My Adventures in Regular Literature

So far in my adventures with regular, adult literature (as compared to YA genre), I've had great fun. The only cons are:

A) they cost way more money-- why is that? I can't buy as many books now, and I'm really rather upset about it, and

B) it takes so much longer to read them, seeing as they actually have literary value to them. Wait, that's not a con; literary content rocks. Just kidding, I'm going crazy.

Okay, but one of the reasons I moved on from YA to regular literature (among many, many things, mostly being the fact that I'm no longer 15, and haven't been for a while, and have finally matured to the point where I think YA basically sucks) was because I was sick and tired of everyone exploiting the series concept. If I ever come across another series I'm going to shoot myself or jump off a bridge or something. (Well, actually... I'll just be super pissed and will most likely scream or at least shout in frustration). Thanks to YA overusing the series concept in order to make more money and completely overlook the good-story/decent-writing/anthing-of-literary-value aspect (okay, this obviously doesn't apply to ALL series, but most), I can't stand series and sequels and people not being able to write a stand-alone book...

...And what do I find? The very second regular-fiction book I bought, I realized upon finishing it, had a sequel. Bahahaha--- just my luck.

Actually, it was lucky, because The Illuminator rocked, and The Mercy Seller was just as good. They were intest-grabbing, and history-oriented, and randomly religious. Definitely some of my new favorites. Also, The Mercy Seller was merely a continuation of the story of a minor character form The Illuminator, and her life years after The Illuminator took place, so each book could, for all intents and purposes, stand alone. Which I can deal with quite well in an adult-like fashion appropriate for my age. I deeply enjoyed them both--- I couldn't say which one I liked better, because I just don't know.

Basically, the premise is: (in The Illuminator) Finn is an illuminator who--you guessed it-- illuminates the Bible and other religious things for the Church in the 1400's, right at the time where real-life John Wyldcliffe is spreading the radical idea that everyone should be able to read the Bible for themselves, not just listen to the corrupt Church's interpretations of it. Going against the law and all better judgement, Finn begins copying the banned texts and Wyldcliffe's Bible, risking not only his own safety, but that of his only child, Rose. Meanwhile, we read about one Lady Katherine, and her two sons, whom Finn and Rose come to live with, and all their intertwined relationships and craziness thereafter. Also includes nuns and their cats named after harlots, a really awesome dwarf, and a "simple" kitchen maid who gets along randomly well with bees.

The Mercy Seller takes place something like twenty-five years later, documenting the life of Anna (Jasmine)---who is born towards the end of The Illuminator--- who is suddenly left with radical (and illegal) views about religion and no one in the world she can count on. She travels to England with a band of gypsies for a while, inherits a severely handicapped boy with a love of music, and falls in love with a priest pretending to be a mercenary... which, obviously, is all sorts of trouble. My beloved Finn and Lady Katherine also play secondary parts; I enjoyed visiting my old friends again, even as they were growing old, too old for the mischevious lives they lived in the first book. I would have liked the ending better if we had gotten to see more of the relationship blossum into love instead of tolerance, instead of having it alluded to in the epilogue. But that's just me. 

Props to Brenda Rickman Vantrease! (I can never remember that name, haha)

 ---I also just learned that she has another book, The Heritic's Wife, which I look forward to reading once i get enough money to actually purchase it. (I assume it has to do with the same historical/religious issues as both The Illuminator and The Mercy Seller? I hope so). The cover is gorgeous, too, which, as we all know, is something everyone judges a book by.

PS-- I'm still working on all my classic literature. Or, you know, some of it. I actually forgot I was working on Grimm's Fairy Tales, to tell the truth, so I obviously haven't made it very far in that. However, I am reading The Secret Garden, which I'm suddenly realizing that I've read sometime before... I can't remember what happens next on any given page, but once I read something, I remember it. I hate that feeling! Ugh! Why can't I just forget a story after a few years, and enjoy the surprises it holds when I read it again? I mean, it has to have been ten years or so since I read The Secret Garden. And yet... grrrr.

What I Read In January

It's a little late, but whatever. I'm busy. It's also not a great picture. Oh well.

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte*

The Lost Saint, Bree Despain

The Dark Divine, Bree Despain

The Shwa Was Here, Neal Shusterman*

Firelight, Sophie Jordan

Tempestuous, Lesley Livingston

Shadowspell, Jenna Black

Glimmerglass, Jenna Black*

Jessica's Guide to Dating Dark Side, Beth Fantaskey

Impossible, Nancy Werlin

The Hollow, Jessica Verday**

The Haunted, Jessica Verday**

 
 
*Favorites

Goodreads.com

I'm now on
Goodreads.com!

Come vist me and be my friend!

Visit me here!

I'll still be posting my reviews here, but I'll be pasting them to goodreads, too. However you want to follow me, I'll be the same in both places.

(But goodreads.com is pretty awesome: if you haven't checked it out yet, I advise you to!)

BR: Firelight

Firelight= Angst-a-plenty. Once I finished it, I realized I enjoyed it, but for the first 2/3, I was feeling pretty depressed. Jacinda's life sucks. Her mom is trying to kill the draki--- dragon--- inside of her, her twin sister hates her and has a major inferiority complex (although no one can really blame her), and she's in love with a boy who's family hunts her kind. There seems to be no options for Jacinda, no release, and it's pretty depressing. The makeout scenes that do pop up between her and Will are a brief but finally do add some positive energy to the story (can you tell that Jordan also writes Romance novels?!)... until Jacinda starts freaking out, flip-flopping between her all-consuming love for the hunter, and her need to protect her family and her race's secret. It gets tiring after a while. Once Will finally figures it out, the plot freshens up and turns into great reading--- I just wish the angst hadn't lasted so long.

I really enjoyed the character of Will. (Although I wish we could have learned of his secrets earlier! Great twists, and I'm excited to see how they eventually play out!) It was a refreshing break from the bad-boy type that seems to plague the love-interests of popular YA these days, and I loved the confidence he exuded when he came after Jacinda again and again.

Sophie Jordan was able to create a deep, mature love between this unlikely pair that wasn't cheesy, and seemed real and lasting--- something that stretches beyond regular high-school relationships, something that everyone tries to write, but few succeed. I applaud Sophie Jordan for that!

I hope in the next book(s), we find the angst take a backburner, and the amazing potential of a unique, refreshing story florishes and breaks through.

Sophie Jordan: props for a CLEAN, but strong love affair!

Sunflowers and Seashells is Here!

Guess what came in the mail today?!?

SUNFLOWERS AND SEASHELLS... the book my poem got published in! It's finally here! I'm finally officially published, and let me tell you, it feels good. :)

Thanks to Eber and Wein for the poetry contest and the chance to be included in this anthology! Totally made my year :)

Congrats to everyone else that are featured in Sunflowers and Seashells, especially all those that actually won prizes! There are some awesome poems in there.

So, my mom and I are as sick as dogs with colds and no voices to speak of, so when I opened the package, I "screamed" in excitement but it sounded like a tiny half-hearted squeak. We laughed for a while. Then I hiccuped and was in excruciating pain for a minute, which made me laugh harder.

The box that it came in!

PAGE 298, "Inside Out" by Holly Empey, Oceanside CA!

Literary Comics :)

My favorite literature-related cartoons :)

Kate Beaton has some pretty excellent stuff-- look her up if you're into history, especially.

Jane Eyre and Grimm's Fairy Tales

I finished Jane Eyre (finally) and, can I say? LOVED IT. Good ol' Charlotte Bronte.

(As I commented to someone the other day, the reason why it took me even so much longer to read it was because my copy fell behind my bed, and I was so lazy I didn't get it until four days later... teehee)

But honestly, it's a fantastic piece of romantic literature, and even though I personally would have condensced the first half of when she was a little girl into just a few pages, or left it out completely, it was well worth the wait. Halfway through, the language ceased to be any sort of inhibitor or anything; it became a second nature to read it and comprehend it.

...Now, trying to stay in the nature of "the classics," I've decided to start reading Grimm's Fairy Tales. Also love! I love reading the little obscure ones that no one knows or cares about, the little underdog fairy tales. Those one make me happy. There's one at the beginning about a guy trying to figure out what it means "to shiver" (as in, that was so scary I'm shivering/shuddering). He goes all over the place and people try to get this guy scared, but he's stupid and doesn't understand why the corpses hanging in the trees won't come down and share his fire (aren't they cold?), and he gets upset because he simply wants to know what it is to shiver! Since he lives through all these scary encounters, he's deemed brave by the king and is able to marry the princess, but he's still sad because he wants to know what shiver is. So, smart princess, gets a bucket of cold water from the river and throws it on him while he's asleep. "Oh! that makes me shiver!" he cries, "Dear wife, that makes me shiver! Yes now I know what shivering means!"

Heehee... it's a play on words! Bah! Who knew the brothers Grimm were so funny?

(actually, I think the Grimm's just collected the stories, they didn't write them. But they did put in all the hard work, collecting all the folklore and combining it for the world's reading delight.)

Thanks, brothers Grimm! And thank Charlotte Bronte!!!