eat your books

If Reader's Digestion is a disease, my fondest dream is to be Typhoid Mary. Tell me what you like to read! Maybe I have something for you.

[slipstreamborne]

one of my favorite parts of writing is packing the text with foreshadowing and dark in-jokes that will only make sense on a much later reread

if I get one person to go OH SHIT OH FUCK WAIT in horrified realization then it’s all been worth it

[rosyshadows]

Hey Hello

Please be my friend. Thank you.

I’ve only ever hidden my work in the deepest pits of my own mind and Scrivner on my IPad. But I love writers and desperately want writer friends that’ll actually understand my overwhelming enthusiasm for wips and share with me their own - so I’m thinking I’ll change that.

Instead of just thrusting my kids out to the universe; an introduction.

My name is Blanca, I’m 24. Not currently published or all that close.

I write in a few genres but mostly in the mystical ones - fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal/horror. I love a good magic system, space + aliens, anything with a monster and cute girls that kick butt. My characters tend to be hopelessly gay and hopelessly in love (projection?). I used to consider myself a pantser but with the record of finished books I have (zero, unless we consider my old fanfiction. Don’t consider my old fanfiction) I think I might actually be a petulant plotter that was just in denial. I’m plotting my current number-one priority WIP and its going exceedingly well.

Current Projects:

1. A fantasy series about a weak witch and a princess witch (don’t call her a witch). They might/might not be on opposite sides but we’ll get them together eventually. Oh and no one say M A G I C too loud, please. It’s banned. YA/Fantasy

2. A spooky story about a woman who inherits a house but also a ghost. And, even more terrifying, a family drama. NA/Horror

3. One royal mermaid + one falsely accused witch (she’s just a human, please leave her alone) = a war of the worlds. The cutest friendship you might ever see. YA/Fantasy

4. A green-haired girl that just wants to live peacefully while locked outside the main capital. The mayor’s daughter that is too curious for her own good. They accidentally start an uprising. And mutants. YA/Dystopia

5. Two guys steal a corpse. She’s supposed to be dead, anyways, but she’s somehow speaking directly into guy-one’s mind. It’s really hard to stay on mission when you’ve gotten attached. YA/Sci-fi

+ about a dozen other projects that aren’t past ‘oh that’s a cute idea’ phase.

[chayscribbles-archive]

now that i’ve hit 50K on TIB i can do what i want

and by “what i want” i mean, flashback from Fox’s POV that’s absolutely never gonna end up in the story

someone please stop me from writing i actually need to take a break

[writings-of-a-narwhal]

Okay i totally get making new ocs on a whim, but something i also do is reinvent crazy old ocs constantly... do you have any of those? in return (and as an example), it's come to my attention that my character Quinn makes toast in a pan, even though he now lives in modern times and has full access to a toaster. Why? Because he scares himself bad enough to fall over when the toast pops up.

omg. i love Quinn and the way he makes toast. omg. i’m in love.

uhhh…..i suppose i’ve done that before ??? i’m not super sure…but i have merged a couple ocs together into one to get a character that i wanted! if i’m remembering correctly, i merged two ocs to create Tinker, who is an amazing lass and i am only kind of sorry that i merged her and her sister into one person….

[rhetowreck-blog]

jadslkfhaksj he loves you too i assure you. just don’t be too loud about it, you’ll scare him off shhhhhh

:0!! yeah!! that makes sense. i... actually did the opposite w/ quinn himself fun fact ajkdsfhkajsh (he has a half brother that used to be the half of Quinn’s personality that just wouldn’t go away no matter how ooc I told it it was. his name is killian and i love him now that he’s his own person and nOT MAKING QUINN OOC GOSH DANGIT). 

I wanna hear about Tinker and her (now nonexistent) sister! is Tinker a nickname? she sounds like she has goggles energy. what’s her story? 

[goblinlord-deactivated20160826]

i found this lizard in my kitchen licking a marshmallow

[unclefather]

Do you know him?

[rhetowreck-blog]

 I CAN REBLOG THIS NOW, THIS BLOG ISNT FOR SCHOOL ANYMORE, HALLELUJAH

[rhetowreck-blog]

allrighty folks

OKAY. I’ve been trundling down the road to burnout for a whILE now. The long and short of all of this is that I’m no longer using this blog as my capstone project. :( Sad, but it had to be done, I was taking on WAY too much work. 

The good news is, this is now my writing/book blog! I will be yeeting out anything and everything around here, I suppose. So There Shall Be Less Reviewing, and more Random Stuff. LOOK AT THIS BAD FORMATTING

LOOK AT THIS

IM SO UNPROFFESSIONAL BECAUSE THIS ISNT FOR A SCHOOL PROJECT ANYMORE HAHAHAHAHAHA

so yeah, stick around maybe!! :D i’ll still post my thoughts on books and stuff, but there will just be more! if im active. at all. which is iffy. haha

but anyways.

[rhetowreck-blog]

Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. I’m unsure whether to continue with this aspect of my Capstone project, and I’m currently struggling with several options for getting it done. I’ll have something definitive by the end of the week.

[ravenlesslangblr]

Things to do instead of scrolling down your social media

Watch a TED Talk

Watch a documentary

Read a fiction book

Read a non-fiction book

Go for a walk

Go to a park

Go to a museum

Go to your local botanical garden

Cook/bake something yummy

Embroider (and other crafts!)

Draw (and other arts!)

Write into your journal/work on a story

Take care of a plant/pet

Take up a language

Take pictures

Puzzles! 

Rest or take a refreshing nap.

Feel free to add your own. Take care of yourself.

[rhetowreck-blog]

small reminder!

[rhetowreck-blog]

Books To Casually Read Every Day This Week Around Halloween so as to Drive People Crazy, and/or Subtly Recruiting Fellow Readers for the Skeleton Army 101

Feel like picking up a new read? Want to pay homage to Halloween, but don’t feel like necessarily reading something spooky? I’ve got a solution for you. One of these books undoubtedly caters to your taste. Not all of these are actually spooky, in fact, there’s like, two that are, but hey

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (Fantasy, coming-of-age)

A fantastic coming-of-age tale that examines racism, classism, family dynamics and overcoming trauma, with a magical setting. 

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (Fantasy)

Alina Starkov has discovered that she is a Grisha, a person with incredible magical gifts to shape the world around her. However, her newfound power has attracted the attention of those in control of her world. Before she can blink, she finds herself mired in a game of trust and distrust, power and helplessness, and light and darkness for the greater good.

Bone and Bread by Saleema Nahwaz (Contemporary)

Sisters, not by blood, but by tragedy. That adequately describes the bond between Beena and Sadhana, two young girls raised in Montreal’s Mile End. This book’s memories-and-flashbacks structure examines the life of both girls as it leads up through hell and high water, and tests their bond with brimstone, bitterness, and brine. 

Bone by Jeff Smith (Adventure, Fantasy, graphic novel series)

Follow the Bone cousins (those weird little white blob guys on the cover) as they galavant through a truly terrifying array of magic and threats, trying to get back home from a legendary place called The Valley! A classic.

The Bone Season by Samantha Smith (Dystopian fantasy/sci-fi)

Set in a dystopia future filled to the brim with ghosts of the past, Paige Mahoney must escape the clutches of the otherworldly overlords of the empire that used to be Britain. 

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (Urban Fantasy)

Your quintessential YA novel. On a trip to a nightclub, our main character discovers a new side to her world of New York; one filled with angels, demons, magic, and Shadowhunters. Oh, and now she’s stuck in it. Hooray!

Bag of Bones by Stephen King (most likely horror)

Given that this is by Stephen King, it’s probably spooky. Lemme just go find what it’s actually about, and I’ll get back to you.

The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

Mystery? Ghosts? Small children running around a modern-day London while risking their lives to deal with ghosts? Sounds interesting. 

[rhetowreck-blog]

The Book That Bookblr Forgot: The Bone Season

What’s up, it’s ya boi Gail, back at it again with the dramatic titles.

I admit, I might have overgeneralized a bit, but--

*sounds of pitchforks, torches and machetes being assembled from Bookblr* 

... Geez. Okay, fine, if you want to do it that way.

Bookblr, I have seen so much aesthetic with this book. It’s pretty, I get it. I know you’ve opened it up for at least a bit, but I haven’t seen anyone reccomending it.

I vow to remedy that.

So, lads, gals, and non-binary pals, allow me to Introduce you to The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon.

If you’re into:

Run-down dystopia (in the style of George Orwell’s 1984, right down to the codenames!)

Supernatural powers (everything from telekinesis to tarot, we got it here)

Very uncertain relationships

Ghosts. 

Suspense novels

A good ol’ healthy dose of anarchy

Then read on! Minor spoilers under the cut. 

Welcome to the future. 2059, to be exact. You’ve landed smack-dab in the middle of Scion London, one of the urban sprawls of the budding Scion republic. Two hundred years ago, an “epidemic of clairvoyance” struck the Earth, and Scion rose up to protect the people. Now that they’re in power, clairvoyants (also called “unnaturals” by Scion, and “voyants” by their own) are persecuted and regimented.  It’s not a complete nightmare of a life. After all, Paige Mahoney manages, even if she is a dreamwalker, one of the most rare brands of voyant, with a Scion premium on life of an arm and a leg. And anything else of her, if they can get it. (They want her dead, is what I’m saying.) Regardless, Paige makes a living gathering information by strolling through people’s mental defenses and into the deep, terrifying oceans of their thoughts. Despite the risks (which range from headaches to irreversible insanity and/or becoming a vegetable), she’d rather not give it up.  But, as it happens, she has to, after being captured by Scion forces. Prepared for death, Paige finds herself in the ruins of Oxford, under the jurisdiction of cruel, otherworldly overlords. Called the Rephaim, they’ve secretly pulled the strings on Scion for ages. Under the eyes of her Rephaite captor, Warden, Paige must claw her way through tests, imprisonment, and the treacherous Rephaim powers-that-be in an attempt to escape.

For a debut novel, this is pretty good. Shannon uses parallels to the various zones of the ocean to show the different areas of the mind. If one is driven to madness, they’re trapped in their “abyssal zone”. In fact, there’s a lot of paralells to other pieces of literature. I’ve made the connection with 1984. It’s the same sort of aesthetic, just ghosts. 

I’d recommend this to someone who needs to curl up in a corner and escape from the world for a while. It’s escapist fiction at its finest, and that’s really what matters for this novel. Cheers.

Thanks for reading!

[diversitybooks]

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows Yerrin by Garrett Robinson The Pygmy Dragon by Mark Secchia Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark Theonite Book II: Orbit by M. L. Wang Dread Nation by Justina Ireland Kindred by Octavia E. Butler Binti by Nnedi Okorafor Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor Iron Cast by Destiny Soria The Clay Queen by Ono Ekeh Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older

Disclaimer: I have not read all the books on this list (though all are on my tbr!), but I can confidently recommend The Theonite Series, Children of Blood and Bone, and anything by Octavia Butler or Nnedi Okorafor.

[rhetowreck-blog]

Leigh Bardugo: the frick man????

I didn’t like Shadow and Bone. Shadow and Bone sucked. I wasn’t paying attention for about half the book, and the other half I’ve forgotten. 

Now, I’m sitting here with Bardugo’s second series in my hands. Same universe, same worldbuilding, even some of the same characters. So why am I crying?!

Shadow and Bone never really caught my attention even while I was reading it. It was so utterly unremarkable as a book that I just... yanno, put it down eventually. I got bored. Even now, the only things that really come to mind were the magic deer (which were cool) and the fact that Alina had some sort of light powers. Go figure. Oh, also the Darkling. 

What kind of name is “The Darkling”? It’s like... I’d more easily think of a rubber duck painted with Vantablack. I have the same issues with Marissa Meyer’s Renegades villain Ace Anarchy. Sounds like a laundry detergent brand. But I digress. 

In contrast, while reading Six of Crows and now Crooked Kingdom, I’m blown away by the absolute genius that went into it. Bardugo uses words the way they were never meant to be used, and pushes the limits of their meanings. 

Bardugo sings words into the shape of a violin bow with which to mercilessly play her reader’s heartstrings. She twists and turns the characters and precariously yanks the carpet under their feet at any second, in a tragic dance that keeps both character and reader off their feet and onto their toes, only to fall over entirely at the next moment. It’s addicting and mesmerizing. So how did it happen?

I’ll confess, I need to reread Shadow and Bone. Maybe she was always pretty good. I was just bored. 

Leigh Bardugo is quickly becoming one of my favourite writers and an example of how writers can mature past their first books into something great. Here’s something i’ve heard many places to an aspiring novelist: Your first book is going to suck. Shadow and Bone was her debut novel. Case in point. And i hated it. Alina and the Darkling were awkward, stilted, and I never really fully understood what was going on at any given moment. Every new chapter, I was like “Oh, they killed a deer. That’s fun. Wait, why is there mind control-- flipflipflipflipflipflip-- ohhhhh... I still don’t get it.” Part of that was my fault for not paying attention, but I still think that there was some issues there. 

As she gets more practice, her writing is only going to become more formidable. Crooked Kingdom is her best work yet. I can’t wait to see more.

[rhetowreck-blog]

Hi, Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck was a fun escapist book, and also had some pretty glaring issues in the form of really unfortunate implications and a protagonist who by all means didn’t belong there, ok bye

[rhetowreck-blog]

Thesis statement:

If you liked

the Warriors series

the Wings of Fire series

the Fablehaven series

Pretty much any other book by Brandon Mull

Guardians of Ga’Hoole

the Dragonwatch series

--then you’ll like any other book on that list.

[rhetowreck-blog]

suffering

It’s English term paper season, and I’m already quaking in my boots at the thought of writing an actual, formatted essay.

The good news is, I’m writing it on 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Now, it’s time for me to hunt down a copy. 

[rhetowreck-blog]

I’m gonna throw a list at y’all. Listen up:

“Trickster” protagonists (think Robin Hood conning wealthy men on the high road, Sherlock Holmes’s penchant for disguise)

Supernatural elements

Young adult protagonists, usually not younger than about 17 or even 18

Dark and gritty tone 

Sardonic humour 

LGBT representation

A diverse cast

Interested? 

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo boasts the story of six unlikely companions battling crime, magic, and their own dark pasts as they attempt to steal a deadly secret from an impenetrable forces. Dark and intense, the story unfolds, both past and present, as Bardugo peels back the layers of story to show us the circumstances that brought each of the (dubious) heroes together. 

Light spoilers under the cut!

The duology (together with Crooked Kingdom, the second book) is an independent exploration of the world introduced to us by Bardugo’s debut series. Dubbed the “Grishaverse”, this world contains magic, monsters, and a truly dizzying array of settings and peoples. Ravka, the Russia-inspired main setting of the first series, gives way to two other countries inspired by real-life counterparts. Kerch seems to be inspired by Germany, and Fjerda some mishmash of Scandinavian countries. Nina, one of our main characters, happens to be a Grisha (the supernaturally powered subset of people that the first series focuses on). Though many events from the first series are mentioned, these books stand well enough on their own to be understood by any newcomer to the world.

We’re introduced to Kaz, a gang leader from the Barrel (a crime-riddled neighbourhood of the proud port town Ketterdam); his hired assassin, bodyguard, and spy, Inej (known as the Wraith); and his sharpshooter Jesper (a gambler with a sharp tongue, quick wits, and a quicker draw). Wylan, a young man who’s new to the Barrel and Brekker’s gang but an expert with explosives, also joins them under rather odd circumstances. Nina, a disgraced member of an order of supernaturally-gifted soldiers, is also there, along with Matthias, a member of an order whose purpose is specifically to hunt down people like Nina.

The crew is diverse, entertaining, and have banter that I wish I was half as entertaining as. They have a collective sense of humor that is somewhere between “seventy year old librarian” and “literally twelve”, as is shown in moments like this: 

“Jesper knocked his head against the hull and cast his eyes heavenward. “Fine. But if Pekka Rollins kills us all, I’m going to get Wylan’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.”

Brekker’s lips quirked. “I’ll just hire Matthias’ ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.”

“My ghost won’t associate with your ghost,” Matthias said primly, and then wondered if the sea air was rotting his brain.”

― Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows

The action is compelling, suspense is high, and the relationships are frustrating. Nina and Matthias have enough sexual tension to set a house on fire, and a past together that isn’t explained until later in the book. Inej and Kaz have something between them, but it’s so nebulous and hard to pin down until later in the book. There’s also a couple teased romances between two other pairs of characters  characters that may in fact be too subtle for their own good (or to properly call it LGBT representation). In the case of Jesper and Wylan, that is in part due to the extreme awkwardness and stiltedness of their dynamic to begin with. On the part of Inej and Nina, it’s probably that I’m still so shocked to see romantic chemistry between two female characters that wasn’t either fanfiction or Graceling by Kristin Cashore. On the whole, interactions between the characters are lively and funny, with such touching moments as singing each other drinking songs to stay awake, cradling each other when they’re dying, and making fun of each other with barely-concealed death threats. Normal friend stuff like that! 

[ellatholmes]

me, opening my word document: well, I better get to writing!

my brain: bold of you to assume i can do word things