Book Review: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

Title: Paranormalcy
Author: Kiersten White
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: 08/31/2010
ISBN: 0061985848








If you love books along the lines of My Soul to Take then odds are that you'll love this new trilogy started by Kiersten White. It's got all of the stuff that UF YA is known for but also manages to give us something rare: an "awkward" pretty main character that is not only likable, but incredibly vulnerable as well.

Evie's always been different. Unlike other girls her age, she's got the power to see through any glamour & uses that skill to her best extent in her job at the International Paranormal Containment Agency (IPCA). Evie helps to trap & contain things that humanity is best not being aware of. The good part is that she gets her own pink sparkly taser. The bad part is that what makes her special also separates her from everyone else in the world. When she captures a strange boy rifling through her boss's office & discovers that something sinister is afoot, can Evie manage to find out what is going on?

I really did enjoy this book. It's a great start to a trilogy & you can tell that White has done some incredible plotting for this series. Evie is someone that just about every reader can relate to & root for. Also interesting is the two main guys in her life- one of which is a fairy intent on making her a possession & a boy that Evie finds herself quickly falling for. While I'm sure that the future books will help elaborate on both characters, it's refreshing to have the dynamics that are in this first book. (I won't spoil it for you, but needless to say there's no flip flopping between the guys in this book.)

The only downfall is that we're given far too little information on certain aspects of Evie's world (her friendships, IPCA, etc) & I can't help but really wish that White had given us a little more to start off with. I'm sure that these things will be elaborated on in the future, but it still doesn't help define IPCA & other aspects of this book.

Overall though this was an enjoyable first book & I'll be keeping my eyes open for the next one in the series.

James Frey & the Young Adult Fiction Factory

Want to get into YA writing? More importantly, do you want to write things that are meaningful for you & possibly the reader? Well, then don't sign up with James Frey or his company Full Fathom Five.

Everyone's heard of James Frey via his now infamous "biography" that never happened. Now Frey is back in the media & just like last time it's not for anything good. Recently Frey has come under fire for hiring hopeful authors in search of a break, then giving them one of the worst gigs ever.

In what is quite possibly his sleaziest move yet, Frey hires these authors (most of whom might be unaware of what they're getting themselves into), pays them a pittance to churn out books- books they don't even have any rights to. I'm not talking about some newbie coming on to help write the new Fear Street book or something along these lines. Nope, this is about some newbie coming on & writing their own original stories & characters, then losing all right to said stories & characters because under the agreement it belongs to James Frey's company.

I'm going to quote NY Magazine on this:

"Veteran publishing attorney Conrad Rippy said he had never seen anything like it:

It’s an agreement that says, “You’re going to write for me. I’m going to own it. I may or may not give you credit. If there is more than one book in the series, you are on the hook to write those too, for the exact same terms, but I don’t have to use you. In exchange for this, I’m going to pay you 40 percent of some amount you can’t verify — there’s no audit provision — and after the deduction of a whole bunch of expenses.”"

I can only hope that no new authors sign onto this company.

First chapters of Melissa Marr's Darkest Mercy!

Hi all! I've been procrastinating in posting this, but if you're a huge fan of Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely series then you'll be excited to know that she's allowing us to have a sneak peek of the prologue as well as the first few chapters!

If you're longing for an ARC of this book, Marr also has a few options for you on her website as well. I know I've entered to win a copy, so why not you as well?

Book Review: No One Lives Twice by Julie Moffett

Title: No One Lives Twice (Lexi Carmichael #1)
Author: Julie Moffett
Publisher: Carina Press
Release Date: 08/16/2010
eISBN: 9781426890499







Longing for a bit of the old James Bond type thrillers? Want something with a little chase to it? Would you like to see a geeky girl on the run to stop the bad guys? If you answered yes to any of those three questions then you'll probably like this book.

I'm Lexi Carmichael, geek extraordinaire. I spend my days stopping computer hackers at the National Security Agency. My nights? Those I spend avoiding my mother and eating cereal for dinner. Even though I work for a top-secret agency, I've never been in an exciting car chase, sipped a stirred (not shaken) martini, or shot a poison dart from an umbrella.

Until today, that is, when two gun-toting thugs popped up in my life and my best friend disappeared. So, I've enlisted the help of the Zimmerman twins—the reclusive architects of America's most sensitive electronic networks—to help me navigate a bewildering maze of leads to find her.

Along the way, my path collides with a sexy government agent and a rich, handsome lawyer, both of whom seem to have the hots for me. Hacking, espionage, sexy spy-men—it's a geek girl's dream come true. If it weren't for those gun-toting thugs...

Readers of romance & fans of books similar to The Givenchy Code will enjoy this book. (It's not identical to TGC, but similar enough to where it reminded me a little of it.) Lexie Carmichael isn't the brightest computer geek out there, but she does have a lot of heart & determination to her that will endear her to most readers. You'll also love the variety of men in the series. It's pretty easy to determine who the main players are for Lexie's heart, though. Even so, the book is easy to read & the story's twist (which I'll admit I didn't entirely see coming) makes this a pretty fun read overall.

The only drawback? Well... for a girl that's supposedly smart enough to get into the NSA for her hacking skills, Lexie doesn't really show them off that much in this book. That might change in the next few books, but for right now we the only "hacking" we see Lexie doing is her talking to a supposed hacker in the beginning of the book. She's also not exactly savvy when it comes to avoiding stupid actions, but at least Moffett has Lexie calling herself out on this at various points in the book.

Overall though, this is a pretty enjoyable read. It's a nice fluffy story that will be sure to please romance fans looking for something with a little thrill to it. I have to admit that it was better than I was initially expecting it to be & I'm curious enough to read the next book in the series.

(ARC provided by NetGalley)

Chapter 1 of The Lying Game is currently being tweeted!!

I'm so excited! I'm not sure if I can post the tweets here, so I'm including this widget that goes directly to Shepard's twitter account. I'm going to e-mail the company & ask if I can post them here in a non-twitter format. (Better to be safe than sued relentlessly!)

And of course you can always read the prologue here, courtesy of prettylittleliars.com!

All aboard for the first chapter of Sara Shepard's Lying Game

I'm excited to say that soon we'll be seeing the first chapter of Sara Shepard's new book, The Lying Game! She's supposed to be tweeting it on @sarabooks sometime soon. Originally she was supposed to be tweeting it on Sunday 11/7, but there's unfortunately been no tweets so far.

Still, I'll be keeping an eye out for this & hopefully if I have enough time I can put those tweets in one of the blog posts!

Want to read more? Impatient? Well, the prologue is already up at prettylittleliars.com! Discuss it there or go directly to the prologue! No spoilers, but this is definitely going to be a different game from PLL!

Readers emulate Pfeffer's Life as We Knew It

Hi all! I was scouring the net trying to find something interesting to pass along today & came across this little gem on the Publisher's Weekly site.

Evidently a blogger/reader of the book Life as We Knew It, a tale about a disaster that brings about well... the end of life as the book's characters knew it. A comet hit the moon, which caused massive tsunamis, wiping out huge portions of the world & slowly causing everything to break down- including food distribution.

Two people decided to try seeing how they'd fare under similar situations. One was Ivie Harrison, who decided to try a "LAWKI month", which involved no food shopping. While her religion has her stocking a year's worth of food anyway, her family quickly discovered that living like that was pretty difficult & learned to better appreciate the luxuries given them.

The other person is Shannon Wright. She allowed her children to purchase $10 worth of "necessities" apart from what she purchased ahead of time. The purchases were somewhat surprising (to me anyway), being ramen noodles & cologne. Wright made a point of doing lots of gardening & attempting to cook using things that used little to no electricity such as a sun oven.

I have to say, the actions of these two women & their families is pretty admirable. I mean, how many of us would be willing or able to do this unless we were forced to? It kind of makes me want to start researching ways to become more self sufficient, to be honest.