Eddis, Attolia, Sounis

Howl's Moving Castle (Dianne Wynn Jones) -
Enjoyed it more than I expected, doesn't take itself seriously, and is just a little bright and bouncy read. When did I realize I really liked it? When Sophie and Micheal tried to fix Howl's suit, and how it backfired on them! Oh, and I sypathized with Howl having a cold, since I had a cold as I read it, but he's just such a big baby that I lost all compassion, and suspected him of not getting better just for the attention! Definetly one I would recommend, though I know I'm late to that party :)

The Glass Maker's Daughter (V. Briceland) -
A fun read, with action, adventure, tad bit of romance, secret codes, a girl who needs to learn how to keep her mouth shut, same girl who needs to realize that everything happens for a purpose, even things that seem awful, a little bit of magic,a song written about the heroine, and a Venice-inspired city. What else is required? I know, it sounds a little cliche, but the main character is spunky, and her male sidekick's main purpose is to make her laugh (when he's not trying to keep her from doing something stupid). And I liked his sister, too. Great twist at the ending (who wouldn't want that? ;) one I definetly didn't see coming. Really Great book, made even more intriguing because the library doesn't carry the two sequels, :( so I have been devouring the previews on Amazon.

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I really have nothing to add, because I read all the same books she does - after one of us reads a book, we trade. But I have to echo both of her reccommendations! The Glass Maker's Daughter was really great, so thanks to the person who reccommended it in the first place!

Howl's Moving Castle I really enjoyed, especially since Howl with a cold reminded me sooooooo much of Gen with an injury! Especially when he said something to the effect of, "I'm going to bed and I shall probably die there" So Gen-like.

Also, a few weeks ago, I read "The False Princess" by Eilis O'Neal. I enjoyed the plot, though I found the main charachter a bit petty.

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I enjoyed "The False Princess" too! Nice twist on the classic girl replaced to keep princess safe theme. The main male lead was definetly the best character, reminded me of Strell from the Truth Series by Dawn Cook!!

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1: Yes, I just read Chime not too long ago and LOVED it.

2: Yup.

3: The ones I've read. *nods*

4: The writing style and the mystery.

5: Nope, not from Sounis, but... I will say that one of my least favorite books is Hush by Donna Jo Napoli. *apologizes to anyone who likes this book*

It's about an Irish princess who is captured by Russian slavers and is then sold as a ahem... sex slave. And yes, this book was YA. That wasn't even the worst part, the worst part was probably the character's highly depressing introspective mantra, and the fact that the book ends with her resigning herself to slavery and giving up on finding out what happened to the rest of her family. WHAT THE...? Bit of advice, don't ever read it!

7: I've added to the rec lists several times, but I just realized I don't think I've ever recced Carolyn Meyer's historical novels. I especially enjoyed, The Bad Queen.

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Opps... Doctor Who moment. 5 then 6. Alright.

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I saw Chime at my library, and read the back of it, it looked interesting but I wasn't to sure if I would like it. Is it modern, and is it really dark? It looked dark to me, but I've read reviews that seeem to think it's quite funny.

And I will never read that book you mentioned. Ever. Sounds awful.

P.S. It's much nicer to get reveiws from real people, cuz' I get to ask questions ;)

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I can agree about books that you go "is this really YA???????" Recently picked up "The Game of Thrones" because it was on the 10th grade required reading list for the local high school (had seen it before and thought it was adult, saw it on the list and thought, how bad can it be?) Anyway, there was one character, who I just thought was taking it in a completely dark direction,(and he told his sister in not as many, or as polite words, that if it would get him what he wanted, he wouldn't care how many people she slept with, even against her will.) At that point I just closed the book and put it back in the library bag. Sorry to those who like it, I thought it had an interesting plot, but I just couldn't stand him. (And I just thought YA? 10th grade? I'm definetly not happy about that content. It needed an R rating so you know what you're getting into)

Sorry for the rant!

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It's dark in the sense that it's gothic fantasy taking place in a turn of the century setting. But if by dark you mean depressing and violent, no. It's funny because our heroine is one the most snarktastic awesome sauce ladies of fantasy I've happen to read about. It does deal with some darker themes such as self-hatred and dark magic; but the suspense and the mystery are worth it. I wouldn't say that it's much darker than the QoA.

Personally, I like the type of dark fantasy that's about twisted oak branches under heavy rain and long-suffering heros bound by spells of deceit, then the kind that's about horrible, violent things described in graphic detail. That was my problem with Poison Study by Marie V. Snyder, even though the plot was superb, the content was over the top graphic and more than half of it was completely unneeded.

Wise choice. ;) What annoys me most was that Hush was marketed for 14-18 years olds. It's NOT a book for young adults.

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You know what? These books give people the wrong idea about YA, and that all they want is graphic violence, and, as my sister and I refer to it, "content."
Which is so untrue, because there is just so much to love about YA!

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checkers65477.livejournal.com

Chiming in to recommend Chime. Loved it. It's somewhat dark, and not modern-day (sort of Salem Witch/early 20th century) but the characters are so unusual and the writing is wonderful.

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Alright, Y'all convinced me! I'll check it out next time I go to the library, I look forward to reading it!

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That does sound terrible (I dislike this character already), and is it just me or is YA getting more umm... adult as publishers have discovered that quite a few adults read books published for that age group. But honestly... I've always felt that people tend to gravitate towards that section, because so many adult books are over the top R/NC-17.

I don't mean to be a prude, and I understand that dealing with more serious, adult issues is simply going to have more content; but I feel that there are often more tasteful, better ways to handle subjects like sexual assault and torture.

For example, many of us forget that QT contains whipping and torture scenes, simply because Megan focuses on the emotion and doesn't dwell on the violence. Thus, these parts are much easier to digest, and don't make the audience cringe. In one of my QT fics, I actually wrote a torture scene, but I was very careful with my descriptions, keeping them vague and short. Just because Gen is suffering, doesn't mean my audiences has to.

And the book I mentioned to your sister, Poison Study, was actually originally marketed as an adult novel, which was where it belonged. Recently though, I've seen it with a new cover in the YA section. I didn't look, but I honestly hoped they edited it, because it contains a rather eww... sexual assault scene towards the end. I was reading YA by the time I was twelve-years-old and that really shouldn't be problem. I just know I definitely don't want my nephew stumbling across something like Poison Study thinking he is getting a book for young people. Books really do need ratings and warnings these days, like music and films, since the lines between children/YA and adult books seem to be blurring.

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I agree with you 150%

I think the difference between the torture in QT and what we're talking about, is that those those themes in QT are always plot driven. They serve a purpose in the story, and when that purpose is accomplished, the move on. There is no gratuitous violence, or anything else. I can't say the same for other books I've had the misfortune to read.

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There's all sorts of YA out there, and plenty of it, like QT, handles violent content tastefully and with sympathy. Books having content isn't "wrong," I just think there are certain depictions of subjects that are not appropriate to market as YA. And certainly not without content warnings.

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It is definetly harder and harder to find clean YA these days. The abundance of vampire novels, which I have never read, because they always seem like they border on being inappropriate, (as well as plain old boring) just really brings the genre down.

You're right, QT deals with heavy themes, put it is still very appropriate. (The Farsala Trilogy by Hilari Bell does this as well, one of the main characters is tortured, and another deals with issues of deep seated hatred and revenge) And Gen and Irene's relationship is sweet, and does not need any content. YA mostly deals with "growing up issues" which means those tough things, but really, a little class? You know when we were talking about quotes and I said that Gen hit Costis on his "undefended posterior" was classy because in the Farsala Trilogy (which is one of my most favorite series ever!) The Commander quite calmly declared that he had been dumped on his ***. Use creative words, I'll understand them, really I will, and if I don't,as my mother would say, "look it up!" Challenge me to grow too.

As far as rating, I hate to think that it would come to that, but sometimes I think it is neccesary. You know, I really like aCoK, but my local library has it in the children's section, and I think Sophos shooting the ambassador would be difficult for children to understand. It needs to be YA for enjoyment reasons as well as age reasons.

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EXACTLY. I just want to know what I'm getting into, then I can decide if that is something that bothers me or not. It just seems that more and more is creeping in that we have to keep our eyes open for.

That's why it's so great that we recommend books. We let each other know when there should be a warning on something so we can make those informed decisions!

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The internet and fellow readers are very helpful for making informed decisions. Usually, just stopping by Amazon will tell you a lot. Often, certain subjects won't bother me if I'm expected them to be there, but I don't like unpleasant surprises, and Hush had a lot of them, considering I thought was reading a new version of a Norse fairytale.

I have noticed that some adult novels have content warnings these days, which I hope gets extended to YA.

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You know... Swearing is a funny issue. I'll be the first to admit that choice words do come out of my mouth in certain situations, but I still think such words need to be used delicately and responsibly. In fiction, swearing tells use that a character is rough and uses rough speech, so perhaps that was the author's intent. I understand that people swear in real life and we want our characters to be real, but personally, I prefer Megan's method of informing us Gen had a foul mouth. She simply told us he did, making the scene funny rather than nails-on-a-chalkboard grating due to the use of many words we do not use in front of our grandmothers. :)

There are certain uses of swearing, though, that I find completely repulsive and unrealistic. For example, the movie Wanted had a character using the f-word, just about every other word. Nobody in real life can get away with that, trust me! I've seen people try...

We really shouldn't need more than children, YA, and adult, but a similar system to what they use for music would be a good idea. Just a simple warning for explicit violence, language, and sexual content would make most of us happy campers indeed. It's required for FF. Why not published books?

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Plot drive is another reason, and is a good motive for writing content into your story. As an author, one needs to find a balance between two rules: (1) be a sadist and hurt your characters enough to let the audience see what they are made of and (2) be sensitive to your characters and your audience. I tried to do this when I wrote my own torture scene.

And throwing this in just for fun... Be aware that there is only so much your character can withstand before they and the reader go insane. Megan may have written a chapter of torture for QoA, but also she allowed her character a good quarter of the book to recover.

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Yay, I finally have time to come on here again! (Actually I don't, but I'm neglecting some of my Stats for this... *le sigh*)

1) Erm, no I didn't. I saw the "Flipped" movie though, and I thought it was pretty cute. Uhm, the thing is, I've had Chime and the second book of Stravaganza already on hold in the library by the time the long weekend rolled along, but they came quite late, and I decided I should postpone all leisure reading while I'm studying. I really wanted to read Chime though, since a lot of people has recommended it, and I want to see if I will like it too (plenty of times, I've hated books that others recommended wildly though).

Just as a response to the general discussion about YA (which to me is a LOT more interesting than the discussion I've been having in my English class at the moment), I have to say I really agree with what everyone has said so far. Personally, I would never read books that are graphically violent, sexually or not, beyond what's written on the back page summary. I've come close to reading "Poison Study" before, and I decided last minute that it was most likely going to be another one of those tragic teen love. Turns out it might not have been, but for the reasons ninedaysaqueen already stated, I don't think I'll ever pick it up again.

I guess what's difficult about saying that YA "shouldn't" have these graphic content is that it is actually very marketable. If teens don't like it and are as irked about it as I am, these books won't be flying off the shelves, and writers would tone it down a bit. But YA is becoming darker, riskier, more explicit because many readers like it that way. I don't know... that's just my little theory.

Personally, though many people might accuse me of "refusing to educate myself about the cruelties of the world", I like to stay away from books that have explicit torture, rape, or any other kinds of violence. I've heard the old argument that I cannot criticize books because of this sort of "content", since they happened plenty of times throughout the course of history and is still happening today. Okay, I get that, but just because it happens, there's no need to butcher a character. Distastefully too. And yeah, sure, 'taste' is a very subjective notion. So generally, I just stay away from books that I know will make me uncomfortable of offend me in some way, just to avoid having to rant about it.

There are many authors who have done justice to violent scenes, delivering their messages very well, without going overboard. We all know MWT is one of those, and I'd also recommend Juliet Marillier, who does a lot of fairy-tale rewrites (I'm such a fairy tale junkie!!!). All of her 'torture' scenes happen in one-sentence tellings, and the rest are described as minutely as possible, leaving a lot to the imagination. And what's more frightening to me actually is having to imagine what has happened, rather than knowing. So the effect is still concrete; just because details have been omitted, it doesn't mean that readers can no longer feel the pain, suffering and despair of a character who's gone through it.

Just as an example, there's the part in QoA where apparently Gen's been tortured by Relius. I took "question" quite literally, and I thought Relius just asked Gen some things, and once the theory of torture was brought up, I felt so sick about it for poor Gen. Not only because I liked Gen, but because by the time I read the scene in KoA, I've quite liked Relius too. If we had a torture scene with Relius and Gen in QoA, I would have been affected less, since it would seem less of a betrayal to me. I wouldn't have cared nit about Relius; he would have been the bad guy.

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I read "The False Princess" just a while ago also! It was very good. I liked it. I liked both Sinda and Keirnan (although neither are the most interesting leads I've read about before), but in general, I liked the book.

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Yes, I don't mind a little swearing, and MWT is such a genius in the way she can let you know your swearing without embarrasing you, and she is just a master of the english language. (I think I just like the reaction my dad had when I had to read the part about Costis' posterior. He thought it was histerical!)

Great Idea about the same requirements as FF. Just a quick note about what is coming. I think it's the coming out of nowhere that is the most annoying!

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Personally, though many people might accuse me of "refusing to educate myself about the cruelties of the world", I like to stay away from books that have explicit torture, rape, or any other kinds of violence. I've heard the old argument that I cannot criticize books because of this sort of "content", since they happened plenty of times throughout the course of history and is still happening today. Okay, I get that, but just because it happens, there's no need to butcher a character. Distastefully too. And yeah, sure, 'taste' is a very subjective notion. So generally, I just stay away from books that I know will make me uncomfortable of offend me in some way, just to avoid having to rant about it.

YES! YES! YES!!!!
If I want to hear about those things, all I've got to do is turn on the news. When I read, I want to escape, so I don't need to know gratuitous details about violence.

I guess what's difficult about saying that YA "shouldn't" have these graphic content is that it is actually very marketable. If teens don't like it and are as irked about it as I am, these books won't be flying off the shelves, and writers would tone it down a bit. But YA is becoming darker, riskier, more explicit because many readers like it that way. I don't know... that's just my little theory.

You're right, it is becoming more marketable to a certain segment of the population, but I think there is a smaller population that is annoyed at this. (Unfortunately, I rarely buy books, so I can't protest with my purchases) If a book wants to have these sorts of content, fine, I'm not going to police them, but I think they should be sold as Adult, becasue YA is such a broad genre, and there are many young YA readers who would have a difficult time with those books.

Thanks for responding!!

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hazelwillow.livejournal.com

1) Yes, actually! I read The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley (who was said to be like Mary Stewart), and I read The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff... both of them are about the Ninth legion! ;)

1) The first two-thirds of The Shadowy Horses was enjoyable. Gothic atmosphere, archeological mystery... it was good fun. The writing wasn't as sharp as Mary Stewart, but it was still fun. But the book totally fell apart in the last third. The ho-hum romance took over, making the archeology take back seat. I was mainly interested in the archeology, so it was very disappointing.

So, of course, I had to get out The Eagle of the Ninth to find out what "really" happened to the legendary legion. ;)

I fell in love! It was like one of those books that I should have fallen in love with as a child, kept in reserve all these years. I had to measure it out slowly like a precious substance... The only other Rosemary Sutcliff book I've read was Outcast, which I liked, but this was better. She certainly had an understanding of human relationships... Marcus and Esca! *clutches book to chest*

And of course it was fun coming across the ring, which is so familiar to me... even if it was discovered in backwards order!

3) The Eagle of the Ninth -- I already have!
Shadowy Horses -- no. I expect some of her other books are better, though.

4)I loved the part when Marcus is lying in bed dreading the following morning.... and a flood of light fills the door, and he has a visit from two friends...
I also loved the part when Esca appears in the middle of the night with a certain small animal, whose mouth is "full of daggers". Ahehe.
Also when a certain person is whistling at the end.

The Eagle of the Ninth reminded me a lot of Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy. So many similarities... not the least of which is the traveling eye-doctor disguise.

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hazelwillow.livejournal.com

Oh, I also read Kon-Tiki! (One good thing about graduating is you have time to read again!)

2) Kon-Tiki was great! I craved seafood for a week afterwards.

3) Oh course.

4) They had a stowaway crab named Johannes! This was obviously a highlight.

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And do remember, Gen stole one of Howl's lines!

What a lie that was.

Have you read the YA showdown (http://yafantasyshowdown.weebly.com/the-final-battle---howl-vs-eugenides.html)? Gen and Howl were the finalists!

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a certain small animal, whose mouth is "full of daggers". Ahehe.

When I read Eagle of the Ninth, Cub was my favorite charachter!

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I noticed that line when I was reading!

I saw the YA Showdown, but I didn't know who Howl was, so it didn't mean much to me at the time. Now I can see that they're a good match for each other!

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gkchesterton1.livejournal.com

I have read lots of books recommended by Sounis. I normally write down the ones that seem interesting and then check them out some more at Amazon. The Perilous Gard was the best recommendation that I have received here. I loved it. The Crowfield Curse, Chime, The Hollow Kingdom and Plain Kate are some others that come to mind that I liked. I was already in love with Rosemary Sutcliff and Diane Wynne Jones before, so there was nothing new. My favorite Rosemany Sutcliff is The Lantern Bearers, which is the third of the loosely connected series of which The Eagle of the Ninth is the first. The Miles Vorkosigan's series is one which I confess I did not like. I struggled through two books and didn't like either, but I don't usually like science fiction or romance so it had two strikes against it. I also did not like Terry Pratchett, but I don't remember why. I strongly dislike the girl warrior genre, especially when it is historically inaccurate, so I try to weed out those recommendations. I am thankful for everyones recommendations here.

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Me and my friend loved poison study. And valek.

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I love Valek too! Poison Study is a pretty awesome book, but it definitely belongs in the adult section. :)

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Marcus and Esca!!!!!!!!!!! They need more love.

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Er.... actually, I'd retract my recommendation for Juliet Marillier. I hadn't read "Daughter of the Forest" until now, which had a rather upsetting scene. =(

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It's always annoying when an author whose work you had been enjoying goes off the deep end - I know what that's like! Oh, well.

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