Book Talk: How Personal is Too Personal?


(I hesitated to tag this as Book Talk, as this isn't quite about books and more about blogging, but this is the tag all of my discussion posts are under, so anyway.)

In the process of giving this blog a makeover, I began reconsidering my About page. Writing introductions are always difficult to me. I have a hard time deciding what might be interesting enough to share, or what might be interesting but utterly irrelevant. Add privacy concerns to the mix, and the struggle is complete. The current blurb I have is already a revised version of my first draft, and I'm still not happy with it.

The same concerns surfaced when I was writing my October Rewind post. How much personal happenings should I include? Or should the post be strictly filled with book-related things? I personally enjoy getting to know a little bit about other bloggers' lives away from reading and blogging, but I have also found that I tend to skip over anything too detailed.

There are some personal details that I definitely wouldn't share, such as my last name and birthday. You knows, things someone might be able to use to hack into important accounts... I'm also disinclined to share photos of my face, though I rarely feel like posting a selfie anywhere online anyway. However, everything else seems to fall in a gray area. I don't mind talking about my love for certain TV shows, for instance, and I don't mind talking a little bit about where I'm from.

I don't think I've quite figured out a balance yet, but hopefully it'll come with some practice!

I want to hear from you: how much personal info is too personal for you? What do you feel comfortable sharing on your blog?

Review: Ruin and Rising

Title: Ruin and Rising
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Orion Books
Source: Periplus Bookstore
Synopsis:

 The Darkling pressed a kiss to the top of my hair. "I will strip away all that you know, all that you love, until you have no other shelter but me."

 For Alina, time is running out. To destroy the Darkling, she must find the elusive firebird, and she must find it soon.

The Darkling's power is growing. And so is his connection to Alina. Can Alina escape the hold he has over her? Does she want to?

Mal is the only person Alina can rely on. But could giving in to the bond between them be the most dangerous decision of all?

Review: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

I am not ruined. I am ruination.

What a conclusion. A quick glance over the rated reviews on Goodreads indicated to me that many were disappointed by this book, but I personally found a lot to love about it.

Alina's raggedy team has dwindled in number; they're broken and exhausted, but also open in the way none of them had been before. Where it was difficult to determine anyone's motivation in Siege and Storm, here it is clear. Even if their actions might not always be predictable, you could understand their motive. The same can be said for those outside of Alina's circle, including the Darkling. Also, the fact that we only have to follow a few allowed more room for character development all around. Genya and Zoya are my favourites in terms of growth. And of course, there is Alina.

Alina is one resilient woman, and she is the embodiment of the title. When we left her last, she was almost ruined, and despite the many losses she's endured since then, she rises to the challenge she'd been tasked with. The way she wields her power and captivates an audience is so far from the shy girl she was at the start of the series; she's not only become a leader, but also her own person - not just one half of Mal-and-Alina.

Speaking of Mal, all I have to say is I KNEW IT. Not that I predicted what happened exactly, but I knew something was going on there. Anyway, he is the picture of solidity in this book and I'm glad we have the less-angsty version of him back. Nikolai is still my favourite of Alina's suitors, but I never really saw him or the Darkling as competitions for Alina's love. She's always had such different responses to all three men that it's clear to me who her heart belongs to. (As a sidenote, I know the Darkling is supposed to look really young, but since we found out he's like hundreds of years old, I keep picturing him as Jason Isaac-like.)

The rest of the book didn't disappoint either. The world-building continues to amaze me, and the blend of science and magic is so much fun to read. I loved the scenes where they discussed their strategies. The battle scenes are the highlights of the book though. Bardugo has a skill for twists; I never see them coming, and they're always so destructive! The battle at the Spinning Wheel had me gasping (and swearing) out loud. That final battle actually brought me to tears; I love that ending. It was not a neat happily-ever-after for all of the characters, but then a war never ends like that.

My only struggle with the book was that I kept getting confused and had to backtrack to check if I had missed something about Morozova's history. That could have been thanks to my attempt at speed-reading though. All in all, I left this series feeling satisfied, and I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for more books by Leigh Bardugo in the future.

Review: Megamorphs #4 - Back to Before

Title: Back to Before (Megamorphs #4)
Author: K.A. Applegate
Publisher: Scholastic Paperback
Source: E-book
Synopsis: Jake's finally weakened. After a grisly battle, the Drode offers the Animorphs' leader an escape from the terrifying pressure. He'll reverse the decision to start the Animorphs. Now, there's no morphing, no missions, and no knowledge of the Yeerks. That is, until very strange things begin to happen and Jake, Rachel, Tobias, Cassie, Marco and Ax are forced to confront their new reality
Rating: ⋆⋆⋆⋆

"Power enough to win? No. Power enough to fight? Ah yes. Just enough, little Jake, here is just enough power to imprison you in a cage of duty, to make you fight."

I said it in the review I wrote for Animorphs #41 that I was getting tired of time-travelling in all its forms. So when I started reading this and saw that it is all about an alternate timeline again, I pretty much rolled my eyes. (This book was supposed to come before #41, but I imagine my reaction would still have been the same.) Nevertheless, the premise was an interesting one: what if our heroes never took that shortcut by the abandoned construction site? What if they never met Elfangor?

The thing I love about the Megamorphs editions is how we get to see through everyone's point of view instead of following just one like usual. Here, that format lets us see what each of the Animorph's life would have been without that encounter with Elfangor. Tobias' life, in particular, was heartbreaking. We never got to see how badly bullied and abandoned he was, given he became the red-tailed hawk in the first book and never went back to school. To me, this highlighted how Animorphs gave him people who genuinely cared about him.

The answer to the 'what ifs' is complex. In this timeline, the kids were not haunted by nightmares of battles or the guilt of killing, but their lives weren't necessarily better. Just because they weren't given the power to be soldiers, it didn't mean the war didn't exist, or that they didn't have to fight. I finished this book feeling that even if you could go back in time and change a pivotal moment, some things are just meant to happen.

Wishlist Wednesday: Remembrance



In Remembrance, the seventh installment of the Mediator series, all Susannah Simon wants is to make a good impression at her first job since graduating from college (and becoming engaged to Dr. Jesse de Silva). But when she stumbles across an ancient murder, old ghosts—and ex-boyfriends—aren’t all that come back to haunt her.

 If asked, I'd always cite The Mediator as my favourite Meg Cabot series. In theory, the ghostly plotlines should've put me off, as I am a big scaredy cat at heart. However, I fell in love with the kick-ass heroine, the dreamy love interest, or the fact that none of the ghosts was described in gory details.

Funnily enough, I don't remember the individual plotlines that well. I recently lend these books to a friend. She loved them, but her attempts to engage me in detailed discussions about them were often met with "...huh?" So I'm putting this on my re-read list, and hope I'll get around to them before Remembrance comes out next year, February 2.

Read an excerpt from Remembrance here.

October Rewind

I've never done of these monthly wrap-up before, mostly because I didn't know what I might put in this sort of post. Reading everyone else's has been lots of fun though, so I am giving this shot. :)

I Reviewed:

 For The Princess Diaries Book Club, I Read:
Cam shared her thoughts on Princess In the Spotlight and Princess in Love here! We both agreed that there was an issue with continuity in the former, and that the ending for the latter is 100% adorable. 

 Other Going-ons On The Blog:

    Discussion Posts:



     Top Ten Tuesday:


Personally, This Month:

  • Two Saturdays ago, I taught first conditionals ('If I stay up tonight, I will be tired tomorrow'), and made them do a listening practice in which they had to write down all of the 'if' phrases from One Direction's Perfect. It was the first time my pop culture knowledge was actually ahead of my students!
  • I have been waiting and waiting to hear back from graduate schools about my application, and I have a feeling the wait will continue well into November...
  • I found out there is a fourth book in the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series! :O 
  • I fell in love with The Librarians, the tv show. It has magic, myths, Rebecca Romijn, globe-trotting, and a library; what more could I ask for?
  • A colleague of mine started reading Cinder by Marissa Meyer following my (very enthusiastic) recommendation, and she fell in love with it. It made me so happy. She is the fourth person in my life that I've turned onto reading The Lunar Chronicles, and I'm hoping there may be more! 

Book Talk: Physical or Virtual Bookshops?

Once, not so long ago, my friends and I went to a crowded shopping mall. While they were trying on clothes in one of the stores, I was getting bored out of my mind and feeling suffocated. I excused myself and made a beeline for the bookshop. I half-expected angels to sing as I stepped inside; I was that relieved to be there.

Another time, when I was looking to complete my collection of The Grisha, I went into the bookshop near my workplace and was told they didn't have any in store. They said I could order it online on their website. I could have, but I stubbornly never did. Instead, I was always on the lookout for Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising every time I visited a bookshop. It took me almost two months and multiple trips to different shops before I found them.

Readings - one of my favourite bookshops ever
I don't think it'll come as a surprise to anyone reading this blog right now, especially after reading the above, when I tell you that I love bookshops. Particularly, I am partial to physical bookshops rather than virtual ones.

I love the general peace and quiet; people leave you alone when you browse books in a way they never do when you browse in a boutique.

I enjoy the search; I like scanning book spines and covers until that triumphant moment where I manage to find what I'm looking for. I like the fact that, while I'm looking for a particular book, I may stumble on a different title that I have never heard of. This is particularly relevant to independent bookshops, in which I frequently lose track of time.

It breaks my heart when bookshops close their doors permanently, so I make an effort to go buy from them rather than from, say, Amazon. I'm really wary about online shopping in general anyway; all those warnings about sharing your credit card information online have really lodged themselves in my brain.

There are times, however, when I'm grateful for online bookshops. For instance, it's amazing for finding books the shops around me don't seem to carry. For instance, I had been looking for the last 20-something installments of Animorphs for years in vain before finally getting them online. My mother has been after Emily's Quest for ages, and I found it the other day on Book Depository. As much as I like the hunt, eventually I get to a point when I just want the book in my hands already. And speaking of Book Depository, it tends to be kinder to my bank account than a regular bookshop. Plus, there's something delightful about getting books in the mail; it's really like getting a present from yourself.

Still, in general, I prefer shopping in a physical bookshop, and would only buy online when I absolutely cannot get the book elsewhere.

Do you prefer buying books from a physical bookshop or online? Why?

The Princess Diaries Book Club #4: Princess in Waiting

The Princess Diaries Book Club is an ongoing collaboration with my friend Cam and her blog, Cammminbookland. We decided that we would reread this series, at our own pace, and always come back to our blogs and each other to discuss the story and how we feel about it now. If you are interested in joining us, please do!


Title: Princess in Waiting
Author: Meg Cabot
Publisher: HarperTrophy
Source: Gramedia Bookstore
Synopsis: Never before has the world seen such a princess.

Nor have her own subjects, for that matter. Mia's royal introduction to Genovia has mixed results: while her fashion sense is widely applauded, her position on the installation of public parking meters is met with resistance.

But the politics of bureaucracy are nothing next to Mia's real troubles. Between canceled dates with her long—sought—after royal consort, a second semester of the dreaded Algebra, more princess lessons from Grandmère as a result of the Genovian parking—meter thing, and the inability to stop gnawing on her fingernails, isn't there anything Mia is good at besides inheriting an unwanted royal title?

Review: ⋆⋆⋆

'That is just it, Amelia,' Grandmere said, rolling her scary eyes. 'You are entirely too young to pledge your heart to anyone. I think it very unwise of you, at the age of fourteen, to decide with whom you are going to spend the rest of your life.'

Whereas my thought processes about the previous three books were all over the place, this time my feelings about this book are pretty clear. 

Mia is very much a fourteen year old in her contradictions. She's passionate about serious issues - animal welfare and, yes, Genovia's parking meters - and she's intelligent about it. At the same time, she can spend forever obsessing over whether her boyfriend loves her as a friend or is genuinely in love with her. I caught myself rolling my eyes as she continued to fixate over this, when Michael has shown himself to be nothing short of a fantastic boyfriend. At the same time, I understood it. I'd never been in the same exact position, but I am prone to rumination. I know what it's like to worry so much about something others dismiss as nothing.

I think my exasperation with her may stem from the fact that I am now ten years older than she is, and I know that there is truth to the relationship advice Mia received (and mostly ignored) from her mother and grandmother. (I never thought I'd be agreeing with Grandmere again, by the way, but I did when she said what I quoted above.) At the same time, her insecurities about herself still strike a chord with me; that feeling of inferiority when you're surrounded by brilliant people and not knowing if you have any genuine talent are things I've felt even as a twenty-something. 

I think this book came out after the first Princess Diaries movie happened, and I love the references to it. I don't understand why no one pointed out to Lilly that she's very much a hypocrite in her claim that the movie portrayed her wrongly. I can see why Mia wouldn't, but I wish Michael or Tina had; it seems rather unfair that she was awarded for that hypocrisy. 

There is a line in the book where Mia berated herself for believing winning over a boy she loved would equal self-actualisation. I hope she remembers this in the next book and works on her talent with as much energy as she does worrying about Michael.
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