Versatile Blogger Award

I’m very happy that people seem to like my blog, so I’m finally going to do this tag. I’m honored to have been nominated for the Versatile Blogger Award by these readers:

Nita @ Book Choose

Lauren @ Lauren Hearts Books

Lindsey @ Linz The Bookworm

Britt @ Tara Belle Talking

Danna @ A Reading Habit

Sugandha @ Booklust

Daisy @ A Bookish Flower

I don’t think I forgot anyone. If I did, let me know and I’ll add you to the list.

~*~

Next, I’m supposed to nominate other bloggers for the award. I’m not going to do this right now because all of the blogs that I read regularly have either already been nominated or don’t want to participate. When I find new blogs to nominate, I’ll update this post.

~*~

Finally, I have to tell you 10 things about myself that you don’t already know. (I’m sure you’re all dying to get this information.) I’ll try to keep it quick and book-related.

1. The first “grown-up” book I ever read was Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers. I was 11 when I read it.

2. I’m getting a master’s degree in children’s lit., but my top two favorite authors usually write for adults.

3. I’m determined to read over 100 books in a year. I’ve never done it before, but it will happen. Eventually.

4. I’ve never read a graphic novel. This needs to change. What should I read?

5. I love The Hobbit, but I’ve never been able to finish Lord of the Rings. I’m going to try again this year.

6. At one point, I owned over 100 books about cults. (Yes, I read them all.)

7. I can listen to music while writing, but I need silence to read.

8. A book has never made me cry. (No, not even TFIOS.)

9. In 2011, I stacked up all of the books in my TBR pile, and the pile was as tall as me. It took until November of last year to read all of those books.

10. My current TBR pile has 23 books. I still haven’t really learned my lesson.

Review: Cinder – Marissa Meyer

Cinder – Marissa Meyer

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Review: I’m not usually a fan of fairytale retellings, but Cinder is a little unusual. The main character is a cyborg who lives in plague-infested future Beijing. She falls in love with Prince Kai, but she’s afraid to reveal her true identity to him.

Cinder takes a well-known fairytale (Cinderella) and transforms it into a quick-paced sci-fi story. It’s the most creative and entertaining fairytale retelling that I’ve come across so far. I flew through it. It’s definitely a fast, fun read.

The characters are the best part of the story. Cinder is a strong woman who can take care of herself. I was also very happy to discover that the prince actually has a personality. In many fairytales (and their retellings), the prince is just a plot device to move the story forward. That’s not the case with Cinder. Prince Kai is likeable, funny, and tries hard to do the right thing for his kingdom.

Even though I found Cinder entertaining, I still have a lot of problems with it. My biggest issue is its predictability. Nothing in this book surprised me, but I think I was supposed to be surprised. I wasn’t. I was just frustrated that it took the characters so long to figure out something that I saw instantly.

The story has some inconsistencies. For example, the plague is highly contagious and can live on clothing, but nothing happens when Cinder goes straight from the quarantine facility to the palace. She doesn’t seem concerned that she could infect someone.

I know that this book is part of a series, and the world will become more developed as the series progresses, but there are a ton of missed opportunities for world-building in Cinder. The reader does not learn much about the history or culture of New Beijing. The bias against cyborgs is never fully explained. Even the landscape and layout of the city is unclear in my mind.

I did have fun reading this book. It’s imaginative, but I’m undecided if I’m going to continue with the series.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Spring To-Be-Read List

Review: The Gunslinger – Stephen King

The Gunslinger – Stephen King

Set in a world of extraordinary circumstances, filled with stunning visual imagery and unforgettable characters, The Dark Tower series is King's most visionary feat of storytelling, a magical mix of science fiction, fantasy, and horror that may well be his crowning achievement. 

In The Gunslinger (originally published in 1982), King introduces his most enigmatic hero, Roland Deschain of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting, solitary figure at first, on a mysterious quest through a desolate world that eerily mirrors our own. Pursuing the Man in Black, an evil being who can bring the dead back to life, Roland is a good man who seems to leave nothing but death in his wake.

Review: Stephen King is the master of creepy books, and this one is no exception.

The Gunslinger is book #1 of the eight-book Dark Tower series. It follows a Gunslinger, Roland, as he tracks his enemy through a harsh landscape that is very similar to—and very different from—the American west.

The imagery in this novel is stunning. It’s so vivid and so bizarre that I had to keep reading. I couldn’t get enough of this world, and I’m excited to read the next book in the series because I need to see more of it.

The writing style is another of the book’s strengths. This series was inspired by a poem, and that clearly shows. The writing is more poetic than the writing in Stephen King’s other books. It’s beautiful, and strange, and eerie, and I love it. I read most of The Gunslinger in a few hours because the writing is so captivating. I didn’t want to put the book down and take myself out of its world.

My only issue with this novel is the confused and unsettled feeling that it creates in the reader. I don’t mind this feeling for a little while, but if it goes on too long, I start to get annoyed. The confused feeling lasted through the entire book for me. I know that this is book #1 of a giant series, but I wanted more backstory and more explanation. A lot of characters are mentioned briefly, and their significance to the story is never explained. I was so interested in this world and these characters that I wanted to know more immediately. The lack of backstory quickly became frustrating.

It was frustrating because I love the characters. They are all broken and imperfect. I’m looking forward to finding out what happened to them in the past and what they do next.

If the rest of the series is anything like this book, I know I’m going to enjoy it.