the uncommon nonsense

an initial list...

2012-02-10T09:11:00.000+11:00

i felt like maybe titling it 'infinity reasons why meg rosoff RULES THE WORLD' could lead to a literally never ending post (should i chose to become literal with such things).

guys, my girl crush on meg rosoff threatens to OVERWHELM me.

and here's why.

1. she uses the phrase 'much merriment ensues' when describing her new book. i like the word merriment. and ensues. they are AMAZING.

2. she wrote how i live now.

3. she once commented on this blog, also known as the day i died from the happy.

4. she is knowledgeable and gives free advice that will have your book INSTANTLY published.

5. she. is. AMAZING. it bears remembering.

6. she is a feminist. right on!

expect to see more in the 'how i love meg rosoff' list in the future. it's a keeper.

all these things i've done...

2012-02-01T12:20:00.003+11:00

All These Things I've Done

Gabrielle Zevin

Sixteen year-old Anya becomes the head of a mafia family after her parents are both murdered by rival gangs. Although Anya is embroiled in the criminal world, she is determined to keep her brother and sister out of the mafia family, but her father's relatives aren't so keen to let them go. When Anya's violent ex-boyfriend is poisoned with contaminated chocolate – chocolate that is produced illegally by Anya's mafia family – she is arrested for attempted murder and sent to the notorious jail on Manhattan Island.

Eventually she is freed by the new D.A. in town, who believes she has been framed. But this D.A. is the father of Win, a boy at school to whom Anya feels irresistibly drawn, and her freedom comes with conditions. Win's father wants to be mayor, and he can't risk having his ambition jeopardised by rumours spreading that his son is seeing a member of a notorious crime family. Anya knows she risks the safety of her family by seeing Win again, but the feeling between them may be too strong to resist...

like the large majority of YA at the moment, this story is predominately a love story.

we can forgive it for that though, because mixed in with all the urst (no matter what MS Word tells me, urst IS a word: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=urst) and predictability is actually a rather good story about a girl who is mixed up in the family business and is just trying to do the right thing.

Zevin has built a rather clever world to set her story in. it’s a dystopia (you know how I love a good dystopia) set in New York City, but it’s not too dystopian. like a good cocktail, it’s got just the right mix of reality and fiction to give it just the right balance. mmm… cocktails…

if you’re new to the dystopian thing, this is a good starting off point because you don’t have to stretch your imagination muscles too far *flexes*

Zevin creates a world of atmosphere with the 30’s chic, the grittiness of the environment - central park is a wasteland, and the museum of natural history is a night club, and the fact that our heroine, Anya, is the head of a family of mobsters. you actually have to keep reminding yourself that this is set in the future because the world is so infused with old school glamour.

the love story between Win and Anya is a bit of an obvious will-they-wont-they-of-course-they-will scenario that we have all seen before. but the story really moves beyond the forbidden love to be enriched by the greater struggles that Anya faces and touch on elements of right and wrong.

Anya is torn between doing the right thing by her family and struggling to find a place for herself. the story really comes down to can a good girl from a bad family keep all her promises and still be a good girl?

keep in mind also that her ‘bad family’ makes illegal chocolate. sinister stuff.

my favourite part would have to be the ever present lure of the prohibited substances – no coffee, no chocolate. it’s like hell, but less appealing. also books are almost non-existent, which will hopefully be a future i never see, and is just another clever way Zevin explores the dystopia genre.

i also love that Anya is practical. none of this running away with my fantasies overly mushy twilight-esq knight in shining armour crap. she’s a tough girl, and we like tough girls don’t we? *nods*

the only real negative thing i can really say is that it didn’t change my world, you know? it wasn’t absolutely can’t put it down amazing, but it was an entertaining and good quality read. it's also something a bit different from the plethora of fairies and werewolves that are currently dominating YA.

so go forth and get your dystopia on. and eat some chocolate while you’re doing it…

Glow: The Skychasers Trilogy

2012-01-31T12:27:00.000+11:00

Glow: The Skychasers Trilogy

Amy Kathleen Ryan

Pan Macmillan

Pub Date: 01-10-2011

What if you were bound for a new world, about to pledge your life to someone you'd been promised to since birth, and one unexpected violent attack made survival–not love–the issue?
A ship heading for New Earth is halfway through its incredible journey across the galaxy.
On board, sixteen year olds Waverly and Kieran are part of the first generation born in space.
They are in love.
They believe their future is written in the stars.
They have never seen a stranger before...
... until the day they are wrenched apart and suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives.
Glow is the most riveting series debut since The Hunger Games.

So when Nic asked me to join her amazing blog, which of course took me an entire two seconds to consider before I said HELL YES, I knew my first review HAD to be this book.

Why? Because you will very quickly learn that I am the harshest critic in the world where YA is concerned, so when I tell you I am in-love with Glow you know this book is a winner.

Glow was just such a refreshing read. I hadn't realised how much I had been missing sci-fi until I picked this up. There are no vampires, werewolves or paranormal creatures of any kind. Not even aliens! Instead, the monsters are us—as Glow explores exactly what we are prepared to do to each other in the name of survival and love.

But the most wonderful thing about this book is its characters. Waverly is spirited, fierce and strong—traits that are so lacking in too many YA heroines. I was completely drawn into her world and struggle for survival, particularly her right to control her own body and life when others felt they had the right to exploit her. There were moments that had me utterly engrossed, revolted and furious as she and the ones she loved were subjected to all kinds of degrading violations. What happens to Waverly is unforgivable—and when those around her try to justify their actions, I think I may have ripped a few pages out of the proof in disgust.

In another refreshing twist, the love triangle has its own unique story arch. Where alot of YA sets one suitor up to be the 'soul mate' and the other is simply there to create pointless conflict because we already know which guy will get the girl, Glow had me bouncing back and forth between Kieran and Seth—and I still can’t decide which one I liked more. They are both complex and flawed—so distinctly human. So they were easy for me to care about and yet at the same time I was so goddamn mad with them for their stupidity.

There are some rough edges to this novel but when I would normally be picking them apart, in Glow I was so captivated that they just made the world feel more authentic and raw. The plot is clever. It explores issues that teenagers should be thinking about. The language is intricate and at times poetic or layered with jargon but it is in no way overwhelming or detracting from the story. It finds that difficult but perfect balance between beautiful writing and wonderful storytelling.

And I cannot wait for the sequel. I would quite happily punch a small child if it got me this book any quicker.

oh heeeeey...

2012-01-24T13:46:00.000+11:00

so this post is about absolutely nothing but THE ADORABLE!

so much wisdom in such a small caption.

i'm about to explode with just the CUTENESS of it all. i mean: i have a life BUT THIS, this is living in a land of adorable for all time. look at that face.

errrr as you were.

the high life...

2012-01-23T08:49:00.000+11:00

soooo recently i've been playing with the idea of becoming a cliche: having a blog, working in the book industry and -the very crucial cliche making element- writing a book.

pros:

i would be one of many. being part of the in-crowd has mass appeal... literally.
i would be ferreting my time away on something useful, unlike my current occupation, which is obsessing over the crumpets i had for breakfast and wondering how fast is too fast when going back for more?

cons:

it would more than likely be a disaster
i would have to actually buy a laptop and so far i've been in a state of denial since my original laptop broke down 5 years ago. i literally cannot be bothered going out to the shops to buy a new one... which leads into my next con-
procrastination. i would sit at that screen like an incontinent puppy; no ability for self control, coupled with mounting enthusiasm. my writing would have a tendency of spewing forth in great big heaves... only to constipate once the delirious fever of obsession wore off. i'm nothing if not a study in contrasts.
did i mention it would be a disaster?
also, i'm burnt. this in no way affects my writing capabilities, but does affect my tan line. it's now uneven. my impressed factor is at sparkly vampire status: non-existent.

i feel like the cons have it.

i think i'll let the more interesting and talented deal with the niche market:

amanda hocking. self published her work, made millions and now has a book deal. not having actually read any of her books i can't comment on her talent, i can comment on the fact that she's made a lot, A LOT, of money ex-naying the publishers and setting about DIY-style. and now even more money having signed with a publisher. based on the amanda hocking model (lets call it 'rejection letter one oh one meltdown'), self publishing is the way to go.

presenting lenore. blogger turned writer turned book deal. she was probably writing before the blogging, but that didn't have the same ring to it.

steph bowe. blogger turned writer turned book deal. i probably should have started with steph. she seems to be one of the first to break off the blog writing into book deal.

john green. author first, blogging guru always.

go fug yourself. hilarious gets you places. specifically a book deal, thank you very much.

and for those of you who are capable of stringing together more than two words (unlike myself) here's a bit of advice from websites that know better than i:

the smell of books digital is where everyone needs to be. joel has a lot of great articles regarding this new digital world the book industry is entering.

hubpages i'd say its appeal is the millions of hits a month tag. i don't actually understand how it works in any way... but that's my own issue.

betareaders they offer a fresh perspective with proofreading and editing. i'd say they're super energised about it as well: 'we love to promote books! we love giving feedback! we love to write! we love to read!' i'm gonna take a stab in the dark and venture to say they love being beta readers. bless

figment fiction i'm not too sure i understand how it is that figment distinguish themselves from any other blogging-writing community... but they do. somehow. whatever, i think their website is spiffy.

shit storms...

2012-01-19T15:45:00.000+11:00

i wont do a post about it, because i soooo wouldn't know where to start.

plus THIS PERSON made it all nice and neat for as all.

but still: good times! bold and the beautiful YA style is back peeps! whereby online is kind of like find out your having triplets to your dead husband's brother on a desert island, where you discover your dead husband being... undead.

ENTERTAIN' THE TROOPS!

fly by...

2012-01-18T10:42:00.000+11:00

it was my birthday recently (i wont upset you all with a recount on how old i am... i prefer to be thought of a 'classic' rather than aged).

as is my habit for my birthdays: i manipulated people into doing exactly what i wanted when i wanted it.

hence the endless takeaway food and movie night on my birthday (don't ask what i did for my party: i mostly can't remember. there was a lot of champagne involved).

so i went and saw hugo (because i felt like seeing tintin twice in as many weeks was pushing the geek boundary).

hugo was a really great movie. in fact i'm pretty sure i loved it. however, i don't think it was quite right. it was a beautiful made (with slight tendencies to theatrics) and colourful film. the interior of the train station and where hugo lives with the clocks is like HELLA GOOD and old world and what not. it had a timeless quality about it.

the characters? totally made me cry. okay, one character made me cry: hugo. with his wobbly little lip that quivered and his big blue eyes that beseeched and said 'i am a sad, lonely orphan boy, love me and feed me', which made me blubber 'he's just a sad, lonely orphan boy, i just want to love him and feed him! also: somebody get that boy new socks!!!' the socks felt vitally important. one was just so pathetic and just hanging down on his ankles all sad and lonesome.

the train inspector was that lovely complex villainous sort of character that you had fifty levels of sympathy for but remained a main source of 'oh my god he will find hugo and take him away to the orphanage and then i will cry again because the orphanage is bad!' for reasons i didn't know. why is the orphanage bad? the boy's living in the clocks in the train station... would an orphanage not be better for his health? well, whatever the reason, it was made abundantly clear orphanage equals bad.

other than that though... the plot kind of lost me. i just couldn't make the emotional leap between clocks, and it's mechanisms, and cinema. was it an ode to cinema (in particular georges melies) or to clocks? because i was confuseded!

okay, not so much confused, the link was there to be had i guess, i just didn't buy it. or maybe i just wanted it to be one or the other: clocks or movies.

there was something that didn't quite fit in the movie. like it took a minor turn somewhere and was running parallel to the course it should have taken, so that you saw glimpses of what it should have been.

all in all though: i thought it was great. blue eyes pulls at the heart strings and the cinematography was all yeah i'm fine and i know it.

i'm totes on the recommendation bandwagon. however, i don't think it's a movie for the kiddies necessarily. there's this totally creepy nightmare scene that had my, rather easily squeamish, stomach revolting.

steel yourselves...

2012-01-11T09:00:00.001+11:00

in the interest of sharing is caring and all that, i believe i should tell you:

TINTIN WAS AMAZING!

you know i'm seriously serious because of my capital usage... i get excited and the CAPSLOCK BUTTON GETS A WORKOUT!

amazing, in fact, pales in comparison to the bright winsome light of hope and awesomeness that is the tintin movie.

but, i'm getting ahead of myself. lets start at the beginning shall we?

the characters:

tintin- is one of those annoying know-it-all judgmental characters. not at all the impression i remember from the books and tv series, but hey, i was like 4.

he is an investigative journalist... i suppose. mostly i just felt like he was all holy-than-thou and a bit of a shit... which had the unfortunate backlash of making me find him rather attractive. this speaks volumes of the many issues i have with the not-so-fair sex and, quite frankly, underage boys. because i'm pretty sure he's not of legal age. but leaving behind my mental perversity lets move on...

catch phrase? 'great snakes'

captain haddock- quite possibly the best comic relief character EVER. a drunk, down-on-his-luck captain named after a 'sad english fish - haddock'.

catch phrase? "blistering barnacles!"

one can't help but be touched by the alliteration of our dear ole captain ('thundering typhoons' etc).

snowy- smartest dog in history. AND he puts up with the likes of tintin. he is a marvel of patience and virtue. snowy's appeal lies in contrast: snowy investigates murder, my dog investigates it's own poo (and then drags it in the house. can i get an ew?). snowy is all fearless, my dog works itself into a state just short of schizophrenic at the merest hint of a storm (doggie valium; beautiful thing). i could expunge on snowy's many many doggie virtues (not in the lease being smarter than his master) but i shall, instead present you with the most compelling reason to love snowy:

he's cuteness factor.

catch phrase? ummm woof?

the plot:

boy wonder and his very smart and intuitive dog are set to the high seas for a swimming good time with some treasure. aka: there are pirates. PIRATES. 'nuf said.

the graphics:

were RIDONKULOUS. especially captain haddock. sometimes i was hard pressed to remember this was an animation. IT WAS CRAZY.

my advice? duh, see it! it's like totes amazing. AND had the distinction of being one of the few movies where i did not drop my food on me in the dark... i'm a child in adult clothing apparently.

adios.

welcome to new earth...

2012-01-05T12:48:00.000+11:00

welcome one, welcome all: this is uncommon nonsense 2 point O.

i know i know: i was dead. buried. no longer to sail the ever capricious winds of the blogging world.

that was until meagan was all: i miss you.

and i was all: i miss me too!

what a coinky-dink.

so we'll be doing things a little different from now on. i wont be reviewing YA books, BUT i will be talking about absolutely everything else. including dancing monkeys.

and to help me along (and to also talk about those pesky YA books i can't talk about) will be MEAGAN!!!

meagan, say hi to the nice folks at home!

oh hai there!

you could say that i bullied nicole into coming back to us…. aaaand you would be correct. you’re welcome.

the down side for you guys is that you’ll occasionally have to endure my rants about YA and probably be a little bullied every now and again if i feel like i’ve found a book that you absolutely must read.

on a random slightly tangential side-note: 2012 is the national year of reading. just in case you needed another excuse to escape into a book and stay up until 3am reading on a school night…

back to the main story: maybe i should tell you all a little about my reading habits? obviously i loves me a bit of YA, but i must admit that i steer heavily towards the fantasy/sci-fi end of the scale (generally because you still get the angsty teenage stuff, but diluted enough by the story-line that you don’t feel like you’re being forced to regress to your awkward teen self. )

at the moment i am particularly fond of and delighted by dystopia’s, steam punk and urbane fantasy. i do also dabble a bit in the classic’s and contemporary fiction, but generally all you’ll be hearing from me is YA – i’ll leave the wonderful wide world of everything else fiction, books and publishing to nicole.

so grab your reading glasses and cuppa (yes, that was a stereotype) and get comfy, it’s going to be a book-tastic 2012!

nicole is no longer down the rabbit hole...

2011-11-09T14:53:00.000+11:00

i have to say: i'm at a bit of a loss with what to do with the blog.

for a while there i was all 'work school work work school'. i couldn't breathe without touching a deadline of some kind.

and then i finished school.

... and then i finished my job... and started a new one.

i'm actually helping out at the centre for youth literature with adele (persnickety snark).

i can't help but love it like a crazy person.

unfortunately for the blog there is a very obvious conflict of interest. i'm not one to moderate my opinions and i'm not one plays favourites.

but it doesn't stop the fact that i'll be dealing with publishers all the time. and i'll be dealing with authors all the time. and that there is a very obvious conflict of interest.

if i thought i was moderately interesting in any other arena i'd totally bombard you with it all. but alas the bold and the beautiful drama of my life is only so interesting. after a while it's just crazy.

so i think it's time for me to bow out.

i've loved the time i've spent talking to you all. loved the crazy whirlwind of books. loved loved loved every moment of it.

anyone who wants to grab me
twitter: alicewayfarer or you can email me at: nicole.amy.a@gmail.com

thank you and goodnight!

death becomes me...

2011-08-28T20:09:00.001+10:00

wood angel

erin bow

chicken house

release date: march 1st, 2011

Plain Kate lives in a time afraid of magic.

She has a gift for carving ‘lucky’ wooden-charms. Known as Witch-Blade, her unusual gift attracts dangerous attention in a place where witches are burned. When her village falls on bad times, suspicion falls on Kate. Scared for her life, she seeks the help of a mysterious stranger.

In exchange for her shadow, the stranger will assist her. But Kate soon becomes part of a terrifying plan, darker than she could ever have dreamed.

First published in the USA as Plain Kate, this is the heartfelt story of an orphan ‘witch-child’ and her cat, caught in a time afraid of magic.

okay so now i'm really not dead! no doubt the long sordid ordeal will bore you to death (being only long, sordid and an ordeal to me). but i do have a new job. and uni has a beacon of light that heralds the end in two short months. so i'm back: less stressed and, finally, a little more read.

i feel like wood angel is the book that you pick up because of word of mouth. my very good friend debra (who is a disconcerting cookie and due to the fact that she is very much a literary genius, especially in the realm of fairytale and fables, is to be trusted completely) said 'i just finished wood angel and now i HAVE to talk to somebody about it.' so being the absolutely best friend that i am i read it.

her parting advice to me was 'ignore the cover. it doesn't do the book justice.'

as i read i realised that the cover (whilst pretty) suggested a younger audience then it is designed for. (genius thought side note: shaun tan needs to be in on this book and do an awesome remake cover. EPIC, right?!)

this book is a labour of love. and love it i did. i just... this book is so special. and unique. and utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful. and i really just want to pay it forward.

poor little orphan plain kate is just... one of those characters that you yearn for. it got to a point where i just wanted her to live (things were getting that desperate and bleak), her being loved or gaining her freedom (not in the sense you're thinking... you'll have to read it to forgive out what i'm talking about) or finding food, just kept getting moved down the list of things i wanted for plain kate.

i was so desperate for her, ya know?

and i cried.

guys, this is a book that deserves to be read. it's so special and unique and i fell in love with it so much. (meanwhile: it's a freaking DEBUT novel!).

you're going to listen to me, right? because i came back (after a FLIPPING MONTH, apologies about that) to tell you how unbearably sweet and terrible and consuming this book is. i want to desperately talk about ever moment on plain kate's journey... but spoilers are the devil spawn and you deserve to go into this and sweat it out like i had to.

read it
read it
read it

i'm not dead...

2011-07-26T21:22:00.003+10:00

brother/sister

sean olin.

penguin australia

release dateL october 3rd, 2011

WILL How many times do I have to say it? Yes, I see the picture. It's a body, obviously. It's a dead body.
ASHELEYYou have to understand, I love my brother. I'm scared of him too, but . . . regardless of what he has or hasn't done, I feel for him, you know.
WILLI don't care what happens to me, really, I don't. But Asheley . . . she had nothing to do with any of this.
ASHELEYIt's not like it sounds. He had a good heart. He trusted me. And I always did the best I could to help him.
WILLIt's not her fault. None of it. Okay then. The guy in the photo. I killed him . . . but I had to. I had no choice. Why? That's complicated. That'll take a while.

DANGLING SPOILER! SAY AWAY ALL THOSE WHO DON'T WISH TO KNOW THAT THE FROG DID IT....

and aren't we all just super excited by the prospect of me living? i know right!

crawling out from under my damp and fungi ridden rock i give you:

BROTHER/SISTER... epic in the 'nicole doesn't care' series.

and here's why:

golf. there is, like, five pages in which brother (i've forgotten his name) talks about golfing, being some kind of golfing wizz. i hate golf. it is not a sport people. not a sport.

this book is two halves that tried to make a whole... and it didn't work. either the first half should have been rewritten to match the second half, or the second half to match the first half. something that didn't make me go: SAY WHAT NOW?

the ending. gotta say. it's either a love it or hate it oh my god twister ending. my intial reaction was to like it. i was so shocked and just oh my god twister about it. but then it sat with me for about half an hour and when the shock wore off i realised the ending had no basis. there wasn't enough throughout the book to support the twister ending. it was a oh my god twister ending for oh my godness sake. that and i was just so weirded out by the whole experience of the book, i just couldn't force myself to care.

the characters. the brother is CRAZY. just absolutely crazy. but so is the sister. so neither get any sympathy from me. seriously. CAPSLOCK SERIOUSLY CRAZY. they were both HORRID. they both could have face planted into a grave of spiders and i wouldn't have cared. ugh!

the incest. i never know exactly what to say. it's so whackadoo crazy its kind of hilarious. but it's also mostly gross. and weird. and wrong. but hilarious too. unless you're meg rossof, and then you're just the boss.

a list of things...

2011-07-14T20:59:00.000+10:00

because i am feeling properly 'sharing is caring' today, here is a list of things you may not know about me (and really: don't we all just want to know everything about me? of course we do. this is not at all self-indulgent-soap-boxing, nooooooo. it also isn't to make up for the fact that i have not read in a week... okay okay, two weeks).

1. i'm pretty much a communist (although i have shouted this out before). give me a utopian dream society where we are all equal and loved and rainbows and unicorns... yep, i'm a dreamer. im also the biggest capitalist communist you'll ever meet (behind china, obviously). i'm a study of contradictions. what can you do.

2. bobby kennedy's speech in indianapolis on the death of martin luther king is one of my favourite things in the world. the crowd was almost completely african american and no one had told them of king's assassination yet. this speech is completely on the fly... and it's poised and beautiful and completely hopeful, even surrounded by death.

3. i dream in wars... and beheadings. i've dreamt in revolutions, world wars, civil wars and one rather random dream about a death march in the fruit and veggie section of safeway (i don't even know). also: if you're my friend, then i've beheaded you in my dream. sorry about that.

4. i am chronically late. it doesn't matter how much i try, i cannot get somewhere on time.

5. i have an addictive personality.

6. i hate sweet potato. it makes me want to gag. i'll eat any fruit or vegetable... just not that. yuck.

7. i'm beyond thankful to this blog. it is the reason i now know miss e., adele and romy. (do you hear the shout out romy?!?!?!)

8. i love school and learning.

9. running is the be all and end all to life. i'm convinced. if my body wouldn't give out; i'd just run and run and run.

10. it's quite fortunate i love to run and run, because i also love chocolate. i'm on block five since sunday...

11. i'm watching generation kill right now.

12. for some insane reason i don't believe in libraries. not so much as in 'i don't believe in their value' (they're immensely valuable)... i just never borrow from them. i have this weird compulsion to own every book. i don't know why and i don't know how... but i HAVE to OWN them. see number five in list: addictive personality.

13. i need to wash my hair tonight.

14. my childhood home had a flat roof. my favourite thing to do was run up and down that thing like a crazy person. my mother was never impressed... it made a lot of sound.

15. i have a faulty memory bank. i will not remember you from eve, but i remember nearly every moment of the original radio transmission of war of the world... errr obviously not during the original time period. they replay it on AM radio from time to time.

16. is my favourite number :)

a pint of o-negative if it's cold...

2011-07-11T22:34:00.000+10:00

dracula.

bram stoker.

this baby has no copyright, anyone and everyone has it in print.

release date: ohhhhh, you know, 1897.

When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula purchase a London house, he makes horrifying discoveries about his client and his castle. Soon afterwards, disturbing incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked at Whitby; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; and a lunatic asylum inmate raves about the imminent arrival of his 'Master'. In the ensuing battle of wits between the sinister Count and a determined group of adversaries, Bram Stoker created a masterpiece of the horror genre, probing deeply into human identity, sanity, and the dark corners of Victorian sexuality and desire.

here's the thing about dracula, the reason why it's a classic, the reason it's lorded as the ultimate vampire novel:

it's BAT SHIT CRAZY TERRIFYING AWESOME. word.

it's creepy. in that awesome way that makes your whole body goose pimple and shake with that arrrrrgggghhh feeling. it is that horrifying moment you find a spider in your bed. or the moment your foot takes a step and you cannot find solid ground.

the style. i think it's the changing narrative that throws the style into CREEP-O-FACTOR. you get the diary entries and letters from the main characters, but then, every so often, some randoms ship log is thrown in, and newspaper clippings and you're all 'OH MY GOD IT'S REAL I'M GOING TO DIEEEEEEE!'... yeah.

a flare of indignation. nothing like living in the modern era and being able to look back over a hundred years and say: 'yeah holmes, we be pimpin'. antiquated though dracula's view on women may be, it does have one thing going for it: it was written a hundred and fifteen years ago... twilight, however, has no such excuse.

and really if you're going to chose between two books with the same take on women's rights and roles within society; wouldn't you rather chose the one that isn't a pansy-ass-cry-baby? which leads us to...

DRACULA. dracula is the reason to read dracula. count dracula is BAD ASS peeps. he just LOOKS at you and you drop dead... or become his eternal lover. definitely one or the other.

location location location. puhlease, one word people: TRANSYLVANIA. are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? transylvania would just have to be the BEST NAMED COUNTRY EVER. seriously. so awesome.

there's so much more to talk about, but half the fun is curling up in bed, home alone, late at night, and scaring yourself silly.

welcome to the thrill ride ladies and gentlemen.

i'm S.A.D.

2011-07-06T18:50:00.000+10:00

Seasonal Affective Disorder people. it's a killer. see: i even used red... the colour of DEATH.

to commiserate the fact that i was knocked through the teeth with a MURDEROUS virus last week (gah it was HEINOUS. the only thing i was capable of was re-watching episodes of GENERATION KILL... the explosions and swearing calmed me...) here is a little shout out to the melbourne weather, for it makes me feel numb (mostly in the fingers and toes):

peace out.

hey! that's mine...

2011-07-02T13:42:00.000+10:00

stolen.

lucy christopher.

scholastic.

release date: errr sometime in the last year? scholastic's website is like a labrynth... i'm lucky to still be alive.

You saw me before I saw you.

A girl: Gemma, at the airport,
on her way to a family vacation.

You had that look in your eyes.

A guy: Ty, rugged, tan, too old,
oddly familiar, eyes blue as ice.

Like you wanted me.

She steps away. For just a second.
He pays for her drink. And drugs it.

Wanted me for a long time.

He takes her, before she
even knows what's happening.
To sand and heat.
To emptiness and isolation.
To nowhere.
And expects her to love him.

stolen stolen stolen stolen.

oh stolen, i have NO IDEA what to do about you.

i kind of feel better about it if i say it's not a kidnapping book. even though it is.

first off let me just say the book is all of these things: atmospheric, compelling and well written. there's probably more adjectives i can use there, but you get the drift.

i don't think in any way that it is a bad book.

but... ppppphhhhhewwww... okay... i understood where lucy christopher was coming from. ty is an extension of the australian outback, which our protagonist has strong and conflicting feelings about (compelled love and terrified hate). i get that, i do. unfortunately, for me, the result of this was that it actually felt like romance.

i understand the idea of stockholm syndrome, and having never experienced it can only guess at it's effects... but surely the quiet language between the two characters, the completely physicality of gemma's regard for ty is not (for lack of a better word) right. or correct?

and to be honest this all comes from 'feeling' the book, rather than the actions of either gemma or ty. like, if you take it in actions; gemma never stops trying to escape (HOLA! power to the people gemma!) and ty never stops trying to convince her that her place is in the australian outback with him (EVIL ty, EVIL!).

i wonder if maybe she should have just done away with one of the messages? fifty percent of the story's intent was the kidnapping, and the other fifty percent was the exploration of her feelings with the outback. it would have sat a lot better, for me, if these were two books.

i would gladly read two lucy christopher books instead of one. the girl does not make reading a hardship at all. which is where all my confusion sets in. because i don't dislike this book. i'm just... weirded out by this book. but i was compelled to read, to keep reading, to finish gemma's story.

i don't want anyone to feel this is a 'negative' review. because i feel so many contrary things; good, bad and other, for the book to feel negative to me.

best way i can sum everything up: do you ever had an instinct? THAT instinct. when you finish a book, and you feel so many things, but the one that comes through loud and clear is: 'this book wasn't meant to be written like that'. not that it wasn't to be published or never written, but that it wasn't to be THAT book, in this moment, with you as you are, and the book as it is? something is slightly off or different than you know it needs to be.

to end it on a much more positive note: the two separate strands (kidnapping and the outback) were compelling reading... separately (can't stress that one enough).

because when christopher had gemma standing out on that porch looking at the land around her... man that's just what i felt like. it is one of only two times that someone has captured what i see in the australian outback. the other time, for those interested, was a fringe of leaves by patrick white (OH MY GOD DON'T READ IT, IT WILL EFF YOU UP: TRUST ME!). although to be a little more technical: in a fringe of leaves the character gets stranded in south australia... but i digress.

it doesn't take a genius to figure out why - both characters were foreigners getting their first glimpse of something they could never completely comprehend. because truth be told: the outback is so removed from daily reality, and has this ability to be so immense, that you never feel quite comfortable with it.

christopher is one author, in a very short list, that said: here, i know what it is you feel for this barren land.

see. told you it wasn't a negative review.

when there's a rabbit in residence...

2011-06-24T18:22:00.000+10:00

all i ever wanted.

vikki wakefield.

text publishing

release date: june 27th, 2011

Mim knows what she wants, and where she wants to go — anywhere but home, stuck in the suburbs with her mother who won't get off the couch, and two brothers in prison. She's set herself rules to live by, but she's starting to break them.

Now Mim has to retrieve a lost package for her mother.

Does this make her a drug runner?

Why is a monster dog called Gargoyle hidden in the back shed?

And Jordan, the boy she sent Valentines to for years, why is he now suddenly a creep?

How come there's a huge gap between her and her best friend, Tahnee?

And who is the mysterious girl next door who moans at night?

Over the nine days before her seventeenth birthday, Mim's life turns upside down. She has problems, and she's determined to solve them herself. But in the end, she works out who her people are, and the same things look entirely different.

gotta say: i liked this one.

it had a lot of 'not quite' elements that made it completely off beat and kinda awesome (which is weird right? that by not being able to pigeonhole it, is what makes it awesome).

it was 'not quite' a drug book. 'not quite' a coming of age book. 'not quite' a poverty book. 'not quite' an alice in wonderland adventure. 'not quite' a love story. 'not quite' a family drama.

and all these 'not quite' elements have it sitting in this awesome 'just a little bit of everything' read. i feel like australian ya has this great ability to produce writers that are 'not quite' and 'just a little bit of everything'. i find myself going to say something like: 'oh this book was X' and then realise no, it's not. not completely. it's always so much more than, and not quite there. kinda makes me really proud to be australian, to be honest.

it was a little bit of grunge and grit and sarcasm... but not too much, ya know. i was afraid, going into it, i'd be getting some 'living dead girl' horror or something. and foremost for me was 'no no no i'm not strong enough'... but people had been saying such wonderful things, so i just gave myself a mental slap and delved in. happily it turned out it was not all horror and darkness (just a little darkness as it turned out).

also: weird coincidence but i was reading this as i was waiting in the emergency room - possible broken ankle, which turned out to be a false alarm (HURRAH!) - and had to laugh. the character totally effed up her ankle like i did; same ankle and everything... okay, not very interesting, but i did look down at my ankle rather ruefully.

thy blood thy magic...

2011-06-18T11:20:00.000+10:00

blood magic.

tessa gratton.

random house (america).

release date: may 24th, 2011

For Nick Pardee and Silla Kennicot, the cemetery is the center of everything.

Nick is a city boy angry at being forced to move back to the nowhere town of Yaleylah, Missouri where he grew up. He can’t help remembering his mom and the blood magic she practiced – memories he’s tried for five years to escape. Silla, though, doesn’t want to forget; her parents’ apparent murder-suicide left her numb and needing answers. When a book of magic spells in her dad’s handwriting appears on her doorstep, she sees her chance to unravel the mystery of their deaths.

Together they plunge into the world of dark magic, but when a hundred-year-old blood witch comes hunting for the bones of Silla’s parents and the spell book, Nick and Silla will have to let go of everything they believe about who they are, the nature of life and death, and the deadly secrets that hide in blood.

so people (who shall remain nameless *cough* sonja adele and tye *cough*) scoffed at me when i picked this up. but i stuck to my guns. i knew i wanted this book. i talked about it like A YEAR ago because she just made her book sound SO FREAKING AWESOME.

and it was awesome children. so awesome.

there's blood and sacrifice as your main witchy spell ways, nothing really new there, but i totally bought into it. it wasn't contrite. i didn't feel like gratton just wanted to get the world building or plot over with so she could return to a love story. it felt pretty plausible to me.

in fact the characters kind of just fall into like with each other... and then do something about it. like IMMEDIATELY. it is AMAZING. i didn't have to wait four books for them to figure out how to go on a date. fantastic.

i liked nick and silla. and the secondary characters for that matter. REECE i'm looking at you. you were a particular shade of awesome older brother.

i like that it took me nearly half the book to figure out nick's little endearment (when you read it, you'll know which character and the nickname i'm talking about. HILARIOUS). i like that nick is totally this too cool for school smart ass and he does it in a non-bad boy kind of way.

i like that silla was really grieving. that you saw glimpses of who she was before. how the magic allowed her to feel connected to that before.

i like the mystery and the plot. i like the curve ball three-quarters of the way through.

i like the dialogue.

i like that it is a stand alone book. STAND ALONE. as in NOT AN EFFING SERIES. it made me so happy! (err there is a companion to blood magic, out 2012, but i maintain: STILL NOT A SERIES!)

i like the atmosphere. it felt gothic and creepy and physically uncomfortable (like all gothic horror should). every cut of the blade totally had my fingers tingling and flexing against the book.

i just plain like like like.

if you want something to get lost in that isn't all fluffiness and light, then i'd say you've found your book. it's in a genre, with a cover, that a lot of us have turn from recently. but i'm giving it the uncommon nonsense stamp of approval. so go buy it will ya!

(also just as an aside; i'm totally offended the random house website says 'for fans of stephenie meyer, carrie jones and becca fitzpatrick'... i don't like their books is this still the book for me, random house? is it? why would you mention books that are so mediocre. those books are PARANORMAL ROMANCE and i totally maintain this is not. this is actually an urban fantasy. totally offended.)

it's not you, it's me...

2011-06-16T19:34:00.001+10:00

alaska.

sue saliba.

penguin australia

release date: june 27th, 2011

mia's heart made a sound that no one heard except for mia
late one night when she woke from dreams into darkness.
ethan was asleep beside her, and em was a forest away.
outside it was night and dark and alaska.the sky was upside down.

When Mia follows her sister halfway across the world to Alaska, she discovers that love can be found in the most unexpected and beautiful of places. But can Mia find the courage to follow her heart in Alaska? And what if the one you love is not all that you wish them to be?

i wanted to like this book (because hello! pretty cover).

i thought i would like this book (no CAPS people. it is the uncommon nonsense dreamland. you know i only use CAPS for SERIOUSLY SERIOUS things).

i said airy fairy things about how i would like his book (the writing was lyrical, which does make me wax poetic... like a lot).

i did not like this book... which feels like a bit of a cop-out sentence. unless the book is really mediocre and generic, i try not to reduce books to 'i do not like,' if i can help it.

this book isn't mediocre. or generic. it's off-beat weird and breathy and soft white words...

...and i didn't want it. i didn't want the character or the book or the story. it pressed against me in this really uncomfortable way. it was like mia was trying desperately to suffocate me... i just didn't want her character with me.

in the beginning i put down the book every other page and walked away for hours. by the middle i decided it was a band-aid and i needed to start ripping faster. by the end i was almost tripping over words in my haste to just finish.

it's a bit of a conundrum because there are some awesomely great and smart book people (tye and nomes i'm looking at you two) who absolutely loved it... and i kind of feeling like i walked in to a punchline after missing the joke: i just didn't get it. i know intellectually that it's good... i just... can't care for the book in any real way.

sorry guys.

robin, to the bat-mobile...

2011-06-10T20:39:00.000+10:00

con-nerd.

oliver phommavanh.

penguin books australia.

release date: may 30th, 2011

IT'S ONE SMALL STEP FOR NERDS, ONE GIANT LEAP TO BEING COOL.

Mama tells me I'm gifted and talented. But I know the truth. I'm just a nerd.

Kids call me Con-nerd - half Connor and all nerd.

I'm supposed to become a doctor but i have this deep, dark secret: I want to be a cartoonist.
And all of a sudden my mega-cool comics are getting noticed at school - I might even get into a special art class . That would sure impress this girl I'm keen on . . . and it might just be my chance to show the world my true destiny.

But I'm not sure Mama will see it quite that way . . .

i don't often read middle reads. more out of habit than necessarily having anything against them. there's this.. stigma (probably) that it's for such and such an age (although: aren't we fighting that beast with ya already?).

i probably buy into that mentality way more than i should. because every time, EVERY TIME, i pick up a middle read i'm instantly... happy. it's such a throw back to every precious innocent memory i hold. so theoretically, i should be reading more middle reads than i actually am.

a friend knew i was reading con-nerd and asked me how i was going with it. i feel like i pretty much hit the nail on the head with the following:

oliver phommavanh's work is like a spazzed-out golden retriever puppy that is currently running endless laps around your lounge room. the thing is big and loud and adorable and hilarious and innocent and mischief all rolled into one. there's such boundless enthusiasm in everything it does, it's impossible not to get caught up in that.

this review is short and sweet and (i pretend) funny... it's my blog and i'm funny on my own blog... if nowhere else... that's oliver all over (he doesn't have to pretend to be funny... he just is).

i'll always be all for boy orientated books. i feel like that guys get a bit of a raw deal in publishing; the market considers girls to be the predominant readers, and therefore the predominant market.

can i have fries with that?...

2011-06-07T20:21:00.000+10:00

good oil.

laura buzo.

allen and unwin.

release date: august 1st, 2010

'Miss Amelia Hayes, welcome to The Land of Dreams. I am the staff trainer. I will call you grasshopper and you will call me sensei and I will give you the good oil. Right? And just so you know, I'm open to all kinds of bribery.'

From the moment 15-year-old Amelia begins work on the checkout at Woolworths she is sunk, gone, lost...head-over-heels in love with Chris. Chris is the funny, charming man-about-Woolies, but he's 21, and the six-year difference in their ages may as well be 100. Chris and Amelia talk about everything from Second Wave Feminism to Great Expectations and Alien but will he ever look at her in the way she wants him to? And if he does, will it be everything she hopes?

i was having a lovely little conversation with like minded people (read: book lovers) about good oil.

i view it as addressing a completely silent issue in young adult literature: the unrequited-crush-on-the-older-boy-at-work issue.

... what? it's a SERIOUS issue. at least it was for me in my teenage years. but we'll talk about that later.

mostly i just had this 'well duh, why hasn't anyone ever done a based-at-work-ya?' (this should be amended to: 'that nicole knows of.')

at exactly fourteen and seven months my parents signed away my freedom and i became one of the casual working staff of our local cinema (i was totally CANDY BAR CHICK YEAH BABY!). my teenage years were split between the world i knew at school and the older crowd at work.

having been surrounded by the same boys five days a week for the better part of four years, it was the boys at work that held you captive. they were an older, prettier, elusive toy. they were yours, and only yours in your group of school friends, to crush on. your best friend wasn't going to develop a crush on your work crush... she didn't know your work crush. but you could talk about him. dream about him.

it was the best (and in some ways worst) of crushes.

so my 'well duh' moment? well, duh, someone should write a book about this aspect of teenage life. how simply genius! how relevant to everything you go through at that point in your life.

this isn't a 'love story'. this is a real exploration of school, work, family and friends. all navigated in that awkward teenage body you've been lumped with.

i loved the ending. it didn't fall into staged confrontations or reconciliations. it ends how all good books end: with the beginning stretching out in front of you.

errrr so do you want the extremely embarrassing first-work-crush-with-an-older-boy story? of course you do.

i was a barely blonde youngen who fell for the gelled sensitive (and popular) older boy. it was a match made in heaven: he liked grandparents. i liked grandparents. he spent forty-five minutes every morning gelling his hair. i used to braid mine in weird and interesting ways (i was being 'creative' and 'artistic'... yeah).

where did it all go so wrong???

we could have been the next romeo and juliet... minus the dying... but alas, it wasn't meant to be. mostly because my name wasn't bruce and i was missing some pretty specific anatomy.

that's right ladies and gentlemen... he was gay.

and really, i should have known... who spends forty-five minutes gelling their hair every morning?? a pretty face will distract you (or at least this girl) every time.

the government is watching...

2011-06-04T00:00:00.000+10:00

something funky is going on in the land of blogspot. the CIA have infiltrated or something.

basically i can post and edit my posts and have a fan dandy time .

... except for comments. it wont let me comment to save my life.

is anyone else having problems? i don't think so, because there are comments... but... oh who knows.

to everyone who has commented on my last three posts (i've been in denial about the problem... i discovered it last week and treated it like a cold: short in duration): i wanted to say thank you. and that as soon as big brother stops whatever the hell he is doing - and allows me to comment again - i'll be personaling thanking you (because i love comments, and i love replying to comments... i feel all book club-y when i do).

how i live after this book...

2011-06-02T23:28:00.001+10:00

how i live now.

meg rosoff.

penguin australia

release date: november 19th, 2008

Fifteen-year-old New Yorker Daisy thinks she knows all about love. Her mother died giving birth to her, and now her dad has sent her away for the summer, to live in the English countryside with cousins she's never even met.There she'll discover what real love is: something violent, mysterious and wonderful. There her world will be turned upside down and a perfect summer will explode into a million bewildering pieces.How will Daisy live then?

...
...
...
...

OH MY GOD!!!!!!

OH... MY... GOD...

SERIOUSLY, I MAY JUST WRITE THIS ENTIRE REVIEW IN CAPSLOCK... SERIOUSLY.

or not. it might get a little funky on the eyes... who am i kidding: there will be lots of CAPSLOCKS, just not all.

top 13 (because you have to draw the line somewhere and i think daisy would appreciate the bad luck number marker) reasons to love this book...

1. IT IS BAT SHIT CRAZY AWESOME.

2. 'the real truth is that the war didn't have much to do with it except that it provided a perfect limbo in which two people who were too young and too related could start kissing without anything or anyone making us.'

3. THEY'RE COUSINS. COUSINS. FIRST COUSINS. and this aint no jane austen era people. i mean COUSINS. INCEST. hilarious as i usually find the whole INCEST thing... this was just... too beautiful. and i feel totally perverse. doesn't mean daisy and edmond aren't two clothed skins that fit.

4. the world. it drowned me. and every time i had to come up for air i took what i needed, before sinking gratefully back down.

5. 'after a little while of this my brain and my body and every single inch of me that was alive flooded with the feeling that i was starving, starving, starving for edmond.'

6. this book found where i was sown together and like an insect it moved under my skin and made me crawl with foreign feeling.

7. the magic realism in this is... effortless. deep. real. unique. there are no straight lines, only curves and spirals and movement. this book totally breathes.

8. the ending.

9. the horror. the case that held my every emotion together was glass and all it took was one sentence and everything shattered into fine powder.

10. 'somewhere along the line i'd lost the will not to eat. partly i wouldn't be good old daisy if i didn't get my appetite back just when everyone else in the world was learning how to starve, and partly the idea of wanting to be thin in a world full of people dying from lack of food struck even me as stupid. well what do you know? every war has a silver lining.'

11. daisy. fucked up as she is, sister got mettle. sarcastic and beautiful and so strong... yet incredibly sad and in so many ways she started out dead (only to come alive in a war).

12. gin and jet. give me a dog in a book and i'm a goner.

13. because there will never be a story like this. told like this. with these characters.

procrastinating days...

2011-05-29T20:18:00.002+10:00

book of a thousand days.

shannon hale.

allen and unwin.

release date: may 1st, 2008

This is no ordinary fairytale. The prince isn't charming. The princess is spoilt. And you certainly won't guess the ending.

soooo i should be studying... or at least eating a tim tam - as i have determined that chocolate (specifically tim tams) is the root of all knowledge (and will surely be what allows me to pass my exam with flying colours?)

either way. i should be doing something other than this... but i can't help it. procrastination is thy name.

a book of a thousand days... shannon hale is... good.. unique. earthy.

before i go too far into the review i just want to get the following off my chest.

i believe a good blurb should the following three things:

qualify the book (category). is it fantasy, sci-fi, romance, a biography on bob hawke? i don't want to read the same 'type' of book every single day. some days i want an epic war novel, some days i want quiet and slightly mushy. the blurb should be you're 30 second assessment guide.

set the tone of the book. is it a satire? light? dark? medium rare?

no spoilers. well duh. what's the point of knowing anything bar the main protagonist name and whether they'll be in high school or not.

let me also say: i LOVE allen and unwin. love them. like, they are my favourite of all the publishers in all the land. they have a FANTASTIC list. they have smart book people in their company and they use them well. seriously, their list: SO SMART. it is a quality list. they even have the occasional vampire book and i'll even read those (alyxandra harvey).

i went in to this book with the above (right at the top) blurb. this blurb is total misrepresentation territory. it sounds to me like tangled (which fyi is the reason i finally bumped this book to the top of my tbr pile, because HELLO THAT MOVIE IS AWESOME HILARITY AND IF YOU HAVEN'T JUMPED ON THAT BANDWAGON YET: WHAT THE HEY?).

it's not anything like tangled. does it have humour? i'm not going to say it was without it. but it also wasn't a satire. or a comedy of errors. or anything like.

this book had A LOT of depth to it. the 'spoilt princess' is actually a sad creature caged by society, her family (father) and her mental disability... yes, i'm going to call it a mental disability. whilst i don't know exactly what is wrong with her (ptsd? maybe) it is something a lot more serious than merely being 'spoilt'. she suffers a trauma (which comes out in the course of the book) and it has left her... not right.

but i'm not going to dissect the blurb too much. i did just want to mention it in passing so that we're all clear that basically it doesn't do the story any kind of justice.

the book itself. really really really great. there's such depth to the story: flawed characters set in a magical (and realised) kingdom, surrounded by war and poverty, exploring love, status and obligation. and you know when you get a good book and you realise things are happening 'off screen' but somehow the author is able to bring your attention to it? i believe it's called good writing.

whilst it is classified as a young adult it is probably the younger side of young adult. doesn't stop it from being completely fabulous mind, i just wanted you to be aware.

would i recommend? in a heartbeat. i had one or two problems initially (the blurb mostly) but that cannot take away from an interesting (and well-written) retelling.

enjoy.

(errrr TIM TAM TIME!)

graffiti me baby...

2011-05-26T21:58:00.000+10:00

graffiti moon.

cath crowley.

pan macmillan australia.

release date: august 1st, 2010

Lucy is in love with Shadow, a mysterious graffiti artist.

Ed thought he was in love with Lucy, until she broke his nose.

Dylan loves Daisy, but throwing eggs at her probably wasn't the best way to show it.

Jazz and Leo are slowly encircling each other.

An intense and exhilarating 24 hours in the lives of four teenagers on the verge: of adulthood, of HSC, of finding out just who they are, and who they want to be.

i'm IN LOVE.

i know i know: again.

i can't help it. books come out and i read them and then i realise they're actually made of awesome.

and then we date. and marry. in canada. because it's not legal to marry books here.... *cough* FASCISTS *cough*.

graffiti moon is about fifty levels of awesome. but for now lets just break it down to the essential few.

language.

i loved the turns of phrase in this novel. total swoon worthy language that had me... well swooning.

words are what it is all about. it's the reason behind reading; a love of words. i love when an author does more than just throw words around like they're playing a tennis game: he said, hit; she said, hit; he said, hit; game, set, match. crowley thought about her characters, about the world they inhabited, and made a language around it. fantastic and authentic. i absolutely adored it.

the characters.

off beat. a little weird, wacky, left of centre artsy. i totally sat there and breathed in the book, and the characters, and did that thing that good books make you do: put everything on hold until you've finished the very last word and hold your breath whilst you do it, until the characters are safe and happy (and, duh, in love).

the plot.

the good ole' one night of wacky freedom where the normal rules don't apply and every crazy adventure is just around the corner ploy. it was a little nick and norah and this is shyness-esq. both books I LOVED. and it's because of the possibility. this could be your wacky night of freedom. fantasy is the imagination at it's best. contemporary is the possibility of the real world. and i love that this possibility is out there.

meanwhile: two assignments and an exam down. one to go.

and then i shall be BACK! and more in love with books than ever. or dead. death via exam. it has a certain ring to it, no?

for me this is....

2011-05-20T20:20:00.001+10:00

i meant to show you all this about a year ago when it came out... but as we have established my memory asked for a quickie divorce and ran off with my money.

you've probably already seen it, but it's totally awesomesauce, so it's worth another looksie.

also: i had a totally inspired week at uni and i'm all 'YEAH AUSTRALIAN PUBLISHING IS AWESOME AND WE SHOULD BUY AUSTRALIAN, ESPECIALLY FROM INDEPENDENTS!'

so consider this your friendly: buy from your indi's message. i know bookdepo is cheaper. but the book depository is in another country, which means your money is in another country, which means your giving your job to another country, which means bad things for the australian industry. it's basica math, or something.

huh... i'm very pro-australia this week aswell.

heed me. for i am the UNCOMMON NONSENSE GOD.

this place about to blow...

2011-05-17T21:31:00.000+10:00

apologies kiddies.

i've had back to back assignments and exams on the (too soon) horizon.

it'll be light posting (one a week, pretty much like it has been) for a little longer.

non-reading life blows. can you believe people do this? voluntarily! like: there are people who don't read because they just can't be bothered... amazing. i'm suffering withdrawals over here. chocolate is my only solace. and it aint as pretty on my hips.

i think you forgot something...

2011-05-14T12:06:00.000+10:00

six impossible things.

fiona wood.

pan macmillan australia

release date: august 1st, 2010

Fourteen-year-old nerd-boy Dan Cereill is not quite coping with a reversal of family fortune, moving house, new school hell, a mother with a failing wedding cake business, a just-out gay dad, and an impossible crush on the girl next door.

His life is a mess, but for now he's narrowed it down to just six impossible things...

not exactly spoilerish, but i kind of talk about what doesn't happen. for like a sentence or two. and then i get distracted.

um people I WAS SHIPPING THE WRONG COUPLE FROM ABOUT PAGE TWENTY.

i totally couldn't help it. i sometimes just get it into my head that certain characters have a connection, based on nothing more than a not-so-nice conversation in which one is called a creep by the other, apparently.

*sigh* that's right. i shipped dan and janie (estelle's best friend, estelle being who he is ACTUALLY into, as opposed to my imaginary 'into').

shipped them pacey and joey style.

shipped them joshua jackson and nicole style. yeah. (i was a tween... what did you expect?)

it's kind of hard to completely fall in love with a book, in which a significant element of the book is about being in love for the first time, if you're shipping the wrong couple. i could never get on board with the whole estelle angle.

don't get me wrong, i like all the little not-so-obvious literary references (dan cereill is an anagram for cinderella, the cinderella elements storyline and the alice in wonderland 'six impossible things before breakfast' reference... okay the last two are obvious).

great set of quirky, real and flawed characters, which you just gotta appreciate.

the dynamic between dan and his parents (even the absentee father) was brilliant. the dealing of the 'gay dad' issue makde it a stand out. and last, but definitely not least, the writing style was a complete joy.

i just... wasn't in love with it. heart beating i can't put you down i wont breathe the same way again in love.

but some totally awesome -i know what the heck i'm talking about- reviewers (and friends) loved it:

book gryffin's review.
persnickety snark's review.
nome's review.

don't get me wrong. i see what they're saying. i saw it in the book, and it was done really well... i just didn't feel it a hundred per cent. i don't know. BUT it is a fantastic book, and i would highly recommend reading it. i just wasn't in love with it.

up up and away...

2011-05-06T19:04:00.000+10:00

too small to fail.

morris gleitzman.

penguin australia.

release date: may 2nd, 2011

What do you do when your mum, your dad and sixteen camels are in trouble and only you can save them?

The sometimes sad but mostly funny story of a boy, a girl, a dog and four trillion dollars.

morris gleitzman is like a pixar movie.

no no; hear me out.

the demographic is children... but there's so much depth and intelligence behind every simple phrase that it's really for the adults too.

you guys... this book is so cute. and sweet. and endearing. and you'll just love the character and how earnest and beautiful he is.

i love jumping into a gleitzman book. he just... has such an awesome way with words, with creating beautifully innocent and good characters. gleitzman also looks to say something with his work.

people, don't even get me started on my gleitzman love. it borders on totally inappropriate because he's like fifty-eight... which is older than my dad when i think about it...

so that's totally weird. but, whatever, i'm sticking with my sick fantasy.

i kinda hope morris never reads this blog... because oh my god he would totally get a restraining order and i would totally be banned from that oak tree that looks over his bedroom...

i dare you not to like this book... no i DOUBLE DARE you.

... which doesn't work. because i've already read it, so how can i double dare you with something i've already done?

... wait is that how the double dare works? i haven't been a tween in a while, so i'm little rusty on my truth, dare, double dare, kiss games.

where was i? oh: next time you're in a book store, pick this book up and read the first two pages.

i guarantee you will buy it buy the end of those two pages or the uncommon nonsense will eat her shorts.

toto, i have a feeling we're not in kansas anymore...

2011-04-30T10:50:00.000+10:00

unearthly

cynthia hand

harper collins australia

release date: january 1st, 2011

Clara has known she was part-angel ever since she turned fourteen two years ago, but only now is her Purpose - the crucial rite of passage for every part-angel - becoming clear to her. Clara′s Purpose leads her family to Wyoming, where, amidst terrifying scenes of a bush inferno, she finds the boy of her visions, Christian. He is everything she could wish for - so why does she also have feelings for her enigmatic classmate Tucker?

Clara discovers that her Purpose is only a small part of a titanic struggle between angels and their destructive counterparts, the Black Wings. And when the fire of her visions erupts and both Christian and Tucker are in danger, who will she choose to save?

i was texting the book gryffin, as you do, about patrick ness' a monster calls, as you do, when i said to her:

'i'm on the second page of unearthly and i don't hate it's guts yet. this is extremely encouraging.'

several hours, and an entire finished book later, i was messaging romy with:

'i just read unearthly: a young adult paranormal romance about angels. and i liked it. if stranger things have happened, i have no idea what they are... britney spears shaving her head would come close. maybe.'

kansas indeed.

people: i liked an effing angel book. ANGELS. argh. if i didn't like the book so much i'd hate myself just a little.

there's a stigma going around (one that i fully endorse and instigate...) about urban fantasy at the moment: it's watered down romance with half-assed mythologies that flounce around pretending to be interesting. i'm pretty much the president, secretary and treasure of the kill me now, not more urban fantasy. if i'm not being in your face mean to a paranormal book then i'm claiming it's so bad it's actually hilarious.

i'm blunt and bitchy and kind of not forgiving. strike one on stubborn me. but, whatever. i feel like you don't have a plot or characterisation or the ability to write a sentence then i get to call your book crap, okay?

unearthly; i didn't sit and mock you. i didn't skim so you'd be over quicker. you didn't make me wish for a fresh lobotomy. i enjoyed reading you. you made me forget i was reading a genre i currently hate. in fact i looked up to discover i'd read cover to cover and that there was a slight tingly feeling in my stomach for the next book... that's right peeps: anticipation. who woulda thunk it?

not only is it a paranormal romance about angels... it's an effing series. a series.

its like this book set out asking, no BEGGING, for me to kick its ass.

but i couldn't. there's just something... enjoyable about this book. i mean, lets not get carried away, when you get to the bones of it, it is what it is. but it's fun, the characters play off each other well, there's some plot, OH THE JOY, and off we go.

unearthly isn't doing anything radically new or different in the way of paranormal romance. there's the do's and dont's, and by god the do is you have a hot kissing scene or two... but i feel like maybe that should be a do for every book. because HELLO we all know how i feel about make-out books. kind of how i feel about making-out in real life: essential.

i feel like unearthly pulled back when it needed to and jumped that extra step when it was required. one of, many, issues i have with paranormal romance is the overflow of description. if a character walks into a scene then damn it we need a run down of the intensity of their eyes and their pull over fleece and blah blah blah. and i'm like: this isn't a fashion show. i don't care what the make believe people are wearing, give me plot! or just a little violence. that's all i ask for. just a maiming or two. ya know? alas, no one ever listens. except unearthly apparently. where a normal paranormal romance would just take it one step too far into cliche-cringe territory, unearthly just reigned it back a little.

and when most paranormal romances skip over important plot points or characterisation to jump back to the romance, i felt like unearthly didn't.

just one percenter's like that, with decent writing and characters that actually seemed to like each other, and you have yourself three hours of escapist fun.

nomes: you were right. and i bow down to you (but i was doing that before, so i don't know if it counts).

say what now?...

2011-04-28T21:33:00.000+10:00

winter's shadow.

m.j. hearle

pan macmillan australia

release date: 6th of June, 2011

Blake Duchamp...

He's all that Winter Adams can think of. Ever since their fateful meeting at Pilgrim's Lament. Ever since he looked at her with those emerald eyes. Ever since he saved her life.

But Blake isn't all that he seems. There is a strangeness about him, something dark and otherworldly. Something dangerous. In his attic is a secret he would kill to defend, but Winter seems to have a special ability to make him forget his duty. And he is her only protection against the gathering darkness.

The only problem is, to protect Winter, Blake must risk exposing her to an even greater danger. Himself.

oh ohes... you know what's going to happen don't you...

skip it. for-CAPSLOCKS-real

it was unforgiveably baaaaahooooring.

i was oh so bored reading (skimming) this book i managed to master wizardry on the side. oh yeah: harry potter the second right here.

there's nothing gothic or new or exciting. there's a mysterious 'noise' in the attic, but as they're studying jane eyre in class i'm pretty much betting it will take half a page for you to figure that one out.

also just a note to authors: referencing classics in the hope that it will tell the reader what type of feeling/book/character they are reading doesn't actually work. because i just remember how awesomely-romance-gothic jane eyre was, and how sucky what i am reading now is.

when debut authors are good, they are very very good...

2011-04-22T09:42:00.001+10:00

my sister lives on the mantelpiece.

annabel pitcher

hachette australia

release date: march 1st, 2011

'We meet again, Spider-Man she said.

And I replied How many people have you saved today, Girl M. She pretended to count on her fingers. Nine hundred and thirty-seven she shrugged. it's been a quiet day.'

oh wow. just wow...

she's a debut author? seriously? SERIOUSLY? because this book read like a old hat champion of words.

i'm so impressed by this book.

i cried. like a girl ( i have my pout face on right now in fact). and we know what the nicole cry means don't we? book jackpot.

MSLM is just... you know that feeling you get? it's everywhere: your stomach, your throat, your head. emotion that just becomes this physical thing? that's how this family lives, how i lived whilst reading the book.

complete emotional overload.

and so fabulously done.

this looks at death and life and people so uniquely... and i just want to jump back into the book. like, right now!

you know how people talk about how life, and how moments, leave little impressions on you? how different it is for us book reading people! because not only do we have life and its many crazy moments, but we have books. books to mould our emotional shapes. this is a moulding moments kind of book, peeps.

the blurb is all it took for me to take this book to the counter. and i'm so thankful, because that cover? yeah: i almost just walked right past it. it's so 90s. ick. hachette, can we get a redesign please? because that cover does not accurately reflect everything beautiful about this book. in fact it sucks big time. sucks like me being on a diet, sucks. (okay so the diet hasn't happened... nor is it likely. it's easter. and i want chocolate.)

but if the blurb doesn't seal the deal 100% then here's a link to the first chapter the publisher's kindly allowed out and about.

you know how i'm always like; seriously, read it. i'm like SERIOUSLY read it, this time. read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it read it

...why are you still reading this review? i told you to go read it!

god is that you?...

2011-04-17T12:29:00.001+10:00

starcrossed

josephine angelini

pan macmillan australia

release date: june 1st, 2011

Destiny brought them together. The Gods will keep them apart.

When shy, awkward Helen Hamilton sees Lucas Delos for the first time she thinks two things. The first: that he is the most ridiculously beautiful boy she has seen in her life. The second: that she wants to kill him with her bare hands.

With an ancient curse making them loathe one another, Lucas and Helen have to keep their distance. But sometimes love is stronger than hate, and not even the gods themselves can prevent what will happen...

that can't really be her last name can it? angelini? it's too good to be true if it is.

also: i know the 'why's' of having an alternative aus cover (copyright blah blah blah too expensive blah blah) but seriously THAT was the best you could come up with? ah my proof is like fifty times better than that... and it's a proof...

anyway: onwards... to the book....

it's a book about demi gods. lets all take a moment to just bask in the awesome hilarity.

everyone basked?

okay. lets continue.

listen: its not the worst thing i've ever read... WE ALL KNOW THAT IS TORMENT. AND OH MY GOD IF I COULD DOUBLE CAPSLOCK THAT EFFING TITLE I WOULD.

whilst percy jackson was doing the whole demi god thing first, i'm gonna go ahead and say its somewhat original for the market we currently have. mostly because starcrossed has sifted to older teen audience, and is in the throes of TWU WUV. whereas percy jackson was a little more daddy issues, action based. ya know?

so on that account (the semi originality of it... i kind of want to pretend i could get on board with the romance in this one...but in the end i was like KILL HER! which did not bode well for the main character), i was intrigued. and that spark kept me only mildy comatose through a fairly decent part of the book. no, its not shakespeare, but it is readable.

i appreciated the 'wanting to kill him' plot ploy which, was eventually resolved... (i'm unhappy about this. mostly because i'm a blood hungry psycho, and any chance of a death scene and I'M SO THERE ITS INSANE).

after that it falls fairly quickly into la crapanormal predictable format.

the demi gods angle, large print, and lobotomy will keep you flicking pages, and not hating its guts. i'd suggest not taking it too seriously (if you're so inclined to read it) and MOCKING IT LIKE ITS 1999. just know its fairly mind numbing run of the mill stuff.

there's a twist at the end, which any person worth their salt will see coming a mile away... and if only for the entertaining conversation you'll end up having with your self, read it...

me: no... the author wouldn't. would she?
me: oh my god I THINK SHE WOULD.
me: doesn't she know its been done already?
me: although its a book about greek gods, and if you can't have a ************ twist in a crapanormal demi god book than WHERE CAN YOU?!
me: OH NO SHE DIDN'T!

oh yes she did children.

don't get caught up in the hype. it won't change your world, and its not the next edward and bella love affair... mostly because what edward and bella have is actually a five movie contract deal. they also have the bonus of being the bane of my existence. starcrossed does have the added bonus of not being the bane of my existence. so YAY! go team starcrossed.

speaking of twi- its been five years already, ENOUGH with this effing book-light: what is it with the craptastic and crapanormals of this world writing passages in which they talk about HOW NOT TWILIGHT THEY ARE?! like; your a paranormal romance: here's a pot and a kettle. you figure it out.

its all 'look, see how i'm not twilight, because i have my love interest MENTION how he's not stalking the main character by sleeping on her roof, its really a safety thing.' correct me if i'm wrong: edward tried to pull that shit too.

or my personal favourite:

main character: you're not a vampire are you?
love interest: no, (mocking laughter and/or dismissive tone) everyone knows vampires are not real/ lame/ your mum...
reader's response (if we had the intellect of, say, apes): oh my god! see! its not about vampires, which means its not at all in anyway like twilight. oh thank god. because i was getting confused with the impossibly beautiful/ strong/ so in love with our main character NO ONE COULD POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND ploys. I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER NOW THAT I KNOW ITS NOT TWILIGHT.

ah huh.

everything in between...

2011-04-09T22:13:00.001+10:00

the book of everything.

guus kuijer

allen and unwin

release date: march 1st, 2006

Thomas sees amazing things that no one else can see: tropical fish swimming in the canal, sparrows playing bright trumpets and frogs wriggling through the letterbox. When his father hits his mother, Thomas sees the angels cover their eyes and weep.

He writes it all down in The Book of Everything, including his wish: 'When I grow up, I'm going to be happy'. One of his biggest discoveries is that happiness begins with no longer being afraid.

the book of everything is an interesting one.

more episodic than a fully fledged novel, but oh god the language, the character.

the character simply does not see the world like we do, it sees songs and colour and hurt. physically sees them. i love a character who is so unique, so beautiful they seem slightly other.

just to give you a bit of 'nicole's reading history': the year was 2009 and i decided i was going to read every book on the miles franklin literary award list. the long list. because sometimes i just get these ideas in my head. for no other reason than i basically have some form of adhd and scatter my life accordingly.

seriously: i have all these 'little projects' that i just decide to do one day, and then fall head first into a pit. usually a fiery pit, because i have no idea how to do things in moderation.

the first book i picked up from the list was 'one foot wrong' by sophie laguna. based on nothing more than i liked the blurb ('One day Hester takes a brave Alice in Wonderland trip into the forbidden outside and this overwhelming encounter with light and sky and sunshine is a marvel to her.').

... i've never been so destroyed by a book.

i kind of think of myself as a bit of a hard ass. don't get me wrong, i'm not deliberately mean all the time or anything, i just... am not the cuddly fluffy type.

one foot wrong destroyed some vital part of me.

now the book of everything and one foot wrong are not similar books in any real way. the content and harshness is extremely different. but i was reminded of a similarity between the way the main characters were able to see the world.

so i think my reading of the book was really coloured by that. i kept flicking through because i had this tangible (not as painful) link to a book that destroyed part of who i am. it was a link to what i enjoyed most in both books, the character's view of the world and how that was represented in the language.

beautiful in its own right, the book of everything is that contradiction: sweetly heartbreaking.

have yourself...

2011-04-08T18:18:00.000+10:00

...a hauntingly good friday, children.

kiss me...

2011-04-05T21:12:00.000+10:00

devil's kiss

sarwat chadda

penguin australia

release date: june 29, 2009

THE RUSTY CHAINS GROANED AS HE SWAYED BACK AND FORTH, WATCHING HER. 'MAYBE IT'S NOT HIM,' THOUGHT BILLI. 'MAYBE HE'S JUST SOME NORMAL KID. MAYBE I DON'T HAVE TO MURDER HIM.'

Billi SanGreal is facing her Ordeal. The last test before her initiation. But she hadn't expected this. Not killing a little kid. Billi is destined to follow her father into The Order and protect the masses from the unholy. From the thousands of evil, tortured souls that prey on humanity.

Billi is fifteen. Is a life of brutal fighting and deadly combat really what she wants?

Or is temptation threatening to lead her astray . . .

this promised some to middling goodness for me... or at least more than crapanormal slit my wrist now mediocrity

mythology? check.

kick ass heroine? check.

some originality? check.

and yet despite its promise of the gloryland, it fell too short for me to make it a recommendation.

it wasn't so bad. it didn't fall into paranormal romance pitfalls, had a fairly decent (and interesting) take on mythology and had the added bonus of not making me want to scratch my eyes out with my bare hands... but i still wanted more from it.

it needed another pass through the editing blocks, a little more complexity to its characters and a twist that looked and tasted like a pretzel rather than a bread stick. the fine tuning wouldn't have gone astray.

i can't say i'm all that inspired to read the next in the series (or even find out if its out) but then again i've discovered i'm allergic to series recently. i break out in hives. its disgusting.

hello my friend...

2011-04-02T11:34:00.002+11:00

for your weekend viewing pleasure.

viva la revolution baby...

2011-03-29T20:58:00.000+11:00

revolution.

jennifer donnelly

allen and unwin

published: november 1st, 2010

Andi lives in New York and is dealing with the emotional turmoil of her younger brother's accidental death. Alex lives in Paris and is a maid to the royal family as the French Revolution rages. They're both struggling with their responsibilities and their places in the world. When Andi is sent to Paris to get her out of the trouble she's so easily enveloped by in New York, their two stories collide, and Andi finds a way to reconcile herself not only to her past but also to her future.

A wonderful and evocative portrait of lives torn apart by grief and mended by love.

oh this book.

you know how as a kid you’d get dozens and dozens of easter eggs and you’d be happily munching away, getting a stomach ache but totally not caring because ohmygodchocolate, when you’d hit upon velvety gold and realise that all this time you’d been chowing down on bland plastic and that this was actually the promised land? remember that?

my easter bunny was a fan of one good quality chocolate egg mixed in with a dozen no brand chocolate eggs… but that’s because my easter bunny was, um, is, a crazy money saving hoarder (the coupon cutting, bulk buying kind of money saver) who is of the opinion; if its not on sale, then it doesn’t exist. as a chocolate lover you can understand why easter was occasionally a traumatic time of year for me (no person deserves CAROB chocolate as a substitute… that is just cruel and unusual punishment).

where was i?... chocolate metaphor. right.

revolution is chocolate velvety goodness.

i didn’t realise I had been consuming bland plastic until i read it.

it is such a solidly good book. so good.

and i was surprised because it could have easily dropped into predictable and mediocre.

first: oh my god look! it’s a bird, no, it’s a plane, no, it’s a plot.

A-MAZ-ING

a plot? you ask. i know: it’s been a while.

the first three quarters of the book has all these different plots going on, and there doesn’t appear to be anyway that they actually fold together, but you don’t mind because the writing is good and the characters are unpredictable and interesting, and hey, its still interesting as all heck.

ah, yeah. plot a, b, and c, meet plot d for the last quarter and have yourselves a trippy awesome time, k?

second: the characters. man. even when i didn’t like the characters i was invested. the character got me. i believed her. her pain and rebellion weren’t manufactured for me. i totally just got her. i got her pain and her whys and her anger and confusion.

third: hello english, thy name is revolution. do you know what it all comes down to (crapanormal writers take note)? the ability to not butcher the english language. can i get an amen? to be better than mediocre. you can get away with blue murder (plot and character wise) with me if you’ve taken the english language past the well-worn ‘he said’, ‘she said’. it's crazy what i'd do for a well written bone.

and even when we have the tried and so done ‘grieving protagonist over family member’ plot or the ‘hot soulful boy’ character or even the ‘i’m edgy because i’m a musician’ ploy it’s still so good. i see other books and it all just feels like bad cheap carob chocolate. revolution totally has substance. even when its doing things that you’ve seen a hundred times before… its presenting them in new way, making it exciting, and totally taking away any ability to just put the book down for even a moment.

i found myself pouring my will out into this book; i willed them to make it; willed them to be recognisable if they made it; willed beginning, middle and end.

i know: ahmazing.

just to temper this love fest a little; i didn’t cry… which, crying is usually something marchetta manages to make me do, and slips the book into ‘my most favourite thing ever category’. crying is the touchdown people. there were, however, sniffles.

people; it’s a orgasmic gooey carmel filled chocolate egg of awesomeness. no more, no less. buy it, or i might get mad.

screw you...

2011-03-26T11:27:00.001+11:00

screwed.

joanna kenrick.

allen and unwin

release date: june 1st, 2008

Marsha is a fourteen-year-old slag. She and her friend Faith regularly go out looking for a good time, which more often than not involves sex. Neither of them see anything wrong with the way they behave.

That is, until Marsha meets Rich. Rich is different. He finds Marsha a bit too full-on. But being with Rich is like being with a friend . . . one who listens to her and asks her opinion. Rich makes her feel that she's worth more than a quick shag in the park. But is it possible to change? Marsha isn't sure that, underneath, she's a decent person. If Rich doesn't want sex from her, then is there anything left?

man oh man. i held onto beth's virginity like it was a lifeline. i felt like if i could will this secondary character off the path, looming in front of her, then they could all be saved.

it's one one of those times i feel how privileged my life has been. in terms of money, sure, but also with family, friends, schooling, support. when i read these types of books; falling off the life path kind of story, i feel awkward. i'm so conscious of what they do not have, by virtue of what i do. i feel uncomfortable. i don't judge the characters, or make fun of them. but i do pity them. pity them in contrast, because my life is so different. and i kind of think they'd want my pity even less.

i was dispensing advice left, right and centre (and really, if you know me than you know that guy advice isn't really one of my specialities), and quoting things like 'you know, kids these days.' totally depressing only kind of covers it. when did i become my mother? because i don't remember signing up for that deal.

not a bad book all in all. i appreciated all the characters and didn't feel wrought with feelings of death for the plot and writing. which is about as good as it'll get from me.

i kind of gauge how good a book is by its ability to make me (or not make me) cry. it does not in anyway determine if the book is well written, with a great plot and fabulous characters. its just a personal 'argh you got me! you totally got me and i bow down to you and all your crying making abilities.' so on a personal note for me, this book didn't make me cry, and i usually look for that in an issues based book. doesn't make it a bad book by any means, just means i don't run to the hilltops screaming 'fa la la la la this is so great. it is so smart.'

take that how you will my pretties.

cry baby, cry...

2011-03-20T13:01:00.001+11:00

my soul to steal.

rachel vincent.

harlequin teen.

release date: january 4th, 2011

YOU WANT MY SOUL AND MY BOYFRIEND?

Trying to work things out with Nash—her maybe boyfriend—is hard enough for Kaylee Cavanaugh. She can’t just pretend nothing happened. But “complicated” doesn’t even begin to describe their relationship when his ex-girlfriend transfers to their school, determined to take Nash back.

See, Sabine isn’t just an ordinary girl. She’s a mara, the living personification of a nightmare. She can read people’s fears—and craft them into nightmares while her victims sleep. Feeding from human fear is how she survives.

And Sabine isn’t above scaring Kaylee and the entire school to death to get whatever—and whoever—she wants.

I DON'T THINK SO.

i haven't posted in a week?!?!?!?! dude: this being busy thing really cuts into my ability to laze about and watch dodgy movies with hot guys in them. i'm making sacrifices. growing up. i'm so proud.

spoilers ahoy like whoa! for previous books in the series. you have been warned.

this was the whine book.

whine whine whine whine whine.

and you know i don't say this lightly because the banshee book is like my craptastic haven, for being no more (and no less) than a book ABOUT BANSHEES. i will never ever get over this. EVER.

anyway, lets recap shall we:

whatsherface (what is her name?)- banshee main chick. ummmmm....

KAYLEE. oh my god; i had to go look that up. pitiful.

so kaylee, what seems to be the problem?

kaylee: well you see i have issues with how hot my boyfriend is, and then he went and sold his memories of our love to the demon avarice (who has some weird perverse torture maybe sex, i just can't tell, thing going for me) for more other world equivalent crack, as he is an addict now.

whoa.

kaylee: he may or may not have let the demon possess my body so they could make their drug deals. and make out (maybe more).

well... isn't that just the shittiest thing a boyfriend can do! i'm guessing you dumped him?

kaylee: yes.

good! kicked him in the balls?

kaylee: ummm well no.

you're ignoring him and making an effort to get on with your life separate from him though right?

kaylee: well... no.... see he's still really really cute.

ah huh. listen love. you have some ISSUES. which is fine. but i don't want to hear 300 pages of 'oh but my boyfriend is a jackass' whilst you go about stalking him and trying to get back/no don't get back/no wait get back with him. okay? because i just don't care. k, thanx, bye.

also: lets look at the bright side shall we? you have a really pretty dress on.

nash, my god boy! you are the douche bag of the century. keep it zipped up son. so your girlfriend wasn't willing to give it up and you became an addict... doesn't mean you flaunt your ex girlfriend in your girlfriend's face whilst she's all insecure... and then bitch and moan about how she doesn't trust you. YOU ALLOWED A DEMON TO POSSESS HER BODY. you suck.

nash: but i love her, and need her and she doesn't need me like i need her.

you remind me of my ex. i don't like my ex. NEXT.

ex girlfriend that starts with S... ummmm lets call you 'something'. way to be an absolute pain. a whiny pain. but you're keeping good company because EVERYONE IS WHINY AT THE MOMENT. GEEZ...

something: ...

wah wah wah i DON'T want to hear it. i'm bored: lets move on.

todd, todd, todd, moving in on your brother's girl. BOLD. but i'm kind of okay with it. and don't even really mind your emotionally manipulative ways. you win a GOLD STAR. mostly for being only a little bit douche.

okay... everyone feel better? good! because if i come back next time and you're all still 'wah wah is me' whilst doing idiotic contradictory things then i will cut this therapy session short. and god only knows you ALL need therapy. kay? brilliant.

lets try and keep the demon possession down until then. oh but if we could have an increase in the banshee wailing (WHICH IS WHY I READ THE BOOK)? than that would be FANTASTIC.

ciao lovelies.

war paint...

2011-03-12T12:05:00.002+11:00

between shades of gray.

ruta sepetys.

penguin australia

release date: march 28th, 2011

It is 1941 and fifteen-year-old Lina is preparing for art school and looking forward to summer. Then suddenly, her life is changed forever. One night, the Soviet secret police invade her home and forcibly remove Lina, her mother and brother, transporting them via cattle trucks from familiar Lithuania to remote Siberia. The conditions are horrific, the genocide unseen and thousands of lives are lost.

In this dramatic and moving story, Lina must fight for her life and for the lives of those around her. Her harrowing journey and incredible strength of spirit will steal your breath, capture your heart and give you hope.

'Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem.' Joseph Stalin

nothing quite like the perverse rantings of a sadistic and paranoid megalomaniac.

it's going to be interesting to see how this book gets reviewed by people around the place. i have never read the boy in the striped pyjamas (*ducks flying books*), so cannot make the comparison.

... i have a feeling that those of you who have read it, will make the comparison. because of the subject matter. from just some conversations i've been having with people who have read it, it does sit on a different level. so i would say: go into it and separate all the associations you're trying to make with striped pyjamas... you'll just end up not liking shades of grey. and i kind of want you to like shades of grey, because i think its a great story in its own right. somethings just don't stand up to certain comparisons.

so i'm a history major. like history is my x spot. you say history to me and i get all tingly in my girly parts. history hits me hard. i'm so passionate about it, i verge on insufferable. and the russian revolution and the subsequent communist regime is my favourite of all the revolutions. IN ALL THE LANDS.

i fell in love with history when i first learnt about nazi germany. i couldn't imagine this kind of destruction, this kind of hate. i was inspired to know why. i'm still trying to figure it out. i know the mechanics of it. i get it to a certain degree. but at some point i just don't understand. i don't understand how anyone could see suffering and death to the people around them and do nothing. i understand up until a point. and then i don't understand anymore.

and i knew the only thing i could do for these people was to learn the truth, was not to forget. that is my power. so that's what i go about doing. that's why i learn history and wars and death. because they deserve to be remembered.

sepetys had a message, simple though it may be, it said: don't forget.

and it was so in tune with the whys of history for me that i just got swept away. for me, this got right what nicholas dane got wrong. the message, simple, precise, and a bit of a kick to the stomach. and the writing is all minimalist, which is my achilles heel. some major things were happening, and they just be thrown out there in these small simple sentences. gah.

some moments were painful and horrible and inhuman.

some moments were inspiring and beautiful in their innocence.

in the interest of complete honesty: there were a few things that could have been... improved, to take the story to the x factor status for some of you. i think some of you might find the flashback scenes could have been tightened. the first half of the book, i thought the flashback scenes were working up to not only revealing something, but making a statement. in the end they were just a series of scenes that were of her past.

they did serve a great purpose of being a contrast. coming out of those flashback scenes was always so painful, the innocence of before compared to the horror of now, switched within a sentence. kind of left you feeling like you were drowning.

at the end of the day it was a story well told, thought out, and about something bigger, important, essential.

this gets the uncommon nonsense seal of approval.

dance off...

2011-03-10T15:43:00.000+11:00

prom and prejudice

elizabeth eulberg

penguin australia

release date: february 28th, 2011

After winter break, the girls at the very prestigious Longbourn Academy become obsessed with the upcoming prom. Scholarship student, Lizzie Bennett, can neither afford nor is interested in designer dresses and shoes, but her best friend Jane is; especially as her crush, Charles Bingley, is returning from a semester in the UK. Lizzie is happy about her friend's burgeoning romance but less than impressed by Charles's friend Will Darcy, who'd snobby and pretentious. Darcy doesn't seem to like Lizzie, either, and she assumes it is because her family has no money. But if Will Darcy is such a jerk, why does Lizzie find herself so drawn to him?

Will Lizzie's pride and Darcy's prejudice keep them apart, or will they overcome their mutual distrust and accept their attraction? Elizabeth Eulberg has created a delightful modern-day romp through the well known parlour rooms of Jane Austen's world, it is a love story to entertain and engage as much now as then.

you expect a dance off at prom don't you? i know i do.

sad though it is, no dance off in this book. however, being a book, i didn't expect to see a dance off. but i imagined one children. it was great. everything you've come to expect from an imagined dance off and more. oh so much more.

also: let it be known: dance offs are HILARIOUS in real life. unless you're the unfortunate dunk person involved in the dance off. as a spectator though: FANTASTICALLY AWESOME.

if you're wondering how many dance offs i've had the pleasure watching, than it'd actually be a few. my sister is kind of fantastic, and manages to get drunk people to challenge each other to dance offs somewhat regularly. and then we just sit back and let the fun unfold.

okay, moving away from the not featured dance off:

i like elizabeth eulberg. she's fun and funny and flirty. the three f's.

i have a complete soft spot for the lonely hearts club. fantastically fun and funny and flirty with a great girl power message.

prom and prejudice is sitting a little more in the ya chick lit predictable than the lonely hearts club. whilst it was fantastically fun, funny and flirty, it was also minus the girl power message. which, i was actually in the mood for some fluffy lets fall in love after our misunderstanding , so i'm not complaining one bit. you kind of can't get any more chick lit than miss austen.

and, i mean, who doesn't like being told off by a really wealthy grumpy man with fantastic hair? i know its my dream wish.

david levithan love appreciation moment. mmmmmmmm. sorry! he's editor of the novel. and you can always tell the difference between a whoever edited novel and levithan edited novel. one smells like poo and the other OF RED ROSES AND HAPPINESS.

as an aussie (all you aussie's feel free to contradict me), i so don't get the whole prom drama (which, it seems neither does eulberg). no formal bore of a gathering could hold our attention. definitely not as much as a minus parental figures binge fest at some random person's house. usually because it created the holy trinity of d's: dancing, drunkness, debauchery. you mostly can't go wrong.

i think this is why i was so proud of the ending. it stuck true to the character. you can't have your main character bemoaning prom for three hundred pages and... okay: that was a little too close to SPOILERVILLE. just read it. you'll figure it out.

also: i totally spent the entire time reading this in a dodgy english accent... may i suggest you do the same? everything is funnier that way. true story.

can i just warn you: if retelling isn't your thing then don't bother. this is paced to meet a condensed pride and prejudice almost scene for scene. and sometimes adaptions and modernisations just aren't you thing. that's all good (sometimes they're not my thing either). just know your limits, my pretties.

is this hell?...

2011-03-06T22:17:00.000+11:00

falling under.

gwen hayes.

penguin australia.

release date: march 28th, 2011

In her dreams he’s irresistible—seductive, charming, and undoubtedly dangerous. But when he appears to her when she’s awake—and captivates her just the same—she’s not sure which way is up and which is down.

Theia Alderson has always led a sheltered life, not allowed the same freedoms as the rest of the teenagers in the small California town of Serendipity Falls. But when a devastatingly handsome boy appears in the halls of her school, she feels every urge she’s ever denied burning through her at the slightest glance from Haden Black. Theia knows she’s seen Haden before—not around town, but in her dreams.

Theia doesn’t understand how she dreamed of Haden before they ever met, but every night has them joined in a haunting world of eerie fantasy. And as the Haden of both the night and the day beckons her forward one moment and pushes her away the next, the only thing Theia knows for sure is that the incredible pull she feels towards him is stronger than her fear. And as she slowly discovers what Haden truly is, Theia’s not sure if she wants to resist him, even if the cost is her soul.

you know what's going to happen don't you... yeah....

after a rather promising start (literally the first line:

'everything changed the night i saw the burning man fall from the sky.')

it kind of became... predictable.

as i was talking to miss e. about it all, i realised i very much like ideas. which is another element in the 'why nicole continues to read this genre' saga. because across all genres, at all times, i am extremely interested in the idea. the theory, the take, the twist, the re-imagination. i'll read a blurb, any blurb, and i am immediately interested in it.

i have no filter.

inevitably i become disappointed by repeated characterisation (the boneless heroine and the hapless hero), a plot made of only the romance and mediocre writing.

i could take one, maybe two of these things, but all three together overcomes any spark of interest i had with the original idea.

i have to admit when i read that first sentence i was like 'alright, well this sounds interesting'... so i would suggest reading the first sentence...and then nothing else.

it was mostly just trashy. i didn't take it seriously but i knew whilst reading it that it was... bad. it has too many elements i associate with twilight in it for me to even call it craptastic (trashtastic?). the 'little lamb' nickname and the bipolar hero, who borderlines on abusive, is just a couple of examples.

although her author bio tells me she is actually a romance writer... so i'm more inclined to forgive her, because she, and the book, aren't really pretending to be anything else than a bandwagon hitchhiker with no plot.

i mean...don't read it...errr unless you're hunkering for a crapanormal romance ya read?

i heard it through the grapevine...

2011-03-04T19:57:00.000+11:00

a lot of people have been emailing me recently about their inability to comment on the blog.

it seems blogspot lives in the land of passive agressiva.

for all those who posted comments never to be seen again; i was not, nor have i ever actually, hitting the delete button behind the scenes. as if i would! it smacks too much of censorship, children. so i'm up and doing away with the moderation button. SAY WHAT YOU WILL MY PRETTIES: THIS IS A SAFE PLACE. comment to your heart's content!

of course lets attempt to keep it relatively pg.... okay okay, I'LL attempt to keep it relatively pg. geez, you all have such low opinions of me and my fucking potty mouth.

the fat and skinny of it all...

2011-02-27T00:42:00.003+11:00

so unless you're a beached whale or paris hilton, you've heard about the REDgroup riches to rags story last week.

and i've seen a lot of... media articles and opinion pieces on the whole subject and... honestly had to wonder if certain people were smoking something illegal.

please note: the opinions i'm about to express are mine and mine alone, and getting offended by little ole me is your right, but really: your life probably sucks less than mine, so in the grand scheme of things: you win at life.

also: whilst i don't really make it clear below: i do feel for all the people employed at REDgroup. i want to make it perfectly clear that i know how it feels to lose a bookstore and that it isn't something i would wish on anyone. when i use the term 'REDgroup' i'm talking about the company rather than specific people.

REDgroup, the industry as i see it, and e books:

1. REDgroup's demise is the beginning of the end for the booksellers.

REDgroup is NOT the beginning of the end. if you want to be such a debbie downer about it, and woe is life, then you look further back than REDgroup. you look and say nearly a decade ago an AUSTRALIAN book selling chain met its demise. you'd say, unlike REDgroup the bookstore chain had historical significance to australia and the australian book industry. you would say that demise was a terrible loss and, if you were so included, the beginning of the end.

2. REDgroup's demise has to do with australian publishing prices.

tell you what: lay that argument on a bookstore that actually USED RECOMMENDED RETAIL PRICES, instead of the 10% ABOVE that REDgroup enforced. way to rip of your customers. thanks for that.

bad management and appropriation of funds is what killed REDgroup. if a small independent can survive in this economy, then you and your billions REDgroup can just shove it... okay?

3. raise parallel importation restrictions on books.

ah no. no. and HELL EFFING No!. don't even. wanna know what raising parallel importation restrictions will do to the australian publishing industry? KILL IT. there will be NO australian publishing industry. sure, they're still be bookstores but that's it. no australian publishing houses to offer jobs to the australian people, none of those pretty australian authors being picked up by those australian publishing houses. nothing. nada. nil.

one or two lucky authors might get picked up by international publishing houses. but i can't really see people from other countries understanding australia and australian fiction quite like, oh i don't know, AUSTRALIAN'S, can you?

this pisses me off so much (and bob carr: i'm looking specifically at you here, because you should know better. in fact you DO know better! but you've decided to go and be a hypocrite and embody what you are claiming the publishing industry of being: greedy. you're on the board of dymocks... i'm sure boosting their profits has absolutely nothing to do with your call for parallel importing. tell you what, i'll buy that right around the time i start believing in santa again).

listen, i get it: recommended retail prices are high. very high. and as a consumer you want them to be lower.

can i let you in on something: the publishing industry would LOVE for it to be lower too. the australian publishing industry would LOVE to be able to mass produce their books like the american publishing industry can.

but they can't. not wont. can't.

want to know what mass production is in australia? an initial print run of 125 000. that is for the latest matthew reilly. who is, arguably, australia's number one male author (i'm talking in terms of popularity here, his books, despite your personal opinions on the matter, take him to number one every time).

want to know what mass production is in america? millions. i'm guessing that when they sell a measly couple of thousand of a title, they're kind of pissed about it. dan brown?... yeah a dan brown novel gets five million for an initial print run.

australian publishing houses don't get to cut prices. they don't get to cut prices because they cannot mass produce books. there is no market for them to mass produce books because the australian population is not in its hundreds of millions. american publishing houses do get to cut prices because they can mass produce books. they also get to cut prices because the american population is in the hundreds of millions.

its economics 101. more people, more consumers, more consumption, more production, more money.

when it comes down to it: the australian publishing industry isn't ripping you off any more than any other publishing industry. they can't keep their prices competitive worldwide. that is a fact. they're a business who makes money. that is also fact. but publishers know that the people want lower recommended retail prices. and if only for the good press it would give them, they would lower them in a heart beat... but it would have them coding. no money to pay employees, to produce, to expand.

4. it's not all sun and roses.

i'm a bookseller at heart i don't think that ever changes. so i'm a little bias when it comes to the issue of selling into dds's. the bookseller took (and continues to take) massive financial hits because a dds ability to undercut the recommended retail price. a luxury an independent can literally not afford. i believe the australian publishing industry began digging a grave of sorts when they started selling into the dds's.

what were they thinking? i think they saw it as an untapped market. they were thinking this was their ticket to mass production. and, sure, more money. i don't want you to think i believe the publishers are in this for the rainbows. i get it: they're a business. they make money.

if i was so inclined (the aforementioned debbie downer) i'd tell you that dds's have killed the book selling industry. that they have publishers by the balls. and that soon urban fantasy, mills and boon and the latest sporting biography or master chef cooking book will be all you see. dds's don't deal in diversity, or fringe literature. they're strictly vanilla ice cream.

i can't tell you how the dds thing will ultimately pan out. i do believe it was a mistake, a nail in a coffin if you will, but this thing isn't finished yet. there's still time to stop and moderate. i don't think the publishing industry needs to bow to big w or kmart or target like it does. i think the energy spent on the dds's is not proportional to what they are doing for the publishing industry.

5. i'm a traditionalist.

i'm pretty much the equivalent of a right winged liberal when it comes to ebooks. i can't get behind them no matter how hard i try.

it all comes down to: i can love a book. i can touch and feel and love a book. i can't love some screen. i can't hug it to me. i can't turn to page 34 and see the smear of butter i accidentally left on it or the tear stain on page 98. i can't fall asleep and wake up hours later with its form imprinted on my face.

i'm not going to even mention all the implications ebooks have for the publishing industry as a whole (mostly because this is getting way too long winded... and it is for a post at another time).

it's as simple and sappy as that kids. i can't love some ipod/ kindle/ computer screen. so what's the value? where's its heart?

but i can love a book.

there are some great articles out there on the above issues:

in regards to ebooks, redgroup, parallel importing and co there is a great article HERE about it.

there's also THIS by the managing director of readings, which raises some great points.

and the lovely mr josh dowse has THIS to say, and he knows his stuff because he's worked within the industry... unlike bob carr who is a former premier and politician... also, whilst my feelings about this whole ebook thing are mostly on the 'nay' side, he does give me some food for thought.

take two sucks...

2011-02-24T16:07:00.001+11:00

guardian of the gate.

michelle zink.

hachette australia

release date: august 1st, 2010

In the follow up to Prophecy of the Sisters the ultimate battle between the sisters is nearing, and its outcome could have catastrophic consequences...

Sixteen-year-old Lia Milthorpe must journey to the uncharted isle of Altus to continue her search for the missing pages of the Book of Chaos - the pages that could tell her how to end the prophecy that has turned generations of sisters against each other. But the journey will test more than just her courage, it will also test her loyalty to her beloved boyfriend, James. Meanwhile, twin sister Alice will stop at nothing to reclaim Lia's role as the Gate. And that's not the only thing she wants from her sister: there's also Lia's true love.

guardian of the gate is sequel territory.

so i picked it up, despite the horrendous change in cover, which took it from (originally) looking like gothic awesomeness, to a maybelline cover shoot. thank you, but no thank you.

i liked the first one... at least my review said i did.

to be honest: the first one didn't stay with me to the second one. which is nicole speak for 'you didn't actually really truly like it, you only kind of liked it, and you have better things to do with your time now.'

the sequel was filler. lots of words with nothing actually happening. a lot of physically moving about the place (which: hello road trip book... i should just totally love right?... yeah, it made me not love the road trip!), a little more prophecy thrown in, and a hot new guy. whoopdeedoo.

it's not badly written and the mythology behind it is pretty solid, i just don't care. this book isn't making me want to care. i have no interest or anticipation in the final book. it doesn't squeeze at my heart with impatience.

wow. i'm just mean today.

whatever. i'm not going to recommend you something just average when i can put my power behind something worthwhile... like the murdering pygmies and unicorn book that debra, meagan and i shall one day write. one day people. one day.

burn baby...

2011-02-19T09:55:00.000+11:00

fire

kristin cashore

hachette australia

release date: july 1st, 2010

Beauty is a weapon - and Fire is going to use it...

Set in a world of stunningly beautiful, exceptionally dangerous monsters, Fire is one of the most dangerous monsters of all - a human one. Marked out by her vivid red hair, she's more than attractive. Fire is mesmerising.

But with this extraordinary beauty comes influence and power. People who are susceptible to her appeal will do anything for her attention and for her affection. They will turn away from their families, their work and their duties for her. They will forget their responsibilities to please her and worse, crush nations, neglect kingdoms and abuse their power.

Aware of her power and afraid of it, Fire lives in a corner of the world away from people and away from temptation. Until the day comes when she is needed - a day when, for her king, she has to take a stand not only against his enemies, but also against herself...

i gotta feel for this book.

a few things that majorly altered my usual reading experience:

firstly, many moons ago sonja read this (see here for sonja's review), and fluttered about for a millisecond in fantasy fun. to say that we were both shocked is an understatement. sonja has a tendency to treat fantasy as a wayward puppy... occasionally cute but mostly messy.

so she liked fire. a decent amount, considering her non fantasy penchant, so i was inclined to go into fire having quite high expectations.

secondly, due to a lack of anything to do at work one day, she regaled me with a page by page account of this book (it was a REALLY slow day). to be fair, i was all 'tell me! as if i'm ever going to get around to reading it.'... yeah.

i remembered every single thing she told me. every single thing. nothing was a surprise. and its not until you're completely spoiled that you realise how much the unknown factor is a draw. it's why books of a predictable nature, that follow the same pattern over and over, have you groaning. there's no 'ohmygod' heart thumping, mind crazy moments. nothing to gasp over.

i robbed myself of that gasp experience in this book (my fault! alllll my fault!).

thirdly, i had just come off two marillier reads...two... as in more than one. now, marillier is kinda hardcore. not that her books are mazes of intrigue or require mass amounts of brain cells to follow... they are hefty though. you do get sucked in. and sucked in for six hundred pages a book does take some dedication.

so swimming out of marillier's world and into cashore's world took some getting used to... it made fire feel like fabric softener fantasy.

i'm afraid in this instance i can't separate myself from the reading experience. i can't give you an unbiased review. too much was tied up in behind the scenes stuff.

i'd like to come back to cashore's world, read a little more and find out how i really feel on the matter.

be kind rewind...

2011-02-15T19:32:00.000+11:00

i actually have a review sitting in drafts ready to go, but i keep getting distracted by all the awesome things i want to show you.

this is for romy.

who is hilarious (her blog here), and my secret twin. i recognise a crazy in her. and i feel we should all celebrate the crazy.

so here, for romy (and your viewing pleasure) is one of the funniest things ever (my favourite being the little dance of victory everytime one of them makes it to the aisle or bed for sexy time).

love is in the air...

2011-02-14T18:59:00.000+11:00

it is valentine's day, and to commiserate, i mean, celebrate, i'm here with a fantastic little musical number.

this song is fantastic. (forevermore by katie herzig)

reason 1: it is an upbeat happy number, which in turn makes me upbeat and happy (amazing).

reason 2: the upbeat and happy number is also DIRTY. listen to the lyrics people...they are FANTASTIC.

reason 3: somebody decided to use the upbeat happy dirty song in the children's target campaign.
making it: THE BEST SONG EVER (until i find the next best song ever).

and make sure you and your cellar door have a happy valentine's day.

boo!...

2011-02-09T19:47:00.001+11:00

right behind you.

gail giles.

i have no idea which publisher sent it to me, which is clearly BAD FORM. also google failed at life, and did not tell me who it's australian publisher was. so if someone would be so kind? in the comments?

release date: see above.

What I know: On his seventh birthday, I set Bobby Clarke on fire. I was nine.

now, sonj has already turned your attention once before to miss giles. screaming words of brilliance and what not with what happened to cass mcbride?

i've gotta agree with sonja; giles packs punch.

her books are small, two hundred pages at most, with barely enough words to fill a page... and, yet, somehow, the characters are beats in the pages, the plot fantastically paced and a question clearly asked.

i was flabbergasted.! how was i only ten, twenty, fifty, pages in, and so much had happened to the characters and the plot? all without skipping or rushing. the scenes appeared to stretch out before you, unhurried. giles is clearly wise to some time travelling tricks and has employed them in her writing.

one of the complaints i have about the publishing industry at the moment is the quality of writing. occasionally i'll read a book and honestly believe that sometime after their coffee, but before their shower, words were just spewed up, indiscriminantly, onto a page.

giles' words have purpose. intent. there's not many of them, so she crams all that feeling and characterisation and plot into the smallest of 'ands', the biggest of 'thens'.

this is a novel about shades. about the moments between right and wrong. about consequences that stretch out on tentacles before us and close the way.

giles is asking a question... are you brave enough to answer? dun dun dun

the big bang...

2011-02-05T12:37:00.001+11:00

this post (here) is kind of like watching an episode of the bold and the beautiful (only with books) and some main character decides he has to take the chick he got pregnant on a vacation to somewhere isolated... and as they turn down a dirt track, no one has ever heard of, she goes into labor (because she's eight and a half months pregnant and who woulda thunk it?)...

miles from absolutely nowhere...

and then he panics, because he's a guy, and ohmygod, its not actually his wife but his wife's sister who he accidentally got pregnant when he thought his wife died in the tsunami in the middle of the desert (please! as if they couldn't pull that off).

so he crashes into an oncoming car...because the random car is just here, okay? and he's retarded enough to crash into it.

yeah!

and then the baby comes out with webbed feet because hello! he's her cousin.

the comments will keep you sitting at the computer for HOURS (i need my life back!)...

i'm actually not going to weigh in, there or here. i know what i think... i just don't think we need to add my car to the pile up, and have it turn out to be twins or something.

p.s. there's three pages of comments... i haven't made it past the first page. i'm taking a mental breather for purposes of remaining sane.

kiss me...

2011-02-03T14:36:00.000+11:00

anna and the french kiss.

stephanie perkins.

penguin australia

release date: january 4th, 2011

Anna was looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she's less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris-until she meets Etienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Etienne has it all . . . including a serious girlfriend.

But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with their long-awaited French kiss?

see tye's post here about anna and the french kiss.

and take note about the 'NOT judging a book by its cover' and all manner of common sense regarding covers and bloody well reading the book anyway.

i had to laugh when i saw the post. because the exact same thing happened not only to me, but my sister. i knew as soon as i saw everyones reviews that this book was totally up my sister's alley. so i handed it over to her, thinking i could totally pass it by because HELLO COVER CRAPNESS.

turns out: casey was so pissy about the cover too, that she got ten pages in and gave up.

having read absolutely none of it i put it back in the pile never (i thought) to see the light of day again.

but then i went on vacation. and you just can't pass up the opportunity to take the dodgy book on vacation. so that's what i did.

people. i was prepared to hate it. i almost wanted to not like it because of the cover and blurb and everyone putting it in their favourite reads of 2010 list. i just wanted to be contrary for contrary sake.

also: i hate paris...so i totally didn't think i'd get into this book, because, you know, its set IN paris.

*starts ducking flying objects*

sorry! i know i know. i must be the only person in the world not to have liked paris. does it make you feel any better if i said outside of paris i was fine (versailles: FAVOURITE PLACE IN THE WORLD. going to versailles would have to be one of my favourite memories i own. the sheer magnitude of it. the beauty. the history. i'll never forget that day).

anyway: paris dislike comes from basically being homesick and totally hounded by frenchmen my entire stay. and an unfortunate situation in which, had the policeman not been leering at me, i would have tried to get a frenchman arrested for DESPICABLE BEHAVIOUR. but i digress.

book: i totally couldn't hate it.

it's totally adorable and cute. and what everyone is saying is totally right... once you get over the first twenty odd pages and fall into the rhythm of the book.

only thing: i think i speak for all of us who read this whilst on vacation (me, my sister, and her friend... the boys weren't really into reading the kissy kissy book) there was one IMPORTANT alteration that needed to be made to our imagination.

st. claire's height. he is short... i am not. i'm six feet. his shortness is unacceptable. and i totally just ignored his shortness the entire time. to be fair, he's working against genetics here. i can't really blame him for being short.

i appreciated the 'friends first' element. it's great to see someone actually take a step back and say 'sure, teenagers have hormones and are slightly kiss crazy, but they don't actually stop being human beings.' every relationship i came across in high school was based on some form of friendship.

you're so insecure all the time that you couldn't just place your trust in some random dark haired stranger who moonlights as the devil's assistant or something. i found you surrounded yourself with people you trusted (okay okay: there's the whole gossip side of high school...but lets just ignore that for the moment).

it was nice to see part of my teenage experience (minus the awesome boarding school) reflected in ya.

it's fun and flirty and cute.

it doesn't insult me, and you, by having a mary-sue main character, followed by the hapless hero, who say absolutely nothing worthwhile.

a great way to have spent a couple of hours on vacation at the beach.

seeing sia...

2011-02-01T19:30:00.000+11:00

okay, this is purely because i'm going to the sia concert tonight and i'm so FREAKING EXCITED.

first ever sia song i listened to was breathe me. which nearly broke me. sonja was all aflutter with 'postsecret' (if you do not know what this is, then we need a crash course stat! because it is epic awesomeness), and to promote the postsecret book they did a youtube video with sia as the artist.

i may or may not have cried like the girl i am.

but i'm not gonna put that one up here. i'm going with soon we'll be found. because there's something about that song...i just...the bit at 3:11 where her voice kind of cracks around the word. GAH!

learn it. love it. live it. people.

this is a disclaimer...

2011-01-30T11:23:00.000+11:00

so i have a friend (sonja.).

although that makes it sound like i only have the one friend doesn't it? she would probably tell you this is true. i would beg to differ and claim more popularity than is actually warranted. but its my blog. so i get to be more popular than i am. its in the rules somewhere. i'm sure i saw it when i signed on: 'thy is as popular as thy can imagine.' (apparently blogspot is shakespearean).

anyway. friend, sonja. who is a total music guru. like TOTAL MUSIC GOD. i swear to music god's everywhere: le sonj is pure genius.

i'm totally telling you all this. because i've decided to throw in a new segment. music.

for me i love books. LOVE THEM. like duh. but i love music as well. i love reading books whilst listening to music. they kind of go hand in hand. but i have no talent (or time or inclination) in spending hours combing through any number of musical avenues to hit upon epic awesome musicness. sonja has such a talent. so i unrepentantly steal from her. any and all music i throw at you is sonja sourced and inspired. word.

it'll be all types of music, new and old.

for today: my latest obsession adele's 'rolling in the deep', from her newly released album 21.

enjoy.

real life twins...

2011-01-29T19:45:00.001+11:00

real life boyfriends.

e. lockhart.

random house.

release date: december 28th. 2010

Ruby Oliver is in love. Or it would be love, if Noel, her real live boyfriend, would call her back. But Noel seems to have turned into a pod-robot lobotomy patient, and Ruby can’t figure out why.

Not only is her romantic life a shambles:

Her dad is eating nothing but Cheetos,

Her mother’s got a piglet head in the refrigerator,

Hutch has gone to Paris to play baguette air guitar,

Gideon shows up shirtless,

And the pygmy goat Robespierre is no help whatsoever.

Will Ruby ever control her panic attacks?

Will she ever understand boys?

Will she ever stop making lists?

(No to that last one.)

i have desperately waited for this book all year. it was this burning knowledge behind every book I read. kind of this thrumming bright spot in my future.

and ruby didn’t disappoint. she can’t: we’re besties (apologies sonj…).

it was everything i wanted. everything i have come to expect from my friend ruby.

laugh out loud funny. sweet. complicated. crazy. lovable. honest.

and totally awesome sauce.

ruby and i have a little too much in common (although: where the hey is my noel, people? my adorably sweet, complicated, emotionally immature hottie of a boyfriend? because he is not here. so if you find him please post back to the uncommon nonsense).

ruby has a crazy family.

nicole has a crazy family, as witnessed by this scene below.

mum: the milkman is dropping off milk whilst we’re away (they were going overseas) can you please make sure you put the milk in the fridge.
nicole: mmm. where will he be leaving them? in the driveway?
mum: oh no he has a key.
nicole: O_o
nicole: um, i’m sorry, i must have blanked out. did you say that some random milkman, who i've never met before, has keys to this house?
mum (starting to walk away): he needs to put the milk somewhere.
nicole: mother. how did the milkman get a key to our house?
mum: oh i gave it to him years ago.
mum: honestly nicole. if he was going to do something he would have done it already.
nicole: you mean like kill me in my sleep do something?

…this is just one of many examples of craziness i endure EVERYDAY. don’t even get me started on our crazy cleaner (yes she’s ACTUALLY crazy). my mother’s logic is…circumspect at best. generally its just dangerous. mostly for me. and my sanity.

ruby is kind of cute funky funny and artsy.

nicole…is not cute, which is unfortunate. but i totally claim funky and (a little bit) funny and left of centre artsy. ruby is, admittedly, way funnier than me. she’s funny in a really intelligent way. whilst i'm more funny in a sarcastic mocking kind of way.

ruby has very good relationships with animals.

nicole has very good relationships with inanimate objects. such as her car, keys, voodoo doll and security fob (his name is hank). these relationships are obviously different to ruby’s relationships, based purely on the fact that animals breathe and keys don’t.

ruby has an unwarranted reputation.

nicole...okay that never happened to me. but i can sympathise.

ruby wears glasses.

nicole wears glasses (for driving and watching tv... and just generally looking intelligent).

so to conclude: ruby is awesome sauce. and we are twins. although, does this now mean i consider myself awesome sauce? because i don't think you can claim awesomeness for yourself. you have to be selfless in the giving of awesome. it is a prerequisite.

so my selflessly giving ruby awesome sauce status means i am awesome?...only i can't claim it.

...okay there is something wrong with this logic.

anyway: this is the end of the road for our dear ruby (seriously!? why???).

SO GOOD BYE. GOOD LUCK. THANK YOU FOR THE GOOD TIMES, THE CRAZY TIMES, AND THE HILARIOUS TIMES. I'LL MISS HANGING OUT WITH YOU, RUBY! KIND REGARDS, NICOLE.

oh bloody hell...

2011-01-23T21:35:00.000+11:00

mercy.

rebecca lim.

harper collins aus

release date: november 1st, 2010

Mercy ′wakes′ on a school bus bound for Paradise, a small town where everyone knows everyone else′s business -- or thinks they do. But they will never guess the secret Mercy is hiding ....

As an angel exiled from heaven and doomed to return repeatedly to Earth, Mercy is never sure whose life and body she will share each time. And her mind is filled with the desperate pleas of her beloved, Luc, who can only approach her in her dreams.

In Paradise, Mercy meets Ryan, whose sister was kidnapped two years ago and is now presumed dead. When another girl disappears, Mercy and Ryan know they must act before time runs out. But a host of angels are out for Mercy′s blood and they won′t rest until they find her and punish her -- for a crime she doesn′t remember committing ...

An electric combination of angels, mystery and romance, Mercy is the first book in a major new series.

... i didn’t hate it.

do you know how much it pains me to say this? to like anything urban fantasy unless it's craptastic?

it's an urban fantasy about FALLEN ANGELS.

fallen angels people! remember torment? because I DO. i'm traumatised from the shitty writing and crappy plot and the i want to shoot myself characters. i'm permanently scarred and prejudicial against fallen angel crap.

so... i didn't hate it. mercy. not torment, torment i hate.

i have to give kudos points for the following:

having it be book one of a series and not feel like a boring old set up book (aka lots of character introductions, lots of relationship explaining, lots of the vague apocalypse is coming crap... there was only slight apocalypse is coming crap... in a really bland boring way. this had slight excitement behind it).

the whole mystery element. you KNOW i love nancy drew sleuthing. means i'm bias, sure, but it doesn't stop it from being half decent.

although i did continually ask myself: did it really need to be an urban fantasy book about fallen angels?

i would have LOVED if this could have been a straight mystery book. but that's because i'm also bias. i hate the very idea of fallen angels urban fantasy read at the moment. i just...hate that this genre, this genre that i used to like, is so inconsequential. it has become something i laugh at. mock.

listen: i admit i have a soft spot for fantasy. it's my preference. i like the escape. urban fantasy, whilst a cousin, is still family. so this thing that i grew up loving, escaping to...i mock now. i treat with contempt. and still i read. foolishly so. because i live in hope. i live for the books i have read (and loved). i live for the hope of each book.

so i live for hope. but in this moment, in the now, i have contempt. it takes an extraordinarily good urban fantasy book for me give it even a grain of praise. so i didn't like this book as, it perhaps, deserved to be liked. sure i didn't hate it. but i didn't love it either.

there's nothing particularly wrong with the book (although: i knew who the 'bad' guy was way too early. way too early. i mean, we all know that whilst sleuthing is my thing fictionally, in real life i'm a little too airy fairy to make it stick. so for me to know...well subtly is not thy name).

if i knew this was your type of thing; urban fantasy, fallen angels, love triangles, etc, then i would be more than happy to start you on this series. it'd definitely place it before so many others out there. its fast paced, the characters well drawn and, whilst not necessarily original at least, un-putdownable.

greener pastures...

2011-01-08T16:22:00.000+11:00

okay peeps. i think i forgot to tell you all that i was going on some r and r... to, hopefully, warmer weather and tropics and whatnot.

i'll be back late january.

so this is roger signing out until then.

adios.

read lots of books.

and i'll see you on the flip side.

welcome holmes...

2011-01-05T23:43:00.000+11:00

sherlock holmes: collection

sir arthur conan doyle

published in a classic format by pretty much every publisher.

release date: a long looooong time ago.

'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

like many things in my life: i have an excess of feeling for good ole sherlock holmes.

it's the usual stuff: lots of flailing, fan girling and claims of THE. BEST. SERIES. EVER...you know how i work by now.

(but it really is THE. BEST. SERIES. EVER!!!!)

it's a book(s) that cuts through the bullshit. no superfluous plots and characters, no wandering descriptions about the countryside and how the air feels on your skin or what not. it is just: LOGIC. awesome, inconceivable, no nonsense logic.

i had so much fun reading these (it was a while back now so if my flailing seems somewhat tempered it is because i have sat with my holmes love for years... i had to stop the squealing sometime, if only so the cops would stop showing up.). in terms of reading experience, i think only the odyssey beats it (and that's because the odyssey is awesome freaky greek drama in ballad form).

i loved opening up a story and trying to figure out the 'whodunit'. the hows and the whys. it is the best escapism. and sherlock as a character? ah; mean awesome crazy drug addict!...yeah you heard me. you know, he really should have been locked up in some kind of mental facility (and you know my love for mental facilities!)

also: have you seen the modern adaption of sherlock holmes the bbc are doing at the moment? AWESOME (and NO this is NOT the guy richie movie: THAT is a TRAVESTY! don't even get me started on my hate for that movie). i'm currently addicted to the bbc. if your name is sherlock holmes, spooks, some period book adaption or david attenborough; then chances are i have you on dvd.

anyway: i highly recommend you go out and grab one of the sherlock holmes collections.

did you know: sir arthur conan doyle killed off sherlock holmes (i can't for the life of me remember in which story...maybe the final problem) because he wanted to write 'darker' and more 'serious' works. so he killed off dear sherlock (who he had become bored with) in the hopes of never having to pick him up again. unfortunately: sherlock was his bread and butter (and apparently even artists eat) and none of his other work was looked on as favourably (read: popular). so he had to bring him back from the dead (vampire sherlock?). he resurrected him by writing a sherlock holmes play. the critics absolutely tore it to pieces, but the public loved it.

you learn something new every day!

amazon treachery...

2011-01-02T21:41:00.000+11:00

crown duel: the crown duel and court duel.

sherwood smith.

penguin group america

release date: june 10th, 2002

Young Countess Meliara swears to her dying father that she and her brother will defend their people from the growing greed of the king. That promise leads them into a war for which they are ill-prepared, which threatens the very people they are trying to protect. But war is simple compared to what follows, in peacetime. Meliara is summoned to live at the royal palace, where friends and enemies look alike, and intrigue fills the dance halls and the drawing rooms. If she is to survive, Meliara must learn a whole new way of fighting-with wits and words and secret alliances.

every so often, i forgo all commonsense and...listen to amazon.

don't ask me why. it just happens. usually after the mental scars from a previous amazon purchase are looooong forgotten. kind of like what i imagine child birth to be: really really painful at the time...and then you kind of 'forget' (read: go into the biggest land of denial i have ever seen) and decide to have another one. it is sheer lunacy.

yeah: THAT is what trusting amazon is like. childbirth. and i don't know WHY i don't learn this lesson...maybe my reincarnated self will strive for betterment? however, at the moment it is just me and amazon.

actually, now that i think about it, this is very much a pattern in my life... but lets not examine that too closely.

so i wanted a new fantasy book. and it had been a while since i had felt the harsh sting of amazon's lies...

so i listened to amazon (i have linked the title to the amazon page...so you can see the treachery for yourselves!). *headdesk*

to be fair to me: TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY EIGHT people had given it FIVE STARS (someone wants to give it SIX STARS IF THEY COULD...argh).... it seemed fool proof... which, amazon is never fool proof. i think i keep thinking if i just stick at it surely there will come a time i hit jackpot? even people win the lottery. i think the odds are better in the lottery, to be honest.

and you can't really tell from a fantasy cover whether it will be good or not, because those fantasy people have some PRETTY CRAZY ideas about what is edgy and cool...so best not to think to hard on it.

which, to be fair: i'm being a little mean to the book. mostly it just wasn't what i wanted.

i like my fantasy to be...unpredictable. i like it when you kill off just about everyone. i like war. i like politics. i like treachery. it's fantasy for petesake. i don't care if it is within the realm of possibility: i demand twisty turny plots. and death. did i mention the death?

smith has created a fantasy where...no one dies...NO ONE DIES (okay there are some characters you've met in name only that die...off screen). how is this possible? they're in the midst of a civil war and a coup. and everyone is happy. and a whole bunch of teenagers run about the country and basically run things, which i'm not adverse to, but just wasn't pulled off here.

however i realised if i shifted the book into junior fiction it works quite well.

there are none of the usual illusions to death and torture (there is one scene in which torture seems imminent, but...well the tone of the book does not really cause one to tizz up into a frenzy about it. by this stage you're like oh there will be pg-ness so nothing is going to happen. lo and behold she is saved before the poker even makes it across the room. and then she faints so i have no idea what happens after that... she faints a lot. O_o)

...wait: i was being nice...

okay: so: junior fiction. yes. as a ya fantasy it kinda sucked (re: lack of dead people).

so just give it to the little mites and all is good.

and: don't we need more junior fiction fantasy? you know, to get the juices and addictions flowing early. hook them young and then they are FANTASY LOVERS FOR LIFE!

this is my evil plan people. let the word spread.

nonsense book list...

2010-12-31T10:20:00.000+11:00

i kind of love end of year wrap up book lists. it lets you reflect on what an ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC YEAR it has been. brings a tear to the eye, it does.

this year is a bit of a weird one for me. i don't think i was particularly swept away with anything that was released during 2010... i found a lot of books i ohmygod should have read years ago. so i'm not doing a top five of 2010 or anything like that. it's honourable mentions all the way. some are my favourites... and some are just great reads that i was surprised by, or think that should make it into your to read pile.

the modern.

melina marchetta: can you believe i had never read a marchetta novel before this year? it seems inconceivable. how did this happen? never mind, i've gone about rectifying it. the piper's son, just....the best introduction i could hope for. her characters reach out of the pages to grab hold of you. they never let go. and they make you yearn.

jellicoe would have to be my favourite book i read this year. i dubbed it my 'imperfectly perfect' book. sonja started it, at my request, and didn't finish. she made some valid points as to why she didn't finish it, and i just had to agree and then shrug and say 'yes but i love it'. there is no other book quite like it.

the lonely hearts club: fun, easy to read, with a great message and the beatles references. what wasn't to love?

morris gleitzman: my love for him knows NO BOUNDS!

elizabeth scott: ahhhh ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING SHE HAS EVER WRITTEN SHOULD TOTALLY BE ON YOUR MUST READ LIST!!! she is a GENIUS! a diverse genius. my love for scott also knows no bounds. this is evidenced by the CAPSLOCKS.

boyfriend list: BEST. EFFING. SERIES. EVER. no jokes. i want us to be dating...steadily.

if i stay: made me ball my eyes out.

david levithan: marchetta, scott and levithan. they're my top three authors. you can't go past them. a levithan novel is...flirty. you know that really cute guy? that REALLY cute guy, who is fun, has the best sense of humour and takes you on the best first date ever? yeah, that's a levithan novel.

judy blume: definitely not published this year. i'm forty years to late to this bandwagon, but boy did i jump on it. forever is a forever kind of book. something you hand down and say read. brilliant. advanced. and utterly hilarious.

darkwater: hmmm. this was just a great book at the perfect time. i hadn't read a straight up murder mystery book in a while, and it was a breath of fresh air.

surprise!

between shades of gray: technically next years thing. but: i like that this book is main stream enough to appeal to everyone. it has enough of everything to keep you flicking (and maybe crying) through the pages, and it has a fantastic message.

a great and terrible beauty: it is a historical urban fantasy trilogy. to say it had ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING going against it is an understatement... and yet it made me CRY. i cannot express what a surprise this series is. libba bray is GENIUS. dark and twisty when it needed to be, hilarious and swoony just when you wanted it.

the fantasy mixture (sub genres included)

chaos walking trilogy: absolutely relentless.

moorehawke trilogy: technically two of the moorehawke trilogy came out this year... so that's something. the second (crowded shadows) was totally my favourite. good ole fashion fantasy! the world she created was fantastically realised and not in a pushy way. kiernan would throw you information so seamlessly that i forgot there was my world and the moorehawke world. it didn't ever jar. and it was such a OH MY GOD TWISTY roller coaster. totally loved it.

jekel loves hyde: this WAS a surprise. but fantaskey had such a way with the sexual tension between her characters. it wasn't epic, but i loved that it differed from the rest that was out there (vampires).

matched: i admit, i've totally been sucked in by the 'we fell in love over poetry' and 'longing looks across crowded rooms' elements. i'm easy that way. also, the ending... sets it all up for a fairly decent second book.

whackadoo craptastic

burnt snow: it is the most fantastic self indulgent awesomeness that i've ever come across. it was definitely an experience. you CANNOT read this book seriously, it just sucks the fun right out of it. you know how i'm always talking about how i want it to be legal to marry books? well if this book and i got hitched it would totally be in vegas. and we'd be drunk. and the honeymoon would be in finland... i totally wouldn't remember actually getting married (because of the drunkenness) and we'd fight too much to make it work... but god for those couple of hours it was the FUNNEST MARRIAGE EVER!

the reckoning: i am RIDICULOUSLY addicted to the darkest powers trilogy. don't even get me started. i love my smelly werewolf and nice girl!

soul screamers: she's a banshee... 'nuf said.

disappointments

beautiful malice: could NOT finish it. i have no idea what the hype was all about...

vampire academy: we know my feelings on this. you can't claim to have a 'strong and feisty' heroine who allows herself to become some s&m sex slave. it just doesn't happen.

torment: not so much a disappointment (i mean fallen should have tipped me off)...still the worst book of the year. i wanted to shoot them all. for reals. and if it becomes legal to marry books, it should also become legal to shoot some of them.

things that didn't happen this year

sequels: if you were part of a series i liked in 2009...chances are i didn't come back to you in 2010. beautiful darkness,linger, dead tossed waves and the enemy, just off the top of my head. there's a loooong and valid list of reasons why but it basically all boils down to: you felt like one off books to me. i don't need you to be a sequel or series. i'm over it.

beautiful monsters: considering i called it the title and cover of the year...i didn't read it. i'm afraid i'm incapable due to the subject. i really wish i could. i think about this book from time to time and it burns at me a little... but i can't read it.

the 367 days of an uncommon nonsense year...

2010-12-30T11:19:00.000+11:00

around about ten seconds ago i realised at some point this year the uncommon nonsense celebrated its first birthday...at some point...currently unknown.

maybe octoberish?

anyway: HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO ME!

forgetting my blog birthday has completely thrown me. i love birthdays. specifically my own. any chance to celebrate and have myself be the centre of attention AND presents (lots of presents)...well i'm totally on board for that. i make people celebrate my birthday for like a week. it is epic.

although: what does one do to celebrate a blog birthday? despite yelling 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!' i mean?... i could also bake myself a cupcake. hmmm this has some merit.

...wait. did i forget it? i presume i did. because i don't remember remembering it. yet it seems like something i wouldn't forget because, hello, i love birthdays. so may be i didn't...except i'm pretty sure i did. did i mention it?

okay now i'm just getting distracted.

leaving blogging birthdays behind lets concentrate on the birth of a new year.

i suppose i should have some resolutions or something? which is all fine and dandy... as long as you realise i have a tendency of saying things and having every intent of following through and then... i don't. it is an accidental thing. not an intentional thing.

so. resolutions i will attempt to keep but with me it's never certain so really who knows for 2011 are:

comment on other book blogs.

i am one of those horrible book blogging people that just... doesn't visit or comment. and it has nothing to do with your blog and how much i like it (because i do). i just... hate the computer, believe it or not. i spend very little time on the computer at home. i literally come in post my review and run. it's also how i write my reviews. i'm a hit and run reviewer. i kind of just throw up the words on the page, cross my fingers, and hope for the best.

which brings me to my second resolution.

spending some time on my reviews. i may surprise myself and actually write a half decent one. it may also inspire me to diverge from my go to places: mocking or worship flailing. i'm sure at one point or another in my daily life i am somewhat articulate... sometime or another. surely i can repeat such a performance on the blog?

third resolution.

early in november i was accepted into my post graduate (the only one i wanted and applied for, so THANK GOD!). and whilst a new full time job, post graduate study and a multitude of other responsibilities sounds like a lot of fun... it is also going to be a lot of hard work. i guess i don't expect to surpass however many book reviews i did this year. i merely wish to maintain. i think twice a week should be my aim. and i really really want to stick to it. so, fingers crossed.

fourth resolution.

figure out what the hell i'm going to do with two of those extra pages, 'drink me!' and 'speak english!'. because i claimed i was going to do particular things with them...and then i didn't. one was going to be a spoiler page full of reviews, until i realised that you can't use it like the home page. you can only have one post. so here's to figuring out that. especially because i don't want to take them down, as i spent A LOT of time making them fit PERFECTLY. because i'm an obsessive control freak about certain things. bless.

and that is it. not very inspired. but oh well.

tomorrow: 2010 book lists! i love book lists. plus, i'm going to love thinking about all the books i LOVED this year...and then reading them again... because HOW COULD I NOT?

when you have a dodgy blogger...

2010-12-29T12:30:00.000+11:00

out for blood.

alyxandra harvey.

allen and unwin.

release date: november 1st, 2010.

Hunter Wild just wants to get through her last year at the secret Helios-Ra Academy. To do so, she'll have to betray her grandfather, date a vampire and possibly take down the entire League - all before the end of term.

okay okay i admit it: i'm reading these books just so i can write dodgy one liners on the blog. i suppose i could write the dodgy one liners and not read the book...but i've never done that before. i have read absolutely everything i've reviewed.

first there was:

'you'll read this baby in a heartbeat.'

then there was:

'blood feud is bite sized for your convenience.'

and now...drum roll please... there is:

it'll leave you thirsty for more.

i know i know. it is genius.

oh oh speaking of genius i have a joke.

what do you call a chicken in a shell suit?

....an egg.

ahahahahahahahahahaha. blessed bon bons.

there are seven drake siblings...seven? may be eight (whatever)...i plan on dodgy one lining you all until the end.

apologies in advance?...i suppose if i was really apologetic i wouldn't dodgy one line you...oh well

young hearts...

2010-12-27T16:07:00.000+11:00

burnt snow.

van badham.

pan macmillan australia

release date: september 1st, 2010

Sophie is in the last term of Year 11. She's used to moving around with her accountant father and free-spirited mother, so the move to a small town on the South Coast in NSW doesn't seem too out of the ordinary - at first.

But things are changing around Sophie. A new school means a new start - and she's tired of her mother's superstitions and control. When she's recruited to the ranks of the school's popular girls, Sophie seizes the opportunity to remake herself... and unleashes forces a lot more threatening than whether she can hide her true nerd nature from the high school bitch brigade.

As Sophie negotiates teenage preoccupations with overprotective parents, whether her pyjamas are cool enough for a sleepover and the school-ground politics of secrets, lies and faithless boyfriends, something dark is hovering on the edge of her vision. The school Goth delivers her an ominous warning, strange birds seem to be following her... and fate keeps reuniting her with the dangerous bad boy with a past that nobody wants to talk about: Brody Meine.

Violent storms suddenly erupt, windows explode in the classroom, and a fire engulfs an entire street. And all these escalating, demonic happenings seem to take place when Sophie and Brody Meine are together...

mild spoilers! be gone all those with a tendency to the slightly squeamish!

remember this post???

wait, no, it's okay, i'll tell you what i said:

i want there to be a book that's just so crazy-pop my review can read like this:
'it was like a lady gaga concert'

and you'd totally know what i meant. it'd be CRAZY AWESOME WEIRD FREAKY GREATNESS.

people. i may have just found that book.

the only difference being that this is actually so bad it shoots straight past bad into CRAZY AWESOME WEIRD FREAKY GREATNESS.

whereas lady gaga is just greatness. (new cd lady gaga: CANNOT WAIT!)

anyway.

the epicness of this book started MONTHS before i even read it.

debra, meagan and i were on email (nothing new there) and we were talking about our yet to be plotted, written, published pygmy novel (which is now slightly more plotted, not at all written and never to be published...for it involves murdering pygmies... and we don't think the world is ready for that level of awesome just yet).

anyway: they kept talking in code about a particular cave scene. there was much debra and meagan laughing whenever said cave scene was mentioned. which, i mean, its a CAVE SCENE. 'nough said. i wanted to read this book immediately!

so debra dearly departed with her copy and sent it out my way. as it is about as big as a BRICK, it was either: i read it, or she use it as fire fuel in the winter. as we are not in the 18th century and poverty stricken, she felt like maybe i would give it a better home.

well: they couldn't hold in their joy...so they started TELLING me things that happened in the book and i LITERALLY could not believe it. and it was one of those completely pointless ten minutes when our emails consisted of the following:

me: no
debra and or meagan: yes
me: no
debra and or meagan: yes
me: no
debra and or meagan: yes
me: no
debra and or meagan: yes

you get the picture.

there were DAILY emails.

i mean: i want to do a SERIES of reviews for this book. A SERIES. as in more than one. as in many. as in multiple.

...i may just do this children. so we can all bask in the awesome.

people; burnt snow is SOME HIGH OCTANE CRACK.

seriously. CAPSLOCK SERIOUSLY. WTF SERIOUSLY. ARE YOU KIDDING ME SERIOUSLY. CRAPTASTIC, TRASHTASTIC, ANY TASTIC SERIOUSLY.

i'm seriously serious.

its amazing.

i just... okay things that happen in this novel:

criminal behaviour.
shape shifting...bear shape shifting.
a seance.
(i'm going to say there was also a lot of:) debauchery. A LOT.
luid behaviour.
a shopping montage.
witches.
DEMON POSSESSION!!!!!!!!!!!
a guy fight. or two.
a girl fight. or two.
a whole heap of relationships.
a whole heap of cheating.
a sacrifice (you know, of the virginal kind).
black crows.
THAT CAVE SCENE.
a whole heap of making out.
i'm pretty sure someone slaps someone else... this may be a figment i've my imagination though.
lots of freak weather.
there may have been a plot in there, but this also may have been a figment of my imagination.

best sentence of the book? after make out session number infinity with brody of the possible killing, our main protagonist walks back to class and...:

‘my body felt brodified but i couldn’t think about him right now.’

i just....ASKL;(%OHMYGODTHISISFANTASTIC&*$!!!!!!... BEST. SENTENCE. EVER.

oh and this gem! as she is walking into a party, post shopping montage, some random utters this hilarity:

‘hey can I get you pregnant later?’

i don't know, can you? if sophie isn't going to take you up on such an elegant offer then consider me next in line. because that was the funniest thing i've heard all year!

i'm going to stop right here. tune in sometime in the future for more hilarity... only if you have decided not to take on this gem yourself. because...i strongly urge you to put on your trashtastic reading (pantaloon) pants and join me in the land of the ever giving and ever drugged: BURNT SNOW!

* the uncommon nonsense only drug of choice is the reading of books. may we suggest this be your only drug of choice too?*

travelling nonsense...

2010-12-23T22:40:00.002+11:00

some lovely random person left the following in the uncommon nonsense gmail account:

http://www.tripbase.com/d/fictional/

and i find it about, oh, ten shades of hilarious.

i think my favourite is the paddington bear one:

Paddington Bear conceived by Michael Bond in the late fifties, Paddington Bear is a traveler with a taste for adventure and nerves of steel - very few people would emigrate across the world to an unknown country on a whim, but that didn’t stop the fuzzy bear fearlessly stowing away on a boat from Peru to England.

Curiously, Bond’s first draft of A Bear Called Paddington saw the titular character travel from Africa, but his agent pointed out that there are no bears on the continent. His origin was then changed to Peru, but in the whole of South America there is only one species of bear, the Spectacled Bear, which looks nothing like Paddington. No wonder he felt the need to get out of there.

Judging by the fact that he arrived with just a suitcase and no accommodation, Paddington is clearly a globetrotter who doesn’t believe in planning the life out of a holiday. No return ticket, no Lonely Planet guide, and no travel insurance - he just got up and went.

Deserves Kudos For:Incredible reliance on the idea that "things will turn out alright".

Questionable Antics:Blatant flaunting of animal immigration rules

you, tripbase, are fantastic.

i mean, who doesn't love paddington? i love paddington, so i just assume you all do too.

i have not chosen the alice one as my favourite (I KNOW!), but this has to do with the fact that the article links to a rare first edition of alice that was sold several years back...basically i'm suffering from sour grapes.

...DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HOW MUCH I WANT THAT BOOK!

errr MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!! tomorrow is christmas eve: THE BEST DAY IN THE UNIVERSE! so eat lots, hug lots and tell your family how much you love them...even if they do drive you nuts. :)

fall for summers...

2010-12-18T09:04:00.000+11:00

fall for anything.

courtney summers.

pan macmillan australia

realease date: march 1st, 2011

When Eddie Reeves' father commits suicide her life is consumed by the nagging question of why? Why when he was a legendary photographer and a brilliant teacher? Why when he seemed to find inspiration in everything he saw? And, most importantly, why when he had a daughter who loved him more than anyone else in the world?

When she meets Culler Evans, former student of her father's and a photographer himself, an instant and dangerous attraction begins. He seems to know more about her father than she does and could possibly hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death. But Eddie's vulnerability has weakened her and Culler Evans is getting too close. Her need for the truth keeps her hanging on...but some questions may be left unanswered.

first things first: i'm wearing my SOME GIRLS ARE t-shirt. yes. i got a some girls are t-shirt made up. i also have a cracked up to be one. THEY ARE FANTASTIC and literally made of awesome (true story: the awesome is stitched into the fabric).

oh how to review this book?

i'm afraid that i'll start and just make comparisons.

which isn't fair. it should be a book taken on its own merit.

fall for anything is quieter than what i've come to expect (already with the comparison? seriously? fail!).

i felt...hopeful in a weird way...

i feel like you have to prepare yourself for a courtney novel. steel yourself. i treat it like a band aid. slow or fast? me? i rip it off in one quick go. i make sure there's an entire afternoon/evening free, so that i can jump in, breath held, and just soldier through it until the end (when the first thing you do is gasp in some fresh air).

it is how i handle any book that threatens to rip me apart.

...i felt hopeful, because i knew this book wasn't going to rip me apart. not in a complete way.

for some of you; this book will hit hard. because grief is shared. i truly believe that. i believe we are all empathetic creatures who look at the world and feel. and eddie will make you feel. because her question, the book's question, why, is so sad.

why me? why him? why now? why that way? why why why why.

it is an obsession. it becomes eddie's obsession. and what unfolds because of it, is a little horrifying. but not the kind of horrifying i have come to expect from courtney. this felt like a slow burn, rather than a punch. everything simmered just off the surface. kind of like that feeling you get when it is too hot to move, and everything is languid and slow. it felt like that type of burn.

summers has a great capacity for making me see the secondary characters. every book, i've become completely enamored with the glimpses we get of minor characters. that, is my favourite thing about a summers book: i often have no sympathy for her main characters, and thankfully courtney never seems to really ask me to, but those milo's and michael's and kara's of the world? they totally get me, and i need more than a band aid to stem the flow.

speaking of: milo. oh milo. *pats him on the head* there there child. there there.

so. what am i not saying?

yes yes, i love them all. but... not the same.

if i was doing a review of comparisons. i would say that this isn't my favourite courtney summers child. i still think some girls are packs the biggest punch. i know i know, you shouldn't have favourites amongst your children. but when you do? when your favourite child is the middle child?

and i know this isn't the same type of book. so comparisons and favouritism is really unfair... but i just can't help it. some girls are is the book for me.

i've been thinking...

2010-12-14T20:45:00.000+11:00

i know i know: colour you surprised.

...anyway: i can't get nicholas dane out of my head.

now my review wasn't all happy sunshine and kittens. i kind of reamed on it a whole heap.

but i feel like i need to clarify something. these types of books; the nicholas dane's and beautiful's and glimpse's of the world: i hold them up to a higher standard than just any ole escapism book. i demand them to be more because they're trying to say important things. and i want them perfect. and they're the only type of books i demand perfection from.

you're a fantasy book? so what if you're a little long winded. i can handle that. it's a fantasy book. means i'm in the mood for some escapism.

you're a chick lit book? have at the funny and slightly predictable dialogue and love pairings. you're a chick lit book, i want familiarity.

you're an 'issues' book?. i want you to breathe and beat and yell. because you're so important. because the other genres allow people to escape their problems. but you? you make us face them. you tell us to stop hiding and to be brave and to know that this happens.

i was annoyed with nicholas dane. and i don't think the author should take it as a absolute negative (i have no idea what melvin burgess thinks...the likelihood of him knowing i exist is absolutely none, so.). sometimes the more annoyed or frustrated with a book the better. it got under my skin. for better or worse, it will follow me to my depths.

i'll remember the shock of this book. i'll remember that pockets of it were fast and thrilling and horrible. and i'm so grateful that it's talking about those black quiet places. i'm so grateful it's brave.

i just felt... disappointed in areas. and i didn't want to be disappointed. i wanted it to be perfect. so i could turn around to everyone and say: see here, see this, it is a perfect book, and you must read it for it is also an important book.

people don't generally argue with perfection. if it was perfect everyone would have to read it. and take it seriously. which would mean that the subject would be taken seriously.

... but there is no such thing as a perfect book. there is the perfect book for you. no doubt. but one book for everyone? no, it doesn't work like that. it is the reason i love books. in the end there are books of every colour, shade and taste. just as there are people.

so when you see my reviews and you notice i've been...less then complementary, sometimes it's because the book is actually that good. it just... i wanted more. i cared enough to be disappointed.

of course if you're an urban fantasy book you are exempt from this entire post. THAT review i do mean to be less than complementary. because... okay that is definitely a post for another time.

did you catch that?...

2010-12-12T11:13:00.002+11:00

glimpse.

carol lynch williams.

simon and schuster australia

release date: june 1st, 2010

In one moment

it is over.

In one moment

it is gone.

The morning grows

thin, grey

and our lives-

how they were-

have vanished.

Our lives have

changed

when I walk in

on Lizzie

my sister

holding a shotgun.

...no it's not a disease... well okay, maybe it is a disease. A BOOK LOVING DISEASE. don't even get me started. i'm in a 'books are the epitome of epicness and beauty and joy' mood again. i love books pretty consistently, but then sometimes i OVERFLOW with the love. so apologies up front. i'll try and remain some what sedate during the review...

PEOPLE IT IS A NOVEL IN VERSE FORMAT. ASLjk#%\WELLNOW*?!KhJ$^dsajk;%#GHJK;L

sorry. capslock got away from me there. clearly i'm not sticking to the plan very well.

i love books that don't conform to the norm. i love when people find new ways to put words together. i find i'm most susceptible to poetry. i like minimalism. i'm a less is more kind of girl. i like imagination and being left in the shadows.

i like this book. quite a lot actually.

i'm such a sucker for language. you do something out of the mainstream; 'he said', 'she said' 'heart flutterings'... then i'm all yours! so easy. i mean did you see the book extract above? that's just the first page people. the first mother freaking page. it's like finding santa claus!

i was quite interested in the premise. my sister is the person i love best in this world. it's just me and her (no other siblings) and when we're not yelling over who made the mess in the bathroom (casey, because i'm a neat freak, and she has a habit of being a BLACK HOLE. it's basically DEBRIS and total DESTRUCTION. any who. hi casey!), we're best friends.

it feels weird when i don't see her (working full time took some getting use to. we started scheduling sister time). we basically still live at home so we can hang out together. so i get this book. i get sisters and having it be the two of you against the world. because that's casey and i.

my only qualm is with the protagonist. i felt like i came to the realisation so early in the piece, with information she had given me, and she just refused to see. and it didn't feel like honest denial (you know that kind of horrified place a character will find themselves in? where they understand they've fabricated a fantasy world around them?), this... didn't ring a 100% true. the true horror of what had happened didn't make as much of an impact as it should have because of the protagonist and the grating denial.

but ignore me. because i say these things, and then i still say: read it! because it shakes up your reading regime a little. because it's beautifully written (VERSE!). because it is made of awesome.

the verse format rules peeps. let this be a lesson to you all :)