Book news #2

I figure it's about time for another Book News post.

The book I'm currently reading is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which is quite the fascinating read so far! What a spin on an old classic! ^_^ I'll give a much fuller review when I'm through with it.

I decided that I wouldn't read Leviathan in the end, so I returned it to the library. The first couple chapters just didn't hold enough interest me. I guess I'm not the "steampunk" type.

The books I now have waiting to be read on my shelf are Compound and Shades of Grey, which I actually picked up from the library yesterday! I can hardly believe that this is circulating in the library just weeks after it got published, and I can read it without buying a copy at the signing event tonight! Speaking of which...

You don't know how excited I am to meet this guy! He'll be the first British author I've ever met, the third famous author I've been in the same room with, and hopefully the fifth author to give me his autograph. ^_^ I'm a little worried about the last part, though. Instead of buying his brand-new book to get his signature (I try to avoid buying books as much as possible, and plus I already have a copy to read), I ordered his first Nursery Crime book, The Big Over-Easy, on Amazon for only 80 cents (plus shipping and handling) for him to write in. It hasn't arrived yet, so I won't be able to use it.

What can I do?! In my experience, people who run this type event say you must have a book ready for him to sign, preferably a book you bought in the store. How typical. It's like theaters telling you not to bring any munchies from the outside, but offer you butter-drenched popcorn and candy at the concession stand. We work our way around that one, though, so maybe I'll be able to get away with Mr. Fforde signing a scrap of paper for me. That's all I really want, anyway. I collect the autographs. Of course, I'll bring some money just in case I'm forced to buy a book.

See you later either tonight or tomorrow for more updates!

Book news #1

Okay, this isn't a book review, but since it's around the beginning of the month I thought I'd share about certain book news. I don't know if anyone will be interested in it, but this is really more for me than for other people.

Right now I'm reading Howl's Moving Castle. I'm almost finished with it, so you'll get a review of it probably in the next day or 2. Anyone more familiar with the Hayao Miyazaki film adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle? So far I'm liking the movie slightly better, but the book is quite good too. You'll hear more of my opinion when I actually finish it.

Down below are the library books I currently have on my shelf that will eventually be read and reviewed, most probably in right-to-left order. I hope I like them.

House of Many Ways is a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle that was published very recently (mid-2008), so I want to read that first. Teen, Inc. is another book by Stefan Petrucha, who wrote Rule of Won, which I read last month (see review). I'll follow with that, since it has the least pages. I've heard a lot of things about Leviathan. I'm going to read this next, but kind of because Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is due later. Ha ha. That should be an interesting read. I've seen a movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, one that had Kiera Knightley as the main character. I wonder what that story will be like with zombies thrown into the mix...

I see that on the website for my library, I have a new book ready for me to pick up, Compound, by S. A. Bodeen . It was recommended to me by the Lateiner Gang (see their review). From what Dave and family say about it, I can't wait to check that one out. ^_~

Oh, now here's something that's really awesome. You'll love this. The other day, when my mom took me to Borders to hang out, I noticed this book. Not only did it catch my eye with the wild cover art. The first thing I saw was the author's name, Jasper Fforde. I really like this guy's works. He's written some pretty great book series, like Thursday Next and Nursery Crimes. This book, Shades of Grey, seems to be a standalone novel though, and it literally just came out! Amazon says it was published December 29th of 2009, the year that we said goodbye to not so long ago. Haha. ^_^

But that's not the good part yet. I decided to research this book a little, and I found that the book already has it's own website. See? On it, I discovered that the author, Mr. Fforde, is going to be on tour in the USA, so I took a look at the schedule to see if Florida was anywhere on it. Well... IT IS!!! He's coming on January 14th to a bookstore down in Coral Gables, which is 40 minutes from my house, for a Reading/Q & A/Signing. ^__^ I'm not sure whether my parents will let me go, but the event is two weeks away, so I'll probably be able to convince them by then. *cross fingers*

Jasper Fforde is also going to be touring New York, Missouri, Illinois, Washington, California, New Mexico, Georgia and DC. If any of my readers live in these states and you've raised an eyebrow in interest of this event, you should click this link for details.

So Yesterday, by Scott Westerfeld

So Yesterday by Scott Westerfeld is exactly what the title insists! This book is so yesterday.

My opinions of this book are slightly colored by his other series "Pretties". Honestly, the very first thing I noticed while reading this book was Scott likes to stay one on subject, and one subject only:

What is cool? What isn't?

That is the underlining theme in this whole story. The main character, Hunter, is a 'Cool-hunter'. What he does for a living at 17 years old is looks for 'Innovators', or the people that first make up cool trends. He then tells them to his boss, who will then get it out on the market. in theory, he makes money off of 'cool'.

The actual storyline of this book was more than a little flat, with not much characterization and an extremely short time-line. Hunter meets this girl, Jen, who has totally 'cool' shoelaces. From this meeting, the whole rest of the book takes place till about 2 days after that. In that 2 days, him and her fall in love, blah blah blah. It was really not that interesting to me.

But there were good parts about this book! I liked the 'cool pyramid' idea. At the top of the pyramid are the

-Innovators, the people that make up their own trends. They are usually thought of as weird because the way the dress usually is, well, weird. but then the trend catches on and they are already setting newer trends.

-'Trend-Setters' these are the people that wear the trend at the peak of its coolness, like hunter, so other people go 'wow! that is so cool! I should get it too!'.

-'Early-Adaptors' - the people rich enough to buy it while its still rare

-'Consumers' - all of us that don't have a million dollars that follow the trend when it is really trendy.

-'Laggards' - the people that still wear "tucked-in Kiss t-shirts". the people that still think that kind of thing is still in.

There was also a humerus couple of chapters in the book where they talk about episode 38 of Pokemon. Episode 38 put hundreds of children into the hospital for epilepsy. The episode in question had just the right sequence of flashing blue and red lights that children around the ages of 10 were instantly put into seizures. While the real event in real life was NOT funny, the fact that they took that one episode so seriously in the book was laughable. Their idea of 'a red/blue flashing camera will make you crazy' will never happen. you have to have a still developing mind or brain issues to even be affected by epilepsy! oh, and for the record, I saw episode 38. nothing happened

But in all there was one real problem I had with the book - the original-turned-unoriginal idea. For anyone that has read Pretties, you know that that book also had the major undertone of 'What is cool'. Is being pretty cool? or uncool? is being 'bubbly' cool? is wearing this cool or uncool? what is cool?

I think scott tries to mystify people by making his characters too cool. Its the truth, his characters are always on the cutting-edge of coolness! The never wear the wrong thing, and people always follow their trends. "It's my job to spot where cool comes from, Jen. I can see who's leading and who's following, where the trend starts and how it spreads"

Where is the cut off point? I think he is trying to lift himself up into our own cool pyramid by making his characters totally trendy. But in all honesty, it just made me wonder 'am I cool? can I even be like these people?'

I would give this book a 2.5 out of 5 only because he really tried hard to make up a world where everything cool is questioned. but if you want to read the same idea with better characterization, just go and pick up Pretties from your local library.

"Never give us what we really want. Cut the dream into pieces and scatter them like ashes. Dole out the empty promises. Package out aspirations and sell them to us, cheaply made enough to fall apart."