Save a Word Saturday (#5)

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:

Freedom

And the word I have chosen is:

skirrv. -i. move, fly etc. rapidly; v.t. archaic, traverse rapidly; scour.

And my wondrous Freedom related sentences:

I threw down my pencil as I finished my last exam of the semester.  I skirr out the door of the classroom, shivering with joy at my new found freedom.

Feature and Follow Friday (#9)

 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 is the last book that made you cry?  Tell us about that scene...

A:  Wow, this happened last night.  It's not like I cry at every book though, promise.  ...maybe every other book. -- anyway!  So I was reading the last half of Feed by Mira Grant, and the rest is a huge spoiler.  Highlight to see if you don't mind spoiling anything: Georgia Mason, the main character AND narrator, dies.  Suddenly and tragically, she's murdered by a dart carrying the zombie-making virus.  That part wasn't what caused the tears to fall; it was the blog post she does while waiting to become a zombie.  All the while she's writing, her extremely co-dependent brother is holding a gun to her head waiting.  She descends into zombie madness going between telling her brother she loves him and nonsense, finally begging her brother to end it.

 Moose.  Found cursor.  Yay!  I also may have spilled some happy tears at the end of Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross and some devastated tears at the end of Delirium by Lauren Oliver (there's a terrible story that goes with that).  So maybe I cry a little less than every other book.  Or I'm lying. O_o

Let the hopping begin!

Notes From My Desk: On Integrity and Book Blasts

I was reading a post by Parajunkee that got me thinking: why do book bloggers do book blasts?  It is one thing if you’re getting paid (I understand money as a motivator), but a lot of us do blog posts about an upcoming book for free.  Is it for exposure for one’s blog?  Is it because one doesn’t have to think as much as a regular post?  I so far have not done a book blast with a group, but I have posted lists of upcoming books I want to read and participated in Waiting-on-Wednesday.  I’ve avoided doing a book blast because I personally feel kind of uncomfortable promoting a book I have not read.  There also seems to be something more official about doing a book blast versus posting what books you’re looking forward to reading and why.

I have done book tours where a group of bloggers all received a book to read for free, then post a review, but none explicitly stated that I had to post a positive review.  So I didn’t, necessarily.  I feel that signing up for positive-review-only-book-tours kind of degrades the integrity of the book blogger.  But I am still very new to book blogging, so maybe my opinions will change over time. 

Why should we promote a book that we don’t know for sure is as amazing as our promoting makes it out to be?  Is book blogging simply turning into free advertisement for publishers?  And if a book isn’t amazing, why should we promote it anyway and feed the ego of the author in question who may need to improve?  This is totally open to discussion in comments; I’m not just blogging so the internet can hear me think.  Please no flames.

 Thanks for reading,

Review: Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton

It starts off simply.

Draw a circle... place a dead leaf in the center... sprinkle some salt... recite a little Latin... add a drop of blood...

Maybe that last part isn’t exactly simple. Yet somehow it feels right to Silla Kennicott. And nothing in her life has felt remotely right since her parents’ horrific deaths. She’s willing to do anything to uncover the truth about her family—even try a few spells from the mysterious book that arrived on her doorstep ... and spill some blood.

The book isn’t the only recent arrival in Silla’s life. There’s Nick Pardee, the new guy next door who may have seen Silla casting a spell. She’s not sure what he saw and is afraid to find out. But as they spend more time together, Silla realizes this may not be Nick’s first encounter with Blood Magic. Brought together by a combination of fate and chemistry, Silla and Nick can’t deny their attraction. And they can’t ignore the dark presence lurking nearby—waiting to reclaim the book and all its power.

Hardcover, 405 pages

Published May 24th 2011 by Random House Books for Young Readers 

(summary grabbed from GoodReads)

I have a strange love of the sick and twisted.  Seriously.  I am totally squeamish, but I can't stop myself from reading things that make me squirm.  Blood Magic satisfied that wacked-out side to me.  And, you see, it would be easier for me (to cope) if I didn't like the book.  I feel kind of icky for liking it and I don't even want to start going into what it says about me that I enjoy this stuff. 

Actual review times now: first thing I want to say about Blood Magic (other than it being creepy) is that it is another book with an inability to stick with one perspective.  Very rarely do I ever think that alternating POVs is a good thing for a book, and Blood Magic falls into the big vat of books that would have benefited from sticking to one main perspective.  The biggest problem with the alternating between Silla and Nicholas was that it was disorienting to read, with the lesser problem being that the characters inner monologues bled into each other.  What I mean is, the perspective changed, but the voice of the character did not change to a degree that merited that they get their own part in the story telling.  Which brings me to my next point:

Silla was an interesting character.  She was over dramatic with her language (which made sense because she was the former president of the drama club), a little crazy, and a little dead inside since the deaths of her parents.  But I felt the story would have benefitted from being told with third person limited as opposed to first person switching between Nicholas and Silla.  It would have been less disorienting, as you wouldn’t need to change character every other paragraph, and Silla would have seemed more bizarre (and thus more interesting).  By being in Silla’s head, she rationalizes her actions while doing them, while if the reader was looking from outside the character, Silla would have been a bit more crazy.  I think it would have added to the book since the author was attempting to make super-creepy-deliciousness, but those are just my thoughts.  But at the same time, the changing POVs were done in a way that was almost artistic at times, so I feel like I can’t completely knock it.  However, I still stand by what I said previously: it was confusing and could have been better.

I would definitely not recommend Blood Magic to anyone younger than ...I don't know, I'm not good with ages.  There are a lot of adult... things.  Like this weird, oddly sexual master-captor relationship between the diary-girl-lab-assistant and Dr. Philip -- which by the way, I loved.  I think I could read a whole book just around them instead of just a chapter thrown in here and there, but I don't suspect it would be in the young adult section.  Actually, I loved how Tessa Gratton wrapped Josie’s journal into the main story in the end.  In the beginning it added a back story to the magic but you didn’t quite see how it related to the plot, and you gradually see how things are fitting together throughout the book and culminate in the finale.  Bravo!

If you have a love for the creepy and messed up, I recommend this book -- but with a few warnings: 

1.      There are animal sacrifices. 

Spoiler(?) (highlight to see)

animal death list:

-a kitten (and mome raths happen to love kittens)

-a rabbit

-a whole forest of animals including multiples of:

-raccoons

-squirrels

-rats

-foxes

-other woodland creatures, I assume.

The forest of critters was kind of a group thing and was not as horrific to read as the first two, but I thought I’d include it just in case someone has a specific affinity to one of the animals mentioned.  Just know that it happens.

2.      There's also a lot of blood obviously, but I think more people (including myself) would appreciate a warning about #1.  So go back and make sure for certain you read warning #1.

I liked Blood Magic in the same way I like Law and Order: SVU -- it’s disturbing and sickening and I don’t like to broadcast that I like it.  Good thing I blog under a pseudonym.  This is a book that is definitely not for everyone. 

Final Thought: 15 out of 19 toadstools

This review is also on GoodReads!

Review: Clarity by Kim Harrington

Don't close your eyes. Except when the truth is too dark to bear.

Clarity "Clare" Fern sees things. Things no one else can see. Things like stolen kisses and long-buried secrets. All she has to do is touch a certain object, and the visions come to her. It's a gift.

And a curse.

When a teenage girl is found murdered, Clare's ex-boyfriend wants her to help solve the case -- but Clare is still furious at the cheating jerk. Then Clare's brother -- who has supernatural gifts of his own -- becomes the prime suspect, and Clare can no longer look away. Teaming up with Gabriel, the smoldering son of the new detective, Clare must venture into the depths of fear, revenge, and lust in order to track the killer. But will her sight fail her just when she needs it most?

Paperback, 256 pages

Published February 1st 2012 by Scholastic Point. (first published March 1st 2011)

(summary grabbed from GoodReads) 

The best description of Clarity I can think of simply is "fluff mystery."  Let me explain, Clarity wasn't a Scooby-doo G-rated fun filled adventure with a "zoinks" or two thrown in; it was a real mystery novel -- just not of the edge-of-my-seat variety.  It was fun, and even though some actual scary things happen, I never had that "oh ma gawd what's going to happen next???" moment.  So it was enjoyable, but in a ride down a somewhat turbid river sort of way.  Not a smooth glide down a river -- I don’t know if I would have read the whole book if it were -- but also not a raging white-water river with bears flanking the water’s edge.

 

There were some things that made me raise an eyebrow at the plausibility of what was being suggested.  First, getting a psychic to aid in a murder investigation: the police have Clare’s mother read the minds of the suspect line up.  That was a stretch -- but wait! it gets better.  The new detective’s son, Gabriel, Clare, and her ex boyfriend (the mayor’s son) form a little group of junior investigators and are actually allowed to try and help solve the case.  That seems absurd.  However, I let it go, but I don’t have any investment in how law enforcement works.  Had I, and I might not have been able to enjoy the book beyond that point.

The romance might as well have been nonexistent.  There was no tension for me, no pulling at my heart strings, none of that.  In fact, I often wanted to throttle both love interests.  That’s really a minor point, though, as Clarity is way more mystery novel than YA paranormal romance, which suited me just fine.  I just ignored any pseudo-romantic parts and was all the merrier for it.

So, if you’re looking for a fun read for an afternoon and don’t mind a lack of cutesy-loveness, pick up Clarity.  Go ahead, do it.  I dare you.  But if you’re looking for something a bit more intense or romantic (or embedded in reality), this may not be what you’re looking for.  I personally did not get super emotionally invested in the characters, found it very quick to read (that’s not always a great thing), but I still found it enjoyable.  It was super fluffy, but sometimes fluff is welcome.

Final Thought: 8 out of 11 toadstools and plus one extra for main character being a red head

Review also on GoodReads

Notes From My Desk: Holy Blogger Batman!

I just spent all of Saturday night attempting to make my blog pretty.

...mmm okay, that's a lie.  I spent all of Saturday attempting to make my blog pretty -- not just the night portion of it.  ALL.  OF.  SATURDAY.  From the Save a Word Saturday post till now.  But I'm finally happy with how the blog looks and I learned a lot about how to do this kind of stuff, so when I want to change it again (in another two months), I won't have as much difficulty.

...okay, that's another lie.  I won't make it two months without wanting to change something.

A big thanks to Shabby Blogs, who provide lots of free backgrounds and headers and post dividers and all kinds of cool make-my-blog-pretty stuff!  They also provided tutorials that I desperately needed because I'm kind of internet stupid.  Thanks to said tutorials, Where the Mome Raths Outgrabe has a button!  Yay!  It's down on the right, so take a look and if you're feeling especially nice and wonderful, grab it!

Happy Saturday,

Save a Word Saturday (#4)

 

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:

Cast Iron Skillets

And the word I have chosen is:

labrose
adj. - thick-lipped.

And my wondrous Cast Iron Skillet related sentences:

And as I whipped my cast iron skillet across his labrose face, I was filled with a satisfaction like none other.