Gretchen C. Hohmeyer's Blog, page 58
January 15, 2014
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 10
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day!
Today I’m actually in attendance for The Slippery Slope! Check back tomorrow for The Grim Grotto!
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
Day 9: The Carnivorous Carnival
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 9
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day!
Today we’re talking lions, freaks and disguises (oh my!) from The Carnivorous Carnival! Don’t miss when we start falling down The Slippery Slope!
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
Waiting on Wednesday: Antigoddess by Kendare Blake
Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Breaking the Spine!
Full disclaimer, everybody: college got so crazy last year that I wasn’t really able to keep up on new releases. Which means that for a while, my WoW posts will probably be…not books that I really want to come out, but books that DID come out and I missed them and I want to read them really badly as soon as I have time.
TL;DR: I’m a rebel and I’m posting about already-released books.
Title: Antigoddess
Author: Kendare Blake
ETA: Now!
Summary from Goodreads: Old Gods never die…
Or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.
Desperately seeking the cause of their slow, miserable deaths, Athena and Hermes travel the world, gathering allies and discovering enemies both new and old. Their search leads them to Cassandra—an ordinary girl who was once an extraordinary prophetess, protected and loved by a god.
These days, Cassandra doesn’t involve herself in the business of gods—in fact, she doesn’t even know they exist. But she could be the key in a war that is only just beginning.
Because Hera, the queen of the gods, has aligned herself with other of the ancient Olympians, who are killing off rivals in an attempt to prolong their own lives. But these anti-gods have become corrupted in their desperation to survive, horrific caricatures of their former glory. Athena will need every advantage she can get, because immortals don’t just flicker out.
Every one of them dies in their own way. Some choke on feathers. Others become monsters. All of them rage against their last breath.
The Goddess War is about to begin.
Why I’m Waiting: TERMINALLY ILL GREEK GODS. Need I say more?
January 14, 2014
Top Ten 2014 Debuts I’m Excited For
Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish!
Alright, now this is an odd list because my resolution to myself this year is to catch up on the books I already have, not the books I want to buy. However, this list of books is just too good to NOT look forward to! (Although, I’ll be honest, I got most of these off this list on Goodreads because I’ve been trying to be SO GOOD about not looking for new books…)
1. Stolen Songbird (The Malediction Trilogy #1) by Danielle L. Jensen
Alright, I’m going to be honest, I am SO PSYCHED for this one. Strange Chemistry titles can go either way with me, but this one looks so good and the cover is so beautiful that I just can’t NOT be excited.
2. Defy (Defy #1) by Sara B. Larson
Scholastics has had this all over the web, so this probably isn’t a surprise to see here, but it looks like something that Tamora Pierce or Alex Lidell could have written, so I’m excited!
3. All That Glows by Ryan Graudin
To be honest, I actually already have this ARC, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet because YIKES my TBR pile. However, I’m still really excited to read it! Just LOOK at that cover!
4. Elusion by Claudia Gabel and Cheryl Klam
This is another one that I, a, already have an ARC of and, b, was sold on by the cover. However, once again I still haven’t read it yet so I’m still really excited to finally get to!
5. A Mad, Wicked Folly by Sharon Biggs Waller
I’m a sucker for period pieces, especially for ones set in London. This one seems to have everything I love in it, so of course I’m excited for it!
6. Midnight Thief (Midnight Thief #1) by Livia Blackburne
Female assassins are kind of my “thing” right now, so hearing about this one was a no brainer. Actually, at this point I can probably be sold just by “Assassins Guild”…
7. Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither
Now, I’ve been swearing to myself that I’m going to move away from scifi books for a change, but this one made it impossible. Clones? A sister dying but we don’t care because she’s a clone? A clone who at 12 years old may have killed someone? I’m sold.
8. The Elite by Maggie Hall
This book is being billed as a YA Da Vinci Code. Consider me first in line to see if that billing holds any kind of truth.
9. Banished (The Blackhart Legacy #1) by Liz de Jager
Fae? Fighting Elder Gods? Being homeschooled so you can better learn how to wield a sword? This touches on a lot of basic loves for me, and that makes me happy.
10. Strange Sweet Song by Adi Rule
Okay, I’ll admit that this one is different for me, but it just sounds so cool! An elite singing academy with dark secrets? I’m in!
January 13, 2014
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 8
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day!
In this episode, we’re talking strange operations and half finished buildings from The Hostile Hospital! Stop by tomorrow to see us discuss The Carnivorous Carnival!
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
January 12, 2014
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 7
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day!
This evening we are trying to use a village to raise some children and talking chores, bird-shaped fountains and how many rules is too many as seen in The Vile Village! Come back tomorrow to see us talk about The Hostile Hospital!
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
January 11, 2014
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 6
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day!
This afternoon (a strange time for us, we know), we talk red herrings, doilies, and crawling up elevator shafts with your teeth as depicted in The Ersatz Elevator! Come back tomorrow to hear us chat about The Vile Village!
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
January 10, 2014
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 5
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day!
Today we’re talking about the metric system, lap running and turban dismantling in The Austere Academy! Check back in tomorrow when we ride The Ersatz Elevator!
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
January 9, 2014
Bibliomancy for Beginners’ “13 Days of Misfortune”: Day 4
Welcome back to the 13 Days of Misfortune! If you’re new to this, then let me tell you that this post is about a 13 day long marathon event where my book club is tackling one book of The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket a day!
Today’s unfortunate episode is about The Miserable Mill. If you enjoy sawmills and sword fights, tune in! Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow to watch us discuss The Austere Academy!
Miss one? Here’s some back links to our previous episodes…
Stories That Shape Us: the Chronicles of Narnia
My copy, which looks very good for a book I’ve had since I was five. Most of the damage is from repeated rereads and a minor disagreement with a puppy…
When I was five years old, my mom–probably tired of repeating Dr Seuss books over and over again–came home from the store and handed me a copy of The Magician’s Nephew. “I wasn’t sure if it would be too scary,” she said, “but I thought you might like to try it.” She would have read it out loud to me if I asked her to, but in a fit of independent spirit I decided that it was time I tackled a real novel all by myself.
I was not a fast reader (yet), but I got all the way to the introduction of Jadis (that scary-looking lady on the cover) on my first try. Jadis scared me, so I stopped for a while. I don’t remember it being very long, although it’s true that time is funny in childhood memories. I had been enjoying the story so much that eventually, to reassure myself, I flipped through the book looking only at the pictures. With the flawless logic of a very girly five-year-old, I decided that no book containing a pegasus could possibly be THAT bad, and immediately plunged through the rest of the book. (“I could lose my job for saying this,” said my kindergarten teacher to my parents, “but have you ever considered homeschooling?”)
I liked The Magician’s Nephew so much that I reread it, and then I reread it again, all the while begging my mother for the next book. I have to hand it to her: she encouraged my fledgling book habit and accommodated it as much as possible in a town with no bookstore, and eventually we acquired the entire series. I remember this process taking a very long time, but it’s entirely probable that my judgement was clouded.
This was the book that introduced me to real fantasy, the one that changed my budding love for reading into an obsession. It set the precedent for literally everything else I have ever read afterward. It’s the entire reason why, for basically the entirety of elementary school, my mother constantly had to drag my nose out of a book in order to get me to do anything. The Chronicles of Narnia were the beginning of several bad habits of mine: the one where I peek at the later chapters when alarmed or unsure about beginning chapters, for example (this happens less and less nowadays, but it still occasionally happens). Also the one where I bring books to the dinner table (my family eventually gave up on explaining table manners and, once they decided a good example was useless, started bringing their own books to the table too). Also the one where I reread things I like. I don’t just reread them once, either. I reread them until the cover falls off. And then I get another copy and reread them some more.
Apocalypse+end of the world? Totally okay with my five-year-old self. What happened to Susan? Less okay.
As an adult, looking back, I can see loads of problems with the series. Actually, I saw most of the big ones even as a kid: why are humans divinely ordained to rule over animals? Especially when the animals are just as sentient as the people are? Isn’t that a little elitist? Rather uncomfortably similar to white supremacism, actually, when you think about it? And what about Susan’s fate in the last book? I could write entire essays on the problem with Susan being denied entrance to Heaven based seemingly on the fact that she discovered sexuality, but other people have already done that (see Neil Gaiman’s short story The Problem of Susan, if you don’t mind never sleeping again). And as an adult, the bluntness of the Christian metaphors is sometimes hard to take. (As a kid I just thought it was interesting.)
I can see all of that, but I just can’t dislike the series. It’s too deeply embedded in my childhood and my love for reading; too many wonderful things have come from my love of those stories for me to stop loving them. And you know what? Sometimes, when I’m feeling incredibly nostalgic, I still go back and reread the whole thing. No matter how many times I read over it, the wonder of my first real experience with fantasy is still there, waiting for me.
