Bethany Larson

Waiting on Wednesday: The Pledge

May 4, 2011

Title: The Pledge
Author: Kimberly Derting
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry for Simon & Schuster
Pub Date: November 15, 2011

Words are the most dangerous weapon of all.

In the violent country of Ludania, the classes are strictly divided by the language they speak. The smallest transgression, like looking a member of a higher class in the eye while they are speaking their native tongue, results in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina has always been able to understand the languages of all classes, and she’s spent her life trying to hide her secret. The only place she can really be free is the drug-fueled underground clubs where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. It’s there that she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy named Max who speaks a language she’s never heard before . . . and her secret is almost exposed.

Charlie is intensely attracted to Max, even though she can’t be sure where his real loyalties lie. As the emergency drills give way to real crisis and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that Charlie is the key to something much bigger: her country’s only chance for freedom from the terrible power of a deadly regime.–Goodreads

There are three reasons I want to read this.

1) I love languages and linguistics.
I find the fact that there are different languages AT ALL completing and utterly fascinating. I love etymology and language origins and learning how different languages intersect with and differ from each other. Mhmm. I’m a nerd.

2) I love female characters with masculine names.
When I was twelve, my mom told me she almost named me Reagan. Not that Reagan is a particularly masculine name, or that I dislike my name, but I remember saying “Why did you not name me that?!” proceeding to be annoyed for a day or two. ANYWAY. I super effing dig it when girls have boyish names. It makes me immediately like them THAT MUCH MORE.

3) I love edgy books.
Class issues. Language barriers. Drugs. Underground clubs. Boys with secrets. If you tell me that doesn’t peak your curiosity, I will immediately tell you that you are in denial.

So that’s my pick for this fine week! Now I just have to wait until mothereffing NOVEMBER. Grr! Argh!

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

TGIF: The Stand Alone vs. Series Smackdown

April 29, 2011

Wanna hear something weird? This is the LAST Friday in April!

And for this last Friday in April, Miss Ginger at GReads! has posed the following question:

Stand Alone vs. Series: What’s Your Stance?

This is actually something I’ve never really given a lot of thought to. But now that I’m thinking about it, I do tend to read books that are a part of a larger series. Off the top of my head, I am currently in the midst of reading The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, The Curse Workers, the Angelfire series, and The Gallagher Girls books…there are probs more than that, but I’ve been watching the NFL Draft all night and my mind is NOT currently focused on books. Anyway! I think the reason I’m attracted to book series is because I really get to know the characters. I’m able to invest in them and their world, and I grow with the characters throughout the books. I can obsess about them and add the next book’s release date to my Google calendar and get into discussions with other fans (or non-fans) about the books, too. There’s something deliciously intoxicating about the buzz that surrounds series.

HOWEVER.

Some of my favorite books, both in general and thus far this year, are stand alone titles. There’s something really nice about reading a book cover to cover and having that sense of finality that comes at the end. There’s not an annoying cliffhanger or a huge amount of time you have to wait just to get the next book in the series. It’s over and done with and you know how you felt about it and that is THAT.

In sum, it’s not like I choose what to read based on whether or not it’s part of a series. I’m the worst smackdowner ever.

Review & Author Interview: Geek Fantasy Novel

April 28, 2011

tags: book, E. Archer, Eliot Schrefer, Geek Fantasy Novel, interview, review, YA

Title: Geek Fantasy Novel
Author: E. Archer
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover

What happens when a science geek and magic collide?

Be careful what you wish for. Really. Because wishes are bad. Very bad. They can get you trapped in fantasy worlds full of killer bunny rabbits, evil aunts, and bothersome bacteria, for example. Or at least that’s Ralph’s experience. He’s been asked to spend the summer with his strange British relatives at their old manor house in order to set up their Wi-Fi network. But there’s much more to it than that, of course. It’s just that nobody told Ralph. He’s a gamer, sure. But this game is much stranger–and funnier–than anything to be found on his xbox.

He is a geek. This is his story. — GoodreadsThis book is not AT ALL what I expected. I thought it was going to be a cute little foray into geek culture, (with which I am very well-acquainted) a romp through a world full of comic book in-jokes and World of Warcraft references. While Geek Fantasy Novel has those, as well as fire-burping bunnies, the book is soooo much more than that–it’s smart and meta and inventive and full of SAT words and freakin’ layered–there are TWO narrators! Not that it’s a hard book to read; it’s definitely not that. It’s just, well, to be completely honest, waaaay better than I thought it would be.

The main plot is that Ralph, a super geeky kid living in New Jersey with parents who are anti-wishing, is recruited by his aunt to come to England for the summer to help set up their WiFi network. While there, he reconnects with his cousins, Cecil and Daphne, and his half-cousin (is that a thing?) Beatrice. He also meets his other aunt, Chessie, who, as it turns out, has the power to grant wishes. However, these wishes have to be acted out via a quest that the wishee must complete.

Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, as is normally the case with magic, not everything is what it appears to be, and loopholes are abundant. With Ralph attempting to save each of his cousins from their careless wishing and terrifying quests, he wreaks havoc on the age-old profession of narrating quests and causes quite the stir in his family’s otherwise quiet life.

After I read this book, I could not stop thinking about it. I enjoyed it so much that I just had to speak with the wonderful, talented Eliot Schrefer, who is, in fact, E. Archer, about the book! So I did! Check out my interview with Mr. Schrefer after the jump!

BL: What was the inspiration to write Geek Fantasy Novel?

ES: I actually wrote this in 2006, after I’d written my first two adult novels which were intricately plotted. My main ambition going in was to try to write something that had a free form structure. On a selfish note, this book was a way to detox from that style of writing and let myself go. Well that and I wanted to write something funny, and my comic voice doesn’t do well if it has constraints.

BL: What made you interested in writing a fantasy novel?

ES: There were about ten years of my life where mass market paperback fantasy books were all that I read. In fact, my first novel, which remains unpublished, was a really earnest fantasy novel. My best friends couldn’t finish reading it. It was deadly pretentious and really heartfelt, but in a way that made everyone cringe. With this book, that really started as an exercise, I wanted to revisit that first book, find the cringe-worthy things, and then spoof myself.

BL: Okay, I have to ask: Where did the fire-burping bunnies come from?

ES: In the book, Ralph [MC] came across the basket of bunnies when he was in a moment of true depression—the lowest moment in the quest, and in the book—and then there are adorable bunnies. I wanted to throw a wrench in the cog, so he had the basket and it had to go somewhere, so the bunnies became malevolent.

BL: The tone of the book is extremely droll, which surprised me because I figured it would be overtly geeky. Why did you choose to go with that tone?

ES: Dry humor is definitely part of the geek world—it’s not a style of humor that everyone will find appealing, and that’s OK. But, my mom is British, so I feel like I’ve just always been around that sort of humor, and it’s apart of who I am.

BL: One of my favorite aspects about this book was the “role” of the narrator. Why did you choose to have a narrator who intervened and was actually a character in the book?

ES: I started writing with the express intention to have no rules and no constraints. In Chapter 2, the narrator just happened to break the [fourth] wall. It took me by surprise and it just went there, so it surprised me too as I was writing it. But I was really happy it happened because I had always been fascinated with books where the telling of the story becomes part of the story, like in some of Salman Rushdie‘s books and in The Neverending Story with the Old Man of Wandering Mountain. I remember as a kid being so intoxicated by those moments where I was implicated in the moment where the story I was reading was all of a sudden part of the story.

BL: You wrote Geek Fantasy Novel under the name E. Archer instead of Eliot Schrefer. Was there a reason why you used a different name with this book?

ES: Part of it is that it’s for a very different audience than the other books I’ve written. I knew it’d be a little bit younger and potentially much more male than the others. It wasn’t for any reason as cynical as branding, but I wanted to do something different. And I really like coming up with character names, so it was kind of a fun project.

BL: Is there anything significant about the pseudonym?

ES: Not particularly. It’s a name I think is neat. I’m a Sagittarius and that’s the archer, so there’s that! (laughs)

BL: At one point in the novel, the narrator announces to the reader that Beatrice is his favorite character. I’ll admit that she was my favorite character, but I’m curious to know if she was your favorite character as well.

ES: She’s not my favorite character, but I wanted the narrator [who does not like Ralph] and Ralph to have a smackdown, and I thought she was a good reason for it, and then all of a sudden the narrator was trying to take out his own character in his own story. I just found that really interesting and wanted to explore that possibility.

BL: You mentioned earlier that this was a free form writing process as opposed to an intricately plotted one. Do you mind talking about your typical–if you even have a typical–writing process?

ES: I started more free form than I am now, but now I typically have about a twenty page outline. It’s really hard to steer the bus once it’s in motion, so when I’m outlining I can be agile about what I want the story to do.

With Geek Fantasy Novel, I knew I wanted to have the aunt granting three wishes that became three quests, and then I figured out that I wanted the main viewpoint to be an outsider, which is where Ralph came from– and he was truly an outsider, which is a huge part of the geek quality. And from there it all just happened!So there you have it folks! I definitely recommend this one–it’ll throw you for a loop in a couple different ways, and all the while keep you laughing. If you like fairy tales, geek stories, or books that have a very, very dry sense of humor, Geek Fantasy Novel is absolutely up your alley. And if you feel like you just want to read this book because you are a curious sort, that is an even better reason to read it!

The interview with Eliot Schrefer took place on April 13, 2011 via telephone. No, I will not give you his number. 😉

Waiting on Wednesday: Texas Gothic

April 27, 2011

Title: Texas Gothic
Author: Rosemary Clement-Moore
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pub Date: July 12, 2011

Amy Goodnight’s family is far from normal. She comes from a line of witches, but tries her best to stay far outside the family business. Her summer gig? Ranch-sitting for her aunt with her wacky but beautiful sister. Only the Goodnight Ranch is even less normal than it normally is. Bodies are being discovered, a ghost is on the prowl, and everywhere she turns, the hot neighbor cowboy is in her face.–Goodreads

Y’all, I haven’t been home [Arkansas] since Christmas. I am hella-homesick. NYC is great and wonderful and amazing, but it’s not home. So lately I’ve been devouring books that are somehow connected to the South whether it’s the setting, the author’s hometown, or just the tone of the book. Not surprisingly, I was hooked as soon as I heard the title of this.

Despite the fact that I would have read this book regardless of the jacket copy (above), I’m really excited about this one! I’m not normally drawn to books about witches, but a book with a ranch and a hot neighbor cowboy as well as witches? Mhmm. I think I will.

Bonus: THAT COVER. The colors! And, is it just me or does the model look a bit like (super gorgeous) Kate Walsh?

So that’s my pick! If y’all know of any other Southern-centric books, throw ’em at me (Literally if you’d like!) and lemme know what you’re waiting on in comments!

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Tune In Tuesday: HANSON

April 26, 2011

tags: Dancing with the Stars, Hanson, Hines Ward, Weird Al

People, it is sunny and warm and gorgeous in NYC for the first time since probably September. When the weather is happy, all I want to do is listen to happy music. When I woke up this morning, Hanson’s “I’ve Been Thinking ‘Bout Somethin'” was in my head. This is most probably because they were a musical guest on Dancing with the Stars last night. [Note: I NEVER watch DWTS, but my normal Monday-night shows were all in re-runs, and my roomie is obsessed with Hines Ward…so we watched.]

In any case, this song is so many kinds of appropriate for today. It’s fun and bouncy and catchy, and, well, sunny! The video is effing adorable AND it features Weird Al on tambourine. I mean, really, what more could you ask for?