Storify: Mockingjay Disappointment

Guys, I wasn't happy with Mockingjay, Part 1. As someone who's enjoyed both movies--especially Catching Fire--and the The Hunger Games books quite a lot, I have some gripes. 

So, as any reasonable person would do, I took to Twitter to air my grievances. It's Storyfied below.

(Note: Minor spoilers ahead.)

Recommendation Tuesday: Beware the Wild by Natalie C. Parker

Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.

View all of the past recommendations over here. 

Today's recommendation comes from Sandra, who loved Natalie C. Parker's much-buzzed debut, Beware the Wild.

Beware the swampy places, child,
Beware the dark and wild,
Many a soul has wandered there,
And many a soul has died.

Beware the Wild, southern gothic at its best, makes Natalie C. Parker’s debut novel a standout novel. Even better it satisfies a love of the creepy embedded into a story of love, family and friendship in the small town of Sticks, Louisiana where life moves placidly, slowly and uneventfully.

Or, so it seems to its residents who literally suffer from collective memory loss.

Amy Poehler's Yes Please is Pretty Fantastic, Y'all

I have a weird relationship with celebrity-penned books. I loved Mindy Kaling's book and cannot wait for her follow-up, out next year. I really loved Esther Williams' memoir, Million Dollar Mermaid. But, I haven't been a fan of many others. (Including the one written by the female comedian that everyone but me adores.) 

However, I do love Amy Poehler.

I can tell you my very clear memory of first being exposed to her: It was the late-1990s and I was still able to stay up and watch late night television and she played Andy Richter's Conan-obsessed little sister and it was bonkers. I'm certain I'd never seen anyone quite like her before. When she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live, I even managed to stay up and watch her quite a bit. 

 

What I'm Watching: Fall 2014

Am I the only person who's pretty disappointed with the new television this year? Aside from a couple notable exceptions, I haven't been excited about much of the new stuff on the tube. (Ugh, I just realized that loads of people these days probably don't even know why it's called "the tube.")

Now that we're fully into the fall television season, I thought I'd continue my tradition of sharing what I'm watching--and a few I'm not. 

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater Tarot Tour & Giveaway: The Strength Card

You know how much I adore Maggie Stiefvater's novels, especially her current series, The Raven Cycle, which is like nothing else I've read. 

Gansey thought of how strange it was to know these two young men so well and yet to not know them at all. Both so much more difficult and so much better than when he’d first met them. Was that what life did to them all? Chiselled them into harder, truer versions of themselves?

The third and most recent installment, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, published last month and left me impatiently tapping my fingers for the final installment of the series. We've talked a lot about this series on CEFS, and everything we've said before holds true for Blue Lily, Lily Blue. There's magic infused in this series, but the real magic in found in the complex dynamics of Blue and the Aglionby boys, Ronan, Adam, Noah and, of course, Gansey. 

Recommendation Roundup: Oct. 2014

We're back with our monthly roundup of recommended reads!

My picks this month really demonstrate my weird, er, eclectic taste, I think. I'm recovering from a killer month, schedule-wise, so I'm hoping to get in some more writing about some of these books, because I read some interesting ones in October. 

In Which I Bake November Cakes

It's a known fact that Maggie Stiefvater is cool as hell and that her books are pretty damn outstanding. It's hard to pick a favorite--and I won't--but there's a special place in my heart for her lone standalone novel, The Scorpio Races, which has a unique connection to the month of November, 

It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.

In addition to the month of November being when the novel's titular races take place, there's a special cake Finn and Puck eat in the novel, November Cakes. 

Finn finds my left hand, opens my fingers, and puts a November cake in my palm. It oozes honey and butter, rivulets of the creamy frosting joining the honey in the pit of my hand. It begs to be licked. Someone nearby screams like a water horse. My heart goes like a rabbit’s.

Maggie created a recipe for this fictional cake (though, read through to the end and you'll find that it's not so fiction for me), and the first of November seemed like the perfect time to bake them. I generally followed her recipe, though I bake like a champ, so I made some adaptations on the fly to suit my tastes. 

Recommendation Tuesday: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.

View all of the past recommendations over here. 

It's not often I find a work on literary fiction that has a story as compelling as its prose--hence, I don't recommend it very often. Sparkling, thoughtful writing is wonderful, but it feels awfully vapid when the story falters. Or it's filled with dull Middle Aged Man Angst.

Discovering Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You was an unexpected surprise, as result. While imperfect (as all novels are), it hits so many notes that make worth checking out, even if you normally avoid literary fiction. It's a historical novel, though the 1970s time period is one of the book's less-developed aspects, but more than anything it's a story of family and marriage. 

Power & the "Tough Enough" Narrative: Rites of Passage by Joy N. Hensley

When listening to the audiobook of Joy Hensley's debut YA novel, I kept recalling a huge news story from my youth: Shannon Faulkner's two year-long fight to be granted admission to The Citadel, South Carolina's public military college. When the court finally forced the college to allow her admission to the Corps of Cadets, she lasted only a week, having spent much of her time in the school's infirmary.

Years later, Faulkner revealed that she was subject to intense abuse, and feared for not only her own life but the lives of her family members, thanks to death threats she received while at the school. 

It was a gut-wrenching thing to watch on the news when I was a teenager. I'd been rooting for Faulkner to succeed, to win for every girl who wanted to smash any number of boys-only clubs (institutional or social) that were inaccessible to us girls.

Recommendation Roundup: September 2014

Read any good books lately? We've got a few recommendations for you, if you're in need. (And who isn't, if we're going to be honest.)

My best read of this past month was hands-down RIck Yancey's The Infinite Sea. Man oh man, was that a killer sequel. It's been interesting reading the reviews of it, because it's a slow-paced novel that's not working for everyone. Laura, lucky girl that she is, has already read the next installment in The Raven Cycle and loved, loved, loved it. I think it's up next for me. And, Sandra recovered from her anger about the second book in Barry Lyga's I Hunt Killers series enough to read the final novel and grudgingly admits that it was pretty good. 

Stream-It Saturday: The Fosters (TV)

In my continuing selfless service to the world (ahem), I'm always looking for the next awesome thing to stream. And, of course, I must share my finds with you fabulous folks. Hence, Stream-It Saturday.

Check out all my previous recommendations over here. 

Apparently, I am the target demographic for ABC Family--who knew? Between the show I'm spotlighting today, The Fosters, and my new binge-watching addition, Switched at Birth, I am a fan of the network, apparently. 

Recommendation Tuesday: The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey

Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.

View all of the past recommendations over here. 

The uncertainty of my own experience is crushing. I am drowning in an infinite sea. Sinking slowly, the weight of the lightless depths forcing me down, forcing the air from my lungs, squeezing the blood from my heart.

I feel kind of ridiculous recommending a big book with a big publicity push behind it, but it's a rare sequel that enthralls me as much as the original. 

The Fifth Wave was one of my favorite books last year, thanks to its editor literally shoving it in my hands and I clicked preorder on the follow up, The Infinite Sea, before it even had a title. The sophisticated plot, overwhelmingly ominous tone and captivatingly complex characters stood out in the sea of lookalike post-apocalyptic novels

Three Recent Recommended Reads

Night Broken by Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson series)

Night Broken, the eighth book in Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, places Mercy in a precarious and dangerous situation.

Danger lurks as a threat to herself, her marriage and her pack.

You've all probably at least heard of the Mercy Thomson series, but for the few that haven't, here's the scoop: Mercy is both human coyote. She’s a shape shifter married to Adam, alpha male and leader of the Tri-Cities werewolf pack in Washington. A coyote and a wolf falling in love and marrying stands out as unique. They share a commitment to honor one another and their pack. They are both primal beings and human beings.

Podcast Episode #26 - Talking with Courtney Summers About Everything, Part 3

We were lucky to recently spend over three hours (!) talking with noted Supernatural expert Courtney Summers. (We hear she writes books too.) We covered a range of subjects from zombies with fashion sense to writing characters experiencing trauma and everything in between. 

You can find the first part of this conversation over here, and the second right here--we highly recommend listening to them in order. In this episode, we chat about books, but we spend the bulk of our time talking about television and women's representation, and Justin Timberlake and the 50 Shades of Grey movie trailer.

Connect with Courtney: Website Twitter | Tumblr | Facebook 

If you've not read Courtney's books, two are now available in a nifty bind-up that will have a Justin Timberlake song frolicking in your head for days, What Goes Around. 

How to Support the Podcast

If you enjoy the Clear Eyes, Full Shelves podcast, you can say thank you by enrolling in a free trial of Audible (I've been a subscriber for a year now and love it) or by clicking here the next time you're shopping on Amazon. This helps support the hosting and production costs of the podcast.

We certainly appreciate all the support, tweets, shares and all-around enthusiasm we've received for the podcast! 

Guest Review: The Inkworld Series by Cornelia Funke

There are books that are relevant only for a certain part of your lives, and then there are those that stand the test of time, change and experience. I decided to re-read the Inkworld trilogy by Cornelia Funke this summer, a series my sister and I had enjoyed as kids.

(As a side-note, take a moment to enjoy these gorgeous covers. There are illustrations at the start and end of each chapter as well as quotes from other writers/books at the start of each chapter.)

What can be better than a series about books, stories and fantasy worlds? 

For an avid reader, it is sort of perfect when someone finds words to replicate their exact feelings about the joys of reading and books. How many times have we spent late nights caught up in a book that refuses to let us go until we reach the end? How many days have we spent happily in the company of worlds, characters and stories about people and places we have never met, never been to and possibly never will? (Especially in the cases of fantasy literature) And how many times have we wished that those worlds could be real so we too could be a part of them?

Recommendation Tuesday: Dust Chronicles Series by Maureen McGowan

Recommendation Tuesday started as a joke and is now an official thing. Basically, this is my way of making Tuesday a little more awesome. If you've got a book to recommend on this or any Tuesday, tweet me at @FullShelves and I'll help spread the word.

View all of the past recommendations over here. 

If I were to make a list of novels for people who really love the X-Men movies, but are fed the hell up with the ridiculously thin characterization of the women, Maureen McGowan's Dust Chronicles trilogy would be high on that list. 

Recommendation Roundup: August 2014

Now that the bulk of summer is over, I've been working on catching up with my summer reading list, of course. 

I was so excited to read Stephanie Perkins long-anticipated new novel, which didn't disappoint me in the least (I do think it'll be a love it or hate it story for folks, though--Keertana wrote a fantastic review that resonated with me in terms of why I'm in the love it camp). I was also lucky enough to read a way early copy of Liza Palmer's 2015 novel, Girl Before a Mirror, which is absolutely stellar. I think it'll be a bit polarizing, but in a good way. There are a lot of layers to dig into and I can't wait for it to be in the world so I can talk to people about it! 

I also wrapped up reading The Dust Chronicles series by Maureen McGowan, which I really liked (read that series if you liked Divergent, The Darkest Minds or Legend--it's got all the action-y bits that fans of those books will love, and some good social issues things as well). And on the series front, I read the second book in Chuck Wendig's rad YA series, Blightborn. 

Enough chat! On to our recommendations!

Podcast Episode #25 - Chatting with Courtney Summers About Everything, Part 2

We were lucky to recently spend over three hours (!) talking with noted Supernatural expert Courtney Summers. (We hear she writes books too.) We covered a range of subjects from zombies with fashion sense to writing characters experiencing trauma and everything in between. 

You can find the first part of this conversation over here--we highly recommend listening to them in order. In this episode, we chat about books, but we spend the bulk of our time talking about television and women's representation in media and the sticky issue of loving something that's at the same time imperfect and problematic. 

12 Graphic Novel/Comics Mini-Reviews

Since I've fallen down the graphic novel rabbit hole (I blame the phenomenal Saga series, which you should read right now), I've been furiously reading all that I can get my hands on. It's been great as I had a very busy summer work-wise, I can get my reading in via quick bits. 

I thought I'd round up a few of my recent graphic novel reads for folks who may be dipping their toes into this format as well.