All in Books
In Which I Bake November Cakes
It's a known fact that Maggie Stiefvater is cool as hell and that her books are pretty damn outstanding. It's hard to pick a favorite--and I won't--but there's a special place in my heart for her lone standalone novel, The Scorpio Races, which has a unique connection to the month of November,
It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.
In addition to the month of November being when the novel's titular races take place, there's a special cake Finn and Puck eat in the novel, November Cakes.
Finn finds my left hand, opens my fingers, and puts a November cake in my palm. It oozes honey and butter, rivulets of the creamy frosting joining the honey in the pit of my hand. It begs to be licked. Someone nearby screams like a water horse. My heart goes like a rabbit’s.
Maggie created a recipe for this fictional cake (though, read through to the end and you'll find that it's not so fiction for me), and the first of November seemed like the perfect time to bake them. I generally followed her recipe, though I bake like a champ, so I made some adaptations on the fly to suit my tastes.
Recommendation Tuesday: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
It's not often I find a work on literary fiction that has a story as compelling as its prose--hence, I don't recommend it very often. Sparkling, thoughtful writing is wonderful, but it feels awfully vapid when the story falters. Or it's filled with dull Middle Aged Man Angst.
Discovering Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You was an unexpected surprise, as result. While imperfect (as all novels are), it hits so many notes that make worth checking out, even if you normally avoid literary fiction. It's a historical novel, though the 1970s time period is one of the book's less-developed aspects, but more than anything it's a story of family and marriage.
Power & the "Tough Enough" Narrative: Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley
When listening to the audiobook of Joy Hensley's debut YA novel, I kept recalling a huge news story from my youth: Shannon Faulkner's two year-long fight to be granted admission to The Citadel, South Carolina's public military college. When the court finally forced the college to allow her admission to the Corps of Cadets, she lasted only a week, having spent much of her time in the school's infirmary.
Years later, Faulkner revealed that she was subject to intense abuse, and feared for not only her own life but the lives of her family members, thanks to death threats she received while at the school.
It was a gut-wrenching thing to watch on the news when I was a teenager. I'd been rooting for Faulkner to succeed, to win for every girl who wanted to smash any number of boys-only clubs (institutional or social) that were inaccessible to us girls.
Recommendation Tuesday: The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
The uncertainty of my own experience is crushing. I am drowning in an infinite sea. Sinking slowly, the weight of the lightless depths forcing me down, forcing the air from my lungs, squeezing the blood from my heart.
I feel kind of ridiculous recommending a big book with a big publicity push behind it, but it's a rare sequel that enthralls me as much as the original.
The Fifth Wave was one of my favorite books last year, thanks to its editor literally shoving it in my hands and I clicked preorder on the follow up, The Infinite Sea, before it even had a title. The sophisticated plot, overwhelmingly ominous tone and captivatingly complex characters stood out in the sea of lookalike post-apocalyptic novels
Three Recent Recommended Reads
Night Broken by Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson series)
Night Broken, the eighth book in Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, places Mercy in a precarious and dangerous situation.
Danger lurks as a threat to herself, her marriage and her pack.
You've all probably at least heard of the Mercy Thomson series, but for the few that haven't, here's the scoop: Mercy is both human coyote. She’s a shape shifter married to Adam, alpha male and leader of the Tri-Cities werewolf pack in Washington. A coyote and a wolf falling in love and marrying stands out as unique. They share a commitment to honor one another and their pack. They are both primal beings and human beings.
Guest Review: The Inkworld Series by Cornelia Funke
There are books that are relevant only for a certain part of your lives, and then there are those that stand the test of time, change and experience. I decided to re-read the Inkworld trilogy by Cornelia Funke this summer, a series my sister and I had enjoyed as kids.
(As a side-note, take a moment to enjoy these gorgeous covers. There are illustrations at the start and end of each chapter as well as quotes from other writers/books at the start of each chapter.)
What can be better than a series about books, stories and fantasy worlds?
For an avid reader, it is sort of perfect when someone finds words to replicate their exact feelings about the joys of reading and books. How many times have we spent late nights caught up in a book that refuses to let us go until we reach the end? How many days have we spent happily in the company of worlds, characters and stories about people and places we have never met, never been to and possibly never will? (Especially in the cases of fantasy literature) And how many times have we wished that those worlds could be real so we too could be a part of them?
Recommendation Tuesday: Dust Chronicles Series by Maureen McGowan
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
If I were to make a list of novels for people who really love the X-Men movies, but are fed the hell up with the ridiculously thin characterization of the women, Maureen McGowan's Dust Chronicles trilogy would be high on that list.
Recommendation Roundup: August 2014
Now that the bulk of summer is over, I've been working on catching up with my summer reading list, of course.
I was so excited to read Stephanie Perkins long-anticipated new novel, which didn't disappoint me in the least (I do think it'll be a love it or hate it story for folks, though--Keertana wrote a fantastic review that resonated with me in terms of why I'm in the love it camp). I was also lucky enough to read a way early copy of Liza Palmer's 2015 novel, Girl Before a Mirror, which is absolutely stellar. I think it'll be a bit polarizing, but in a good way. There are a lot of layers to dig into and I can't wait for it to be in the world so I can talk to people about it!
I also wrapped up reading The Dust Chronicles series by Maureen McGowan, which I really liked (read that series if you liked Divergent, The Darkest Minds or Legend--it's got all the action-y bits that fans of those books will love, and some good social issues things as well). And on the series front, I read the second book in Chuck Wendig's rad YA series, Blightborn.
Enough chat! On to our recommendations!
12 Graphic Novel/Comics Mini-Reviews
Since I've fallen down the graphic novel rabbit hole (I blame the phenomenal Saga series, which you should read right now), I've been furiously reading all that I can get my hands on. It's been great as I had a very busy summer work-wise, I can get my reading in via quick bits.
I thought I'd round up a few of my recent graphic novel reads for folks who may be dipping their toes into this format as well.
Love, Hope & Empathy in Just Call My Name by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Holly Goldberg Sloan's beautiful 2011 novel I'll Be There is one of the novels I often recommend, especially to folks who shy away from the young adult label.
It's a magical little novel about a teen boy, Sam, and his young brother, Riddle, who spent their lives on the run with their abusive father until they meet Emily Bell and her family and everything changes.
{Note: This post contains spoilers for I'll Be There. You've been warned.}
Could something be an anchor if it wasn’t weighing you down?
Was it possible to be anchored to the sky?
Because that was how it felt to be with Emily: airborne. But with his feet on the ground.
Recommendation Tuesday: Page by Paige Laura Lee Gulledge
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
I have been on a graphic novel and comics binge of epic proportions lately, burning up my Multnomah County Library card at a furious rate with all checkouts. I've read a ton of good ones, but one that sticks out and I'm going to have to pick up for my forever and always shelf is Laura Lee Gulledge's Page by Paige.
#100HappyBookDays - Days 11-20
Nafiza started this fun hashtag/challenge on Instagram to post a photo of a book we love for 100 days. I've had so much fun picking books to spotlight, so I thought I'd share my picks so far, today with the second group, 11-20. Find the archive of these posts here.
You can follow along at the #100HappyBookDays hashtag to see what everyone is sharing.
A Twisted, Gripping, Disturbing Thriller: Dangerous Boys by Abigail Haas
Our lives are made up of choices. Big ones, small ones, strung together by the thin air of good intentions; a line of dominos, ready to fall.
I don't think a book has left me feeling so intensely uneasy as Abigail Haas' newest, Dangerous Boys, did.
Like in Dangerous Girls, Haas takes readers on a time-shifting journey, shifting between the present and the events leading up to a tragedy. In this case, three teenagers--narrator Chloe, her boyfriend Ethan and his brother Oliver--enter an empty home but only two emerge from that house as it burns to the ground.
The reader is left wondering which brother survived the fire? Whose at fault? Was it self-defense? An accident? Or something more insidious?
Recommendation Tuesday: Under the Empyrean Sky by Chuck Wendig
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
This week, I'm excited to recommend the cornpunk dystopian adventure Under the Empyrean Sky by Chuck Wendig, the first in his Heartland Trilogy.
Think you're burned out on dystopian stories because they are all kind of the same? Well this one is completely different and unforgettable.
#100HappyBookDays - Days 1-10
Nafiza started this fun hashtag/challenge on Instagram to post a photo of a book we love for 100 days. I've had so much fun picking books to spotlight, so I thought I'd share my picks so far.
You can follow along at the #100HappyBookDays hashtag to see what everyone is sharing.
Recommendation Tuesday: The Bridge from Me to You by Lisa Schroeder
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
I discovered Lisa Schroeder's writing several year ago because someone pointed be toward this post she wrote on her blog about Friday Night Lights (which I can't seem to find, but I love this other one about what Friday Night Lights meant to her).
Obviously, I had to read all of her books, and The Day Before ended up being one of my favorite novels ever--her books are ones I'm constantly recommending to both teens and adults because her stories ring so true to many people's experiences and her writing is simply lovely. (Laura wrote more about Lisa's awesomeness last year for Verse Novel Week 2013.)
Big-Ass (Belated) 2014 Summer Reading List
I started writing this post in May. Oops.
I always like to put together a highly-aspirational list of the books I'd like to read over the summer. My schedule is a bit more flexible, in theory, and so I hope for chunks of time to read. I don't really think there's a particular type of book that makes a "summer read," though I know for a lot of folks that's not the case.
My list of 20 books (I'm so not getting to all of these--let me know if you've read any of them so I can prioritize) and my comments are below.
Click on the book cover image for more info.
Recommendation Tuesday: Jill Sorenson's Aftershock Series
Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.
View all of the past recommendations over here.
I'm not sure how I discovered Jill Sorenson's Aftershock suspense series--it's highly likely that I first heard about it from Brie, when I was looking for a series to replace Laura Griffin's Tracers series, which isn't as fun as it once was.
Regardless, this series continues to hit that sweet spot of interesting characters and fabulous WTFery. (That's a compliment.)
There are several books and this series, and while they do stand alone, there's actually quite a bit of world-building in the first novel, Aftershock, which depicts the immediate aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake in San Diego. We're introduced to characters who will serve as protagonists in future installments and the earthquake influences characters' arcs in the future. So, basically, start with Aftershock and read in order if you get hooked.
Guest Post: Pema Donyo on YA & Happy Ever Afters
Note: This is a guest post from author & college student Pema Donyo. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to learn more about her. Also, there are spoilers for the happy endings of several books in this post--you've been warned. Another CEFS post dealing with similar concepts was written by Laura a couple years ago--check it out over here.
Are you interested in writing a guest post for CEFS? Send us your idea via our contact page.
Ruth Graham's "Against YA" op-ed in Slate caused many eyes to roll and many heads to nod. But a particular passage from the article has stayed with me:
These (Young Adult novel) endings are emblematic of the fact that the emotional and moral ambiguity of adult fiction—of the real world—is nowhere in evidence in YA fiction. These endings are for readers who prefer things to be wrapped up neatly, our heroes married or dead or happily grasping hands, looking to the future.