Looking forward to a new book: Palace of Stone

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Sequel? Where was I when this was announced?

Ahem... Let's not answer that question, because I know where I've been for a while. And we'll leave it at that. There is very little news or commentary about what this sequel to Princess Academy will be about. Either that or I'm not looking hard enough, but I'm still very excited about it. Ever since I first discovered the cute little book and it's cover as my very first Shannon Hale delight a few years ago, I've been in love with all of her work.

To date, Book of a Thousand Days remains my favorite Shannon Hale book, and possibly one of my most favorite of all books I've ever read. She does an excellent job infusing young adult material with fairy-tale fantasy with a side dish of romance and adventure. It just hits all the right spots and it's also a bonus that her writing is so witty and detailed as well.

And now a sequel to Princess Academy? I'm ecstatic and waiting for the moment that I can add it to my collection. The conflict, do I want to buy it in e-book format first or physical book format first? If it's really that good, I'll have it in both formats, much like I have Book of a Thousand Days in my Nook as well as in paperback (it is, so far, the ONLY book I have bought twice).

Princess Academy was the very first Shannon Hale wonder I picked up, so hopefully the sequel will be just as wonderous! Here's looking forward to it!

Review: Twilight -- 50% Progress Report

So I kind of see where this teenage romance fluff would be appealing to younger girls. In fact, the fifteen year old in me has been making some commentary alongside my twenty-seven year old commentary and they are sort of playing "good cop, bad cop" with this book right now. Twilight, if anything, is first and foremost a romance set in a fantastical world: Girl meets boy; boy is good looking (in this case, boy is "dazzling"); girl falls for boy almost immediately; boy is also drawn to girl; let the romance ensue. But one little factor stands in their way -- boy is a vampire who may or may not be able to control his urges to suck all of girl's blood. On the other hand, something about girl draws vampire boy to her and so while he keeps telling her to stay away from him, he doesn't exactly hold up very convincing arguments by constantly catching her attention.

To be totally honest, I'm starting to think that the only appeal about Twilight is the fact that a supposedly "ordinary" high school girl falls in love with a god-like vampire boy and he reciprocates those feelings. It's the standard Cinderella story... Just like EVERY OTHER ROMANCE written for a target audience of young, hopeless romantics (much like myself). It just so happens that Cinderella is an "ordinary" high school girl and Prince Charming is a not-so-ordinary vampire boy. The stakes have changed a little bit; and you know, something like this would really only fly in the face of hopeless romantic girls (myself included).

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy a good romance every so often as well. In fact, I've probably got the biggest appetite for romantic-comedies, romantic-dramedies, melodramatic romances... you name it, I've seen it romances... and so on and so forth. I spent an entire six to eight months just perusing Japanese shoujo genre manga (if you don't know what that is, don't ask, but I can assure you, it's no different from teenage romance fluff).

So you would think I'd be more forgiving of Twilight.

HOWEVER, I'm really only buying the fact that this is a standard romance story set in a high school full of raging teenage hormones. I've been there (so many years ago), and my inner fifteen year old probably would have enjoyed this book. It probably wouldn't have been worshipped on a pedestal and ranted and raved about like the best thing since cellular phones, but I get it. It's a cute little love story.

But that's it. And maybe that's why it's not working for me as well as any other love story would. With all the fluff I've been exposed to in recent years, I've been looking for things with more substance for a change. So... probably not the best time to pick up Twilight as an act of "I'm going to prove that I didn't pre-judge this book with my pretentious prejudices" stubbornness. Yes, that was the MAIN reason I chose to read Twilight -- I got tired of everyone telling me to read it before I make "false" judgments.

Is it too early, still, for me to say the words "I'm sure I was right"?

I've quit condemning Bella for her personality, but damn if that girl isn't the most one-tracked moronic kid I've ever read about. Maybe I'm just too biased against the weak-willed female protagonists who let boys push her around just because she's supposedly in love with him. Bella Swan is supposed to be a smart, witty, strong, and level-headed girl; supposedly she's independent and had to care for her mother all these years and now feels that she's obligated to care for her father. We are trying to present her as the responsible adult teenage daughter to the flighty, child-like mother and the clueless workaholic father. I see it... in narration. But I DON'T see it in the actual story itself. I mean, sure, Bella does the cooking, cleaning and whatnot around the house. She's responsible and has some self-proclaimed "I'm a police officer's daughter and must be an upstanding citizen" mentality going. But her actions show us differently sometimes, and for a girl who is supposed to be so strong-willed, I don't see how she can so easily bend the rules when it's convenient for her and the sake of her "love" for Edward.

Bella Swan isn't unique or an outcast nor is she misunderstood. She is simply the standard teenage emo-wannabe who feels like her world is a nightmare just because she had to uproot from one city and move to another city she doesn't like. She now has to live with a doting father who cares too much while her frenetic mother blows up her email mailbox always asking about her well-being. And she has the balls to say things like she's used to being the adult so all of that extra love and care kind of disturbs her? (On a side note, I've found myself blurting the words "Ungrateful twit" a few times during my reading of this book.) Her father buys her a vehicle and she's all "Oh my god, why did he have to go and buy me a truck" about it until she sees the truck and finally decides that she actually likes it. She's typically always irritated whenever her parents show worry about her, and she thinks that it's a given that she shouldn't have to answer her mother's emails all the time and that Mom should understand that. And I swear, if she doesn't start addressing her father appropriately as "Dad" or something similar, I might really want to deck her. Because what good is it to call your father "Dad" to his face, but use his name everywhere else? I don't even understand the necessity of that stubborn distinction. WHY is it necessary for her to keep referring to her father so informally as "Charlie"?

But it DOES all come down to one conclusion in the end. Bella Swan is simply nothing more than the typical high school emo-wannabe drama queen. She outcasts herself by not caring to have real friends (she's always under the impression that the girls befriending her have ulterior motives). In order to have true friends, you have to sincerely WANT to be friends too -- in which case, I don't feel that Bella is interested in having Jessica or Angela or Lauren as true friends at all. She doesn't give her father a chance to be a father and get to know her better. And what was the point in her moving away from Mom anyway just because she got remarried?

The author goes to great pains to try and distinguish her as "different" from the rest of the high school kids (which she succeeds in doing all too obviously through narration as well as making the supporting characters complete stock cardboard cut-out dribble). The author goes to LOTS of great pains to not ONLY distinguish Bella as different, but to make her special and ALMOST akin to "vampire-like" with the girl's pale skin, affinity for the smell of blood, and a subtle beauty that apparently attracts EVERY male high school student in the whole damn book. Yes, we've also got a standard trope going here in that every boy Bella Swan crosses falls for her; and she is continuously trying to convince herself that it's not true and that she's "too ordinary"; so if she's not interested in them, I really wish that she would tell them bluntly rather than leading them on.

Of course, her world quickly begins to revolve around one Edward Cullen and THAT'S where I start to understand where her mentality is headed.

Because, as girls (especially the easily hopeless romantic type), we've all been there. Having a crush on a boy is easily the most heartbreaking phenomena that any pre-teen to teenage girl can go through. Because at such a young, delicate age, EVERYTHING to do with the heart is serious stuff. We all live in the now and we care nothing about the future. If your crush doesn't look at you at all throughout the day, you might die of depression. If your crush starts hanging out with other girls, you feel like the most unworthy, loneliest cretin in existence. All stakes are raised when a teenager "falls in love" and I hate to admit, but that's just the way of life. This is standard high school romance drama at its best (or worst, depending on how you stand).

I'm not trying to give Bella a justification for being the way that she is, for spending every single darn sentence of her first-person narration mooning over Edward Cullen. I'm just saying that this is how it is and that because of my new insight, I've found a reason not to resent her idiocy, monotony, and pretentiousness as much as I have been since Chapter One. I'm just saying that I see her point because I've been there before. But for the sake of my own sanity (as well as for clarity), just because I see her point doesn't mean I have to agree with it or like it. For one thing, having a crush on a boy doesn't mean that you lose sense of your own back bone or that standard of beliefs you've grown up on. Having a crush on a boy does NOT mean that your entire life revolves around his every action and every word.

Bella Swan was a character written for the sake of being easily relatable by most girls. We are supposed to feel for her and readily like her for her personality. Unfortunately, her personality is only narrated with words, but never truly shown by action. And also unfortunately, this girl who COULD have been an ideal female protagonist is cast in a world wherein the author has delusions of grand "damsel-in-distress" rescues by the "knight in shining armor" in order to fulfill that traditional sense of wanting to be able to fall for a man who protects you. I mean, yea, we all want a man who is secure and warm and all sorts of perfect... it's an ideal. But to be totally honest, it's not reality; when the guy is way too perfect and the girl is way too worthless, it doesn't balance very well and I start banging my head against the paperback book so that I can vent my frustrations somehow (and yes, I HAVE banged my head against the book multiple times already). At the very least, the girl should be able to fend for herself in some little ways and not need to be saved EVERY FREAKIN' TIME! And if Edward gets any MORE perfect, I will continue to bang my head against the book in frustration.

BUT, as I've said... I see the point. I see the author's direction. I see Bella's point. And I also see the hype (if only a little bit better than before). However, what I don't see is all the praise and all the glamor; it's an ordinary romance novel that just so happens to involve vampires and werewolves.

NOW, if the story line had also started off with some sort of epic adventure wherein it was necessary to have a vampire and werewolf paranormal presence, then I might see more eye-to-eye with this so called "Epic Saga". But as far as Twilight is going, it's JUST a love story (if even that) about an ordinary girl who falls for a vampire boy. And the narration goes on and on just like this short progress report, about the same things, over and over again.

Girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, boy pushes girl away, girl persists, boy comes around, girl is all googly eyes, girl moons about how pretty boy is, boy pushes girl away, girl persists, girl continues to fawn about boy's beauty, boy comes back around, boy warns about the dangers of being with him, girl persists, boy comes back around... I swear, it's never ending and until Edward can come up with a better reason not to be with Bella other than "I might want to feast on your blood" I think these two really should just make out and get it over with, because it's just driving me crazy, this whole "I love you but I can't be with you" wherein the stakes ARE high, but somehow the characters aren't exactly very convincing about them.

Oh yea... and also, "what supporting characters?" You mean those cardboard cut-out background scenery pieces that keep following the story around? Oh right, they're people in the story as well... but you know what, they could be cut out of the book completely and it wouldn't make a difference. Way to add substance...

This has been my half-time progress report on Twilight. As you can see, my opinions have changed only a little since the first "Review", or what I like to call "First Impression" of the book. If anything, let's hope that the last half of Twilight picks up a bit better and I have a reason to WANT to continue reading the rest of this series.

Review: Twilight

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: ? of 5 stars



Before anyone starts jumping down my throat about my unfair judgement, let me start by saying that this is sort of like my "Pre-test" to reading Twilight. This is the "First Impression" opinion; the future still holds many possibilities to whether or not my opinions change. And you know what? I'm entitled to first impression opinions too. In the future when I've read and decided whether or not I actually enjoy this book (or even the entire series), THEN we can let the "I told you so's" commence. Until then, bear with me because I DO have lots of opinions.

For as far as I've read (probably just chapter one), Twilight reminds me of something painfully embarrassing about my own past: my first couple attempts at writing my own stories.

Basically this is how it adds up: I take a basic plot and add an ideal heroine to it. Along the way, that ideal heroine ends up becoming more and more Mary Sue to the point that even I start to become annoywed with her. In fact, I keep adding on self-claimed traits that make absolutely no contribution to the story outside of bolstering my Mary Sue into a bigger Mary Sue. While I'm at it, I make said Mary Sue into a self-proclaimed loser... however, due to all of the other descriptive factors about her, we are pretty hard-pressed to believe half of what she says about herself. In essence, she has become the resident high school drama queen despite the fact that she has nothing to throw around about dramatic woes. She's the pretty, smart, misunderstood girl with a heart of gold; but in reality, she's got a nice family, people willing to get to know her, and she's really not as individualistic or alone as she keeps claiming, and honestly NOT that witty either.

For instance, Bella's little cheek about the high school kids of Forks not understanding sarcasm. This is a little snit that would have had more conviction if it had come from someone who was naturally sardonic to begin with; however, so far in her own narration, I have sensed no colorful or creative witticisms. In fact, she's really just telling things as they occur, making a comparison here and there, every so often that seem like an attempt to be witty, but ultimately just end up being flat analysis. If there had been some sarcasm intended in any part of her narration, I must have missed it completely, or just didn't understand it all (my bad).

At best, she seems pretentious and extra-emo-wannabe (which I don't condemn her for because she IS a high school girl after all and we've all been through that phase). At the very least, could she have been written a little more in style rather than on such a bland first impression?

What else can I add? Oh yes. Writing style. Simple, straight forward, yet unattractive and almost too monotonous. Once again, very much like the way I used to attempt writing my own stories -- like I had a stunted vocabulary or something like that.

Bella Swan is an extremely one dimensional character for all I can see right now. It's probably unfair of me to judge her so prematurely (only one chapter into the book), but the fact that she seems to have a lot of qualifiers for her own personality versus how she really sounds versus how she sees herself... it makes it hard to know in which direction she's supposed to eventually develop. She sees herself as an outcast, takes no pleasantries with her mood, attitude, or looks, but almost has an air of feeling like she's the one being singled out when in fact she's the one shoving people away. In terms of character, I'm already not liking her.

HOWEVER, to the benefit of the story itself, I have to admit that it's quite intriguing already. Its only downfall is that it's written with a style very akin to someone at third grade vocabulary level. Short descriptions, using the same expressions and words, no analogies, no words worthy of imagination... Random tidbit information that does story progression no good, but at the very least, they are brief and so you forget about anyway (which makes it kind of unnecessary and you wonder why we need to know about each and every class Bella is attending throughout the day). But the story's idea isn't bad; the premise is attractive enough that its gotten my attention for the next scene or the next chapter to come.

Why is Edward Cullen so hostile to Bella before he's even met her? What's up with the entirety of the high school who seem so curious about Bella? Most of all, already knowing the premise of this story line, what ends up drawing a vampire to Bella when he starts off the very first chapter resenting her very being, repulsed by her presence, and simply angry that he even has to breathe the same air as she does?

For the most part, I have enough of an interest in the story line to continue on with this book. At least I have an idea where it's going and where it will end up. I just want to know what happens to get it there. Unfortunately, it's the character of Bella Swan as well as the writing style that's got me conflicted about how well I'll be able to follow the rest of the story. Nonetheless, after this first chapter, I'm going to be adding this book to my reading list permanently. I'm a sucker for romance anyway, and so if the story develops ideally, then at the very least, I've got a nice romance and a possibly interesting story to follow.

After all, there HAS to be a reason why so many people are so in love with this entire series, right?

I realize that my opinions might seem rather harsh for only having read one chapter. And I realize that people might think that I'm not interested in giving Twilight a fighting chance either. And I admit openly that I really DID start reading this book with the intention of fully NOT enjoying it. Yes, I was looking for faults, which conclusively resulted in my finding of so many of them. Call it bias or call it an anti-popular trend streak I have, but whatever it is, this is exactly how I felt about the beginning of the book.

I'm not the type to be pretentious and hate everything that's popular. I've been on the Harry Potter bandwagon, the Hunger Games tent... so I'm not averse to popularity. And yes, I DO admit that I've had my criticisms of Twilight, prejudged before I've even read or seen the movies. I'm not a fan of vampire genres outside of the original Dracula novel, and have always had issues with weak female leads (of which I've heard so much from others, seems to fit Bella Swan's description). BUT, I'm willing to give this series a chance to change my mind because I don't want to be told that I can't judge a book before I've even had a chance to experience it.

And so, come what may... Maybe by the time I've gotten to the heart of Twilight's conflict (which I've heard doesn't even quite come around until Book Three?), I'll be fully engrossed with the entire world and the story. Maybe I'll even come around to like Bella. But for now, in this present, this post is exactly how I feel about Twilight: my pre-judgement and my "only-one-chapter-in-impression-so-how-dare-I-pass-judgement-so-quickly" first impression opinions.



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Review: The Woman in Black

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Okay, so maybe I don't quite understand the concept of "older style" writing, which is why I was a little reluctant to enjoy this book. However, having read my fair share of Jane Austen books as well as those high school required classics, I have an idea how to follow books like this. Unfortunately, I probably just couldn't get into this one enough to fairly judge its premise, story line or even character develop (all of which felt like there really was none, save for the same old, same old).

This is a book described as a Victorian ghost story by some. And while it seems that MY concept of a ghost story and some OTHER people's idea of a ghost story might be a bit different, I had at least been expecting SOME element of ghostly wonder. At the very least, I wanted it to be creepy or scary or that it would instill some sort of fear or spine-tingling chill up my spine. Instead, it just turned out to be a long drawn out narration about how one particular duration of time in one man's life had completely changed his life and scared him into silence.

And to be totally honest, while there were some points in this book that I could follow really well and enjoyed, those moments disappeared pretty quickly as I easily lost interest after a few more sentences and started wandering around to find something else to do. The entire first half of the book was awkwardly loaded with detail about the narrators life and his take on his own personality as well as vague detail about how some incident he came across affected him immensely. And of course, there really was NO NEED for Mr. Kipps to keep referencing that incident in such secretive terms because, as the summary of the book would tell you, this is a ghost story and we are all aware that he had encountered something awful and haunting.

So a lot of the beginning of the book was build-up that just seemed like it was awfully unnecessary. In fact, if we just skipped straight ahead to the moment where he arrives in Crythin and starts going through the home of the deceased Mrs. Drablow, it would have cut off a whole lot of boring. However, even were THAT the case, it seemed like the heavily loaded descriptions about the narrator's state of mind and how he comes to have that state of mind (from childhood revelations to current knowledge and insight) still made up at least 90% of each chapter. Very little of the narration draws upon the historical happenings of Eel Marsh House, and very little of the narration deals with the horror of the actual haunting. And in turn, the same events seemed to happening nightly and we only get to see what the narrator is feeling and thinking, each and every time that the horrific hauntings take place.

I'll admit: I got frustrated and bored and even a little ready to just drop the book and move on. But I've already dropped too many books this year and I figured that I would be damned if I didn't finish this one (especially since I somehow managed to get through more than 50% of it). I remember very little of the story line, however, save for the same repetitive haunting of Eel Marsh House told in three or maybe four or maybe even five separate parts of the book. I read, but didn't pay much attention to all of Mr. Kipps' narration about his own feelings and emotions. And I was quite disappointed that the story was NOT scary and didn't even wager a cent of spine-tingling eeriness.

And of course, since a lot of the haunting seemed like typical, standard ghost story lore, none of it was surprising to me. And the rest of the book was quite predictable.

Maybe this just wasn't a book for me. Or maybe I had been expecting too much out of it, or expecting something quite different. There were moments where I DID enjoy it if only because I thought that the story line was starting to get a little exciting. But then when it kept on going in the same way it had been, I just couldn't find it in me to like it at all. It IS well, written, in terms of description and style; but it just wasn't very attractive, at least not enough for my taste.

So basically, while some may find this writing style great, I just couldn't find it in myself to enjoy the book. It says a lot when I can barely remember certain details about it to be memorable at all. And the fact that everyone was so closed-mouthed about the historical events surrounding Eel Marsh House and the woman in black and the deceased Mrs. Drablow... but then finally, one of the characters decides to suddenly talk about it quite freely without any goading or such... Really, what was THAT all about? Faux de machina to shed some light on the entire haunting debacle?



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