Scarlet; Cress by Marissa Meyer // Also, Character Quizzes can be Lame

You may remember that a while ago I did a combined post on Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo.

I thought I'd do one on Scarlet and Cress as well!

First off: my most favorite thing about these two books (and this series as a whole) has to do with - predictably for me - characters. I love the idea of a new main character per book. That way, the books are distinct, yet connected - and I can keep track of them better in my own head. Too often, the books of a series blur in my mind, and I won't be able to tell you which book a certain scene happened in. (Some prime examples: The Hunger Games, Divergent, and even The Grisha Trilogy a bit - though that last one has a three books, three amplifiers thing going that helps.)

But with the Lunar Chronicles, I'm able to associate a book to a character, and so I remember the details of the story better. It's fantastic!

Continuing on with character-awesomeness: all three characters so far have been strong women with distinct and individual characteristics - and none of them fell into the trap of becoming Strong Female Leads. We have defined characters that are all the heroines of their own stories. Can I tell you how much I ADORE this? SO MUCH LOVE.

On a side note - out of the three girls, I think Cinder is the most similar to me. (Though there might be a drop of Cress in there too.) I wonder if there's a quiz for this. :-)

Update: Of course there are quizzes for this. According to one I'm Cinder. According to another I'm Thorne. Which is just SO WRONG on so many levels. I give up - these quizzes are all superficial.
"What color is your hair?" Seriously?

Also, as different as the (so-far) three main ladies are from each other, their love interests are just as different. The characters in this book are so distinct and unique.

I'm so excited to see what happens with Winter, the fourth and final book in the series. We've had a glimpse of Winter's character, but so far she seems defined by her oddities and quirks. I'm looking forward to seeing how she develops!

Gosh, I haven't even talked about the science and stuff. The fact that Cress is a programmer makes me super happy for some reason. I love that she is so skilled.

Have you read the Lunar Chronicles? What did you think? And - just for fun - which character do you think you are most similar to?

~Sophia

PS I also found the perfect magazine for Wolf (a character from the series). You'd get it if you've read the books:

Yes, I'm Still Alive!

Alive, but swamped in essays and math homework...

I've practically disappeared from the blog for - how long has it been? - 9 days! What.

School has taken over my life, and I really am looking forward to finally feeling settled into college life and my schedule. (Is that a vain hope?)

Ideally, I'll get a combo-review of Scarlet and Cress by Marissa Meyer up tomorrow, and one of The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater next week. (This may also be a vain hope.)

And then there's the Notebook Sisters' Beautiful People feature. We're doing villains this month, so you're (hopefully) going to get a second post on da Vale. How exciting! I really want to get to that.

And there are some more exciting memes that I want to do, but time is short...

If nothing else, you will get a bombardment in two weeks of me posting about university etc: I'm doing a feature with Skylar @ Life of a Random called Freshmen Assemble: Bloggers Taking On College.

And if you really want to chat with me more consistently (I'd love to chat with you!), follow me on Twitter. I follow back every single book blogger or reader that follows me. And I'm there daily, basically. 140 characters is much more manageable than a blog post. :-)

With luck, I'll see you round here tomorrow.

~Sophia

P.S. Apologies to any blogs that I have neglected for the past couple weeks. Be warned: you will probably get a good bunch of comments from me in October on month old posts! :-)

Happy Birthday, Leo Tolstoy!

Today Leo Tolstoy celebrates his 186th birthday! How exciting!

The only work of his that I've read is War and Peace - but goodness, it was excellent. Tough, long, and full of philosophizing, but excellent. 

(Note: most classic Russian authors write books that are tough, long, and full of philosophizing.)

Tolstoy is such a genius. The way he creates his characters and weaves them through his story makes reading his work a memorable and affecting experience. I need to read more of his work, and I probably should reread War and Peace. It's been a while. :)

So. If you feel like reading my post on War and Peace, you can. Also, check out today's cool Google doodle in honor of Tolstoy. It's gorgeous!

~Sophia

Why I Love the Raven Cycle and Thus Desire an ARC of Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Maggie Stiefvater is giving away a bunch of copies of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, and the way to win is to write (blog, tweet, post, status update) about one reason why you enjoyed reading the Raven Cycle.

The giveaway is open for ONE DAY ONLY.

So here I am writing about my love of these books when I should be getting ready for school tomorrow. 

 If you've been following my blog for the last few months at least, you'll know that there are many reasons why the Raven Cycle fascinates me: the fresh writing style, the distinct characters, the well-structured plot. But I'm supposed to only write about one reason, so I'm going to be a good little girl and follow the rules here. And for that, I'm going to choose:

Why I love the Raven Cycle: The Characters are fantastically real and distinct from one another. And I ADORE that.

Another thing you probably know (or have had shoved down your throat) if you know me is that the main criteria for me to like a book is for the characters to be excellent. The Raven Cycle fulfills this marvelously and so places itself on my Top Books of 2014 list. (That list is only in my head as of now.)

Why are the Raven Cycle characters so great? Here are some reasons:

1. No one can be mistaken for anyone else. When it's Gansey's POV, we know its Gansey's POV. When it's Blue's POV, we know that too. And when it's Ronan's POV, we definitely know it's Ronan. :-) There's no confusion. It all works.

2. There are five main characters but it's not overwhelming. Any author who can pull this off has my highest respect. This means that all the characters are distinctly Themselves, and so they are realistic. They aren't flat.

3. All characters have a backstory. Even the side ones. In the Raven Cycle, you can't trust a side character not to become a supporting character, since they're all so robustly characterized. (That sounds weird but you know what I mean.) For example, I loved that all the ladies at Blue's house have their own personalities and backstories. Who knew that Persephone would become such a Main Thing in Dream Thieves? 

I realize now that these three points are just three different ways of saying the same thing. Maggie's characters seem to just be plucked out of reality. They all have a three-dimensionality to them, whether they are leading or supporting; they all can be the main characters of their own story.

The more three-dimensional the characters are, the better I can "loose" myself in a book. And the better I can loose myself, the more I like it. 

Given this reasoning, it is of little surprise that I love the Raven Cycle so much! I'm so excited to see where my beloved characters will go in Blue Lily, Lily Blue.

~Sophia

Update: I didn't win, sadly. But I still consider this a fine post on The Raven Cycle, and maybe it makes up a bit for my teeny tiny review of The Dream Thieves. 

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater // Not Much of a Post

Summary

Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. 

Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. 

Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after...

(Read my post on The Raven Boys.)

I have tried, and tried, and TRIED to write a post on The Dream Thieves. This is all I could write:

You may remember that in my post on The Raven Boys, I wrote how much I LOVED that there were five main characters, and how distinctly they were each characterized. Well, The Dream Thieves shows what that sort of potential can lead to. I'd say Raven Boys was more about Blue and Gansey and Adam, and Ronan was just a confusing friend. But NOW - The Dream Thieves gives us Ronan in all his amazing, troubled, strange glory, and I love it.

I couldn't think of how to continue. I wrote and deleted and walked away and came back and tried again. And finally I came to the conclusion that it is one of those books that demands to be left un-analyzed, un-pondered, and un-probed. So I am going to leave it in my head in all its glory, and not box it into the structure of a written post. Because it demands to be left un-boxed.

In related news, October and Blue Lily, Lily Blue cannot come soon enough!

Let me know your thoughts on The Dream Thieves and on the series as a whole in the comments - remember to warn spoilers!

~Sophia

Siege and Storm; Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo // My Grandma is Genya

     

Because I read these one after the other, I thought I'd do a combined post.

Can I repeat what gets me so excited about these books? I know I said it (and said it and said it) in my review of Shadow and Bone but:

SLAVIC FANTASY, PEOPLE!

*dances a little dance of glee*

I need more of this. Someone needs to write more slavic fantasy (and not just me). I just looked up "Slavic Fantasy" on Goodreads and there are literally seventeen books shelved under that genre. SEVENTEEN! And seven of them aren't even in English! That means TEN books for us to partake of. Pitiful.
(By the way, the Grisha Trilogy wasn't on there. Shame.)

Apparently, The Ultimate Slavic Fantasy Book is called The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. Perhaps I should read it.

Anyway, my point is that we need to get more people writing Slavic fantasy. Yes or yes?

So, the fact that Bardugo, with no Slavic background herself, writes such a fantastic trilogy - highly commendable.

And not only does she provide the true feel of Slavic folklore, but also - the story is darn good too!

Let's talk characters again.

The Darkling has become SUCH a well rounded villain. You know what's a sign of a good villain? It's when he thinks that he isn't evil, he thinks that he is good, he's doing the right thing.
You, as the reader, of course, know that he's doing the wrong thing. But in his twisted mind, he can't see that. It makes him so REAL.

Do you know what the biggest debate in Psychology is? (Once you take Psy 101, you're never the same.) It's Nature vs. Nurture. Basically, the question is: what influences us more to become who we are? Is it inborn in our genes? (That's Nature.) Or is it our surroundings as we grow up? (That's Nurture.)
My opinion (because obviously I have a huge voice in the Psychological Department of the World) is that it's a little of both. There's a part of our personality that we're born with, but the other part is molded by the people around us, and our situation in life.

Who the Darkling became is so obviously a result of the Nurture side of things.

His history is so knotted, so tangled, so shadowed, it's not at all surprising that he came out with his morals a bit on the wrong side.

What is interesting about this book is that it's sort of a love-quadrangle, which I haven't encountered before (except for perhaps Shakespeare's Twelfth Night - now that was some love-quadrangle!)
We have the dark, bad boy. We have the sincere, full-hearted boy (Mal - who still wins, in my book).
And we have - well, something in between.
Nicolai is a flippant, jokey sort of fellow, who has never known a day of his life when things didn't go his way. But there's a deeper side to him that gets revealed as the story progresses - one that has some of Mal's beautiful kindness, but one that lack's Mal's humility. Mal has a certain sort of pride, but it's not the obvious kind. Nicolai's pride is obvious and pervading. It's not a bad thing, but it's not a good thing either - pride can be a virtue and a vice at the same time.

As I said, though, Mal wins in my book. He has a purity and goodness that will always send a character into my Fictional Crushes list. I will consistently fall for the good boys. Without fail. (Ahem, Peeta?)

DO YOU REALIZE WHAT MAL DID FOR ALINA? How can you not love him? When you get a guy who is that devoted to you, you don't let him go.

Talking about that - wow what a twist! I was so ready for it to go according to plan (three books, three amplifiers, the fairy-tale formula, and all comes out dandy).
But then Bardugo threw in such an epic twist in Ruin and Rising, and the whole fairy-tale formula fell on its head.

Mindblown.

This ending was quite an epic ending, as endings go.

Oh and if you were wondering about the title of my post, my grandmother both is and isn't Genya. She obviously isn't the character Genya from the books (another spectacular character, by the way. Ugh, just marvelous!). But my grandma's name is, in fact, Genya. Her first name is Eugenia, which in Ukrainian is Evgenia, which shortens to the nickname Genya. It's sort of the Slavic equivalent of Jean.

Cool, huh? :-)

Have you read the Grisha Trilogy? What did you think of that ending? And which (if any) of the three fellows lands on your Fictional Crushes list? If you're into guys, that is.
Spoilers welcome in the comments, just warn ahead of time.

~Sophia

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters at my Lunch Table

As always, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

Today's topic is Top Ten Book Characters That Would Be Sitting At My Lunch Table (like at school).
I've never sat at a lunch table at school. I, as a lucky homeschooler, would eat lunch outside on the porch (on nice days), and inside at the kitchen counter during colder weather. My company would usually be my sister and possibly my parents, but some of the time it would be just me with my book. 

But. If I did go to some wonderful school in Bookworld (a school for all ages, of course), who would be sitting at my table? 
This list is a mixture of book characters who probably would actually be my friends given our respective personalities, as well as characters whom I would like to have as friends, but are probably way too cool to sit at my table. :-)

(A while ago, I did a TTT about characters whom I would LOVE to have as friends. This is slightly different, somehow in my mind. But it definitely overlaps.)

1. Elinor Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.
Elinor is the one Austen heroine I most relate to. I would love to have her as a friend.

2. Thursday Next from The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.
Such a cool, bookish lady! I love her so much.

3. Charles Bingley from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Party time!

4. Prince Nicolai from The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo.
So this is obviously one of those characters that would totally not be sitting at my table because he's just way too cool. He'd also probably be surrounded by a gaggle of girls. But still.
He and Bingley would make certain that there never was a dull moment! Oh, we'd have such fun together!

5. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. 
I utterly ADORE her. We would be SUCH friends.

6. Hermione from Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling.
Booknerds ftw! Actually I'm noticing a couple book nerds on this list... :-)

7. Blue from The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater.
And Gansey would totally be welcome to sit with us too. Oh and Noah of course. (Love that kid.) And Adam. And now that everyone else is at the table, Ronan would probably not be too far behind.
Ronan would be at my table because everyone else is. But as much as I like him as a character, I really can't see him being my actual friend. Not very many people other than Gansey can, I think.

8. Cinder from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer.
Out of all the awesome characters from the Lunar Chronicles, I think Cinder would be the most likely to find her way to my friend group. She's quiet, practical, and sensible enough that I think we would get along marvelously.
(And if Iko cares to hang out with us, she's totally welcome. I have a feeling she might fall in love with Nicolai!)

9. Melanie from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Oh, Melanie. How honored I would be to have her as my friend.

10. Lucy Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. 
Lucy is such a decent, kind person, with a sweet, sweet heart. I have a feeling she and Melanie would get along marvelously!

What about you? Who would be sitting at your lunch table?

~Sophia