind of hard to see, but she does have a green eye and a blue eye.

Unfortunately, I don't know if I put them on the correct sides.

4. Fat Princess Elisa from The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson.

Okay, I admit it. I just like drawing Elisa as a fat happy princess regardless of context.

This time though she has her sparkly blue bellybutton-Godstone!

5. Katniss from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Braid! Bow and arrow! Mockingjay pin! Expressionless face!

How well did you fare in this round of Name That Character?  Next time, I'll have to try one that's all dudes and another that's all supporting characters.

As an aside, I've been stuck reading Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas for weeks now and finally had to return Krispy's library book since she couldn't renew it for me anymore.  I just couldn't force my way through it but I still feel obligated to do so since I read the first one and got a decent chunk into this one.  Krispy has been dying to tell me All the Things and I have been putting her off spoiling me--but should I let her?  Tell me!  (You can imagine the latter in a Loki voice.  TELL MEEEEEEE!)

P.S. If any of you are still looking for holiday presents for your loved ones, check out these helpful Buzzfeed lists written by our very own Krispy and the Sister.

For those with a case of wanderlust, 15 Travel Themed Gifts to Give Your Favorite Globetrotter by the Sister.

For writers and bookworms, Affordable and Clever Gifts for Your Writer and Bibliophile Friends by Krispy.

Name That Character!

Howdy and happy Friday!  To celebrate the end of the week, how about a rousing game of Name That Character?  Here are five characters (all ladies, by sheerest coincidence, next time we play, we shall have a very manly game) from assorted YA series.  In this case, they also happen to all be protagonists.  Let's get to it, shall we?

1. The final book of this fantasy trilogy comes out next year.

2. That's supposed to be a hairnet of pearls. Special pearls.

3. This protagonist kicks a lot of figurative and literal ass.

4. I really hated the first book, was impressed by the improvement in the second,
and have plans to read the third, which has been out for a while.

5. Do I even have to say anything in this caption?

Answers next week.  In the meantime, happy guessing and make sure to kick back and enjoy the weekend!

What's Up Wednesday (22)

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, so we can check in with each other. To join, just check out Jaime Morrow or Erin Funk's blogs for the link widget and sign up!

I'm excited to use this beautiful, NEW winter banner by Jaime. It's more appropriate now too since it's actually kind of cold in California now (cold for us, anyway).


WHAT I'M READING

ALLEGIANT. The holidays and turkeys got me. Lots of eating, not so much reading. I did start JUST ONE YEAR though! It's Gayle Forman's follow-up companion to JUST ONE DAY, which I reviewed for YA Book Club last year.


WHAT I'M WRITING

Nothing really this week. It was Thanksgiving last week and then ALL THE SHOPPING. So as I said, the turkey (and apple pie) got to me.


WHAT INSPIRES ME RIGHT NOW

Random things. For example, we had a spectacular sunset in LA the other day.

[Photo/ the Sister]

WHAT ELSE I'VE BEEN UP TO

Over Thanksgiving, the Sister and I went to see Disney's new animated feature, FROZEN. Loved it. Like Pixar's BRAVE, the focus was on female and family relationships and like Disney's last one TANGLED, FROZEN was full of beautiful animation and clever quips. Oh, and I loved the short that went before. Such a perfect blend of combining the old and the new styles of animation. Classic and new. Definitely recommended.

Cool stand-up display with pop-out shield for Captain America: TWS at the theater.

The other reason we were at the theater was because... The Sister and I entered a raffle at the theater for something THOR related when we went to see THOR: THE DARK WORLD. It was unclear what the raffle was for, though we thought it might be for those cardboard movie stand-ups/displays you see in the theater. Well, right before Thanksgiving Thursday, I got a call that basically said I'd won the Loki stand up.

So we picked him up on Thanksgiving, and um, he is now taking up A LOT OF SPACE in the pool house. I didn't know it would be so big...and it's kind of creepy.

That is our Loki sitting in front of Loki display, which is folded in half. Our dog from head to tail is
like the breadth of display!Loki's shoulders. See, he's kind of creepy.

Then there was Thanksgiving, which was food food food and then shopping (online for me since I had to work on Friday after). I scored some good deals for people's Christmas presents (and okay a few for me too).

The Sister's food creations. I loved the peppermint chocolate chip loaf.

It's finally looking like fall in SoCal. Apple pie made from scratch by my cousin.

We also saw Michael Bublé at the Staples Center on Friday! It was lovely. His voice is smooth like butter, and he was freaking hilarious.

The Sister and I participated in a month-long challenge called #Nerdvember where we tried to incorporate something geeky/nerdy into our look every day. You can see our attempts at our instagrams here: akangaru (me) and catherine (sister)

Here are some of my favorites (and you can see me go from blonde-ish to red-haired by the end):







What's up with you?