Tuesday 8 December 2015
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm.
To play along just do the following:
Spinning Starlight by R. C. Lewis.
Off the top of the head how many fairy tales can you name? Now subtract all that have been adapted into a Disney movie of some sort. The good news: Disney and Co. won’t run out of material any time soon. This book is adapted from a tale most people won’t have named, because it’s one of the lesser known ones. But even then you won’t necessarily find the wild swans in the story unless you look for them very hard. At its heart, this is a sci-fi coming of age story with a hint of romantic love but mostly family and what one is willing to do and endure for them. This book is only for readers who like to get very close to the main character as almost all of the book is inner monologue and observations since the heroine cannot speak. Or should I say mustn’t? Anyway, she eventually finds means of communication but let me tell you how much I am now an advocate to keep writing by hand a vital part of our culture. Typing is nice and easy but how soon will be completely rely on voice commands? And boy are we in trouble if that suddenly doesn’t work anymore.
I had a few issues with the story, mostly because of missed connections and failed communication ... or lacking trust. But if we can’t trust our neighbour to be a reasonable human, how should the main character trust complete strangers (from different species) to behave in an honourable way?
Do you read sci-fi? At which point is it too out there for you? I personally don’t appreciate being bombarded with technical details and being expected to remember how a certain thing worked some fifty odd pages later. Let’s hear from you in the comments!
To play along just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Spinning Starlight by R. C. Lewis.
 |
| Spinning Starlight – Disney Hyperion |
One wrong move during a delicate experiment. One mistake. One accident.
One is such a deceptively small number.
— Chapter 2
Great. These two can’t talk to each other, and I can’t talk at all. This should be fun.
— Chapter 18
Off the top of the head how many fairy tales can you name? Now subtract all that have been adapted into a Disney movie of some sort. The good news: Disney and Co. won’t run out of material any time soon. This book is adapted from a tale most people won’t have named, because it’s one of the lesser known ones. But even then you won’t necessarily find the wild swans in the story unless you look for them very hard. At its heart, this is a sci-fi coming of age story with a hint of romantic love but mostly family and what one is willing to do and endure for them. This book is only for readers who like to get very close to the main character as almost all of the book is inner monologue and observations since the heroine cannot speak. Or should I say mustn’t? Anyway, she eventually finds means of communication but let me tell you how much I am now an advocate to keep writing by hand a vital part of our culture. Typing is nice and easy but how soon will be completely rely on voice commands? And boy are we in trouble if that suddenly doesn’t work anymore.
I had a few issues with the story, mostly because of missed connections and failed communication ... or lacking trust. But if we can’t trust our neighbour to be a reasonable human, how should the main character trust complete strangers (from different species) to behave in an honourable way?
Do you read sci-fi? At which point is it too out there for you? I personally don’t appreciate being bombarded with technical details and being expected to remember how a certain thing worked some fifty odd pages later. Let’s hear from you in the comments!
Tuesday 1 December 2015
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm.
To play along just do the following:
Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch.
In honour of the first serious snowflakes last weekend here is one of the few books where Winter is not the enemy! At least when the other seasons are involved as well, winter usually gets cast in the more unpleasant role. Must have something to do with its sunny and warm disposition. But I digress. First book in a proposed trilogy with a few really nice touches so far. Keeping in mind what I said about the unnecessity to reinvent the wheel when the wheel is a perfectly good invention I have no objection to building new chassis to hold said wheels. I liked a lot of things about this book, for example Meira as a main character with strengths and weaknesses ... I can’t resist stubborn girls who don’t accept their fate at face value. Even if she was a tiny bit thick to grasp something I had been wondering about since about page ten. But she was running for her life and other things, so maybe that’s an excuse. And then there is that thing with another geometrical form which I’m so not a fan of ... I really hope it dissolves itself somehow. Pleasantly preferably, but don’t ask me how.
Does anyone else picture fear like that nasty weed in the garden you can’t get rid of no matter what you try? I know there isn’t just one of those, but I like to think that every garden has its own kind that could symbolise your personal fear. What’s your most effective fear-weedkiller? Let’s hear from you in the comments!
To play along just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch.
 |
| Snow Like Ashes – Balzer + Bray |
Focus on the goal. Don’t get sidetracked. Don’t let fear take hold of you – fear s a seed that, once planted, never stops growing.
— Chapter 3
Holding on to some part of your past even if it means also holding on to the pain of never again having it. That pain is less horrible than the pain of forgetting.
— Chapter 14
In honour of the first serious snowflakes last weekend here is one of the few books where Winter is not the enemy! At least when the other seasons are involved as well, winter usually gets cast in the more unpleasant role. Must have something to do with its sunny and warm disposition. But I digress. First book in a proposed trilogy with a few really nice touches so far. Keeping in mind what I said about the unnecessity to reinvent the wheel when the wheel is a perfectly good invention I have no objection to building new chassis to hold said wheels. I liked a lot of things about this book, for example Meira as a main character with strengths and weaknesses ... I can’t resist stubborn girls who don’t accept their fate at face value. Even if she was a tiny bit thick to grasp something I had been wondering about since about page ten. But she was running for her life and other things, so maybe that’s an excuse. And then there is that thing with another geometrical form which I’m so not a fan of ... I really hope it dissolves itself somehow. Pleasantly preferably, but don’t ask me how.
Does anyone else picture fear like that nasty weed in the garden you can’t get rid of no matter what you try? I know there isn’t just one of those, but I like to think that every garden has its own kind that could symbolise your personal fear. What’s your most effective fear-weedkiller? Let’s hear from you in the comments!
Tuesday 24 November 2015
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm.
To play along just do the following:
Angels Twice Descending by Cassandra Clare and Robin Wassermann.
The very last short story in the Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy series and as the back cover says someone lives and someone dies. In true Cassie fashion it’s not unreasonable (in a way as there were signs and all that jazz) but it’s still a swift kick and double punch in the feels. There were also other aspects about this story that I liked seeing as for example how Magnus’ flat has changed due to a certain addition to the family. And Izzy, fierce, fabulous, lovable Izzy with her tender warrior heart. I’ll dearly miss having the TMI cast as main characters and will hunt for every morsel of information in the books to come. But at the same time I can hardly wait for the new characters to take over the scene and tell their story.
This short story collection was a perfect way to tie up a few loose ends and give a proper good bye to the characters. Now the wait for the new full book begins in earnest. Is it March yet?
While we all want the next book in a series sooner rather than later sometimes things get in the way. What is the longest you’d be willing to wait between books? 18 months? 2 years? Longer? Share your opinion and teasers in the comments.
To play along just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Angels Twice Descending by Cassandra Clare and Robin Wassermann.
 |
| Angels Twice Descending – Margaret K. McElderry Books |
Don’t do this because you think you have to. Do it because you want to.
Only if you want to.
— 53%
Not someone you chose—someone the fates assigned you, someone who, under any other circumstances, might never have given you a second look, nor you him. Someone you would die for and kill for without a second thought, because he was family.
— 66%
The very last short story in the Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy series and as the back cover says someone lives and someone dies. In true Cassie fashion it’s not unreasonable (in a way as there were signs and all that jazz) but it’s still a swift kick and double punch in the feels. There were also other aspects about this story that I liked seeing as for example how Magnus’ flat has changed due to a certain addition to the family. And Izzy, fierce, fabulous, lovable Izzy with her tender warrior heart. I’ll dearly miss having the TMI cast as main characters and will hunt for every morsel of information in the books to come. But at the same time I can hardly wait for the new characters to take over the scene and tell their story.
This short story collection was a perfect way to tie up a few loose ends and give a proper good bye to the characters. Now the wait for the new full book begins in earnest. Is it March yet?
While we all want the next book in a series sooner rather than later sometimes things get in the way. What is the longest you’d be willing to wait between books? 18 months? 2 years? Longer? Share your opinion and teasers in the comments.
Tuesday 17 November 2015
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm.
To play along just do the following:
Breakaway by Kat Spears.
There are a great number of things I want to say about this book, but the first thing that comes to my mind and vehemently demands to be said is “unexpected”. I don’t quite know what I was expecting from Kat Spear’s new book and therefore I cannot with all certainty say if the story honestly surprised me ... but it’s fair to say that this was quite different. Sure, there is the troubled male character I already knew she can write well, but his troubles were very different from those of Jesse “Sway” Alderman. For one instance, they are not self-made, at least not all of them. No one can choose the family and circumstances they are born into or whether or not they are the in the centre or on the margins of the family’s attention. But a few things are influenceable, like the choice of friends and how they are treated.
When is anyone ever truly prepared for the moment life happens? Yes, there are measures one can take to cushion the blow, but in the end if one wants to live, it will be necessary to find an acceptable balance between the amount of hurt one is willing to risk and the possibility to experience life. There are some hard truths in this book. There is no guarantee for a fulfilled life, no matter how much it is deserved or struggled towards. Sometimes reality is just furiously unfair. And I also think that is why this book is able to elicit so many different responses, because for example either the reader recognises and accepts that it is a contemporary depiction of one possible truth or they reject the story for its very nature. I have to admit that it took me a while to accept the end as it is very true to the story: where it begins right in the middle of something it also left me as a reader feeling as if I was yanked right out of it again. The edges are very frayed and raw. Life, as depicted, is messy and seldom neatly tied up, not matter where or when the observation begins or ends.
And while I know that it is extremely unlikely that it will all turn out well with rainbows and unicorns for all the characters, I really hope that they will be able to find a way to live their life to the fullest within the mostly limiting parameters they find themselves in. There is always hope and the aspiration to make to most out of the hand one is dealt. Anything less makes characters in stories and people in general uninteresting.
Writing this actually helped me appreciate the book more. It probably won’t make it onto the same shelf as Sway, but I understand the story better. Has there been a book that suddenly clicked for you the longer you thought/wrote about it? Let’s hear about it and your teaser in the comments!
To play along just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Breakaway by Kat Spears.
 |
| Breakaway – St. Martin’s Griffin |
“That’s the problem with you rich kids,” I said, hearing myself turn snide. “You’re never prepared for life when it happens.”
— Chapter 23
“If you kiss me, I promise I won’t hit you,” she said.
“Wow. That was almost … romantic,” I said.
— Chapter 26
There are a great number of things I want to say about this book, but the first thing that comes to my mind and vehemently demands to be said is “unexpected”. I don’t quite know what I was expecting from Kat Spear’s new book and therefore I cannot with all certainty say if the story honestly surprised me ... but it’s fair to say that this was quite different. Sure, there is the troubled male character I already knew she can write well, but his troubles were very different from those of Jesse “Sway” Alderman. For one instance, they are not self-made, at least not all of them. No one can choose the family and circumstances they are born into or whether or not they are the in the centre or on the margins of the family’s attention. But a few things are influenceable, like the choice of friends and how they are treated.
When is anyone ever truly prepared for the moment life happens? Yes, there are measures one can take to cushion the blow, but in the end if one wants to live, it will be necessary to find an acceptable balance between the amount of hurt one is willing to risk and the possibility to experience life. There are some hard truths in this book. There is no guarantee for a fulfilled life, no matter how much it is deserved or struggled towards. Sometimes reality is just furiously unfair. And I also think that is why this book is able to elicit so many different responses, because for example either the reader recognises and accepts that it is a contemporary depiction of one possible truth or they reject the story for its very nature. I have to admit that it took me a while to accept the end as it is very true to the story: where it begins right in the middle of something it also left me as a reader feeling as if I was yanked right out of it again. The edges are very frayed and raw. Life, as depicted, is messy and seldom neatly tied up, not matter where or when the observation begins or ends.
And while I know that it is extremely unlikely that it will all turn out well with rainbows and unicorns for all the characters, I really hope that they will be able to find a way to live their life to the fullest within the mostly limiting parameters they find themselves in. There is always hope and the aspiration to make to most out of the hand one is dealt. Anything less makes characters in stories and people in general uninteresting.
Writing this actually helped me appreciate the book more. It probably won’t make it onto the same shelf as Sway, but I understand the story better. Has there been a book that suddenly clicked for you the longer you thought/wrote about it? Let’s hear about it and your teaser in the comments!
Tuesday 10 November 2015
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm.
To play along just do the following:
Dead of Winter by Kresley Cole.
Third book in the Arcana Chronicles ... and not a trilogy, which wasn’t unexpected, but the end still completely gutted me. Luckily for me I managed to wait this long to read this one so the next won’t be a year away. That would have been brutal and everyone already suffering has my complete sympathies.
Without spoiling the first two books there isn’t much to be said about the plot of this, but the more I think about it the more I love the fact that I completely changed my mind about several of the characters from when they were first introduced up until now. Usually this could be a sign of bad characterisation skills yet in this case it’s actually a great way of showing how first impressions and prejudices (in the story as well as introduced by tropes) can influence character perception. The author uses a very subtle way to shift these perceptions – or I at least thought so, because I can’t completely pinpoint when I started liking one character and mistrust another one. Or when I started caring so much for one (or two) of them that the last few pages turned me into a total mess.
I absolutely liked the news that this series will be at least five books (even if that means at least one and a half years of turmoil, but when am I not hanging from at least one cliff – not literally!). Not sure what to make of the movie/TV announcement though as I am growing more and more sceptical of the conversion of books I love into movies and the likes. Burnt child dreads the flame syndrome.
Are you currently hanging from a book series cliff? Or having feelings about book-to-screen adaptions? Share both or any along with your teasers in the comments.
To play along just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Dead of Winter by Kresley Cole.
 |
| Dead of Winter – Simon & Schuster |
I take no actions that I wouldn’t publicly recount. If you can’t speak your deeds, then don’t do them.
— Chapter 27
In our first meeting, you skewered me with your sword. In other words: you started it.
— Chapter 29
Third book in the Arcana Chronicles ... and not a trilogy, which wasn’t unexpected, but the end still completely gutted me. Luckily for me I managed to wait this long to read this one so the next won’t be a year away. That would have been brutal and everyone already suffering has my complete sympathies.
Without spoiling the first two books there isn’t much to be said about the plot of this, but the more I think about it the more I love the fact that I completely changed my mind about several of the characters from when they were first introduced up until now. Usually this could be a sign of bad characterisation skills yet in this case it’s actually a great way of showing how first impressions and prejudices (in the story as well as introduced by tropes) can influence character perception. The author uses a very subtle way to shift these perceptions – or I at least thought so, because I can’t completely pinpoint when I started liking one character and mistrust another one. Or when I started caring so much for one (or two) of them that the last few pages turned me into a total mess.
I absolutely liked the news that this series will be at least five books (even if that means at least one and a half years of turmoil, but when am I not hanging from at least one cliff – not literally!). Not sure what to make of the movie/TV announcement though as I am growing more and more sceptical of the conversion of books I love into movies and the likes. Burnt child dreads the flame syndrome.
Are you currently hanging from a book series cliff? Or having feelings about book-to-screen adaptions? Share both or any along with your teasers in the comments.
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