Books with Hooks: The "How Will It Happen?" Hook

What pulls you into a book and keeps you riveted?

That thing, whatever it is, is a hook. It grabs you in the gut and won't let you go until you've finished reading.

One of the most common hooks is the "What will happen?" hook. It's the hook that mystery novels most frequently rely on. The "Who done it?" In other cases it's the plot that completely blows your mind because you didn't see it coming or the premise that twists reality and takes you on a speculative journey. You're glued to the pages because you're desperate to find out where the story is going.

The "What will happen?" hook can be very effective, but books don't have to have a mystery in order to have a good hook. Sometimes the reader can know from the start where the story is going but still be completely drawn in by the process of the plot. In this case the hook isn't "What will happen?" but "How will it happen?"

A superhero's origin story follows this pattern. We know she'll eventually become the superhuman fighter who saves the day. We know who the arch-villain will be. But we want to see how it happens.

Romance is also very commonly a "How will it happen?" story. We know the two leads will get together in the end. The draw of the book is not to see whether it happens but how they get there.

It was a romance that got me thinking about this second kind of hook. My agency mate Caitlyn McFarland published her first book, Soul of Smoke, this past Monday. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday reading it. (If it weren't for a great deal of self control I'd have finished it very late Tuesday night.)

The story is about a college age girl who comes across an injured dragon in human form while hiking in the Rockies. She gets swept away into the dragon's world of war and politics and magic, and in the process one of the dragons becomes magically bound to her. In order to save the world, she must choose to become bound to him in return.

There really is no question whether the human and the dragon will get together in the end. The story is a romance, and that's how a romance works. Besides, the consequences if they fail to do so are too disastrous to contemplate.

So how did this book keep me so captivated if I already knew what the outcome would be? It's because Caitlyn McFarland does a really masterful job with the "How will it happen?" hook. She puts a lot of things in the way of these two characters: personal demons, insecurities, suspicions, etc. And then she makes them work through all these stumbling blocks in interesting, compelling ways.

This is how the "How will it happen?" hook should work. And for Soul of Smoke it does work very well. I'm still enjoying the memory of my journey through the book, and I'm looking forward to the sequels.

What are some of your favorite "How will it happen?" books?

Research Book Recommendations: Poor Economics and The Bottom Billion

I don't know how I would write without having research materials right at my fingertips.

Actually, no, I take that back. I remember when I used to write without doing research. I remember how awful, how terrible, how truly dreadful those early manuscripts used to be. They were like playing pin the tail on the donkey--I had a vague idea that there was a donkey somewhere ahead, but I had no idea where or how to reach it. So I made things up and pretended that what I made up was a fair substitute for how reality actually worked.

Ha!

Well, I know better now, though it is still so very difficult to get all the details right.

How do you know when you've done enough research? Someone told me once that you know you're finished when the information you're discovering is all something you've seen before in another context.

Of course, if that's true, there are some topics that would take years to research properly. Sometimes we don't have that much time.

I think I've stumbled upon one of those topics myself lately. I've been interested in the idea of a story set in a very poor environment. But what does that level of poverty actually look like in the day-to-day? I honestly had no idea.

So I've started doing some research, and I began with two books that have each turned out to be quite a revelation.

The first:

Poor Economics

The intent of this book is to explore what sorts of aid (if any) are actually helpful to the poorest populations. What do they need? Food? Chlorinated water? Bed nets? Will they actually use these things? Should the items be free or subsidized or what?

Some great questions, and I learned a lot about what works and what doesn't. So as a side note, if you give regularly to charity, you might consider reading this book to get a better idea of where best to send your money. The book doesn't come right out and list particular charities it recommends, but it does give some insight that you might use to come to your own conclusions.

Where Poor Economics really excels is in detailing how the poor make decisions and why they do things that might seem (to us) to be illogical. After finishing this book I feel so much more aware of how daily life actually works for those who live in extreme poverty.

The second:

The Bottom Billion

This book takes much more of a top-down approach. The major questions asked are: 1) What traps are keeping poor nations poor? and 2) What can we do to help them?

So far I've read only the first part of the book, which attempts to answer question 1 (and which is certainly the more relevant to my research). Whereas Poor Economics gives a good look at the perspective of the individual, The Bottom Billion has a lot of great information on a larger scale. For example, why is it that having one major rich resource can be detrimental for a poor nation? I would have found that idea completely mind-boggling until seeing the data laid out in this book.

So this too is good information for me, because it helps me to think about the setting of the story. (It helps that a lot of the details also fit very well with ideas I already had!)

Together these two books have gone a long way to getting me started on this research path. I probably still have a ways to go, but now at least the framework is laid out for me and I can see more clearly the areas where I might need more information.

So, if any of you similarly find yourselves in a place where you need to do research on poverty, these are an excellent place to start!

Three Random Things

It's been one of those weeks. The boy has strep. Hubby and I have been a bit sick too. So instead of a thoughtful blog post, you get a "three random things" post.

1. I'm currently reading The Golem and the Jinni and it is such a wonderful book. Love the writing, love the history and the research that went into it. It's a rich, beautiful experience.

2. I've started using HabitRPG. Let me know if you're on there. I haven't formed a party or done much of anything yet except gain levels.

3. I've got new glasses to pick up this afternoon! I'm so excited about this. The old ones finally broke beyond repair. (Note that this is not the first time they have broken.) Seeing as I needed a new prescription anyway, this is probably not a terrible thing. Can't wait to see what the world really looks like again!

Have a wonderful week, everyone. And happy new school year to those just starting back this week!

Ten Books

Ten books that "have stayed with you the longest or have changed you in some way." My friend Eileen tagged me for this on Facebook, and I'm not having an easy time of it picking my ten.

It's sort of like asking me to tell my life story in ten sentences. Birth, marriage, the birth of my son--these are obvious choices. But do I go with my first job or the first time I traveled out of the country? What about that time I danced until my toenails fell off and then kept dancing anyway, or the year I went to the international science fair? You know, come to think of it, birth is kind of an obvious addition to the list... maybe I could get away with cutting it.

That's how I feel picking out ten books, so if I fudge it in a few places, please forgive me.

1. The Lord of the Rings & The Chronicles of Narnia

Why? These are the equivalent of "birth" in the analogy above. I'll never forget my dad reading the Battle of Helm's Deep and shouting "KHAZAD AI-MENU" at the top of his voice. Or how, after my mom read Narnia to me, I pretended my bathroom door could take me there. (The swirls in the wood of the door looked a little like a face.)

These are the books that made me a reader, and while they seem so obvious I wish I could cut them to make more room, I wouldn't really be here without them.

2. Harry Potter

Why? I never fell in love with a fictional world as much as I did with the wizard world. It was a revelation. I wanted to live there. Barring that, I wanted to create other worlds that made people feel the way Harry Potter made me feel. These are the books that made me a writer.

3. Ender's Game

Why? The psychology of it really resonated with me. My first real attempts at writing were very derivative of this book.

4. Watership Down

Why? It's one of the few books that gets better every time I read it. The characters stay with me. (And, I admit, the creepy warren does too.)

5. Howl's Moving Castle

Why? It's the only book I've re-read immediately after reading. I've read a lot of books that made me sad or made me laugh or even a combination of the two. But I never read one as whimsical as this. It fit the mood of my life so perfectly that I wanted to stay in it longer. Plus, Sophie's magic is precisely the sort I always wished for whenever someone asked me what my superpower would be, were I lucky enough to have one.

6. The Sparrow

Why? Perhaps it was because the main character was a linguist, and at the time I was studying linguistics. Perhaps it was the mix of horror and compassion at the end of the book. It hooked me, and then it tasered me in the feels.

7. The Merlin Trilogy

Why? Great series, but there's one particular scene that stands out to me. It digs into the relationship between the two central characters, and with a single sentence BOOM! emotional fallout.

8. Elsewhere

Why? It's one of the few books that actually has a recognizable influence on how I live. Sure, every book changes the mind in some way, but this one made me conscious of the change. It helped me to look at areas of my life where I'm wasting my time and think more critically about them. Also, it had the most bittersweet ending...

9. The Book Thief & Code Name Verity

Why? If you've read them, I don't need to tell you. If you haven't read them, I can't tell you.

10. Un Lun Dun

Why? Because it is funny and clever and doesn't take itself too seriously.


Aaaaand now I want to go back and read all of these again. Oops.

Elements!

Back in 8th grade science class I did a report on Mercury, aka Quicksilver, aka the coolest element on the Periodic Table (!!!). At least that was my opinion at the time. I remember almost nothing now about what I learned then, except for the part about Mercury being toxic. But I do remember being a little in awe of the element. And I remember that I thought it was pretty amazing how all these little "building blocks of matter" could be so different and combine to make even more things that were even more different.

I don't know if they still use these things in high schools now, but back then we had one of those roll down posters over the blackboard with the Periodic Table on it. (Or maybe I'm getting it confused with the maps in History class. The ones where the teacher would try to roll down the one of the US but always get the world map instead and have to fiddle with it for a few minutes.) The Periodic Table we were using was probably not new, and this was already about twenty years ago. If I remember correctly it only went up to element 109.

Last week I saw this article. We've just confirmed element 117. I don't know about you, but I find it pretty mind-boggling that we can actually create new elements. As if nature weren't amazing enough already, we're making extra-natural things. Like we're saying, "Hey, everything in known existence, you're great and all, but we'll do you one better."

So I have this shelf of books by my desk with all of my writing books and research books and "this sounds interesting, maybe I'll find an excuse to use it in a book" books. One of those is The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean, which I happen to be reading right now. It's about the story behind the periodic table--where elements came from and how we discovered them and the insane and dangerous and all-too-human things we do with them.

It's one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. I love it. It's making me fall in love with chemistry and the universe and science! all over again. In other words... Attention! Book recommendation! Read it!

I don't have a favorite element any more. (Except maybe Tungsten, because there's something about that name, and the fact that its symbol is a W, for Wolfram, which sounds cool too... I dunno, I just like it.) But I still love learning all these things. Makes me feel part of the amazing discoveries that we as humans are making all the time. Go team human.

How about you? Did you ever have a favorite element?

Redemption (and a Recommendation)

Do you believe that people can truly change for the better?

For many people the idea of redemption is integral to religion or personal philosophy. In the context of novels, however, I'm becoming convinced that a book's flavor depends a lot on whether the author has an underlying belief in redemption.

Based on their books I would guess that some authors don't subscribe to that philosophy. I would say they are probably more of the mind that people do change, frequently, but not necessarily for good or ill. They simply become a different version of themselves through age and circumstance. And I understand the thought behind that idea. All of us face choices every day; sometimes we make good decisions and sometimes not. Nobody is always good or always bad.

But other authors, whether they realize it or not, very clearly do believe in redemption. Any story about "the power of love" or about a hero whose internal convictions overcome negative circumstance is, in my view, a story of positive change. Obviously any tale of a villain seeing the error of his ways and making a change is a redemption story. (And now all I can think of is Despicable Me.)

Personally I'm a sucker for redemption stories. I love to watch someone who is flawed become less flawed through the conflicts that arise in a story. I love to see that internal struggle as an anti-hero recognizes his shortcomings and determines to change.

This is one of the reasons I'm loving the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series by Laini Taylor. It is, in essence, about two people who desperately seek redemption, but whose circumstances constantly make that goal harder and harder to reach. It's a long, painful road to redemption, and they don't always make the right choices. Their ultimate success is not guaranteed (and with the series still in progress, it's impossible to know for certain what will happen). And yet they are trying, and there is hope.

It's difficult to say what exactly the books are about without giving away too much of the story. I can say this much: they're about a blue-haired girl living in Prague who is an art student on the surface, but who has a secret life collecting teeth on the side for the monsters who raised her. Intrigued? Just wait. There's so much more to the story.

It's a totally fascinating series, with a gripping plot and characters who feel very tangible. It's creative and stunning and beautiful. Best of all, it explores this in-depth struggle for redemption in ways which I've seen few other YA books do.

So what about you? Do you like redemption stories? What are your favorites?

Book Recommendation: The Scorpio Races

If you'd asked me a month ago to list off as many fantastical creatures as I could think of, water horses would not have been high on the list, if I remembered them at all. I'd seen them pop up a few times in minor plot lines from some of the books I'd read, but until The Scorpio Races, I'd never read a book specifically about them. Now, though, I have a feeling they'd be pretty high on my list.

The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater, is about a girl named Puck and a boy named Sean, living on an island called Thisby where the capaill uisce—horses from out of the sea that devour human flesh—are caught and raced. Both have desperate need to compete in the races and win, but in the annual November races, not everyone survives.

Sean is the son of a racer who was killed by the water horses. He enters the races to be with Corr, the red capaill uisce he rides but that does not belong to him.

Puck is recently orphaned, and without the prize money she doesn't know how to care for herself or her family. She's the first girl to enter, and the only rider racing on an ordinary horse.

I picked up The Scorpio Races on a whim, not knowing what to expect. I recognized Maggie Stiefvater as “the author of that werewolf series,” but wasn't familiar with any of her other work. To my pleasant surprise, The Scorpio Races was the most beautifully-written book I'd read in a long time. I frequently found myself noticing a perfect analogy or a beautiful line of description. None of the writing felt tired or mundane. The book impressed me enough that I expect I'll seek out more of her work in the future.

As for the story, it was compelling and developed at a good pace. I never felt that the relationships between characters were rushed. Their actions made sense, and Maggie Stiefvater made good use of the tension she'd created through the conflicting desires of her cast of characters.

Most of all I enjoyed the atmosphere of the book. There's a wild magic in the ocean, and this book captured the untamability of the sea. The island was as fully developed as any of the characters, and the water horses demonstrated perfectly how one can fall in love with danger, but must respect it or be consumed by it.

Bottom line: Good books always leave me inspired, and this one has inspired me to work all the harder on crafting the language in my books. It's a beautiful story too, and not to be missed.

Book Recommendation: Marcelo in the Real World

Sometimes a book is really good medicine for getting over a passing obsession. Take this week, for example. I'd gotten a bit caught up in re-watching a favorite old tv show (which may have involved Scoobies and pointy stakes), and every time my mind wandered, it kept rehearsing some of the scenes... and making up some new ones. Not exactly what I needed in my head when I had lots of editing to work on.

Fortunately I still had some books from the library I hadn't gotten around to reading yet, so I picked up one that I had checked out on a whim. It turned out to be a pretty perfect choice for distracting me from the tv characters.

The book was Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork.

Marcelo hears an internal music that nobody else can hear. It's been part of him all his life. It's like an emotional compass, and it's something he draws on to find peace. He spends time every day sitting in quiet, listening to the music, an activity he calls “remembering.” It's a bit like prayer, or like memorizing passages from the religious texts he enjoys studying.

Marcelo has a condition similar to Asperger's syndrome. He works diligently on his communication skills, but he is uncomfortable in “the real world.” All of his life he has gone to a school that allows him to learn at his own pace and in his own way. Now he's seventeen and about to enter his final year of school.

But now his father wants to change everything. He wants Marcelo to be part of the real world, to go to a “normal” high school and be friends with “normal” kids. Still, he gives Marcelo a choice: he can work all summer at his old school and then join a normal school in the fall, or he can spend the summer working at his father's law firm and then decide for himself where to attend school.

Marcelo isn't happy about working at the firm, but it's better than giving up his school. What he doesn't expect is to learn things in his new environment that force him to make ethical choices he's never considered before—choices between acceptance and friendship, between loyalty and restitution, between doing what's right and getting what he wants.

The book really surprised me. I went into it expecting it to be a story about a boy's personal journey from isolation to integration, but it was so much more than that. It addressed deep questions that all people face, and in poignant ways that weren't too heavy-handed.

Bottom Line: Through Marcelo's unique perspective we're able to think about our own lives in ways we may not have before. To me that experience made the book very worth reading.

Book Recommendation: The Crow God's Girl

Today's Book Recommendation is a particularly special one for me. Here's why:

That's me! I read this book before it was a book!

Patrice Sarath was one of my mentors my very first year of ArmadilloCon. She gave me some great advice on description that changed the way I think about writing. We've stayed in touch since then, and last year Patrice honored me with a request to read The Crow God's Girl.

I read it again this past week to prepare for this post, and I found myself in the same position I had been in the first time—racing through the second half to the end, and neglecting dinner in order to finish it, even though I already knew what was going to happen.

Summary: Kate Mossland is an American girl stuck in the very foreign world of Aeritan. The only thing making her new life bearable is her engagement to her Aeritan boyfriend Colar, and the position that gives her in his great House of Terrick. Only her position isn't as secure as she once thought, and when the politics of Aeritan tear her and Colar apart, the only place left for her is among the crows—the wild, landless wanderers that plague Aeritan. With them she has a chance of making a better future—for herself, for the crows and even for Aeritan—but only if she can survive the scheming of the Houses.

What I liked: Kate goes through a beautiful transformation from a young girl struggling under the rules of a patriarchal society to a strong woman who makes her own path. I love seeing how her understanding of her new world changes, and particularly the way in which her view of the crows changes. Most of all I love how everything weaves together in the end of the book. As I said above, I couldn't put it down.

Bottom line: This book gets a place of honor on my shelf, not just because my name is in it, but because it's a book I love to read.

Book Recommendation: Eon & Eona

First, if you haven't seen this list yet, go check it out: Recommendations of Non-European Fantasy by Women

One of the books on this list is Eon by Alison Goodman. Eon (along with its sequel Eona) was one of my recent impulse picks at the library. The promise of dragons and swords and deception drew me in, and I was quite happy to find that the plot did not disappoint.

Summary: Eon is has been studying for years in the hope of becoming the next Apprentice Dragoneye—chosen to forge a union with one of the eleven remaining energy dragons who protect the land and its people. Of the twelve boys competing for the title, only Eon can see all of the dragons, but then... only Eon has difficulty completing the drills necessary for training. Worse, Eon is secretly Eona—a girl, and therefore one who is forbidden from using dragon magic. But when the ambitions of another Dragoneye threaten to topple the Empire, a girl may be just what is needed in order to save it.

What I liked: Alison Goodman has done some beautiful world-building for these books. The dragon magic is particularly exciting and fun to read about. Magic in this world has appropriate consequences, and those are explored in interesting ways. The setting provides a rich environment for the plot, which is carried out through complex characters. Each character has individual goals and secrets which make for some great tension and intrigue.

Bottom line: Eon is a strong, rich fantasy, and its sequel (Eona) is even better.

Book Recommendation: The Near Witch

This past weekend I finally got a chance to read Victoria Schwab's The Near Witch, a book I'd been hearing about for months. I really loved it, but I'm having a hard time putting together my recommendation because my normal approach doesn't quite fit this book. For The Near Witch, the answer to “What is it about?” has so many layers. So instead of going through a brief overview and then highlighting my favorite aspects, I want to talk about the three major layers.

The first is the surface plot. The book is about a girl in an isolated town who has grown up all her life with the wind and the moor and the stories of the Near Witch. For the first time in her life, a stranger comes to town, and right away children begin to disappear from their beds.

This is the plot, and it's “what the book is about,” but for me it's not really what the book is about. The plot is solid and well-crafted and entertaining, but it isn't the most important thing. Some questions never get answered, like how the town came to be so cut off or what the rest of the world is like, but those things aren't vital to the story.

Instead the story is more about a girl who is learning to fight against her society's fear of the unknown. It's about how an isolated group can turn what is “other” into a scapegoat. It's about falling in love with something wild, because love is in some ways about seeing the beauty in something that is outside of us and not in our control. The characters all work very well in the roles they fill in the story. Their relationships are believable.

But even this isn't quite what the book is about for me.

For me The Near Witch is about the wind. It can be so many different things, but this is the first book I've read that really digs deep into what the wind can do to us. The writing is gorgeous. This is one of my favorite passages: “If the moor wind ever sings, you mustn't listen, not with all your ears. Use only the edges. Listen the way you'd look out the corners of your eyes. The wind is lonely, love, and always looking for company.”

This is the sort of writing that evokes strong emotions in me. I know exactly what Victoria Schwab is talking about when she says this. The wind has so many depths of subtlety. So to me the book is really a love story about those depths.

I really appreciated the quality of writing throughout the book, and I even brought out my kindle's highlighter for the first time to mark a few lines. I have a feeling Victoria Schwab is one author I will come to enjoy more and more with each book she writes.

Book Recommendation: The Girl of Fire and Thorns

I've had a bit of a reading slump lately and haven't been particularly excited about most of the books I've been reading. I do recall racing through Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why last month (and it's a worthwhile book to put on the TBR list), but most of my other reads have taken a while to get through.

Until last weekend. Friday night I started Rae Carson's The Girl of Fire and Thorns, and by the end of the day Saturday I had finished it. If you haven't heard of it, the book is about a princess who was marked at birth to “do something special” for her world, only she's starting to wonder if maybe she's missed her chance. After all, what can the fat, awkward second daughter of a minor king do to change anyone's life for the better?

Quite a lot, actually. Elisa is very determined and has a head for strategy. She's married off to another king within the first chapter, and while we get the impression that she hasn't done much with her life so far, as soon as she leaves home she makes the most of her situation. She has her share of flaws, but she always pushes herself to her limits.

Personally one of my favorite pieces of the story was the religion. Fantasy religions are often hard to make feel authentic. So often the religions invented for made-up worlds are either slightly ridiculous (taking a sarcastic view of faith) or are so wrapped up in the magic of the world that there isn't really a faith component. Now the religion portrayed in The Girl of Fire and Thorns is perhaps a little too familiar, depending on your perspective. (One of the rituals has several parallels to Communion.) But I really appreciated the authenticity of the struggles that Elisa faces in relation to her faith.

I also appreciated that the book didn't shy away from the realities of death and havoc during wartime. While the story remains positive and hopeful overall, it doesn't let everyone live simply for the sake of a happily ever after. I was glad that Rae Carson chose to make tough choices with the characters.

Which ultimately means that I'm hooked on the series and looking forward to book two. Hopefully by the time it comes out in the fall you'll have read the first one and be looking forward to it too!

Book Recommendation: Shatter Me

For New Years, my husband and I spent the weekend with a group of our friends. While the boys played video games, I looked through our friend's bookshelf and was delighted to find a pristine copy of Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me (and an ARC no less). Around 8pm Friday night I began reading it, intending to savor it over the course of the weekend. By 1:30am I had finished it.

Shatter Me has done well in the month or two it's been out, which is unsurprising. The story is a mix of trends that are currently popular: one part post-apocalyptic, two parts romance, three parts superhero, with a dash of mild psychosis like peppermint in a chocolate chip cookie. Tahereh Mafi is a popular figure on twitter and tumblr, and for good reason—she knows how to be charming and inspiring and make her followers feel included in her successes. So I expected to enjoy my immersion into the world of her story.

What I didn't expect was to sink deeper and deeper into her imagery. I don't remember reading a single cliché in any of the 300 or so pages. The main character Juliette is multidimensional because she's packed full of uniquely-worded thoughts, so full in fact that she's dripping with phrases I wanted to pluck out of the book, prop on my shelf and rub for good luck every time I pass. The book left me saturated with the feeling that I had learned something new about how words might be used.

I know that not everyone will enjoy the writing style in the book. For some it might be a bit overpowering. But personally I'm glad that I didn't let this book pass by as “just another post-apoc novel.”

2011 YA Books I've Read

In keeping with last year's tradition, I've put together some of my "Top 5" lists from this year. Here they are:

Top 5 Books to Make You Think:

5. How Not to Be Popular (Jennifer Ziegler) 

4. Hunger (Jackie Morse Kessler)

3. Hate List (Jennifer Brown)

2. The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)

1. The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness)

Top 5 Books for Hard-to-Please Boys:

5. Across the Universe (Beth Revis)

4. Incarceron (Catherine Fisher)

3. The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness)

2. Pathfinder (Orson Scott Card)

1. Ship Breaker (Paolo Bacigalupi)

Top 5 Fantasy:

5. The False Princess (Eilis O'Neal)

4. Magic Study (Maria V. Snyder)

3. The Iron Queen (Julie Kagawa)

2. Pegasus (Robin McKinley)

1. The Shifter (Janice Hardy)

Top 5 Science Fiction:

5. Divergent (Veronica Roth)

4. Across the Universe (Beth Revis)

3. Ship Breaker (Paolo Bacigalupi)

2. Pathfinder (Orson Scott Card)

1. The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness)

Top 5 Favorite Books:

5. The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)

4. Pegasus (Robin McKinley)

3. The Shifter (Janice Hardy)

2. The Knife of Never Letting Go (Patrick Ness)

And the best book I read this year...

1. Divergent (Veronica Roth)

Full list of all the books I read (with links to recommendations):

Ann Aguirre

--Enclave

Paolo Bacigalupi

--Ship Breaker

Holly Black

--White Cat

Jennifer Brown

--Hate List [rec]

Meg Cabot

--Being Nikki

--Runaway

--How to Be Popular

--Abandon

Orson Scott Card

--Pathfinder

Aimee Carter

--The Goddess Test [rec]

Cassandra Clare

--City of Glass

--Clockwork Angel

Rosemary Clement-Moore

--Texas Gothic [rec]

Ally Condie

--Matched

Lauren DeStefano

--Wither

Sarah Beth Durst

--Enchanted Ivy [rec]

Catherine Fisher

--Incarceron [rec]

--Sapphique

Gayle Forman

--If I Stay

Kami Garcia, Margaret Stohl

--Beautiful Creatures

Janice Hardy

--The Shifter [rec]

--Blue Fire

Diana Wynne Jones

--Cart and Cwidder

Julie Kagawa

--The Iron Daughter [The Iron King rec]

--The Iron Queen

Jackie Morse Kessler

--Hunger [rec]

Karen Mahoney

--The Iron Witch

Melissa Marr

--Darkest Mercy [Wicked Lovely rec]

Robin McKinley

--Beauty

--Pegasus

--Chalice

Lisa McMann

--Cryer's Cross

Patrick Ness

--The Knife of Never Letting Go [rec]

--The Ask and the Answer

--Monsters of Men

Lauren Oliver

--Delirium

Eilis O'Neal

--The False Princess [rec]

Erica O'Rourke

--Torn

Dia Reeves

--Bleeding Violet [rec]

Beth Revis

--Across the Universe

Rick Riordan

--The Red Pyramid

Veronica Roth

--Divergent [rec]

Inara Scott

--The Candidates

Maria V. Snyder

--Magic Study [Poison Study rec]

Jennifer Ziegler

--How Not to Be Popular [rec]

Markus Zusak

--The Book Thief [rec]

Book Recommendation: Texas Gothic

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Rosemary Clement-Moore. One of the wonderful things about going to ArmadilloCon every year is that in addition to getting to see her, I also get to buy her latest book and read it on the plane home. Last year was The Splendor Falls. This year, Texas Gothic.

Now I'd gotten to experience the opening chapters at Rosemary's reading, which was so much fun. There's nothing quite like enjoying a story about a girl named Amy Goodnight, who's running across a field in her underwear to yell at a cow, being read in the delightful Texas twang in which it is meant to be heard. I was grinning all through the reading.

And the lighthearted humor last throughout the entire book. There were quite a few moments on the plane ride when I had to hold in my laughter. When I came to the line “Don't ever trust anyone who's writing a book. They make up lies for a living,” well, let's just say it's a very good thing I didn't have any soda in my mouth at the time.

The story is about a girl from a family of kooks and kitchen witches who is trying so very hard to be normal. Too bad the ghost living next door to her aunt's farm—where she's house sitting—has other plans for her. And, oh yeah, the guy whose property the ghost is haunting just so happens to be a hot cowboy whom she can't decide whether she loves or hates.

As usual, Rosemary has given us a cast of dynamic, lovable characters. Amy and the cowboy Ben play off each other very well, and the scenes in which they're both together really come to life. I also particularly liked Amy's sister Phin: brilliant, a touch absentminded and endearingly unaware of how crazy her paranormal technology seems to everyone around her.

The plot moves along well and kept me turning pages pretty quickly. And the details of Amy's world added a lot to the story. I loved Aunt Hyacinth's potions, Phin's gadgets, Uncle Burt's rocking chair and cousin Daisy's wardrobe choices.

The only disappointment is knowing I have to wait another year or so before reading the next RCM book. But one thing's for sure: I'm going to love it when I do.

Research Book Recommendation

I'm very behind on my YA reading since most of what I've been reading lately is for research, so unfortunately yet again I don't have a YA book recommendation.

But I will recommend one of the research books I'm in the middle of for anyone who is at all interested in naval history. It's called The War for all the Oceans by Roy Adkins and Lesley Adkins. It's the story of the British naval battles that took place between 1798 and 1812, and it's so exciting that it reads almost like a fiction book. If you enjoy that kind of book, check it out—it's a good one.

Book Recommendation: The Knife of Never Letting Go

Not too long ago I saw someone recommend The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Knowing nothing about it, I picked it up... and I'm so so glad I did.

Todd Hewitt lives in a world where all the women are dead, animals talk, and men hear each other's thoughts. In a month he will be 13 and make the transition from boy to man... the last to come of age in the entire settlement of Prentisstown. But when he and his dog find a silent gap in the constant Noise of the world, he is suddenly in danger. He must run for his life, trying to keep ahead of the men who are hunting him and who can hear his every thought.

This book did so many things right. From the beginning the Noise—the constant barrage of thoughts from animals and people alike—is totally believable. It's fascinating too, and it really pulled me in. As a Big Idea, it works! And not only that, but the world that has developed because of the Noise works too.

The moral dilemmas are completely gripping. The book doesn't flinch away from questions about morality and the ability to take a person's life, or about what makes a creature a “person” or what separates a boy from a man. Todd faces some very heavy moral issues over the course of the book, and I felt like I was right there in his shoes in every case.

The plot moves quickly and kept me flipping pages. I don't think I put it down for a second all throughout the second half. Ness leaves a few mysteries until the very end of the book, and by the time I got the answers I was half wild with needing to know the truth.

The characters work well and interact beautifully. I adored Manchee, the dog, and he now has a place of honor at the top of my “favorite fictional animals” list. I can't really say more about the characters without giving too much away, but... they were great.

And Todd's voice is just so real and comfortable. I truly enjoyed spending time listening to him.

Overall: definitely one of my favorite books from the past few months, and probably one of my favorites this year as well. I hope I can get my hands on the next book in the series soon!

Book Recommendation: The Shifter

In Nya's world, a healer can stitch up a wound and pull its pain out of the affected body and into her own. Healers draw out the hurt, carry it, and then store it in a substance called pynvium—a non-renewable resource mined from the mountains. For the right coin, any injury can disappear; healers can heal any hurt.

Well... most healers, that is. But Nya isn't like most healers. When she pulls the pain out of a person, she only has one option: to shift it into someone else. Pynvium doesn't work for her. And that's a problem, because without it, Nya can't be a real healer. She can't find work, she can't help people, and worst of all, if anyone ever finds out she's a shifter she'll be carted off and forced to cause harm.

But now her sister has disappeared, the Healers' League has stopped taking patients, and a mysterious man is tailing her around the city. Nya is the only one with a chance of setting things right, and she might just have to use her terrible power to do so.

Janice Hardy's The Shifter is an incredibly fun read. I absolutely loved it. I've read a lot of heavy books lately, so this one had just the right tone to put me back in balance. It's not all rainbows and sunshine, of course—Nya struggles with some very hard decisions—but it's an adventure that left me with a smile.

The ideas behind the book really worked. The “about the author” at the end mentions “the darker side of healing,” which I think is an absolutely brilliant concept. Janice Hardy takes that idea and continuously pokes and prods it. She puts Nya into a lot of situations that don't have an obvious right or wrong solution. I really appreciated the ethical questions that came up in this book.

I also loved reading about Nya's world. I didn't find any flaws in the internal consistency, and I was impressed with how the main idea had an impact on more than one aspect of society. Healers don't just take the place of physicians. The ability to heal during war and the competition for the pynvium resource set up a complex political environment.

Though I say this about almost every book I like, it's no less true here: I enjoyed the characters. Nya is very likable. The secondary characters, both allies and villains, add some nice variety to the story. There wasn't a single one that I wished would just disappear. I also liked that there's a hint of possible romance, but that it's playing out slowly. I can see what each of the characters appreciates in the other, so it's a rewarding relationship.

All in all, I'd say this is a very good book for anyone who likes fantasy, and probably even for those who don't tend to read it. I know I'm looking forward to the next in the series!

Fluke Friday

Hey everybody, I'm in the middle of several books right now, but I don't have a particular recommendation for this week.  So... time to turn the Friday recommendation on its head: what books have you read and loved lately?  I'm looking for some new suggestions!

Book Recommendation: Incarceron

The trouble with books that have truly unique concepts is that often the online summaries of these books don't give a very good picture of what they're really all about. For me this was the problem with Catherine Fisher's Incarceron. I kept hearing the title, and I knew it was about a prison, but I didn't really have a clear idea of what the book would be like.

Fortunately I picked it up anyway, and I enjoyed the whole story. It was a very interesting book.

Incarceron is indeed a prison, but it's not like any prison that any of us have ever seen. It's like a whole world, so large no one could visit all of it in a single lifetime, with cities and societies, wind and rain, tunnels and secret doors. All it's lacking are the stars. No one can get out; no one even knows where the boundaries are. And everywhere Incarceron watches its inmates through tiny red eyes. Sometimes it even talks to them.

Claudia is the daughter of Incarceron's warden. She's heard the stories of Incarceron, how it was formed as an experiment, a perfect place where society's criminals could learn to live in peace. She envies the inmates, because her own life is nowhere close to peaceful. In her world, everyone is forced to live “in the past,” in a Victorian society where Protocol governs everything and technologies that could save lives are illegal. She was bred to marry the son of the Queen, a lazy, disingenuous boy whom she hates, and now her wedding is imminent.

Finn has been an inmate of Incarceron for three years, and the prison is far from paradise. It's dirty, the people are anything but trustworthy, and Incarceron is running out of organic materials to create new life, resulting in halfmen and animals with wires running through their flesh. Finn has had to join a gang of marauders in order to survive. He can't remember anything before he woke up in a prison cell three years ago, though sometimes he has flashes of what might be memory before seizures take over. He wants to escape, but only one person in all of Incarceron's long history ever managed to figure out how, and he never came back.

The very first chapter of the book grabbed me right away, and then the rest of the book had enough unexpected twists to keep me guessing right up to the end. The plot was so unlike anything else I'd ever read, and I truly enjoyed following it through every turn. The complexity of the plot is the real highlight of this book.

The writing and characters aren't bad either. I enjoyed both points of view equally and was never disappointed to be switching from one to the other. Each had plenty of tension and carried its weight.

But the true gold is in the “Whoa! Hold on. What just happened?” moments. I applaud anyone who manages to figure out the twists before they happen, because I certainly didn't. (Well, except for the really obvious one, but I don't think that was meant to be much of a surprise.) I was really glad I had the sequel ready to read immediately, because I would NOT have wanted to have to wait months or even weeks to find out what happened next. (And just so you know, Sapphique was a terrific book too.)

So go! Read! And tell me what you think when you're done.