Review: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

Hardcover, 292 pages

Published July 3rd 2012 by HarperTeen 

 

(info grabbed from GoodReads)

Tiger Lily was enchanting, brilliant, and all those wonderful things you want in a story, but it was slooooow.  It is not a fast paced adventure, it is not a heart flipping romance.  Tiger Lily's tale is, in many ways, heart wrenching and realistic.  The world does not always deal out a charmed life or a happy ending, and Tiger Lily is no exception in the world of Neverland.  These are all things not so often seen in YA -- usually good conquers evil and true love wins above all odds in this genre.  I don't remember what expectations I had for the book, but Tiger Lily surpassed and differed from it at the same time; Tiger Lily is not your typical YA retelling. 

I was very surprised to find that Tiger Lily was actually told from the eyes of the most famous pixie of all time: Tinkerbell.  In this version (and most versions) Tinkerbell cannot talk, but she has a lot of voice for a mute faerie.  I thought an interesting choice of narrator and was pretty geeked over it.  For me, however, the reflective voice of Tinkerbell was more somber than I was expecting, and, at times, was off-putting.  It also would occasionally become confusing as it was easy to forget who was narrating.  But overall, I think Tinkerbell telling the story is part of what made Tiger Lily so special.  Through Tinkerbell’s eyes we could see different sides and objective views of the main characters.

It was wickedly more sophisticated than I was expecting.  There is no absurd happy ending or insta-love.  Actually, there isn’t a whole lot of happy period - there was an overwhelming amount of sadness lingering throughout the air of Neverland.  It was depressing and without hope since most of us know who Peter Pan eventually ends up with, which is stated on the cover: Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . . 

In addition to Jodi Lynn Anderson’s sad Neverland, her version of Peter was simply of a young and magnetic boy.  No flying.  Just leader of the Lost Boys.  This lack of magic added to the somber realism of the author’s version of Neverland.  However, the book is worth reading for this very different world of Neverland. 

I found that because of the book's more relaxed story telling it was harder to get into.  Some books you almost literally feel yourself fall into effortlessly, with others it may be a dive.  With Tiger Lily, at times I felt I was struggling to break the surface and descend into the story.  I think this is one of those books that if and when you decide to read it, make sure you have nothing to do for the day and won't be interrupted.  Just curl up in a chair with a blanket, maybe its raining/snowing outside, and turn off your phone.  Probably would make for an extremely peaceful afternoon.

Final Thought: 4 out of 5 un-flying toadstools

This review is also posted on GoodReads.

Save a Word Saturday (#7)

Welcome to Save-a-Word Saturday, a new blog hop hosted by The Feather and the Rose.
The aim is to spread love of old and unusual words by sharing them with other bloggers and thereby saving these precious, wonderful, whirling words from the dusty, lonely corners of the oldest, least visited vaults of the Word Bank.

The rules run thusly:

1. Create a lovely blog post that links back to this one. The easiest way to do that would be to grab the code under our pretty Save-a-Word Saturday button. Just copy and paste it into the HTML part of your blog. 

2.  Pick an old word you want to save from extinction to feature in your blog post. It really must be an old word, not just a big one. We are trying to save lovely archaisms, not ugly giants (for example, "Dihydrogen Monoxide" is not an acceptable choice).

3. Provide a definition of your word. Use your word in a sentence (or even a short paragraph) vaguely related to the theme we have chosen this week. You may also add visual or musical interpretations of your word or your sentence. In fact, add anything that moves your creative spirit.

4. Add a link to your blog in the linky list below (it's down there somewhere). Then hop to as many other blogs as you can in search of as many wonderful words as possible!

5. Use as many of the words as you can on the people in your life. Do leave us a note or add something to your own post to let us all know what wonderful old word you whipped out to befuddle your friends and relations.

This week's theme is:

Butterflies

And the word I have chosen is:

lambent

adj. - shining gently or playing about surface; flickering; gently radiant. lambency, n.

And my ever so wordy sentences are:

Curling and flipping, the butterfly danced on the wind.  As it gracefully dove through the air with the sun shining down in the garden, the butterfly was lambent -- shining ever so gently. 

Notes From My Desk: Desperately Seeking Roses

I’m starting to notice a trend that I absolutely love any book with a rose on the cover.  I first noticed it when I gathered a few of my most loved books together in a pile and saw the number of roses.  It was startling.  Therefore, people should put more roses on book covers; I’ll love the crap out of it.  Guaranteed.  Is this just a joke?  Let’s see:

Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross?  Loved.

Renegade by J. A. Souders?  Adored. 

Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky?  Not so much.   

Why?  There’s a sunflower where a rose could be.  If it was a rose in a bottle, maybe I would have had different feelings.  Who knows how my brain works -- certainly I don’t.  But I'm finding myself hoping for more roses than sunflowers in 2013.

P.S.: I don't have some crazy hate for sunflowers.  Just throwing that out there.

Giveaway Winner!

And the winner is...

*drum roll*

Kim Reid!!

YAY!  Ms. Kim gets as promised a $15 (USD) Amazon card!  Thank you to everyone who entered and a happy new year to all!

Review: Feed by Mira Grant

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED. Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives - the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will get out, even if it kills them.

Paperback, 571 pages

Published May 1st 2010 by Orbit 

(summary grabbed from GoodReads)

Oh dear lord, the feels.

Feed was spectacular.  It was way more than I was expecting and everything that I've ever wanted in a zombie book.  I'm not really a zombie-book aficionado, with the only zombie book I think I've read was Alice in Zombieland, which didn't even have zombies, it had ghost zombies.  Which if you think about it, kind of just makes them ghosts and not zombies at all.  I think a more appropriate title would have been Alice in Ghost-Land -- DON'T PROMISE ME ZOMBIES AND NOT GIVE ME ZOMBIES! 

...moving on.  However, I have probably watched nearly every zombie movie in existence.  Even the B movies.  I may spend over half the movie hiding my head from the inevitable and astronomical amount of gore, but I still stay in the room and listen (which should count for something).  Anyway, Feed went with a more traditional take on zombies and the problem I usually have with traditional zombie movies is that there's not a lot of back-story or explanation about the zombies (and no one seems too curious, but I don't know if I would care how zombies ticked if the threat of being eaten was imminent).  A reason or explanation is something I'm always craving in zombie stories, and every little craving was satisfied with Feed.

The first thing that made Feed stand out to me as more than “just another book” was the thoroughness of its zombie-science.  Without ever throwing an info dump on the reader, Mira Grant explains her zombie lore, which although based a lot on George Romero’s movies, had a lot of originality.  For example, the zombies in Feed grew smarter in groups and could form a pack mentality.  That aspect of the zombies wasn’t very explored, but it is just an example of how well thought out the zombies of Feed were.  Also, the author makes note of how her zombies are like George Romero's zombies, and thus in the book, George Romero is seen as a national hero for educating the world on zombies through his movies.  Hence, our main character’s name is Georgia.  I thought that was genius.

The book begins over twenty years after the zombie apocalypse with our main characters having lived their entire lives under the threat of zombie attacks.  It was clear from the beginning that the author had put some serious though into what kind of people would grow out of this kind of world.  She explores how more people have turned to religion, others live in fear, and then there are others.  Georgia and Shaun are in the others category.  Both are bloggers/reporters, but they go about blogging in different ways.  Georgia wants to shower the world with truth while being the world’s greatest action hero at the same time.  The opening of the book involves her gunning her motorcycle up a ramp and flying over a hungry hoard of zombies to safety.  Shaun on the other hand likes to bait zombie in Jackass related stunts for entertainment.  Their differences combined with their co-dependence as siblings made Feed extra special.

  

Feed honestly felt like a realistic possibility of the future.  You could get lost in the book, which is the thing I love about reading the most.  I would call it more of a mature read, but not because it has mature content (it doesn’t).  It was a bit dry, dealt with politics and reporting a lot, and lacked a romance.  Feed focused on the characters and how they did their reporting in this zombie filled world, not the zombies themselves.  Like I said before, there wasn’t a romance, and though some people will enjoy that, that could be a turn off for some.  I absolutely adored it and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction or thrillers.  Which I guess is odd since Feed isn’t particularly science-fiction-y or ultra thrilling, but I think that is who it would appeal to the most.

Final Thought: 10 out of 10 undead toadstools

This review is also posted on GoodReads

Me thinks I should read more zombie books and watch less zombie movies.

Save a Word Saturday (#6)

Welcome to Save-a-Word Saturday, a new blog hop hosted by The Feather and the Rose.
The aim is to spread love of old and unusual words by sharing them with other bloggers and thereby saving these precious, wonderful, whirling words from the dusty, lonely corners of the oldest, least visited vaults of the Word Bank.

The rules run thusly:

1. Create a lovely blog post that links back to this one. The easiest way to do that would be to grab the code under our pretty Save-a-Word Saturday button. Just copy and paste it into the HTML part of your blog. 

2.  Pick an old word you want to save from extinction to feature in your blog post. It really must be an old word, not just a big one. We are trying to save lovely archaisms, not ugly giants (for example, "Dihydrogen Monoxide" is not an acceptable choice).

3. Provide a definition of your word. Use your word in a sentence (or even a short paragraph) vaguely related to the theme we have chosen this week. You may also add visual or musical interpretations of your word or your sentence. In fact, add anything that moves your creative spirit.

4. Add a link to your blog in the linky list below (it's down there somewhere). Then hop to as many other blogs as you can in search of as many wonderful words as possible!

5. Use as many of the words as you can on the people in your life. Do leave us a note or add something to your own post to let us all know what wonderful old word you whipped out to befuddle your friends and relations.

This week's theme is:

Rain

And the word I have chosen is:

 ubiety
n. - state of being in a place; 'thereness'; position.

And my ever so wordy sentences are:

The rain fell as I stood on the worn dirt path.  Feeling the tiny droplets splash against my skin filled me with a sense of ubiety.   I thought to myself that I would never have such a feeling other than that moment.

Feature & Follow Friday (#11)

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! If this is your first time here, welcome! You are about to make some new friends and gain new followers -- but you have to know -- the point of this hop is to follow other bloggers also. I follow you, you follow me.

Feature & Follow is hosted by Parajunkee of Parajunkee's View and Alison of Alison Can Read.  Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it’ll allow us to show off more new blogs!

Question of the Week: What New Years Blogging or Writing resolution have you placed on yourself?

A:  I have two actual blogging resolutions this year.  The first is to read and post reviews for at least 100 books this year.  Simple resolution, right?  Let's hope I can do it.  I keep psyching myself out about it, like "Ah!  That's like ...almost two books a week!"  But that's what I usually do anyway, save for this week. 

The second is that I wanted to break outside my norm and read a classic each month for 2013, then do a short post about why that particular book is a classic.  This month is Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.

Thanks for hopping by my blog!  I'm doing a giveaway in honor of the new year on the next post down, so please take a look!