Gems of the Genre
One girl's quest to find the very best of young adult literature.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Sisterhood Everlasting
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Sunday, February 5, 2012
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Probably less calories than this.
Now I know you, reader. I can read you like the back of a box of Berry Berry Kix. Right now you’re sitting at your computer, iPad, iPod, Nook, or digital watch with a data plan and thinking “What is she talking about? Page turning is easy! If page turning is a workout than why am I not reading James Joyce in my jazzercise class?”
Joycercise.
I don’t know why you’re not reading Joyce. You need to take that up with your jazzercise instructor. All I’m saying is that you don’t notice the strains of page turning until you have to do it over and over again at a fairly quick pace.
And that’s what happens when you read The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Most of it is pictures, with the occasional page or two of printed word, and usually those pages of words are only half –full. Or half-empty. It really depends on what your attitude towards words are.
IT’S ON
But despite the fact that my right arm is now rippled and muscular and my left arm still looks like one of those resistance yoga bands that you found in a thrift store dollar bin, the artwork was actually a really cool addition to the book. Bravo, Brian Selznick, for successfully fusing two forms of art together to tell a story!
The problem is, the story that the art forms were telling was kind of bad. The basic plot is sound enough, I guess. There’s an orphan boy who’s living alone in a Paris train station. He’s taken over as timekeeper after his uncle disappeared, so he sets all the clocks in the train station in secret. He steals food and mechanical toys that he can take apart and use the pieces to make his automaton, which is this weird-ass mechanical man that Hugo is devoting his life to.
Ah, youth.
This is a fine set-up, and could very well lead to an interesting, perhaps even heartwarming story. But it didn’t. The story was full of characters whose emotions would do a complete one-eighty out of nowhere, the “big twist” at the end was really not that big a deal, and the book had way way way too many chase scenes.
All right. I guess I’m on board with this.
Oh no. She fell. What a creative new development.
Ok these need to STOP.
Ahh the chase scene. A surefire way to provide suspense in your novel. Chase scenes are fail-safe, they are effective, but like gutter guards in a bowling competition, they should be used spare-ingly. (yeah. I’ve been sitting on that gem for a while). It is a mark of true creativity to be able to make your reader’s heart race without quickening your character’s pace. (yep. That one too). I respect authors who can have me clutching my heart in fear and anticipation without providing a good old-fashioned run for you life. Chase scenes are a cliché. They are a last resort. And they should certainly never be used as many times as they are used in this book.
So, on the whole, I was pretty unimpressed. I had been really excited for a fascinating story told through the cooperative effort of well placed words and outstanding artwork (see Leviathan) but what I got was decidedly less-than. Not a gem.
I heard the movie kicks ass, though.
Photo-Cred
http://blog.itechtalk.com/2010/improving-cardio-workouts/
http://biblioklept.org/2008/09/22/james-joyce-reads-you-listen/
http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=2228
http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2012/jan/06/exploring-grand-centrals-secret-author-hugo/
http://trustmovies.blogspot.com/2011/11/scorseses-hugo-intelligent-personal.html
http://dornob.com/rainbow-flip-book-brilliant-diy-3d-illusion-you-can-hold/
http://www.filmonair.com/magazine/article/hugo-it-all-started-with-a-trip-to-the-moon
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Graceling
It’s called Graceling and it’s by Kristin Cashore and it’s awesome andzomgeveryoneshouldreaditbecauseit’sthebest!!!!
ahem.
Ok, so, background: Katsa is a girl living in the Seven Kingdoms. These Seven Kingdoms are constantly shifting alliances and there’s lots of political confusion and all that really fun stuff. (That last bit sounded sarcastic but it’s not. I reeeaaaallly like this book).
There are some people in these seven kingdoms who are known as “Gracelings”. Their eyes have two different colors (like husky dogs!) and they have special abilities. One Graceling might be really good at cooking, another dancing, swimming, building, tic tac toe, whathaveyou.
So the setting of this book is kind of middle-ages-y. It’s got a real Robin Hood vibe to it.
Now imagine that’s a teenage girl. And she is graced with the ability to kill people.
She doesn’t just rob the rich. She flippin’ kills them!
Katsa is the king’s niece, and he uses her as his assassin. Katsa doesn’t agree with her uncle’s politics and hates what he forces her to do, so she starts her own secret society of people who put thing’s right behind the kings’ backs.
JUST LIKE THE MERRY MEN!!!
Just like this.
So what is it about this book that makes it a gem? No it’s not the gleaming sheen of its cover or the fact that it formed 400 kilometers below the earth’s surface. (this last part is probably not true but I have not yet confirmed that it isn’t.)
Kristin Cashore in her teen years.
What makes this book wonderful is the plot. It’s kick ass. There’s an evil king, and Katsa has to save his daughter with the help of, wait for it, a totally hot prince! His name is Po and he’s also graced, and Katsa and him have all these awesome fights full of kicks to the face, round-house punches, and a healthy dose of sexual tension. And though a movie has not been made yet, meaning that I can’t show you photographic evidence of this, there is some really weird fan art that I am more than willing to share:
This was a fairly popular Nickelodean children's show in the 1490s.
I also found this:
Just because she’s holding a knife does not prove that she is not a fairy princess. That could be her steak knife. To cut her fairy princess steak.
But I’m not here to talk about fair princess steak. I’m here to talk about how much Graceling rocks. I think that my favorite thing about this book is that the main characters aren’t idiots. I have found all too often in my travels through young adult literature that the main characters usually have shit for brains. Take Percy Jackson for example (I’ll probably right a review for that series pretty soon). Percy is a normal, dumbass, twelve year old kid, who gets attacked one day by a screeching, winged, she-beast that was disguised as his pre algebra teacher, and he also finds out he’s the son of Poseidon. Meaning he’s a freakin’ demigod. THEN he gets his mom get’s carried away by a flippin’ minotaur and he’s like “but wait… minotaur aren’t reeeeaaaaallll.”
COME ON, PERCY. I know you didn’t really get a good education, what with your teacher being a she-beast and all that but use some goddam brain cells! You accept the fact that you’re father is the Greek god of the sea, but you don’t accept that an animal that is alarmingly close in physique to a bull could possibly exist?
That’s why Katsa and Po are such wonderful characters. They aren’t idiots. They figure out what’s going on fairly early in the story, and spend the rest of the book trying to stop it. No crazy plot twists, no life-changing discoveries that the reader had figured out chapters before. Sometimes, devices like that work in young adult literature, but they are always risky. I respect Kristin Cashore for staying on the straightforward path and just telling a really good story.
But anyway I don’t really want to say much more about Graceling because I want everyone to go read it. Trust me. It’s good. It’s completely engrossing, it has a super badass female protagonist, and the plot is really smart. All around gem.
Bob Rankin? Why is my fairy princess steak so dry?
Photo Cred:
http://i2.listal.com/image/55400/936full-robin-hood-photo.jpg
http://www.buycostumes.com/Robin-Hood-Adult/27237/ProductDetail.aspx
http://www.pdplayhouse.com/robin%20hood%20pics.htm
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Cave-troll
http://jeelchristine.tumblr.com/post/7034432551/katsa-and-po-of-graceling-snuggling-fighting
http://jeelchristine.tumblr.com/post/7044519786/katsa-no-fairy-princess-by-jackie-lyn-on
Saturday, December 10, 2011
The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Monday, December 5, 2011
Twilight Needs Some Re-Vamping
I saw this movie over break, managing to snag a front row seat right in front of a squealing group of thirteen-year-old fan girls. I did not join in their enthusiasm even though, yes, I admit, I have read Twilight. And yes, unfortunately, this movie followed the book pretty well.
If you are unfamiliar with the story then DON’T SEE THIS MOVIE. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. If you are familiar with the story then you know that the movie starts with Bella the human and Edward the vamp finally tying the knot (I mean, they’re eighteen. Talk about taking your time, eh?). The newlyweds fly off to an island owned by Edward’s filthy rich vampire father and they lose their virginity in a passionate, bed-breaking bout of lovemaking. The first forty-five minutes of the movie views like a feel-good romance, with the central conflict being that Edward refuses to sleep with her after that first night owing to the fact that the bed got just as fucked as they did (meaning they literally broke the bed in half) and his wife walked away from the experience covered in bruises. Edward is nothing if not rational.
But after forty-five minutes this movie takes a turn. You see, Bella and Eddie don’t use condoms because they figure, since Edward is technically dead, he does not have the ability to impregnate her. But oh does he impregnate her. Edward’s undead sperm beats the odds and manages to create a horrifying, terrible, appalling vampire fetus that literally starts eating Bella from the inside. Finally, I thought as I watched from my front row seat. Something awesome is happening.
But, alas, I was mistaken. No, nothing happens. Bella sits on a couch and gets gaunter and more pregnant and more disgusting, Jacob runs around in the woods as a wolf all upset and shit, and Edward is just mad and pale and sparkly, for like literally an hour of the movie. When a film has a running time of 117 minutes, forty-five of those minutes are spent on the vampire sex and another sixty are spent on the woes of vampiric pregnancy, then that only leaves twelve precious minutes for a plot climax. And oh how those twelve minutes were utilized.
I was fortunate enough (in a sense) to have read the book before seeing the movie, meaning that I had a little warning but even so, when you’re sitting in the front row, in a seat nailed to the floor, facing a giant screen with the climax of Breaking Dawn Part I projected onto it, twelve minutes can seem like an eternity.
So the climax of this movie is basically a detailed account of the result of Edward’s climax. Oh, I should mention now, this film is not suitable for women who are pregnant or may become pregnant. We go from feel-good romance, to family drama, to a scene from Saw V with literally no transition. There’s Bella innocently talking about her horrible ideas for baby names, when suddenly her spine snaps, her ribs break and her huge throbbing stomach is chewed open by her devoted husband in the most appalling C-section imaginable.
But, to tell you the truth, it wasn’t the sickening birth or even the rough vampire sex that was most appalling about this movie. No, it was the fact that even though this movie made $61.8 million dollars in one weekend, the special effects still looked like graphics from a cheap video game. It was appalling that even though they could have absolutely fit the entire book into a single movie, (anyone who has read the book knows that absolutely nothing happens in the second half. Or the first, for that matter), they had to stretch it out, doubling their profits by making two incredibly boring atrocities. I can think of at least 5 two and half minute long montages that were obviously only there so that they could drag this sucker out into a full-length feature. Hollywood should think about enforcing a montage cap, because this was just ridiculous.
So, if you’re looking to be appalled, then be my guest. If not, then I do not recommend seeing this. Not even for those “it’s so bad it’s good” lovers. It’s just a rollercoaster ride of bored, disgusted, bored, bored, AHHHHH OH MY GOD WHAT, appalled.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
The Maze Runner Series
When I was a child, I got lost in a corn maze. And it wasn’t a happy fun corn maze like this:
They’re not even trying to emphasize this pun.
It was a shit-your-pants corn maze like this:
Let me just go change my pants.
So, obviously, I took every opportunity to tell the story of my near-death experience, and my quick thinking in an incredibly dangerous situation. Because bragging about your bravery is how you make friends.
What you’ve never heard of that?
Guess that’s why you don’t have friends.
So until last year I totally thought that I was a living legend surviving that maze unscathed. But then I read The Maze Runner.
Dammit. These guys totally stole my thunder!
So let me give you a rundown of the plot, here. This is kind of that classic storyline. You know the one where a 16 year old boy wakes up in a windowless elevator remembering nothing but his name, and then the elevator opens up into a glade where there are like 50 other boys who only remember their names, and they are in the middle of a giant maze that changes shape everyday and there are giant gooey monsters with metal spikes that like to really slowly and painfully pull apart teenagers?
You know?
There is a fine line between good fantasy and ridiculous fantasy. The very best fantasy is constantly testing that line. But James Dashner totally sprints right over that line, laughing, flinging off his clothes, and giving the finger to all those losers back there too afraid to cross it. He runs, free and ridiculous, like a nudist in an outlet mall, babbling about vegan cookies and hemp. You watch from a distance, may even for a second consider joining him, but then someone calls your iPhone, inviting you to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and you leave James Dashner, running naked in a field, spewing profanities and conspiracy theories, and you go and watch James Franco and some monkeys. Oh, I’m sorry; apes.
That extended metaphor does have a meaning, I swear.
Ok, let me rephrase. A few years back I watched 300. This movie contained a lot of the fantastical, but it was very clear from the beginning what the limits of this were. Though there were monsters and magic, man was still mortal and, though their arms were thicker than my neck, they were bound to the constraints of human physical capacity. Meaning they can’t throw a spear from a mile and a half away and have it go straight through someone’s chest.
Did somebody throw that? DAMMIT, 300!
I couldn’t respect the movie anymore. It had crossed the boundary of what I was willing to believe, and had gone into it’s own fantasy world, not bothering to bring the audience along for the ride.
And this is exactly what James Dashner does in The Scorch Trials.
Lemme go ahead and give you some examples.
I realized pretty early on that I was in for a headache. So, the main character, Thomas, wakes up in a hotel room in a post-apocolyptic city, with a crazed and diseased man trying to break through his window:
“Sores and scars covered his thin, sunburnt face. He had no hair, only diseased splotches of what looked like greenish moss. A vicious slit stretched across his right cheek; Thomas could see teeth through the raw, festering wound. Pink saliva dribbled in swaying lines from the man’s chin.
‘I’m a Crank!’ the horror of a man yelled. ‘I’m a bloody Crank!’”
...So that was dumb.
Also, this book was just gratuitously violent. Like, over the top with the teenager killing. In horrible horrible horrible ways. Yes, The Maze Runner is violent but not this violent. This level of violence makes me question Dashner’s sanity. I mean, at one part, a kid gets hit by lightning, his leg is blown clean off, all his clothes are completely burned off him, his eyes have melted out of his head, and the boy is still alive. Still. Freakin. Alive. And conscious. Another time, they were in a completely dark passageway, couldn’t see a thing, and a boy has a boiling blob of metal land on his head, burning his skin off as it drips down around his face, then hardens around his head like a bowling ball, and decapitates him.
Dashner you go too far!
So I absolutely recommend The Maze Runner. Definitely one of the better young adult science fiction novels I’ve read. But please don’t continue in the series. The third book, The Death Cure, (idiotic title) is coming out next month, but I’m not even gonna bother marking my calendar as I will certainly not be wasting my time with it.
Dashner, you disappoint me.
Oh and his blog is called “The Dashner Dude”.
COME ON.
Photo Cred:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Dashner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorch_Trials
http://edencubpack603.org/events.html