Revisit! Nine years later... Graceling by Kristin Cashore [Book Review]

I've been a reader for a very long time, and as such, I often find myself remembering titles that I read years prior. What often happens with me is I remember liking a book but beyond that I remember NOTHING else.

I've recently come across a new favorite app (guys, apps weren't even really a thing when I first started this Blog -- how times have changed) called SCRIBD which has a wonderful selection of audio books.

Graceling was amongst the audiobook selection so I decided to feast on the memories of years prior and OH was it a wonderful feast.

Here is my review of Graceling, (nearly) ten years later, nine years older, nine years wiser.

Graceling 

Kristin Cashore

Length- 512 pages

Publisher: HMH for Young Readers

Publication Date: September 07, 2009

Graceling tells the story of the vulnerable-yet-strong Katsa, who is smart and beautiful and lives in the Seven Kingdoms where selected people are born with a Grace, a special talent that can be anything at all. Katsa’s Grace is killing. As the king’s niece, she is forced to use her extreme skills as his brutal enforcer. Until the day she meets Prince Po, who is Graced with combat skills, and Katsa’s life begins to change. She never expects to become Po’s friend. She never expects to learn a new truth about her own Grace—or about a terrible secret that lies hidden far away . . . a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.

_________________________________________________________________________

After the first time I read Graceling I remember thinking to myself that this book, more than any I had read prior, was truly epic fantasy... at least in the young adult genre.

Graceling is fantasy done right -- the world feels large and all encompassing. The story is gripping and while in the world I found myself truly in her world and fully entranced by the story.

Some fantasies lead me to eye rolling when the plot becomes too convenient, but with Graceling this was not the case.

We begin the story with Katsa showing her colors, and one thing I truly loved about Katsa is the fact her imperfections are not hidden. She's a killer. She's killed many, many people and this has led her character to be different than the typical YA heroine.

The idea of Graces was a nice addition to the plot line and it made sense to the world, and I especially loved that the author did not use a blanket opinion of Graces the same for every land or culture. While this world is incredibly large, we also find out that different members of it see the Graced differently.

The relationship between Katsa and Po was slow building making it feel more genuine.

If I were to have a complaint -- it would be only that the end in some ways did feel rushed. For such a long story the end and completion seemed to come quickly and end swiftly. There was very little finality with the end which did leave me ever so slightly dissatisfied.

All in all, nine years later I agree with my previous rating of 5/5.

The Weekly Write: I Need YOU! [1]

The Weekly Write is a feature where I discuss all of my writing hopes, dreams, and fails. Feel free to join me! I love to hear what everyone is doing! 

I have attempted to do The Weekly Write once before but life got in the way. 

I say, no more. 

I need your help, guys. 

I need you to keep me inspired and keep me motivated to finish all of the projects instead of thinking about them constantly and feeling like a failure. 

I often feel conflicted when discussing my writing life. For years when people would ask me what I wanted to be when I "grew up" I would always say anything but "a writer." 

The word itself sounds scary. It feels scary. And most people don't understand. 

The truth is that my entire life I do not remember a time when "a writer" wasn't what I wanted to be. I would sit for hours and write words over and over agin, or copy chapters of Harry Potter because I just liked it and I didn't think anything I said or wrote would ever top it. (Let's be legit, THAT is still true). 

Looking back on it I was constantly heading towards one goal, and I would like other to join me as I try to make "it" happen. 

Let's talk about writing! Let's talk about reading writing! 

Let's encourage each other and try to make "it" happen for all us - whatever your "it" may be. 

Here are my weekly stats: 

Total word count: 40,082

Hours spent: 5

Words added: 4,322

Dream goal for next week: 50,000 (HA!) 

Realistic goal for next week: 46,000

So, all in all - not the best week. I also did get Scrivener which has been a large help with formatting and just separating my thoughts into tangible things. 

The truth is, this book may really suck - but I'm finishing it for me. 

This is The Weekly Write, and if you would like to join in, just leave a comment with your post or we can just talk about it there. I will be on Twitter as well where I will be hash-tagging my writing woes. 

We can get through this together. 

And I really want some company doing it. 

The Weekly Write [2]

This week on The Weekly Write we get to talk about how terrible things go when I make goals.

I have created a bullet style list so you can all view my failure:

• I didn't write hardly anything.          

 I did write things, so it isn't a complete failure, but my word count for a while was lower than when I began. Why is this? Because the editing monster got me.

I started by reading my contemporary, and I just started cutting paragraphs and rephrasing. Before I knew what happened, I was on page fifty and I was ready to add more content.

I feel a lot better about this work in progress than I did last week. I have become acquainted with it again. It's like meeting an old friend you haven't seen in a while. After all, I gave it a year of distance.

I remember what made me excited in the beginning, which has to be good.

I have decided that I am going to focus on the contemporary and my goal is to complete it by the beginning of September... if the editing bug doesn't get me again.

My question though is how bad can a rough draft be? I see holes. Huge holes and I just want to fill them all in and put a ribbon on them so I can continue, but I know I should write more before I lose the will power.

I don't care who you are, deleting ten pages of a manuscript sucks. Watching your word count diminish really sucks.

I'm having issues with when to keep going back and when to go forward. Anyone else feel really weird in the middle? I've realized problems, am trying to fix them as best I can, but I'm stuck between getting everything written and fixing this darn first half.

Any advice?

Contemporary WIP- 
Word Count- 31940
Pages- 109
Editing- Tons. It's a love hate relationship at this point.
Progress? - Meh. 

The Weekly Write [1]

Anyone else have multiple partially finished manuscripts just sitting there? You see them in your documents and they taunt you. You think, "I'll finish that soon" or "I will edit that later, just as soon as I find the time..."

In my experience, the time never finds you. It never presents itself, you have to go out and take it.

This is my way of going out and taking it.

I don't know if anyone is interested in doing this with me, but I am making a pledge, a pact, a promise or whatever you want to call it, to have something new written and revised every Monday.

I will be keeping up with my weekly updates here.

If you want to write, or have a project that needs working on let me know and I may consider making this a meme, but for now at least I will be doing it.

I would love to know what you guys think!

Week One: 

Last night I realized that I had a 110 paged draft, and a 56 page draft - both for two entirely different stories. Of course I knew I had them, but it wasn't something I actively think about.

Both of these stories I started enthusiastically. I was pumped and excited and I thought to myself, "Yes, I have finally found the one!" 

I have a curse - I get excited. An idea pops into my head and before I know it, I am ten pages in with nowhere to go.

It's moments like this that I realize I don't have the whole "writing process" thing down. I get lost somewhere in the middle and I take time to figure it out instead of just carrying on. That is probably the biggest thing I need to change.

It's just, my entire life I have wanted to write. In my head writing real books with real pages (Gatsby reference anyone?) is the ultimate dream. 

You hear all of this advice on writing and for me, I think while some of it is inspiring, some of it leaves me utterly confused. I'm always waiting for the right idea. I get what I think might be the right idea, just to get lost somewhere in between. It's a struggle, and it's real.

Both of these stories I started years ago, therefore I think editing needs to be done just to get me back where I need to be. My goal is to finish editing, and write enough to get me really going again this next week. 

Novel 1 Stats: (Contemporary)
32,341 words - Goal for next week - 40,000
110 pages
3 pages edited

Novel 2 Stats: (Fantasy)
19,976 words - Goal for next week - 30,000
56 pages
0 pages edited

I'm on summer break. It has to happen... right?

The Weekly Write [1]

This is a brand new thing that I will be doing every Monday, since I have recently decided to take my writing seriously I need to keep track of it somehow. :)

For one day a week I will consider myself a writer, and I will share with you whatever I have discovered on the writerly journey so far.

This week was extremely hectic because I was out of town for Thanksgiving and I had a ton of school work to do, of course this didn't stop this editing craziness...

This is the crazy that has been my life this past week. I have been editing the partial draft like crazy, which means that I have just been going through and adding description because apparently my first draft brain hates description.

I found gems like this while going through and the question was raised, what was I thinking?

As I was editing, I made the mistake of going back through and reading my edits which resulted in me editing my edits. :(

I haven't finished the first 100 pages yet, and this week is known as Hell week at my college so it may be another hectic week, but I know that editing is a completely different game than writing.

I actually find it interesting how my vision is the same, and what I wrote and what I wanted to write in edits matched perfectly. Because of the break and the editing I have done so far, I really think I know exactly where I'm going.

I actually had a brain blast the other day where I realized something about the plot that was obvious, but I'd just never noticed it before. I'm excited to get back. My goal is to have it all done by January 1st and to have critique partners reading it the 2nd. :)

Writing and me.

I am on my high school's newspaper staff and being such I am expected to write articles (obviously) but this is not the problem - since being on the newspaper staff I have discovered how much I absolutely HATE journalistic writing.

I adore writing, I'm working on a book myself, but journalistic writing absolutely drives me insane. My very first story I turned in to the newspaper I got in trouble because it read too much like fiction (which I honestly kind of take as a compliment) but it's just so boring. I hate writing facts, and just facts. Granted I did not stretch the truth but I used words such as buzzing and added description... which I knew was a no no, but in my defense it sounded a whole lot better!

Ugh, I'm just greatly saddened by this. I can't stand this writing style and I have written alot of articles now and it does not get any easier. It just bugs me. I thought that I would be just like Rory Gilmore and discover a love of journalism and go on to Yale and love all things newspaper (the Girlmore Girls lover in me told me so!) I just don't know what I'm going to do about all of this.

Anyone have any secrets for journalistic writing? I took journalism last year so I know about the craft... I'm just no good at it. *sigh* oh well.

I guess we'll see how this semester goes. It's not that my articles sound bad, they just aren't what I want and they are quite difficult to write. hmm We'll just have to see.

-Christina :D

P.S. No In my mailbox this week because I didn't get any actual books - but I did get some swag which I will show you this Sunday!

The Pursuit of Happiness by: Tara Altebrando

The Pursuit of Happiness

by: Tara Altebrando

From Amazon:

Dressing up as an eighteenth century farm girl is not how Betsy Odell imagined spending the summer before her senior year of high school, but her history professor father insists she take a job at Morrisville Historic Village. To make matters worse, Liza Murphy, only the biggest freak from school -- piercings, tattoos, bleached hair -- works as a farm girl too. As far as Betsy can tell, her summer will be miserable and any chance of ever being popular is doomed.
When tragedy strikes Betsy close to home, her boyfriend and 'friends' are nowhere to be found, and her job becomes a welcome escape from the real world. James, a Morrisville employee from the next town over, is probably the greatest -- not to mention cutest -- guy Betsy has ever met, and Liza is surprisingly normal and fun. Caught between two worlds -- old and new -- Betsy is soon struggling with two versions of herself. Combining backdrops of historic Morrisville with the normal teenage world of beach parties, learning to drive, and broken hearts, Tara Altebrando writes a hilarious and fun novel of one girl's search for love and happiness?and the unlikely places she finds them.

From Me:

Okay - let me just say it. I am a history junkie. Everything history related immediately enthralls me, and this book was no exception.

I read it because it's about a girl with my dream job. For years I have longed to actually go and work at say, Mount Vernon (this place is actually doable considering my great-grandmother lives on a portion of the land.)

This has always been a dream - call me a loser, at least I'm an honest one.

So I read it because of this reason, but I was not dissapointed at all.

It's about a girl named Betsy who's mother has recently died. It's about her struggle for normalcy afterward, from getting rid of her no good boyfriend to accepting other people for who they are, and not who they seem to be.

She learns so much about herself in this book its crazy. We literaly watch her transform from sad and timid, to strong and accepting.

Seeing this process is what I mainly adore about this book - actually feeling part of her transformation, and seeing who she becomes was just great and had me smiling when I put it down. She learns to put her pain into outlets - like art. Which is exactly what she does.

And then there's James. James James James. He is a really great character, not only does he love history, and help Betsy along the way, but he likes to carve cute things out of wood :]

He's one of my favorite leading "Men."

This book gets a 10 because it's great. I would recommend it to anyone.

*Review by Christina

Bloom by: Elizabeth Scott

Alright guys so here's another post today! geez I'm on a roll. haha. Please leave a comment if you have anything you'd like to say or add to this. And also if you were a follower you would make my day :]

Bloom
by: Elizabeth Scott

In a style reminiscent of the work of Sarah Dessen and Deb Caletti, Scott tells the story of Lauren, a not-so-popular high school junior who is dating the secretly celibate most popular boy in school. Without warning, Evan, the loner son of her distant father's former live-in girlfriend, returns to town and stirs up confusing emotions for Lauren, who once believed that a popular boyfriend was all she needed to secure happiness. Soon, she invents extra band-practice time as an excuse to avoid her boyfriend, her super-stressed best friend, and her empty house, and spends more time with the decidedly not celibate Evan. While the setup is fairly standard fare for YA romances, Lauren's inner conflict over her affair with Evan, and the various lies surrounding it, rings true, and the novel has enough drama to keep readers interested.—Sarah Krygier, Solano County Library, Fairfield, CA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

This book surpassed all of my expectations. I opened it and then it seemed like only two minutes later I was closing it up again - not because it's short but because I was so enthralled with the story, so caught up in the stories reality that I couldn't think of anything else.
We have Lauren who makes okay grades, and is the all american girl plus she has a heart throb for a boyfriend, but she's not happy. So in walks Evan Kirkland who she hasn't seen since she was a child, who's mother actually dated her father and from the moment he steps back into her life nothing is the same.

Suddenly the only true happiness she finds is with him, but what about her loyal boyfriend? What happens when he starts wanting a future that she can't give, Who does she choose?

This book as I said went above and beyond all I expected. I never wanted it to end...but then it did. It dealt with things I didnt expect and took the story to a completely different level then most Young Adult books tend to. This isn't the kiddy version of a love story where everything is perfect - and that doesn't mean there's anything "bad" in the book but it takes the relationship to another level, and makes it real. They both have flaws...but it adds to the appeal.

But I must say this book doesn't have many flaws and its a grade A book with a grade A story. Anyone who loves love stories must read this remarkable story.
This book is available at al major booksellers and Amazon.com :]

*Reviewed by CHRISTINA :]

Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen. :P

Keeping The Moon
by : Sarah Dessen

This book is one of Sarah Dessen's best, and that is saying something. Sarah Dessen is a very popular writer for Teen's and this one deals with subjects that are no less pressing, or

entertaining then her other's.

Keeping The Moon is the story of Colie, who has a image problem.
She is the daughter of a recent Exercise enthusiast (seriously...she's famous) and is struggling to switch her lifestyle, from that of an overweight girl living with her ecentric overweight mother, to the new thin Colie who's mother is famous for her weight loss.

So what happens? Her mother goes on a tour and she must go live with her Aunt Mira who is just as ecentric as her mom, but is someone totally different as well. She doesn't care what other's think of her and doesn't let rumors bother her.

So Colie gets a job working at the last Chance Cafe where she gets to know Norman, the artist/cook/her aunt's tenant. She comes into herself here, learning how to truly become herself and to live her life without worry of other's oppions.

This book by Sarah Dessen is special. I don't know why but this one was special to me. The story of Colie and her struggle with self-esteem helped me with my own struggle with this very issue.
This is something most teenagers deal with and I couldn't think of any book that sums it up better. 10.

This book can be found at Books-A-Million, Borders, Barnes and Noble, pretty much any book store you can think of, and of course...Amazon.com :]

Reviewed by CHRISTINA :]