Gretchen C. Hohmeyer's Blog, page 47
January 12, 2016
Worth It Wednesdays: “Incarnate” by Jodi Meadows
Worth It Wednesdays is a weekly post where I feature my favorite YA titles. Find out more about it here!
Title: Incarnate
Author: Jodi Meadows
Goodreads Description: NEWSOUL
Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, millions of souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.
NOSOUL
Even Ana’s own mother think’s she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?
HEART
Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies–human and creature alike–let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?
Why it’s worth it: This book is just as beautiful as it’s cover. That’s the simple answer. The long answer involves the characters, the plot and the ideas wrap into this book that makes it one, big, beautiful package.
The main character, Ana, is a bit cutesy, but I love her all the same. Meadows walks a fine line, having to make Ana sound younger than all the older souls, but it is rarely annoying. In fact, it becomes one of her assets. The world around her is also wonderful, involving mythical creatures like dragons and a god who might not really be a god. There’s a lot going on in this book. On top of that, Meadows works in a lot of great ideas about what loves is and what it means, as well as the dangers and fears that surround change and newness in peoples’ lives.
There’s also no love triangle. Instead, Meadows gives us a romance that begins as a friendship and then grows into something more–something more that still experiences bumps and challenges along the way. It’s an actual evolution of a relationship, rather than something that just appears overnight.
Is this book perfect? No. It’s a debut, after all. But it’s pretty damn good all the same. I reviewed Incarnate, as well as Asunder, on my blog, if you want a more in depth opinion!
Read it if you’re looking for: fantasy, fantastic world building, realistic romance, not another love triangle, magic, dragons, big ideas, stories about love, stories about change, action, adventure
30 Seconds to Disagree: “The First Test” by Tamora Pierce
Look what Betwixt the Books is bringing back! This time around, I have 1 minute to tell Michaela about The First Test and The Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce, she has 30 seconds to disagree, and I have 30 more seconds to tell her why she’s wrong.
As always, there is a partner to this video, where Michaela and I reverse roles, posted today at The Pied Piper Calls. Check that out as well!
Don’t miss my first video in this series about Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen.
January 10, 2016
From the Notebook: Top 5 Disappointing Books of 2015
As promised in my bookish resolutions video, so begins the From the Notebook feature on this blog! This week I’m talking about my most disappointing books from 2015, since I didn’t do a lot of reviewing this year!
Links for posts mentioned in the video:
Seeker Review * Poison Review * Ember in the Ashes book club episode * Daughter of Smoke and Bone Imbibliomancy episode
Weekly Wrap Up + What We’re Reading 1/10/16
Hey all! In accordance with our bookish resolutions, Michaela and I will be doing weekly wrap up videos where we talk about what’s gone on in all our bookish spheres. As you know, Betwixt the Books contains my blog, Micheala’s blog, Betwixt the Books videos and our Bibliomancy for Beginners Book Club. That’s a lot! So here’s a quick and easy way to keep track of it all!
Monday: Michaela’s Pop Sugar Reading Challenge TBR Post
Tuesday: Betwixt the Books 2016 Bookish Resolutions
Wednesday: Michaela’s Review of Rat Queens Vol 2; Gretchen’s Worth It Wednesday on The Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce
Thursday: Gretchen’s Thesis Thursday Review of Seeker by Arwen Elys Dayton
Friday: Michaela’s Book and Movie Review of The Martian
January 7, 2016
Thesis Thursdays: Review – “Seeker” by Arwen Elys Dayton
Thesis Thursdays is a weekly(ish) feature where I rant, love and talk about young adult books I’m reading because I’m conning my college into thinking this is all for academia! Find out more here!
Seeker (Seeker #1) by Arwen Elys Dayton
Published February 10, 2015 by Delacorte
Goodreads | Amazon
The night Quin Kincaid takes her Oath, she will become what she has trained to be her entire life. She will become a Seeker. This is her legacy, and it is an honor.
As a Seeker, Quin will fight beside her two closest companions, Shinobu and John, to protect the weak and the wronged. Together they will stand for light in a shadowy world.
And she’ll be with the boy she loves–who’s also her best friend. But the night Quin takes her Oath, everything changes.
Being a Seeker is not what she thought. Her family is not what she thought. Even the boy she loves is not who she thought. And now it’s too late to walk away.
One star
When I added this book for my thesis, I had to write that first chapter within the week. My adviser thought I was crazy. I was, but I just had a FEELING that I needed this book in my thesis. Mostly because it was published in 2015. Well, it was perfect for my thesis alright. In all the right wrong ways.
This is going to be a spoilery review because I have a lot of things to say.
Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat. This is not Quin’s story. Quin is the pretend main character of this novel. (It’s also told in rotating POV from her, Shinobu and John.) Maybe this will change in later books, but that is certainly the case here. She is de facto main character because everything revolves around her, but after the first section she literally does nothing. More on that later.
Anyways, the book opens up with John, Quin, and Shinobu training to be Seekers, this high and mighty fighting force that they are apparently the last apprentices of. John and Quin are together, and Shinobu is jealous of John. Love triangle time, surprise! After the opening training scene, Quin’s father, Briac–their leader–tells Shinobu and Quin that they are ready to take the oath. While they run off to get ready, Briac kicks out John.
Quin has no idea this is happening, though, so she and Shinobu go through with their initiation. The book doesn’t reveal what exactly happens during their initiation night until much later, but the big reveal here is that the Seekers aren’t high and mighty anymore. They’re assassins for hire. Briac just forced his kid to kill children. What a guy. Quin wants to leave, but she doesn’t. She feels like she can’t. So she goes on killing people on her dad’s orders.
Back to John. It turns out that Briac killed John’s mom, and John’s been out for revenge the whole time. So after he gets kicked out, he goes back to the Seeker headquarters and burns the place to the ground, trying to get to Briac and some special Seeker weaponry. In the process, he kills Shinobu’s dad and kidnaps Quin’s mom. Quin and Shinobu are having none of that, so they save Quin’s mom and run away together–and Quin and John are over. At least to Quin anyways.
Now, honestly, if the story had gone somewhere different from here, maybe I could have liked it more. Quin’s struggle with what she’d done for her father could have been really good. Shinobu and Quin’s mission to avenge their parents and stop John could have been really good. But, instead, we get the whole middle of this book.
The middle in which Quin goes into self-inflicted amnesia where she can’t handle what she’s done and Shinobu turns to drugs and they’re all separated and not doing anything.
Yep, that’s right. Instead of dealing, Quin forgets everything. Which means that when the action finally kicks back up again, she ends up sort of helping John because the only thing she remembers is that she vaguely loved him once and then ends up falling for Shinobu because he keeps showing up to save her. You know, since she can’t save herself because she’s forced herself to forget every bit of training she’s ever had. She starts remembering towards the end, but not enough to totally take herself out of damsel in distress territory.
By the end of the book she declares that she loves Shinobu and that John has to be stopped, so she’s going to be the Seeker she always wanted to be and stop him. Maybe, just maybe, she has a more active role in the next two books, but I certainly won’t be reading them.
It’s frustrating too, because I wanted to like this book. It started off fairly promising, if you could get past the love triangle and the fairly generic characters. I liked the lore of the Seekers a lot. I would have read on just for that. However, if I hadn’t been reading this for my thesis, I would have jumped ship to DNF land once Quin lost her memory. I cannot stand that trope, and here it was just used to further the love triangle.
Like I’ve said, my thesis is about tropism in YA fantasy literature featuring female assassins so … Quin fit to the T when I was describing a bunch of things wrong with the genre. So that’s why this book was perfect for all the wrong reasons. If you’re doing a similar project, I present a perfect exhibit. If you’re looking to read this book but can’t stand tropes? Not so much.
January 5, 2016
Worth It Wednesdays: The Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce
Worth It Wednesdays is a weekly post where I feature my favorite YA titles. Find out more about it here!
Titles: First Test, Page, Squire, Lady Knight
Author: Tamora Pierce
Goodreads Description of First Test: In the medieval and fantastic realm of Tortall, Keladry of Mindelan is the first girl to take advantage of the decree that permits females to train for knighthood. Up against the traditional hazing of pages and a grueling schedule, Kel faces only one real roadblock: Lord Wyldon, the training master of pages and squires. He is absolutely against girls becoming knights. So while he is forced to train her, Wyldon puts her on probation for one year. It is a trial period that no male page has ever had to endure and one that separates the good natured Kel even more from her fellow trainees during the tough first year. But Kel Is not a girl to underestimate, as everyone is about to find out…
Why it’s worth it: Listen. You could pick up any Tamora Pierce series you wanted and have something worth it. You’ll probably see me talk about all of them over the course of this feature. However, out of all the series, I think that Protector of the Small is my favorite.
I. Love. Kel. Kel is the quintessential female warrior who stands up for what’s right. The first books, especially, deal with Kel struggling to be accepted as a girl in a room full of men, but the books never lose sight of that struggle. However, the books are hardly just about that. Kel also battles her way through tough situations, fights, battles, wars–not to mention constantly having to push herself through her own fears and terrors.
This is also Kel’s story. Sometimes YA today feels like the story of two people, usually the romantic duo. Romance happens in this series, but it happens on a minuscule scale around everything else. Above anything else, Kel is on a mission to get her shield and prove herself. She certainly enjoys acting like a traditional female sometimes, but she refuses to sacrifices every talent and skill she fights so hard for.
Out of all the books, I think that Squire is my favorite, followed quickly by Lady Knight. While I was home from break, I abandoned any new book purchases because I was filled with a need to read them again. They are classic, quintessential, and pretty damn perfect. They influenced my childhood and they fill me with joy to this day. If you haven’t read these yet, and this sounds like something up your alley, then GET THEM NOW.
Read it if you’re looking for: Lady knights, strong female characters, books without romance, humor, classic fantasy, books about friendship, action, adventure, magic, feminism.
Betwixt the Books: 2016 Bookish Resolutions Videos
Hey there guys! As promised in our 2015 wrap up videos, Michaela and I are back to talk about our personal blogging and bookish resolutions for 2016. Learn about what’s coming to My Life is a Notebook and The Pied Piper Calls–and maybe here some super secret information about giveaways if you watch all the way to the end!
Hope you guys are as excited for 2016 as we are!
January 3, 2016
#imbibliomancy: Drunk Book Club with “The Buried Giant” by Kazuo Ishiguro
Holy mackerel guys. This. This book club is a … thing. I say at one point that I can’t tell if this is our best or worst hangout. There’s a section in the center where Taylor and I discuss our papers and theory and I’m not sure that will be interesting to anyone but our professor. Feel free to skip through that, because the ending is funny as all hell. Maybe you might even find that interesting, I don’t know. Are you an English major? You might.
This is the last Imbibliomancy episode of this semester, the first two episodes being The Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor and then John Dies at the End by David Wong. Look forward to more of these next semester! Don’t forget that we have a special episode that’s a follow up to our Magicians hangout from last January!
January 1, 2016
2015 Wrap Up Videos!
That’s right, I said videos plural! This is your one stop shop to see EVERYTHING that’s gone on with the Betwixt the Books family this year! I have my own wrap up, of course, but then Michaela and I did one for the Betwixt the Books and Bibliomancy for Beginners Videos, and Michaela also has a wrap up for her blog, The Pied Piper Calls.
Excited? Good, because I am!
As promised, here are some of the links for the video:
Perusing Poetics wrap up * Where I’ve Been * In Defense of YA * Worth It Wednesdays Intro * Thesis Thursdays Intro
Reviews: The Red Queen * The Wrath and the Dawn * Queen of Shadows * Queen of the Tearling
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! Here’s me and Michaela wrapping up our ear in videos!
And last but not least, here is Michaela’s personal wrap up for The Pied Piper Calls!
December 30, 2015
Thesis Thursdays: Review – “Graceling” by Kristin Cashore
Thesis Thursdays is a weekly(ish) feature where I rant, love and talk about young adult books I’m reading because I’m conning my college into thinking this is all for academia! Find out more here!
Graceling (Graceling Realm #1) by Kristin Cashore
Published October 1, 2008, by Harcourt
Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight – she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug.
When she first meets Prince Po, Graced with combat skills, Katsa has no hint of how her life is about to change.
She never expects to become Po’s friend.
She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace – or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away…
Four and a half stars
I was about to call this review a re-review and then I realized I never actually reviewed this on my blog. I have no recollection of a time before my blog but … whatever. Anyways.
As I summed up last week, Graceling was one of the books I used for my thesis and one of only two that didn’t fall apart completely in my hands … mostly.
Since I first read the book, I’ve been in love with it. Katsa, the main character, is the kind of female warrior that I had been looking for since I blew through everything Tamora Pierce had written to the date. Though she hates doing her uncle’s dirty work, she does everything with great skill–while also running an underground Council that works to fix all the evil in the world that the kings of the continent ignore. Though she also worries that she’s an unnatural female, she sticks to her guns about not wanting to get married and not liking kids all that much. She’s strong. She’s brave. She will kick your unrighteous ass.
Also, for a book that sounds like it’s a typical YA about romance, this is the kind of romance I’m always wanting (but usually not getting) when I pick up a more recent YA. Po and Katsa take time to be friends, and Katsa takes time to think about if she even wants to date him. After all, though she likes him, she also wants to be free to be herself–and Po’s a prince, so marrying him would be the end of her freedom. Po, for his part, doesn’t want to change her because he loves her and he allows her to take the freedom she wants while being there for her and loving her. Why is that so hard to write these days?
Ahem.
Anyways. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the setting, which is very quintessential high fantasy. Kings, castles, lords, you name it. What’s really impressive, though, is the scope of the story. Sometimes books just keep you in one kingdom and mention that there is sort of another world beyond the kingdom’s borders. Katsa travels in this book, and you really get a sense of the global world around her. Sometimes I forget that detail while I’m jumping for joy at the romance story line, but it’s still really impressive.
The story itself is action packed and really well written. Sure, there’s some time taken for the evolution of Katsa and Po’s relationship, but the plot doesn’t really suffer from it. Okay, it slows down a bit in the middle because of Katsa freaking out about whether or not to date Po but that is SUCH an important bit of thinking that I can’t be that mad at it. The ending, however, is action sequence after action sequence and … well, to avoid spoilers I’ll just say really well done.
Now, if this was me reading this in 2008, I’d just cap this off with saying that it gets five stars from me and that’s that–READ IT. But it’s 2015 and I’ve just analyzed the crap out of it and now I have to say that the ending … has become a bit of an issue with me, regarding Katsa’s actual (instead of perceived) agency. I can’t really speak to that without spoiling a hell of a lot, but feel free to comment if you’ve read the book and want to discuss what I’m talking about.
I stay at a rating of four and a half stars, though, because it’s so obvious that Cashore was really thinking about Katsa as a strong female character. The book isn’t perfect, but I love it even so because of what Cashore was trying to do with Katsa, and her relationship with Po. If you’re as exhausted with today’s YA and it’s idea of “romance” as I am, READ IT. Or re-read it. You won’t be disappointed.
