Gretchen C. Hohmeyer's Blog, page 37

From the Notebook: Why There’s No Love Triangle in ACoMaF

I promised you guys this video in my A Court of Mist and Fury review last week, and I actually did it! This is a really important video to me, actually, because I feel so strongly about how powerful and important the relationships in ACoMaF are–and there is no love triangle here. Fair warning, this is NOT a spoiler free video! My review is, but this is not. You’ve been warned.

Weekly Wrap Up + What We Read 5/22/16

Michaela totally had this video on time this week, guys. I just didn’t post it. I graduated yesterday and also came back home, so I’ve been all over the place this weekend. However, here it is for the blog, finally!

Monday:

Gretchen’s Review of A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
Michaela’s Monday Musing on How to Review a Book in Translation

Tuesday:

Bibliomancy for Beginners Season 4 Announcement

Wednesday:

Michaela’s Review of Y The Last Man: Book One by Brian K Vaughan

Thursday:

Gretchen’s Thesis Thursday Wrap Up

Friday:

Michaela’s DNF Review of Smoke by Dan Vyleta
Gretchen’s Review of Get in Trouble by Kelly Link

Review: “Get in Trouble” by Kelly Link

This review has been almost a year in the making, but it’s finally happening! After how much I didn’t really like Kelly Link when Bibliomancy did her Magic for Beginners collection, I’m upset about how much I liked this collection. Shhh, don’t tell Taylor.

Thesis Thursday: Thesis Defended

Well. Here we are. The last Thesis Thursday post. Last Wednesday, I successfully defended my 84 page behemoth that had 7 pages of work cited, single spaced. The only thing I have left to do is get it bound and submit a copy to the English Department. My panel has already decided that I get English Honors, so there is no stress left. Just the finished project.

Chapter One, which took up all of last semester, was the real, serious English-y investigation. I read five YA female assassin novels and talked about how YA literature is either letting girls be their real, strong selves or … not. Mostly it was not. Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass remained my shining centerpiece, but … well. Graceling by Kristin Cashore actually sort of held up, but Arwen Elys Dayton’s Seeker, Bridget Zinn’s Poison and RL LaFevers’ Grave Mercy did not. All the links I just inserted are to my reviews or re-reviews of those books. Mostly, I ended up talking about how YA tropes end up promising strong female characters and then don’t give us that–and that makes me angry.

Chapter Two y’all saw some of, but that was the hardest chapter to write. I was talking about the commodification of YA book covers, but my original thesis didn’t hold up. I ended up needing a lot more quantitative research than I expected, and I had to redo my entire thesis statement. In the end, what I ended up saying is that the YA book cover industry looks a lot more diverse than it used to, but only for books that can pay for good cover art. Everything else is still blase look-alike kind of stuff. I actually did a video summarizing some of my research!

Chapter Three was the one that made me REALLY angry. I even posted a video about how it almost got me to stop blogging for like 30 seconds. It was all about how the publishing industry uses the free labor of teens to get their marketing data, but how a lot of the really GOOD data is ignored for information about what sells–like love triangles. It was all stuff I knew, really, but seeing it proven was just … wow. It was worse than I thought, I guess.

At my defense, my advisor–who’s been with me through all four years of college–got kind of nostalgic about all that time she’s known me, and now seeing this project come to fruition. She knows better than almost everyone else how much time and energy I put into my study and love of YA, and how much this project really means to me. It isn’t just a research project. It’s the culmination of years of my life spent blogging and reading, and a deep love of YA literature that is coupled with a serious desire for improvement within the genre. I guess, in a way, I hadn’t thought about this as the project I’ve been working on for all those years. This was just, you know, this year. But … she’s right. It never was. This is my heart and soul on these pages.

And now it’s done. Well, the paper anyways. I’m far from done. This project has shown me that this kind of research–in YA, on YA–is what I really want to do. I want to live this kind of work. Yeah, I’m going to Korea for a year, but this is the end goal. I want to go to grad school and do an even better version of this project. I want to say something that someone is going to listen to. This isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning.

Bibliomancy for Beginners Season 4 Announcement!

Super late posting on my part, but Michaela and I have put together an announcement for the fourth season of Bibliomancy for Beginners. We’ve got six books and two themed months coming at you this summer, PLUS a poll that we REALLY need you to vote in to decide the subject of our next Nostalgia Junkie series. HELP US OUT!

Goodreads poll: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/1...

Weekly Wrap Up + What We Read 5/15/16

We are aware that this wrap up is late! Between Michaela’s car troubles and my senior week/graduation, this are the things that happen. Bear with us, friends, because once I graduate on Sunday there will be one less opportunity for disasters. Which will be replaced by my going back to work fulltime, but it’s okay. We’ll all be okay.

Sunday:

#imbibliomancy: Drunk Book Club with Death Vigil by Stjepan Sejic

Monday:

Gretchen’s From the Notebook: How My Thesis Almost Got Me to Almost Stop Blogging
Michaela’s Review + Discussion of Tina Fey’s Bossypants

Tuesday:

Betwixt the Books Reviews: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Wednesday:

Gretchen’s Worth It Wednesday: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Michaela’s post on Free Comic Book Day

Friday:

Fingerprints of You Giveaway Winner Annoucement

Review: A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

You guys all know that I love Sarah J. Maas. Probably a bit too much. But I’ll admit that I was worried about her new series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, because it’s really had to do a Beauty and the Beast retelling well…

I should never have worried!

Fingerprints of You Giveaway Winner Announcement!

Yes, I totally did mention that I was going to review Sarah J. Maas’s new book today. And there were no Thesis Thursday wrap up yesterday. Uh. Guys, it’s finals week. I’m a little busier than I thought I’d be BUT there is only one paper between me and freedom AND I did manage to get around to picking the winner of the Fingerprints of You giveaway:

CONGRATS, KENIA!

This lovely lady will be getting the prize pack of fabulous swag and a signed book from Kristen-Paige Madonia … as soon as I can get around to sending that email out. If you didn’t win, don’t worry! You can still check out the great interview Kristen-Paige let me do and follow those links to buy that book AND Kristen-Paige’s newly released Invisible Fault Lines!

Worth It Wednesday: “A Daughter of Smoke and Bone” by Laini Taylor

Worth It Wednesdays is a weekly post where I feature my favorite YA titles. Find out more about it here!

Title: A Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Author: Laini Taylor

Goodreads Description:  Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”, she speaks many languages – not all of them human – and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Why it’s worth it: I’ll admit that I’ve had a wild relationship with these books, but–at the end of the day–I still think that this series is really worth it. For one, when Imbibliomancy did this (my pick, of course), Taylor and Michaela actually didn’t hate it. In fact, Taylor even liked my idea of reading the second one this summer.

I have a lot of issues with this blurb, because I don’t think that it adequately represents the content of this book. One, Laini Taylor is a beautiful writer who crafts prose on a whole other level that your stereotypical young adult fiction. Two, while this novel involves a star-crossed romance, it’s the kind of romance that understand that there are things more important than their “will they, won’t they” back and forth.

This became popular around the time that angels were all the rage, but this world is so much more than that. It’s one of the more unique angelic-based fantasy systems I’ve ever read. Really, every fantastical creature in this book was interesting and unique to me in a way a lot of fantasy settings aren’t.

This series has some weird ups and downs, with the second one being the strongest. I felt like the third one was a bit too bogged down by new information and characters, but it was still a fitting end to the series that was interesting if nothing else. Still very worth it, I promise!

Read it if you’re looking for: strong female characters, angels, fantasy, strong prose, strong world building, interesting characters, unique setting, romance, magic, action, adventure, humor

Betwixt the Books Reviews: “A Tale for the Time Being” by Ruth Ozeki

GUYS! Michaela and I finally managed to do this joint review! By which I mean that I finally found the time to finish it so we could film this. Michaela was even able to participate in a buddy read for this book, though I was busy during that time. We’ve been excited for this video since before our hiatus, so we hope that you enjoy!

Michaela’s Review: 5 stars | Gretchen’s Review: 4 stars