Ash by Malinda Lo

I’ve been looking forward to reading “Ash” for a long long time. Mostly, because it was recommended by Melissa Marr. Also, I love retellings of Cinderella and I love faeries, so this was an obvious choice for me. Ash was this month’s pick for the Rather’s Book Club, so a lot of what I’m going to say here I’ve already shared on the site.

At first, I had a very hard time getting hooked into the book. Ash felt distant and sad. She had the Tara Effect** and I felt pity, rather than a connection to her. Her life sucked. Yea… And? What was she doing about it? Very à lá Cinderella: nothing much, other than wait around to be rescued. In her case, she didn’t much care for Prince Charming. Rather (and perhaps even worse, IMO), she was waiting for Sidhean: an aloof, mysterious and quite possibly dangerous faery to come and take her away. This, despite all the warnings she had received her entire life regarding the untrustworthiness of faeries. Pathetic much? Yes.

However, “Ash” is no “Twilight”, and ultimately it is a story about overcoming difficulties, and about women power. At first, this is evident only in other characters. Women play a fundamental role in this world, having important jobs in society such as the greenwitch and the King’s Huntress. I really liked that their importance was seen as something natural (yes, the King’s main hunter is always a woman… and?), and not something extraordinary like in “Graceling” or other books about strong women. No one question’s these women’s roles—particularly because their character leaves no room for doubt. Even Ash’s stepsister, Ana, whose life’s sole objective is to find a good catch, shows strength: she isn’t shallow. She knows a good match is the only way she can help her family, and she is willing to fall in love with a man twice her age because it is her duty. Clara, Ash’s younger stepsister, is also a particularly interesting character: she is not cruel like Ana, but she shows intelligence and perception that makes me want to read a book from HER point of view- even if we don’t see much of her.

As I said, however, Ash starts off being quite disappointing as an MC. She waits for Sidhean- whom she, and the readers, pretty much know nothing about (Sidhean is surprisingly absent for a main character, and I would have loved to see more of him) to take her away not to happiness but to OBLIVION. What the fuck is that? However, things start getting interesting when Ash and the King’s Huntress, Kaisa, start falling in love. Kaisa is everything Ash isn’t: strong, opinionated, and active. It is Kaisa that teaches Ash that when the world is shit you have three options: 1) accept it as it comes 2) Wait for the faeries/death/superman to take you away miraculously and 3) DO something about it. Dude, why on earth are you waiting for prince charming? Why are you waiting for the world to suddenly realize it is being unfair, apologize, and change? It just isn’t going to happen. Your destiny is in your hands, and your hands only. It is only when Ash learns this that she becomes an interesting character. It is only when she starts taking risks, when she starts going for what she wants, that she shows strength. That is why the Foo Fighters song is so appropriate for this book: you can either be abused, or resist. If you are taking that first option, then fine, but shut up and stop complaining. If you decide to actively resist: kudos to you.

On a different note, I want to talk about the sexuality in the book. Basically, I’m going to repeat two things I said on the Rath:

1) I like how alternative sexualities are portrayed as natural in a middle grade book. Here you love whom you love and nobody raises an eyebrow at it. There is no coming out of the closet (as when homosexuality is mentioned in most YA – or even adult- books), no whisperings, no need to point out "THEY ARE GIRLS". I liked the naturality of it. I think that the less fuss we make about stuff like this, the faster we will get to acceptance in society.

2) On the other hand, there is a scene that deeply disturbed me: when Ash first meets Sidhean. She is 13, very immature and innocent, alone in the world, and when this strange man puts his hand to her face... Man, all I wanted to do was pull her away from the Dirty Old (Faery) Man. It is a very sexually charged scene. I thought I was being paranoid, but this is confirmed when Sidhean says he fell in love with her the first time he saw her. I know it's supposed to be romantic or something, but for me it was just WRONG. Of course, Ash’s adolescence passes in what is a blink of an eye for an immortal like Sidhean. Still, she is human, had a whole portion of her life to grow through before being legal, and it just gave me the creeps.

Anyway, "Ash" turns out to be a page-turner, and I'd recommend it to anyone who cares to challenge the notion of a heterosexual faery godmother. =)

*TARA EFFECT: Clo and I feel the same way about Tara in “True Blood”: there is only so much crap you can lay on your character before an audience starts loosing interest and begins feeling only sorry for the person. Putting your character in a tight situation? That is plot building. Taking away every slight sliver of hope and happiness from their world? That is just drama.

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

I read this book almost by accident. Basically, I was at M’s place, I had finished “Ash”, and I had nothing to read. I read the edition in Spanish, which usually means I take forever in reading, but this was actually a pretty fast read. The book contains four stories (or well, three stories and one very short novel): “The Suicide Club”, “The Bottle Imp”, “Olalla”, and “Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.

Rather than talk about each story in particular, I’m going to talk about the author’s style of writing as a whole: basically, I swallowed the book really really fast. However, it wasn’t only that that left me with a strong impression: it was the fact that, from the very first page, the book not only provoked in me a desire to keep reading, but also to write. At first I didn’t know what all this was about, but the desire was there and kept increasing the more I read. Finally, I realized what it was. These stories don’t have great literary embellishments. The language has the natural elegance of 18^th century literature, but there are no remarkable descriptions, no witty word uses, no poetic stanzas. There is also no great symbolism: I wrote 1300 words about James M. Barrie’s plays, and immortality, and women, and bla bla bla, but Stevenson has no such depth. And there isn’t any great characterization. No onion-like characters that you want to peel and dissect. What is it then? Basically: this book is pure story telling. It goes back to the basics: creating an ambience, giving you characters, but mostly, giving you plot. He could just as well be telling you these stories over a fire on a cold night in Scotland. Honestly? It’s refreshing not to have to think so much. All you want is to know what happens.

At first I was thinking that a book like this could in no way survive nowadays. The tendency lately seems to be an emphasis on world-building and character construction, where plot is usually sacrificed. Just off the top of my head: Maggie Stiefvater’s “Ballad”, Melissa Marr’s “Ink Exchange”, Malinda Lo’s “Ash”, and Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book” all have amazing characterization, language use, and world-building, but have strong plot issues. However, looking back to my teenage years I recalled a successful author who seems very much in the legacy of Stevenson: Stephen King. King doesn’t go about with unnecessary pretties. He basically creates page-turning mysteries. There is a reason why “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is so short: it doesn’t have a word it doesn’t need.

Of course, characterization, and depth, and morality, and language, and all those things are important—and having the whole package, including plot (Holly Black!) should be your goal. I’m not discrediting those who focus on these—after all, one of my favorite books is “Franny and Zooey” by J.D Salinger, which is full of fabulous language, and wit, and characterization, and symbolism—but in which nothing really happens. However, reading Stevenson makes me remember that if your creative resources are limited, it is the plot that you should probably be focusing on.

Peter Pan and Other Plays

There is a quote in Anne Rice’s “The Witching Hour” that goes something like this:

“Out of innocence, and out of time, the dark-haired girl stared back at him, caught forever in her brief and desperate girlhood -- fledgling witch and nothing more”.

That is the exact sensation I was left with after finishing “Peter Pan and Other Plays”, the Oxford University Press’ collection of James M. Barrie classics. This edition has five plays: The Admirable Crichton, Peter Pan, When Wendy Grew Up, What Every Woman Knows, and Mary Rose.

I’m a big fan of Peter Pan (no, duh) so I was quite excited to see what off-Neverland adventures Mr. Barrie had to offer. I was not disappointed.

Now, I’ve read the novelized version of Peter Pan about a million times, and I was in a high school performance of the play. However, the text chosen for this specific edition, with the added footnotes*, and in the context of the other works, brings Peter into a whole new light. Yes, it is as magical, and dark, and pathetic, and funny and sad as ever. However, put against “Mary Rose” and her sinister island, and “The Admirable Crichton” and his life-altering island experience (yes, Barrie had a thing for islands: those isolated places, where anything and anyONE can happen), Neverland takes a few hundred more layers. Perhaps Neverland is Mary Rose’s island (as it was originally meant to be), perhaps it is also Critchton’s. After all, Neverland is different according to every child (or adults!) own mind.

What layers does this island of a book possess? Layers that fight each other. Layers that are two sides of the same quarter, much like Peter Pan and Hook: the contradiction of youth against adulthood, innocence against wisdom, man against woman, immortality against mortality, rich against poor. Barrie presents all these struggles and comes to the following (uneasy) conclusion: none of these is superior- each of these states is both desirable and tragic.

Let us look at the happy tragedy that is Peter Pan. As a children’s play, the full darkness of his plight cannot be explored to the extent that it is in "Mary Rose". Both of these characters have been taken (by faeries, of course, for they are amoral) into a timeless island: a place that freezes their innocence and will not allow them to grow up- a place akin to death. "Peter Pan", for all its references to the Llewyin-Davies children, is really about Barrie’s older brother, killed in an accident on the eve of his 14^th birthday. Barrie said: “he stayed forever a child of 13, while I, at six, became an adult”. Similarly, Mary Rose came after World War I, when so many parents were left childless. Barrie’s oldest adopted son was also killed in the War. These children are forever caught in that frame—they can’t grow old, but they can’t grow. The tragedy of Peter Pan is not that he is immortal- it is that he is timeless. He has no past, and without a past, he can have no future. He is the epitome of “living in the moment”, and while this is a lesson that perhaps we should all learn (and keep forgetting the older we get!) it is also unsustainable. We don’t hear about Peter’s happy thoughts—for how can he be happy when he has forgotten every friend, every enemy, every victory? Perhaps it is this realization that finally made Hook surrender into the jaws of the Time Crocodile. Similarly, Mary Rose is the only woman in these plays that does not appear as superior in wisdom than the men: she has not had her time to bloom, and thus she is more fragile than her adult counterparts.

Another surprising element in these two plays is the amount of sexuality that rides the pages—there is constant sexual tension in both “Mary Rose” and “Peter Pan”, even though both of these plays are about eternal children. Both Mary Rose’s husband and Wendy (and Tiger Lilly and Tinkerbell, for that matter), demand sexuality out of their loved ones, but these don’t understand it, and so they can’t offer it-- which makes them even more sexual (I can just imagine Humbert Humbert licking his lips somewhere).

As for the battle of the sexes, it is clear whose side Barrie is on: women are those superior goddesses that he never came to understand. Oscar Wilde, take that. Wendy and Mrs. Darling in “Peter Pan” and “When Wendy Grew Up”, Mrs. Moorland in “Mary Rose” and Maggie in “What Every Woman Knows” are the epitome of the woman who knows more than men, but will keep quiet for his proud sake. It may be aggravating to some to see these women stand by and help out the men in silence when they KNOW they know better. However, it is this selflessness that also gives them a moral superiority. A little too idealistic and chivalrous? Yes, perhaps Barrie makes darling mothers of us all- but we must also remember that most of these plays were written BEFORE the War, before the women’s rights movement, and so, in his own visionary way, he was giving women the place that it took decades for them to actually win. Perhaps the sole exception (aside from sexually-asexual Mary Rose) is Lady Mary in “The Admirable Crichton”. Of all the horrible people in “The Admirable Crichton”, the hardest to forgive is Lady Mary because, unlike all others, SHE KNOWS BETTER. It is her innate superior morality that makes her guiltier than all the men. It is also in “The Admirable Crichton” where we find the most equality of sexes: Crichton is the only one of the men in all the plays who is not 100% a child (however bearded others may be) and 100% foolish. Therefore, his faults, his acceptance of social differences, his acceptance of being kept at a lower status by those stupider than him, makes him more reprimandable.

Another thing must be said for Barrie as opposed to Wilde: his use of irony is much subtler and therefore much more effective. While Wilde’s characters (which are usually himself with another name) give off witty remark after witty remark, Barrie’s characters never make a joke: everything they say is in all seriousness, and this makes them even more ridiculous and funny. Barrie was VERY demanding about underplaying. No line, not the corniest, the funniest, the wittiest, could be overdramatized. There is no Wildesque third party looking on and laughing at others. The effectiveness of Barrie’s plays lies in that the characters take themselves seriously: it is the audience who is given leave to laugh at them. Only in this way could he feed to the respectable rich English society such unfashionable topics as the equality of men and women, the equality of rich and poor, the pride of the Scottish, and the sexuality of children. Of course, this demanded infinite skills from Barrie’s actors, and his prose-style stage directions, with impossible to perform character thoughts and descriptions, help readers to perceive what the actual theater experience would have been like. This is much appreciated: without talented actors (or proper stage notes!), the plays would loose their meaning. It is only when you don’t take the words at face value that you really can capture the genius that is James M. Barrie.

*A Footnote about footnotes: Even if you have read all these plays before, I would suggest reading them in this particular edition. The information about the development of the plays through time, of Barrie’s constant editions of them, of the connection of them to his personal life, of his intentions with every line, really help to enrich the reading experience. Of additional interest (at least to me) was the definition of some of the words used: I can’t believe that in only 100 years so much of the English language has gone into oblivion!

I'm back!

So, I haven't updated in ages. Mostly, life has been crazy and I didn't want to stress out... Plus, apparently, planning a wedding takes up all of your free time =)

Anyway, I'm back in Santiago, feeling healthy, and normal (well, as normal as I'll ever be =P), and sane.... and also very very happy =) I don't want to jinx anything, but, coming back from England, everything has just been... Well, PERFECT.

A LOT of good things have been happening this year... and even this month, so I'm choosing to focus on that instead of on the bad things (like my poor fiancé getting intoxicated and in the E.R =(). Some of the good things:

1) The AWESOME trip I won at the ESU English Writing Competition: it not only allowed me to see England and meet a bunch of nice people and see a lot of cool places, it also allowed Mauri and me to have the PERFECT early honey moon in England and Ireland =)

2) The fact that we won Gardner Hamilton's Cost-Price Wedding Photography Contest. Gardner was the photographer at my sister's wedding, and we really wanted him bc he's so amazing, but couldn't afford it (we didn't even consider him bc he was so out of budget), so when I got to be his friend number 1000 on Facebook, it made our, like, year

3) Dave Matthews Band! I've always wanted to go to a DMB concert. It was in my top 5 "concerts I have to go to before I die" list. We couldn't afford VIP tickets, so we were in about the third section. However, due to my shortness and some nice guards, I ended up not only in VIP, but right at the front row, by the stage. Eventually, M. got there too, so it was just perfect =) (Also, right at the concert, I was able to buy the DMB t-shirt that I had saved as "order at some point")

4) Despite the no-work, I've had had some work: doing translations and helping my sis with some stuff... This has helped me to save some money for the wedding and has also allowed me to buy...

5) Pretty clothes!

Actually, the list goes on, but I'll stop it here =)

So anyway, yes, I've been remiss with the updating... But I AM planning on hopefully getting back on track.

In order to reopen the blog, I'm going to start by talking about my favorite thing in the world: Books!

Here are the books I've read since I last updated:

I was hoping to review this at some point, but now I don't know if I will =P

- Clockwork- Phillip Pullman: Scary, scary, dude. Also, the notion that the evil aren't always punished and the good aren't always rewarded, is quite refreshing in YA books.

- Frankenstein- Mary Shelley: Good, but dark and frustrating

- Nineteen-eighty-four – George Orwell: Yes, a classic... Yes, brilliant... But also no, not something you should read when you've been having a not-so-good-for-the-mental-health year

- Persuasion- Jane Austen: I love Jane's subtleties. This book is emotionally stirring without the effect-ism we find in current romance.

- Eat, Pray, Love- Elizabeth Gilbert: Changed my life! This book is the reason for my new-found chillness. I bought it at the airport with the idea that I would throw it away when getting to England, bc it was "So not my style", but it really really is something someone should read when they are overcoming a nervous breakdown :P

- The Poison Eaters- Holly Black: Holly Black is GOD. She knows how to mix wit, folklore, feelings and sex perfectly.

- Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister- Gregory Maguire: It's Maguire. 'Nuff said (ok, more specific: I love his aesthetic, I love how his books keep you surprised at every turn, I love how his characters navigate the gray of morality, etc etc). I told the story to my mom and she really enjoyed it and was all "Oh no!" and "I can't believe you!"

- The Forest of Hands and Teeth- Carrie Ryan: This book is AMAZING. Other than scaring me out of my wits and frustrating me to no end with... well, I won't spoiler. It is very well written, it made me cry, it is real, it has zombies, it has action, it has emotion... It's just an overall great read.

- The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman: This book is so cute that even my parents liked it =) (I would read it to them when coming back from the gym). It really is a nice, cheerful book, and a great way to chill after reading something like "1984"

- I also reread Wicked Lovely

Here are the books I bought in England and Ireland:

Dude! Books are so cheap over there! (Or, well, they are so expensive over here =P). Anyway, a lot of them are used. I went into this used bookstore were everything in the very disorderly basement was 1 pound. I got some awesome old editions.

- Peter Pan and other Plays- James M. Barrie: I am currently reading this one

- Peter Pan and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens – James M. Barrie

- I, Lucifer- Glen Duncan: Has been on my TBR list forever!

- The book of fairy and folk tales of Ireland- W.B Yeats

- The Neverending Story- Michael Ende: Also from my TBR

- The Selected Poems of William Blake

- The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson

- Ash- Malinda Lo: Will probably be my next read, as it is next in the Rathers Book Club

- Linger- Maggie Stiefvater: Also on my TBR

- Shiver- Maggie Stiefvater: Also on my TBR

- David Copperfield- Charles Dickens: Very pretty old edition

- Le Morte D’Arthur – Sir Thomas Malory: Also a very pretty two-volume edition

Book Gifts:

- I wanna be Your Joey Ramone- Stephanie Kuehnert: My good friend Aine sent me this book, AUTOGRAPHED, along with some other goodies =) It's been on my TBR list for a really really long time, so, Yay! Stephanie was the first (and only =P), author to participate in Razor Thoughts**

The Book of Witches- Tim Dedopulos: My sis Claudia sent me this for my B-day, and I've been reading it slowly. It has a lot of interesting bios from everyone from St. Germain to Willow from BtVS =)

That is all for now! =)

Reading and stuff...

I love this whole “being able to read again” thing =)

Submerging into other worlds through words should be mandatory. People would be so much happier and chill =)

Close up with the happiness of reading a book is the joy of getting a free book. In celebration of RT Book Lover’s Convention, my smart and good friend Andrea is giving away a bunch of books by RT authors. I’ve read several of them (one of them is getting a review below ;) ), and some of them I haven’t. Aside from our love of all things faery, Aine and I share a love for books, and she is awesome for wanting to give them away =)

The books she’s giving away are: WICKED LOVELY by Melissa Marr, THE SUMMONING by Kelley Armstrong, MY SOUL TO TAKE by Rachel Vincent, JENNIFER SCALES AND THE ANCIENT FURNACE by MaryJanice Davidson, VALIANT by Holly Black, CITY OF BONES by Cassandra Clare and VAMPIRE ACADEMY by Richelle Mead.

You can check out Aine’s Give-Away here.

Now, going on to the reviews:
My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent
La Loca de la Casa by Rosa Montero
El Violinista de los Brazos Largos by Ana María Guiraldes

La Loca de La Casa by Rosa Montero

Three words: Read this NOW.

If you love literature, if you have ANYTHING to do with literature: as a reader, as a writer, as an editor, as someone who writes about writers, this book is highly recommended.

Part autobiography, part essay, part fiction, this book has enough twists and turns to get you hooked. I mean, it is not a novel, and yet you can’t put it down until you finish it.



Montero mixes parts of her own story (although you never know what, if anything, of what she is telling you is true), with the biography of great authors like Tolstoi, Stevenson, Marquez, Mary Shelley, Austen, and others, to speak about the act of writing, the act of reading, and the imagination that is necessary to do both things.

I can’t tell you how many times during the book I’ve (literally) cried out “Yes! That happens to me too!” Montero explains to us the passion for reading, she tells us why some writers never get around to writing their best work, she describes the fears of someone with too much imagination, the fickleness of memory, the uncertainty of reality, the difficulty that women authors face—and all of this with enough wit to make Oscar Wilde proud. There is enough food for thought in this short book to feed 10.000 conversations. In fact, you can probably feed a couple hundred on each chapter alone.

It’s hard to put all the wonders of this book into words, so I’m going to list a couple of the things Rosa says:

- Why is it that when a male author writes, everyone assumes he is saying something about humanity, but when a female author writes, everyone assumes she is saying something about women? Rosa complains about those people who believe there is such a thing as “female” literature. Gender is not the only thing that influences how someone writes. For example, she believes she has more in common with a man her age, living in Madrid, and who has lived under Franco, than with a black, South African, 80-year -old woman who has lived through the apartheid.

- Rosa talks about the fear of authors. How, on some days, you feel like everything you are writing is perfect, and then, on other days, you hate all you say and think you should have chosen a different career path. She says that many times authors don’t put their best work on paper: it stays in their head. While in their imagination, the story is perfect, it is the best, most enlightening work ever written. However, once you start putting it down on paper, you know you will screw it up. No matter how much you work, it will never be perfect. The fact that a novelist has to spend the whole afternoon just writing a person leaving a room makes the work clumsy. Suddenly, your lack of talent has tainted your masterpiece—and so, it takes much resolution and character to decide to write your best work.

There is much, much more in this book. I can’t possibly describe its awesomeness. I’ll just have to repeat what I said at the start: read it!!!

Hey remember that other time when I would only read the backs of cereal boxes?

"Listen. You know those days when you've got the mean reds?"
"Same as the blues?"
"No," she said slowly. "No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is. You've had that feeling?"
"Quite often. Some people call it angst."
"All right. Angst. But what do you do about it?"
"Well, a drink helps."
"I've tried that. I've tried aspirin, too. Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle. What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name."
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s, by Truman Capote

Well, these have been a strange couple of months. I was going to talk about that—life, earthquakes and all that. However, how dull and depressing is that?

So, I decided to talk about something that makes me very very happy: books! For me, bookstores are MY Tiffany’s. They are the places where I am calm, and happy, and satisfied.

A bunch of really fun books came into my possession recently :) Of course, due to health issues, my brain has been functioning at about 2% of its usual capacity, so I’ve had a TOUGH time reading. Mostly, I like watching TV, because it doesn’t imply any effort on my part. However, I HAVE had more time, so that means more reading :)

I’ve read different kinds of books. After skimming my sister’s copy of “1001 books you should read before you die”, I’ve decided to interlace my normal reads with classics. So, basically, my purpose is to read one YA/Fantasy/Paranormal followed by a book that is either a) a classic, b) in Spanish (or French) or c) both.

So, without further ado, here is my “in my mailbox” or whatever the kids are calling it these days…

1) Radiant Shadows by Melissa MarrThe lovely Melissa Marr sent me this ARC a few months ago :) It is autographed and everything. Unfortunately, with the earthquake, it also disappeared behind my friend Clo’s giant book shelf. =(
Anyway, RS is AMAZING!!! I wasn’t particularly impressed by Fragile Eternity (as is denoted by what Melissa wrote in my book :P). However, RS redeemed the series completely in my eyes. First off, it has the greatest technical achievement of the series so far. In previous books, I’ve had issues with pace (basically, the build up takes forever, and the resolution is rushed). However, RS is fast-paced from the beginning, takes the correct pauses, and, basically, is impossible to put down.
The plot itself is awesome. The main characters are all lovable, sexy, interesting and strong. Ani really is an awesome chick. The resolution is surprising, the climax riveting… basically, it leaves you on the edge of your seat and begging for more. Unfortunately, since RS hasn’t even been released yet, we’ll have to wait another year for the last installment of the Faery Court Books (currently named “Darkest Mercy”).

2) The Summoning by Kelly Armstrong
I was able to catch this one while it was still legally available online for free. There is nothing that I like more than free legal books :)
“The Summoning” wasn’t even on my TBR list. Mostly, because I thought the plot seemed a bit banal, and because ghost books scare the crap out of me.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I’m not going to say it was the most profound book in the world, but it was a fun read. It was a fast-paced and easy read. Predictable enough to not complicate you, twisty enough to not be boring. I’d recommend it for when you don’t want to think much and want to immerse yourself in another world for an afternoon. The characters weren’t exactly spell bounding, but they were nice enough and not annoying (which, IMO, is hard to find in current supernatural YA). The ghost stuff wasn’t an issue, because, other than one scene, the book isn’t scary at all… And that scene probably scared me only because I read it at a time when EVERYTHING scared me. It is the first book in a series, so it DOES leave you hanging, and the sequels ARE now in my TRB.

3) The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan
I borrowed this one from Clo (in exchange for the RS ARC). It is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of “The Summoning”. I had a really really hard time getting into DL at first. Yes, partly due to the fact that my brain was working at 2%, but also because it is much more complex than “The Summoning”, both in plot AND in character development. However, this book DOES trap you and it does AFFECT you in a way that “The Summoning” doesn’t. I started off by hating the MC (Nick). However, I ended up not only liking him, but feeling identified with him. The plot is surprising, twisty, and unpredictable. There is such good world building that when you reach the last page you hate having to close the book. So, I recommend this one all the way :)

4) Desayuno en Tiffany’s (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) by Truman Capote
Mauri and I bought this one as part of our plan to include more “classics” in our literary diet. Basically, we went to Feria del Disco and picked out the cheapest classic that we could find. I had read a couple of Capote books before, but this one is completely different than what I had read. Despite the ridiculous Spanish (as in from Spain) translation, I really enjoyed it. The edition has four stories, including Tiffany’s. They are all very real, a little sweet, a little pathetic, a little ironic, and a little sad. However, it’s not the sort of sadness that made me want to stop reading (like when I tried to read Oscar Wilde’s complete short stories). It is a sadness that makes you love the characters and, as a result, love people a bit more. Tiffany’s is NOTHING like the movie, and Golightly is NOTHING like Hepburn. The aptly named Golightly of the book starts off as charming, then gets annoying, then becomes a heroine, and then you just feel sorry for her, and feel like giving her a hug. Basically, this is great storytelling.

5) Vivir sin Miedo by Warren Manell and el Humano Amenazado by Sergio Zamora

The first book, bought for me by my daddy, and the second book, written and given to me by my shrink, both deal with the issues of anxiety and fear. Out of respect for my shrink, I’m not going to rant about grammar and book edition. However, there is one thing I learnt from skimming through both these books: the best way to overcome anxiety is NOT to read books about overcoming anxiety, because all they do is make you think about it more.

6) My Soul to Take by Rachel Vincent
I got this one, as well as “Confessions…” from my sis Angi :) She sent them to me from Australia, and I opened them the day after the earthquake :) Both were in the infamous Amazon Cart, which has now been edited to erase them. I am reading “My Soul to Take” right now. So far, it is an easy read. The characters are annoying me, but characters always annoy me at the beginning of YA books. Since it has Melissa’s recommendation, I’m hoping my POV of them will change.

7) Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire
I’ve wanted to read this for so long! I’m so happy to finally see it on my shelf!

8) El Violinista de Los Brazos Largos by Ana María GüiraldesAlso lent to me by Clo. It is her fave book, so I’m really looking forward to reading it. It is the next one on my list, after I finish “My Soul to Take”.

9) El Reloj Mecánico ( Clockwork) by Phillip PullmanSpanish edition bought for me by my daddy (along with Vivir Sin Miedo). I still have to finish reading the “His Dark Materials” trilogy (I have the Omnibus, but have only read book one). However, I really like Pullman.

10) El Libro del Cementerio (The Graveyard Book) by Neil GaimanYay!!! I’ve wanted to read this a long long time. My friends (Jorge, Myriam and Clo) got it for me for my birthday J I’m really hoping the Spanish translation won’t spoil Gaiman.

11) The Poison Eaters by Holly Black
I won this ARC from Ms. Black herself =D It is signed and everything. Unfortunately, because of the earthquake, mailing took so long that by the time the book got here it was no longer an ARC. However, I love love love love LOVE Holly Black, so I can’t wait to read it.

12) The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
This is another book that I’ve been wanting to read for ages and that was in my Amazon Cart. This one was sent by Angi and Marcelo for my b-day. I actually am leaving this one on hold for a bit: I’ve wanted to read it for so long, that I don’t want to rush through the excitement. :P

13) Unknown

Alas, the birthday pack sent to me by my sis Clau disappeared in the post-earthquake mail =(. I DO know it included a book and I am hoping to get it someday. *Crosses fingers*