Been Awhile!

Hey, all you people out there in the blogosphere! It has been awhile and one of my beautiful redhead friends reprimanded me for not updating my blog. So here I am.

I have been in Pensacola, FL for training with the US Navy since October. In February I graduated from "A" school at the top of my class which awarded me accelerated advancement at my next command. On March 25 I graduated "C" school and got my orders to my next duty station which is:

SAN DIEGO!!!

I will be serving in the USS Higgins, a destroyer stationed in San Diego. This was exactly what I wanted, so it goes without saying that I am ecstatic!

Things I'm loving lately:

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: they sing "Thrift Shop" and "Same Love"
Cynthia Hand: Author of the Unearthly series
InstaGram/PicStitch/InstaQuote: Yup, I've become one of those people.
CrossFit: Not new. I've just been really getting into fitness and have some crazy goals. Well, others would think they're crazy. I think they're awesome.
Being in the Military: Basic sucked. Not gonna lie. And parts of "A" school sucked as well. But it is just getting better, and I'm getting into the swing of it. San Diego will be an awesome PCS. And I've found confidence that I didn't realize I was lacking.

Books I've Read:

This is kind of unfair, but I'm going to do quick book reviews to catch up and hopefully get back to being good at updating this.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn: One of the most messed up books I've read in a long time. Both the characters are just awful. I've never read a book that made me hate both protagonists. I don't even know if you could call them protagonists, but they're not antagonists either. However, Flynn is genius and her prose is spot-on and moody. I highly recommend it.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore: Totally a chick book. If you love sappy romance, you'll love this. I'm usually good with romance. I consider myself a hopeless romantic. But this was almost ridiculous. I kept expecting it to turn out to be a joke. But no. Cashore was serious. Also, if you like kick-ass heroines, this is great. But it wasn't my cup of tea. I recommend it for young teenage girls. Or fans of Twilight.

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh: Such an extraordinary and disturbing story of a young girl who learns how to love through the language of flowers. It explores several different types of relationships. The main character is hard to love at times, but it turns out to be all right. The language of flowers theme carries through the whole book and is interesting enough to keep you going. I recommend it to anyone who likes a thinking book with emotion.

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan: So fun! Loved it. Read it. That's all.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl: Pretty mundane in the writing. The movie made the characters come to life for me more than the books did. I'm not sure why that is happening so much lately. The story is fantastic though, so I would highly recommend it as a young adult novel to read. The love story is good and doesn't seem too forced, but it is also very undeveloped. Like, they fall in love for the sake of falling in love regardless of chemistry. In the movie, I understood the attraction. In the book...not so much.

Crewel by Gennifer Albin: An intriguing dystopian novel about Spinsters who can actually control the thread of life. The story line is creative and I liked that, but it doesn't get explained well enough. The main character is strong but her personality is too finicky. She's strong and makes quips at unexpected times and gets sheepish when it is more convenient for the story. Of course there's a love triangle and it is actually a good one. Somewhat. As far as triangles go. I'm thinking this love triangle business is tired. Let's try a love octagon for some real intrigue. Oh. And there was the agenda for gay and women's rights that rippled throughout the book. It was too obvious a schtick.

Sever by Lauren DeStefano: This woman is a genius. Her writing is impeccable. I just cannot get enough of her. This is the conclusion of the trilogy and it was sad to say good-bye to the characters. I take comfort knowing I can re-read and visit them again. The conclusion does not disappoint, but I don't think it's the best installment of the three books. As far as trilogies go, though, DeStefano managed not to drop the ball which seems to be the latest trend in YA books these days. I highly, highly recommend this series. It has a weird premise, but I love when authors are willing to stretch the boundaries, push the envelope a little. Go get it. Now.

Boundless by Cynthia Hand: Fantastic trilogy. Again, a third in a trio of books that I really loved. I was sad to say good-bye to these characters as well. Hand managed to, like DeStefano, not drop the ball on the third installment. The love triangle (another one) is still going strong, but you get the feeling throughout it all that you know how it will end up. There are beautiful scenes and humor and plenty of intense moments. When you go get Sever, go get this one too.

That catches you up to where I'm at right now. I don't get a whole lot of time to read and when I do finish a book I don't have a lot of time to sit and write a review, but I will stop making excuses and keep this thing up.

I'm leaving Pensacola on 03 April, going to Idaho, then reporting to San Diego in mid-April. I'm excited for my future and the great adventures the US Navy has ahead of me.

Fever

Woot Woot!

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago - surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous - and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion...by any means necessary.

In the sequel to Lauren DeStefano’s harrowing Wither, Rhine must decide if freedom is worth the price - now that she has more to lose than ever. (from Goodreads.com)

What I'm loving about DeStefano's series is that it is unlike anything else I've ever read. I try to compare it to other young adult fiction I've read recently and I can't do it. Sure, it's another dystopian novel, but so many of the other dystopian plots out there at least have a glimmer of hope to them. DeStefano has created a completely hopeless world filled with young people who see no reason to waste time because their lives are so short. While the premise might seem a little odd and somewhat romantic DeStefano manages to shed the gloom and doom on a world that is slowly dying like all of the characters. 

We find our lovebirds, Gabriel and Rhine, on the run only to get caught in a morbid, creepy scarlet district headed by an old woman referred to as Madame. This is just the first in a series of events that show a broken world that is darker than Rhine had remembered. Gabriel seems disappointed in the world void of holographs and beauty. 

The relationship between Gabriel and Rhine is beautiful. They have chemistry and love between them that DeStefano describes beautifully. While many young adult novels are utilizing the love triangle plot, DeStefano has not gone that route which is quite refreshing. Linden seemed to be a part of a love triangle in the first book, but I don't think Rhine loves him in the way that qualifies as competition to Gabriel. Here is yet another proof that DeStefano's series is going against the latest mold in young adult fiction. 

DeStefano's writing is superb. Her prose is pitch-perfect. While her characters are drugged or sick, the reader can feel the fever and the dreamlike state just through the words on the page. 

In Whither Rhine was strong and defiant, willful and quietly scheming. With this followup we find our heroine broken just like the world that surrounds her. She is disenchanted pretty quickly once she is captured by Madame. When she was a prisoner in Linden's mansion, she seemed larger than life, bigger and capable of escape even though her situation was so futile. When she was supposed to be free, she wasn't actually free, but she seemed smaller and more and more hopeless throughout this book. It is a story that is masterfully told and the reader is taken on a journey through a world of despair. 

In closing, DeStefano manages to use imagery to show this dying world. A ferris wheel at Madame's twisted carnival that still turns. A malformed child. Girls in the scarlet district stripped of their identities and assigned colors as their names. A broken pitcher used to become Rhine's only means of escape from Vaughn's iron grip. A fortune teller woman with tarot cards.

I look forward to DeStefano's final installment, Sever, so that I can see what happens to Rhine and Gabriel. Will she finally find her brother, Rowan? Will she discover what her parents were keeping from her and her twin? Will she be reunited with Gabriel? Will the world be cured from the virus? So many questions! I hope DeStefano answers them. And I also look forward to the other adventures she has in store for us. 

One opal cloudlet in an oval form

Reflects the rainbow of a thunderstorm

Which in a distant valley

has been staged--

For we are most artistically caged. 

--Vladimir Nabokov, "Pale Fire"

Wither

Woot! Woot!

 

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. 

 

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?
(from Amazon.com)

What I've been finding in the YA fiction world is a lot of dystopian premises. And the thing about it is it seems the plots just get weirder and weirder. This one took me awhile before I finally picked it up mostly because I was uncertain about the plot. Was it enticing because of its weirdness? Yes. That's why I bought the book. But I wasn't sure. Mostly because the main plot of the whole thing included a polygamist marriage. Seems like people are obsessed with polygamists these days and I've not been able to hop on that bandwagon.

DeStefano's writing rings clear as a bell. It is often poetic and quite often very symbolic and rigorous. I grew attached to the characters immediately. Rhine is a reliable heroine who is smart and quick on her feet. She doesn't do anything that makes me want to reach through the pages and strangle her. One thing I was unsure of was the attraction between her and Gabriel, but there was enough chemistry there that I accepted it for what it was.

The premise is odd. Let's go back to that. The virus isn't explained, and kind of glossed over, but I'm actually glad she didn't get into too much detail. Her whole dystopian world is built around the idea that men only live until they are 25 and women only until they're 20. This makes 13 year old girls into women in their prime. I really think DeStefano captured the significance and the impact that this whole virus would have on society. It's quite a mental shift as you read her book, but I really liked it.

And the whole sister wives and polygamist thing. While it was off-setting at first, I found that I really liked it. It would make sense in the setting and in the world that DeStefano has created that men would marry multiple wives in order to continue their progeny. I think, however, what really did it for me was the relationship between the three girls. Rhine seems to be the glue that holds them all together. I never really cared for Cecily. Jenna is a remarkable character who sits in the background but is the backbone of the story. I loved the dynamic between them and also their relationship with Linden. It became fascinating to me to see how it all unfolded. It is summed up near the end in the best way: "Jenna was the disposable one. Cecily was the baby factory. And I was to be the apple of his eye."

I just read another review on this book and, while this review is pretty surface level, the reviewer did mention something I found interesting. Linden is an interesting character. At first he seems to be the bad guy although I never really sensed the hostility or antagonism from him that I got from Vaughn. Sure, he's rich and snobbish. He's also a fragile character and I'm not sure why he's so...soft, but I do like the dynamic between him and Rhine. There is chemistry between them and she fights it because he is the one she's supposed to hate. Really it makes for a great love story. So it makes me wonder if Rhine only hates him for what he represents (slavery) and loves Gabriel for what he represents (freedom) or if she does, in fact, love both of them in her own way.

This book has it all: romance, intrigue, action, people-killing virus, under-handed rich people, fantastic illusions, and beautiful writing. The subject matter is a little more mature so I wouldn't recommend it for younger readers who aren't able to understand/comprehend/deal with these things in a more serious fashion.