Waiting on Wednesday: Bunheads
Title: Bunheads
Author: Sophie Flack
Publisher: Poppy
Pages: 304
Release Date: October 10, 2011
As a dancer with the ultra-prestigious Manhattan Ballet Company, nineteen-year-old Hannah Ward juggles intense rehearsals, dazzling performances and complicated backstage relationships. Up until now, Hannah has happily devoted her entire life to ballet.
But when she meets a handsome musician named Jacob, Hannah’s universe begins to change, and she must decide if she wants to compete against the other “bunheads” in the company for a star soloist spot or strike out on her own in the real world. Does she dare give up the gilded confines of the ballet for the freedoms of everyday life?—Goodreads
Y’ALL. SOPHIE FREAKIN’ FLACK WROTE A BOOK.
Okay, for those of you who weren’t aspiring ballerinas when you were younger and/or aren’t obsessed with ballet, let me explain.
Sophie Flack used to dance with New York City Ballet. Back in 2009, the company started laying off dancers. She was let go, (sad.) and subsequently interviewed by the New York Times and Time Out New York (this article has really cool video with it!) about life after dance. And now she has written a BOOK.
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| Sophie Flack warming up at the barre. Photo (c) New York Times. |
*puts on old pointe shoes and a tutu. flounces about.* (You think I’m kidding. I am NOT.)
Let’s be honest here. If someone is going to write a YA novel about life as an aspiring professional ballerina, it should be someone who lived that life, n’est-ce pas?
I am PUMPED to read this one. *pirouettes excitedly*
Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.
Tune In Tuesday: Incubus
Let it be known that I really, really, really like Incubus.
In fact, it is fair to say that they are my favorite band.
And, you know what? They have a new album coming out next month. *squeals a little*
(Which means they are going on TOUR this summer!!!! *squeals a lot*)
The first single from the new album is out, and I heard it on the radio for the first time yesterday, and it was EXCITING.
I might have freaked out a little while ordering a sandwich at Subway, and asked the dude making my sandwich if he could turn up the volume on the radio. He politely refused.
Anyway, HERE is the VIDEO for their NEW SONG!!!!!! Bask in the beautifulness that is Brandon Boyd! (And, you know, in how good the song is.)
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| Brandon |
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| Jose |
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| Mike |
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| Ben |
More Brandon you say?!
Okay, fine. If you insist.
Review: Angel Burn
Title: Angel Burn
Author: L.A. Weatherly
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Pages: 450
Release Date: May 24, 2011
Format: Review copy from publisher (Thank you!)
Willow knows she’s different from other girls, and not just because she loves tinkering with cars. Willow has a gift. She can look into the future and know people’s dreams and hopes, their sorrows and regrets, just by touching them. She has no idea where this power comes from. But the assassin, Alex, does. Gorgeous, mysterious Alex knows more about Willow than Willow herself does. He knows that her powers link to dark and dangerous forces and that he’s one of the few humans left who can fight them. When Alex finds himself falling in love with his sworn enemy, he discovers that nothing is as it seems, least of all good and evil.—Goodreads
Angel Burn is a lot of things: a paranormal romance, a road trip novel, a coming-of-age story, and, I’d argue, a dystopian satire. It’s full of evil angels, power plays, personal agendas, and some very kick ass action scenes. While that sounds like a whole lot of things that could potentially NOT come together, the story is very well-plotted and very cohesive.
The book centers around Willow Fields, a girl I immediately like solely because of my devotion to all things related to Buffy, but learn to super like when she starts fixing cars and reading people’s minds. After she gives a not-so-happy-ending type psychic reading to a very popular girl in school who has been “blessed” by seeing an angel, Willow finds her life turned upside down.
You see, in this sort of dystopian world, angels feed off of the auras of humans, depleting them of their health, but the humans believe that they’ve had a divine experience and find themselves irrevocably devoted to the Church of the Angels, a nation-wide mega-church with maybe the most devout members ever.
Then there are the Angel Killers, people who know that the angels are actually bad news, and who have devoted their lives to finding and killing the angels before the human race is laid to waste. The other main character of Angel Burn, Alex, is one such person, groomed to kill angels from the sweet age of five.
So how do the two main characters meet? As it turns out, Alex has been hired to kill Willow. But once he meets her, he realizes there is something very different about her, and can’t bring himself to do it. Instead, the two find themselves on the run across the country, being pursued by not only evil angels, but the Church members who have been charged with a fatwa-like duty to kill both Alex and Willow if spotted.
While I ultimately really enjoyed this book, the first hundred pages or so were really hard for me to get through. I found the story unfolding very slowly and didn’t think that the book needed the moody scene-setting and world building that it has. However, in the long run, I was very glad that I had the background information, though I think the page count for it could have been cut in half.
My other gripe about the book is that it’s told from multiple perspectives, and in different points of view. When you’re reading from Willow’s perspective, everything is first person, but when it shifts to Alex (or another character, Jonah’s) perspective, it’s suddenly third person. This will happen in the middle of chapters, which is probably the reason for the different points of view, but I found it very distracting and halting.
However, there are a lot of things to really like about Angel Burn, and I found myself endeared to it not just because of the Willow’s name, but because it mentions TWO places I’ve lived in—Syracuse, NY and Arkansas! I was all kinds of excited about this, because, I mean, it’s a little rare to have two places you’ve lived listed in the same dang book. Then, as it turns out, the author, L.A. Weatherly, is an Arkansas native! *does happy dance*
So, if you’re looking for a book that you can really invest in, and that has a very rich, detailed, inter-woven plot, with a bit of paranormal thrown in, Angel Burn is absolutely the book for you.
TGIF: Summer Reading
I got two and a half hours of sleep last night. It’s been raining, like, all week. I sort of feel like a groggy version of Eeyore.
But at least it’s Friday. Which means Miss Ginger over at GReads! has a question for me to answer. And it’s sunny and happy. So that’s nice.
Summer Love: Where’s your ideal place to take a summer vacation & get lost in a book?
Okay! Ideal place to take a summer vacation would have to be . . . my bed. All I can think about right now is my bed. But no. In all seriousness, I was never really a summer vacation kind of girl. Nor am I a beach kind of girl. So I guess that my ideal vacation spot is somewhere in the woods, perhaps next to a nice lake, in a cabin with a porch. I would like to read on that porch with a glass of sweet tea (or wine) to accompany my books and my view of the lake.
HOWEVER. Since I will not be taking a summer vacation this year (well, I’ll be taking small weekend trips to, like, theme parks and potentially the Newport Folk Festival!!!!!) I can tell you my favorite place to read in NYC.
The glorious, amazing, unparalleled Central Park.
I’m sort of obsessed with reading here in the summer. And being here in the summer. Also, in the autumn.
So yeah! Those are my spots! I hope that everyone is having a way-less-than-Eeyorey Friday than I am, and that you have an amazing weekend! Happy Friday!
Waiting on Wednesday: Juliet Immortal
Title: Juliet Immortal
Author: Stacey Jay
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pages: 320
Release Date: August 9, 2011
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.”
—Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
The most tragic love story in history . . .
Juliet Capulet didn’t take her own life. She was murdered by the person she trusted most, her new husband, Romeo Montague, a sacrifice made to ensure his own immortality. But what Romeo didn’t anticipate was that Juliet would be granted eternity, as well, and would become an agent for the Ambassadors of Light. For 700 years, she’s fought Romeo for the souls of true lovers, struggling to preserve romantic love and the lives of the innocent. Until the day she meets someone she’s forbidden to love, and Romeo, oh Romeo, will do everything in his power to destroy that love.—Goodreads
When I first saw the title of this, I rolled my eyes and thought “People REALLY need to get over Romeo and Juliet.”
But the cover is just so pretty and I thought, “Hmm. I really like the color of that dress.” And then my eyes wondered up to the tag line below the title.
Do you see it?
It’s intriguing right?
So I read the jacket copy and was like “oooOOOOOOMG! THIS IS AWESOME. STACEY JAY (who is a fellow Arkansas native. Just sayin’.), YOU ARE TWISTED AND I LOVE IT. “
I am DELIGHTED this book pits Romeo and Juliet against each other. I want it to be angsty and angry and intense and violent. Yes. I really do. (If you are confused as to why I want the protagonists of one of the “most romantic” stories ever told to fight each other, click here.)
Anyway. Juliet Immortal is going to be awesome and I am oh-so glad that my eyes liked the color of the dress on the cover and stopped to linger on it, making it possible for me to discover that this book will exist in the very near future. *grins*
Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.
Bethany Larson 