I don't think I need to remind anyone of what's happening THIS FRIDAY - we've all been discussing the casting, gushing over the first trailers, and counting down the days for months and months.  It's finally here!  In honor of this Friday's release of The Hunger Games, today we are discussing our favorite page to screen adaptations.  These are the movies that managed to capture everything that we loved about our favorite books and transform it all into two hours of visual entertainment.  And just to keep things interesting, we're also going to discuss our least favorite adaptations.  These are the movies that took everything that we loved about our favorite books and destroyed it utterly. 

In preparation for this post, I looked around the interwebs to see what other people had listed as their favorite (and least favorite) movie adaptations. Did you know that Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was based on a book? NEITHER DID I! Other surprises to me were Rambo, Dr. Strangelove, Cowboys & Aliens, and Planet of the Apes. It also got me very excited for the future of the Book vs. Movie blog posts as I compiled a list of over 200 movie adaptations.  Of course there are the crowd favorites, Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings series, but I didn’t want to pick any of those because so much has already been said about them, plus I’m pretty sure everyone and their dog has seen them all. Everyone has probably seen the ones I did pick as well, but I feel a bit better about them. When Catie was thinking up the ratings system we are going to implement (see below), I had to interject the need for a 6-star category. Very rarely does a movie surpass its book counterpart but that is the case with The Princess Bride. (“When I was your age, television was called books.”) The entire movie is like one long quotefest from beginning to end and even though the book was a 5-star experience for me, the movie is even better. There is adventure, intrigue, romance, pirates (“Murdered by pirates is good!”), a giant, duels, and rodents of unusual size. The movie does a fabulous job of taking William Goldman’s humor from the book and translating it to film. Who is the mastermind that captured Goldman’s sense of humor so well, you might ask? It is William Goldman. Imagine that! The movie is perfectly cast from top to bottom and I don’t know of too many movies where so many characters lend memorable quotations. I can’t wait to do a comparison to the book. I haven’t read it for years and I want to see exactly how many of my favorite lines come straight from the book. 

My other favorite book based on a movie is actually an entire collection—basically every movie based on a Stephen King novel or short story.  My two favorites are probably Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption, which are both based on short stories by King. (The Body and Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption) Those are two of my overall favorite movies and I watch them both all the time. The number of King’s works that have been adapted to film is huge: Misery (screenplay by William Goldman!), Carrie, The Shining,  Pet Sematary, It, Firestarter, Apt Pupil, The Green Mile, Secret Window—that isn’t even half of them. 

I love short stories when they are done right. It is so hard to tell a compelling story in such a restrained format without leaving readers wishing for more of everything. Stand By Me is one of my favorites because there aren’t too many stories or movies that remind me of how wonderful childhood friends are. I always tear up at the end of that one when the narrator, Richard Dreyfus, says, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” I have nothing but happy memories of all the antics I got up to with my friends around that age. I speak to a whopping one of them these days, and just barely. I sometimes wonder if it is better that I am Facebook friends with these people or if it is just natural to move on and only hold onto the memories. Dreyfus’ character, The Writer, says, “It happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of our lives, like busboys in a restaurant.” 

Shawshank is a favorite of mine—there are so many reasons why I love that movie but that moment when, SPOILER ALERT, the Warden and the guards figure out that Andy got the best of them and Morgan Freeman narrates Andy’s escape? Priceless. (see also: When Edmund Dantes exacts his revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo) I love the friendship that Red and Andy develop, the commentary on the penal system, and the way the “good guys” come out on top several times in the story, even though that is not always the case in the film. 

If you haven’t seen all three of these movies, you need to remedy that situation. I can’t wait to read/reread the books and stories and evaluate how true the films are to their literary counterparts. Honorable mentions go to: Silence of the Lambs, Charlotte's Web (1973), and the 1940 version of Pride & Prejudice.

I've been wracking my brain to think of movie adaptations of books that I didn't enjoy and I've come up with a few, the most recent of which is Confessions of a Shopaholic. The books were fluffy and fun and I could fly through the awkward moments. I love Hugh Dancy and Isla Fisher but the movie was entirely too over the top. All I have to do is think of that awful scene with the dancing and the fans and I want to vomit all over the floor. Another one that did nothing for me was Jumper. I read the book last fall and it seems like Hollywood just took the idea, like the bare bones of an outline of the first half of the book, then tossed the rest out the window. I didn't love the book (it was ruined by the second half) nor did I love the movie--but at least the book had some redeeming qualities. And three movies I have a hard time watching mostly because of casting decisions: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Moaning Myrtle is my own personal nightmare), The Golden Compass (I didn't love Frankie from Skins as Lyra or Nicole Kidman), and the Narnia movies (Ugh, Lucy).  But even when movies are awful, I'll still watch them. Sometimes, I'll watch them even more than the good ones. 

I’m going to start with my least favorite adaptations, because reading through Flannery’s post has reminded me of just how much I hate the Shopaholic movie.  Becky Bloomwood is American?  Is nothing sacred?  I have no idea why the “movie people” (that nebulous group about whom I know absolutely nothing) decide to take literature that is beloved by millions and change everything that we’ve loved about it.  (Actually, I do know why: I'm pretty sure the producers of my two least favorite film adaptations are laughing all the way to the bank).  It feels like such a betrayal, doesn’t it?  Which brings me to the absolute worst adaptation I’ve ever seen:  The Bourne Identity.  My brother mailed me Robert Ludlum’s classic spy thriller a few months before the first film was released and pressed me to read it.  I’m not usually into action/thriller novels but I decided to give it a chance anyway, and I loved it!  Sure, it’s quite obviously from the 70’s and the “romance” is hilariously ridiculous. But I think that it’s one of the most compelling, twistiest (not a real word) stories ever put to paper.

And then I saw the film. It starts out okay – with poor “Jason Bourne” waking to find himself in the middle of the frigid ocean with no memories.  But then, and I seriously cannot even write about this to this day (ten years later!) without getting pissed off, they took arguably one of the best spy/thriller plots ever written and just shat all over it.  My poor husband had to sit through my infuriated mutterings for the entire film. I almost stormed out of the theater! Marie isn’t some crunchy granola, wandering backpacker!  She’s a high-powered, Canadian economist!  She’s brilliant!  Jason Bourne was never a real assassin!!!  And guess what?  HIS NAME ISN’T EVEN JASON BOURNE.  They didn't even get the main character's name right. 

And exhale….  Now on to more pleasant topics: my favorites!  I wonder if it’s any coincidence that I saw both of these films before reading the books – and in one case, I still haven’t read the book!  Perhaps that’s the only way I’ll ever love a movie more than its foundational book, because in my experience –once you go book, you never go back.  

I first watched the Anne of Green Gables adaptation when I was about seven or eight years old and I fell in love with it absolutely.  Megan Follows will always be my Anne, and Jonathan Crombie (swoon) will always be my Gilbert.  The rest of the cast is just incredible as well.  The adaptation itself doesn’t follow the book absolutely – and in fact, the film titled “Anne of Green Gables” is actually a melding of the first two novels (Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea).  But they captured everything about the books that I love:  Anne’s determination (and foolishness), Marilla’s distant but steady love, Matthew’s sweetness, Gilbert’s regret, Diana’s faithful friendship, Rachel’s haughty affection…I could go on and on and on.  The sequel (titled “Anne of Avonlea”but containing material from Anne of the Island and Anne of Windy Poplars) is excellent as well.

And for my final pick, I have to mention Howl’s Moving Castle.  This feels like cheating, because I haven’t read the book, so I have no idea how it matches up (although I hear that Flannery has a Book vs. Movie post in the works so I can’t wait to find out).  But I can’t leave this one out because it’s not only my favorite adaptation; it’s probably my favorite film hands down.  I am an unapologetic rabid Miyazaki fangirl, and my two daughters are well on their way to holding that title as well.  (When we went to see The Secret World of Arrietty, my three year old shouted, “Mommy!  It’s TOTORO!” when the Studio Ghibli logo came up.)  I love absolutely everything about this movie!  I love the intricate, beautiful animation.  I love that the heroine gets aged magically by about fifty years but then says, “meh, it could be worse” and moves on with her life.  I love that the hero is a spoiled, vain, drama queen.  And of course I love the ambiguously happy ending! I’ve seen this movie about a hundred times and it will never get old.

To start off, I am the type of movie watcher who thinks books are ALWAYS better than their movie adaptations. (Granted, there are exceptions to this strict rule - The English Patient, for example, I could not even get through the book and adore the movie.) Therefore, if I am ever to give a movie a chance, I do not read the book it is based on before watching the adaptation. This is the reason why I held myself back and did not reread The Hunger Games for the fifth time. I want the movie to impress me and also make me cry, preferably on numerous occasions (in fact, I am counting on it). 

So, what is my favorite movie adaptation?

I am taking the most gratuitous and shallow route with this one - Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen!

You can try to argue with me until you turn red about how unfaithful this movie adaptation is, that Mr. Darcy (aka Mr. Hottie McHaughty Pants) would never be strutting with his shirt open in a morning field (neither would he be doing the 19th century wet T-shirt contest interpretation, might I add, for Colin Firth's fans), that the dresses are all wrong, etc., etc, etc. I do not care. (Do not ruin my favorite fantasy, OK?) 

I just love Matthew's take on Darcy, that he is all prideful and stand-offish, but also shy and reserved, and with a lot of passion hidden under that haughty exterior (or so I love to imagine).

I can watch this particular scene a million times and it makes me giddy and all fluttery each and every time:

Can I end your agony, please?

Now, for the worst movie adaptation, I stole my idea from Flannery's favorite audio books post. There are plenty of bad movies, but nothing reaches the level of WTF-ery like David Lynch's Dune, in my humble opinion.

I read Dune a couple of years ago. And although it was a very complicated book and required quite a bit of brain power to totally get into and understand the mythology, overall I thought it was a great work of science fiction. The whole universe of the almost waterless planet of Dune, genetics manipulating nuns and highly logical Mentats, political Houses fighting for power and resources of Dune, was very, very intriguing.

And then I decided to watch the movie version of it.

What an incoherent, almost psychedelic, gross mess!

Let me tell you, I totally understand why Dune would be considered a cult classic. There is a wacky quality to it that a certain group of people (*ahem* young guys) would think groundbreaking and extra spesul and beyond understanding of us, mere humans. But from where I stand, Lynch made this story exceedingly disgusting and weird, and too out there for an average person to not only appreciate, but simply understand.

Even Kyle MacLachlan and Sting at the height of their oily hunkiness could not save this hot mess.

Holy Moly!  I don't think my eyes will ever recover from the sight of greased up Sting wearing a blue diaper.  To swiftly change the subject with no segue (I'd like to see you try to segue logically away from that mess...), we'd like to also introduce today our brand new ratings system, which we will use for all Book vs. Movie match-ups from here forward:

Thanks for joining us today and make sure to tune in THIS FRIDAY (all caps!) for a very very special episode of Book vs. Movie.  And I don't mean that we'll be discussing school bullying and teen pregnancy.  *wink*

Unholy Ghosts (Downside Ghosts, #1)
Author: Stacia Kane
Publication Date: 5/25/10   
Publisher: Del Rey

Blurb (GR): THE DEPARTED HAVE ARRIVED.
 
The world is not the way it was. The dead have risen, and the living are under attack. The powerful Church of Real Truth, in charge since the government fell, has sworn to reimburse citizens being harassed by the deceased. Enter Chess Putnam, a fully tattooed witch and freewheeling ghost hunter. She’s got a real talent for banishing the wicked dead. But Chess is keeping a dark secret: She owes a lot of money to a murderous drug lord named Bump, who wants immediate payback in the form of a dangerous job that involves black magic, human sacrifice, a nefarious demonic creature, and enough wicked energy to wipe out a city of souls. Toss in lust for a rival gang leader and a dangerous attraction to Bump’s ruthless enforcer, and Chess begins to wonder if the rush is really worth it. Hell, yeah.

Review:

How do you decide which urban fantasy series you should read?

Let's be honest, there is like million and a half books in this genre, all with the same basic premise, assemblage of characters, mythology structure and story arcs. I, personally, do not even bother to read synopses of UF books any more, because, well, they are all the same anyway. Only some trusty reader-friend's recommendation will do the trick. And, apparently, mentioning some hottie can be enough to perk up my interest. In the case of Unholy Ghosts, Catie talked so poetically about this one Terrible, that I just had to check him out. ASAP, naturally.

So, Terrible. I am not terribly into Terrible yet, but, boy, do I see promise. You see, I do like when an author writes a man who is not particularly attractive, and then manages to make him sexy. If I strain my brain, I can think of only one guy in UF who is no Adonis, but whose personality and actions make him the hottest guy on the block. I kinda enjoy to be surprised and wooed like that. (Sadly, this other guy is a teenager, Derek in Kelley Armstrong's Darkest Powers trilogy).  Like Catie said in her review, Terrible is not handsome, at least not in a traditional way and not to the main character at first, the dialect he talks in makes him sound a tad... dumb, and yet, and yet, Stacia Kane manages to slowly make him VERY appealing, by writing things like this:

A couple made out against the gritty stucco wall on the side of the club. Chess watched them for a second, embarrassed to do so but unable to turn away, something quiet and small twisting in her chest.

The girl was a little thing, platinum blond, in a miniskirt and a pair of platform heels that looked like they weighed more than her entire body. Her thin legs crossed at the ankle behind the guy’s waist, while her tiny, pale hands dug into his back. Chess couldn’t see her face; it was almost entirely hidden by the guy’s hands, cupping her cheeks like he thought the bones might break. Chess didn’t think she’d ever been touched like that. A pang of pure envy ran through her.

The girl caressed the back of his neck and lifted her hands to twine her fingers in his hair. His hips pressed forward, pinning her against the wall, and he dipped his head to kiss her throat. The light caught the prominent ridge of his brow and the crooked bump of his nose.

It was Terrible.

Heat rushed to her face. Yes, definitely Terrible. No wonder he’d blushed when she teased him about his sideburns. She’d never even thought of him as actually being interested in women. He seemed totally asexual to her, like instead of fucking he preferred beating people up. A silly assumption. He was a man, after all.

I know exactly what you are doing here, Ms. Kane, and it's working.

What did not work as well for me is Chess' characterization. Would it be too awful to say that I didn't feel like she was junky enough? Hear me out. Chess, the ghost banisher, is an addict, she takes pills, she snorts speed, always waiting for her next fix, etc, etc. But, reading Unholy Ghosts, I never felt that this addiction was a vital part of her, her driving force, rather, it was something that she did, that she could easily put away, something that did not affect her work or her mental abilities much. I did not feel like I was in a head of a serious addict. Maybe my impression has something to do with the fact that the book is written in 3rd person and therefore there is a bit of a distance between the reader and the narrator. Or maybe reading Trainspotting left me with a skewed view of what severe addiction is like for an addict. Trainspotting, I felt, put me at the center of an addict's mind, but Unholy Ghosts did not.

I will not be wasting time on summarizing the details of this story or its mythology. This post-ghostapocalyptic setting worked for me, so did the mystery and the characters. Whatever I say I liked about Unholy Ghosts will not work for everyone, like it happens with most genre fiction. I also think that the two main points of contention in this series will be the main character's addiction and the local dialect.

The book was a good fit for me though. I look forward to reading more about Chess and Terrible. Terrible has more of his 6 ft 4 in (everything in proportion) glory and prowess to demonstrate. I am along for that ride.

4/5 stars

I'm not much of a classics reader. When Flannery first asked me to write a post about classics for The Readventurer, I told her I couldn't think of anything that I'd like to talk about. She then pointed out that the Narnia Chronicles is in my list of favorites and I realized that it would be easy to share my thoughts about C.S. Lewis' most popular series. I first found out about the Narnia novels in grade school because our school library had copies of some of the books. I remember falling in love with the series even though I wasn't able to read all of the books. I even tried to convince my grade school friend to read the books by constantly chanting, "The Last Battle! The Last Battle!" in between classes. I don't think I was able to convince her.

I was finally able to read all of the Narnia books back in high school, when my dad gave in and let me order a copy through Amazon. Now, ordering from Amazon is pretty expensive because usually shipping costs just as much (if not more than) the book that you ordered. So I made sure that the books that I ordered were not locally available (bookstores in the Philippines back then weren't so great) and they were books that I really wanted. I ordered a complete set of the Narnia Chronicles together with a boxed set of The Lord of The Rings. I didn't even know it was an omnibus edition until it arrived. I regret nothing though because it's a beautiful copy. Here, I even took some pictures so you can see them:

I love  how the cover features a map of Narnia. There are also several maps included inside the book:

While going through some old files, I found a paper that I wrote for a philosophy class in college relating The Narnia Chronicles to our lesson. I'm sharing a snippet here because I find it funny that I wrote about one of my favorite books for a class:

"It wasn’t until I recently read the Narnia books again that I came to understand that C.S. Lewis is trying to re-create what the religious feel about the Holy. Narnia experiences can best be understood using discussions involving Otto’s Mysterium-Tremendum-Fascinosum and Marcel’s idea of hope."

And I proceeded to give specific examples to show how Narnia is C.S. Lewis’ way of spreading the God story the way he understood it. Here's another snippet:

"In Narnia, Aslan is the King of the wood, the son of the great Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, which can be compared to the Wholly Other for us. He is the creator, the savior, the absolute being. Otto describes the religious experience of the Holy as something that fills the believer with tremor and fascination. This can be applied to Aslan who seems terrifying at times, being a ferocious lion and all that but he can also be as playful as a large cat. Another aspect of the Holy or the numen is that we only have the courage to view the Holy through the vantage point of our finitude, because the Holy lies beyond our comprehension. This is repeatedly seen across the whole span of the chronicles. People in Narnia did not question Aslan’s actions nor did they seek to understand him as anything but something that lies beyond what they understand. The mere mention of his name already evokes feelings that people have no way of understanding. When his name is first mentioned by the Beavers to the four Pevensie children, they felt a strange feeling come over them. Without knowing why, they longed to see him yet at the same time, were afraid of the prospect of doing so. He comes and goes as he pleases because after all, it’s not as if he is a tame lion. The Mysterium aspect of the human experience of the Holy involves the Wholly Other as something that is beyond the sphere of familiar and fills us with blank wonder and astonishment."
      
What the heck was I talking about back then?! I can't even remember. I'm sure it made perfect sense while I was writing it. I have no idea what grade I got for the paper though since I only have an electronic copy. I believe it was a philosophy of religion class. I just love that I've reread the series several times since I first discovered it - I think that's the mark of a true favorite: how you can still enjoy reading the book over and over again. 

Thank you, to The Readventurer for having me here! Feel free to share your thoughts about the Chronicles of Narnia in the comments.     

Thanks, Chachic, for sharing some of your experiences with the Narnia books. I'd never seen this edition until you shared pictures and I can just imagine how fascinating it would be for children to pore over its pages. I used to hoard David Macauley and Graeme Base's books because they were large and full of beautiful illustrations. If I'd had this omnibus edition, I probably would've read the entire series and not just The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. And how fun that you had the chance to write about books for your philosophy paper in college. I never got the chance to write about books--all my papers were about history and politics.

Visit Chachic at her blog, Chachic's Book Nook, to read more of her thoughts on books!

This was the first book that ever made me cry.  I can still remember reaching that pivotal scene – on Camazotz, deep in the dark clutches of IT – and being so swept away by Meg’s fear and bravery and love.  I was only eight years old, and since then I’ve reread it again and again.  It’s never lost its impact on me.  
 
When I saw that a movie had been made, I was nervous but hopeful.  A Wrinkle in Time is a complex, intellectual, and philosophical novel.  It was quite famously rejected by many major publishers because its subject matter was believed to be too advanced for a young audience. It’s a book about faith, God, physics, and the fight for good.  And it’s written for children.  I think that just about anyone would have a hard time fully realizing it on film, but I also think that a faithful adaptation of it would be incredible. In a rare interview with Newsweek in 2004, Madeleine L’Engle had this to say about the movie:

NEWSWEEK: So you've seen the movie?
Madeleine L'Engle: I've glimpsed it.

And did it meet expectations?
Oh, yes. I expected it to be bad, and it is.

And I’m here to tell you that Madeleine L’Engle was absolutely right. (About so many things.  That interview is amazing.)  It took me three sittings to get through this entire movie, because I had to force myself to keep watching it.  When I finally made it through to the end, I had catalogued over a hundred differences – both major and minor.  I feel like I boomeranged from one end of the spectrum (Holes) to the other (this… "film”).  My list is long and frenetic, but I’m going to do my best to put it all together here. I figure I’ll start with the small stuff and end with the stuff that made me want to find the original of this movie and burn it.

1.  The random, the weird, and the randomly weird.
a)  What better place to start than the book’s famous opening line: “It was a dark and stormy night”?  This may not have been the first book to open with that line, but I’d argue that it’s the best.  The movie, however, opens on a calm and clear night. 
b)  Mrs. Murry’s liverwurst and cheese sandwich (which she eats in the kitchen on that dark and stormy night) becomes a PB&J. 
c) Fortinbras (“Fort”) the Llewellyn setter/greyhound mix becomes Fort the German shepherd. 
d) Mrs. Whatsit gains the ability to transform into a crow, and she can also rearrange t.v. static into her own image and speak through it.  Her famous pink stole?  Nowhere in sight. 
e) The Happy Medium is a man, baby.  He also has a river full of glow worms that feed on laughter and  he loves to watch America's Funniest Home videos on his crystal ball.
f) Aunt Beast looks like the missing link.

g) In one scene, the actress who plays Meg calls out, "Sandy!  Denneeees!"
I had to shut off the movie right there and take a break.  Every true
Madeleine L'Engle fan knows that "Dennys" is actually pronounced like
"Dennis."
h) It’s dangerous to tesser (a form of dimension-bending space travel) alone in the movie – Mrs. Whatsit urges them to hold hands lest they become damaged – but in the book she says the opposite.  The tesser itself, described by Meg in the book as a sort of unmaking and reforming, becomes a psychedelic CGI river monstrosity. 
i) And speaking of CGI monstrosities, there’s Mrs. Whatsit’s centaur form – a CGI so hideous that the movie poster designers (quite wisely, I think) decided to turn it into a pegasus and pretend it never happened.

6. The Romance
In the book, Meg and Calvin have a sort of instant connection (not to be confused with instalove).  There are some wonderful scenes where they open up to each other and form a partnership.  In the movie, there is just one cringey scene after another.  Calvin and Meg make doe eyes at each other, Calvin and Meg stutter-flirt, Calvin tries awkwardly to find a place for his hands on Meg's hip (while they're centaur-ridin'). And then Calvin throws out this little gem to Meg: "There’s no one I’d rather be held hostage with."  Romance isn't dead, people.  It's ironic, because Calvin of the book is gifted with words and diplomacy.  Calvin of the book also kisses Meg at the end, whereas lame Calvin of the movie begs off.

7.  Camazotz
In the book, Camazotz is a rigidly structured place.  Any deviation from IT's control is punished and corrected.  The children play at the same hour each day and no one is allowed to be different.  In the movie, all of this is true.  But then they went and added a few things: eternal darkness, sand storms, dank cellars with exposed pipes and fluorescent lighting, snakes with glowing eyes, and also...a movie theater.

The encounter with the man with red eyes is also similarly exaggerated:  the complex mental battle that I loved in the book is replaced by a smoking chasm, flying bodies, and mortal peril.

8.  Faith and Religion
And now I finally come to the MAJOR changes.  Yes, all of that from before was just chump change compared to what I have to say now.  But first, I'd like to treat you to another excerpt from the interview with the brilliant Madeleine L'Engle:

"So to you, faith is not a comfort?
Good heavens, no. It's a challenge: I dare you to believe in God. I dare you to think [our existence] wasn't an accident.
Many people see faith as anti-intellectual.
Then they're not very bright. It takes a lot of intellect to have faith, which is why so many people only have religiosity."

I am not a religious person.  I generally avoid Christian fiction at all costs, and yet I would say that this book undoubtedly fits within that category.  But that doesn't matter, because what Madeleine L'Engle was actually writing about here is faith - faith that just happens to grow within Christian scenery, but that nonetheless is universal.  She shows this so brilliantly - in Mrs. Murry's dogged belief that her husband will come home, in Calvin's calm deference to his "compulsions", and in the Murry family's acceptance of Charles Wallace for who he is.  It's "a willing suspension of disbelief"; it's the acceptance of the idea that "just because we don't understand doesn't mean that the explanation doesn't exist."   Madeleine L'Engle quotes the bible freely, and when the Mrs. W's name famous human fighters of the dark, Jesus is the first name to come up (and then they also mention many others, including Bhudda and Einstein).  And that's okay!  As Meg realizes while on Camazotz, "Alike and equal are not the same thing." 

Needless to say, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) that I love about this aspect of the book is completely destroyed in the movie.  Mrs. Murry is fearful and nervous, going so far as to forbid Meg and Charles from speaking to Mrs. Whatsit.  Calvin's compulsions are explained away.  The movie is pared down to a ridiculous "we're all okay" type lesson with no nuance.  And when it comes time to name famous human fighters?  Jesus is not mentioned.  Every overtly Christian reference is removed in the movie, which strikes me as a very "Camazotz-ian" white-washing of this book.   

9.  And Now, Finally: The Bitter End
And after that looooong post, I've lost the ability to discuss just how atrocious that ending was.  So instead of organizing my thoughts into complete sentences, I will instead "treat" you to the end of my list:

92) She has a knife?!!
93) And…she can throw knives??
94) Where’s the giant brain?  I was promised a brain.
95) Not so fast, Meg.  Not so fast.
96) PUNCH OF LOVE!! Damn it, even though it was super  cheesified, I still got a little choked up.  Damn it.  And theeeeere’s the giant brain.
97)  It’s as big as a house!
98)  Aaand now they’re freeing everyone.  So lame.
99) AND NOW SHE’S GIVING A SPEECH.  MAKE IT STOP.
100)  OMG NO. NOT THE BOY.  NOOOOOOOOOO
101)  The basketball will cure them all!  It’s a basketball of love!  And the sun is rising!   Huzzah! 
102)  "It was Meg.  She saved us."  Lame.
103)  OH NO THERE’S AN EPILOGUE.  Worst ending line ever.

And as final treat (real one this time), check out this amazing comic from Faith Erin Hicks: a brilliant adaptation, when compared to this movie.

Erebos
Author: Ursula Poznanski
Publication Date: 1/19/12
Publisher: Annick Press

Blurb(GR): An intelligent computer game with a disturbing agenda.

When 16-year-old Nick receives a package containing the mysterious computer game Erebos, he wonders if it will explain the behavior of his classmates, who have been secretive lately. Players of the game must obey strict rules: always play alone, never talk about the game, and never tell anyone your nickname.

Curious, Nick joins the game and quickly becomes addicted. But Erebos knows a lot about the players and begins to manipulate their lives. When it sends Nick on a deadly assignment, he refuses and is banished from the game.

Now unable to play, Nick turns to a friend for help in finding out who controls the game. The two set off on a dangerous mission in which the border between reality and the virtual world begins to blur. This utterly convincing and suspenseful thriller originated in Germany, where it has become a runaway bestseller.

Review:

“A game you can’t buy.  A game that talks to you.  A game that watches you, that rewards you, threatens you, gives you tasks.

'Sometimes I think it’s alive…’”

To anyone who’s ever been a MMPORG addict/widow(er) I think this book will be particularly frightening. And to everyone else, who’s sitting there right now, saying…really? Could a game really consume your life like that?   I invite you to visit this website, where level 85 World of Warcraft characters are frequently sold for upwards of $1,000.  In real currency!  I also invite you to consider just how many hours you yourself have devoted to reading book reviews…twitter…random/amazing tumblrs….  I know I’ve definitely been there – sitting in front my computer at midnight thinking…I’ll just do this one more thing…and the next thing I know it’s 3:42 am.  I’ve lost so many hours of my life to the internet!  It’s all-consuming!  

And I actually felt pretty darn consumed by this book for the majority of it.  It’s a fast-paced, highly engrossing read that I couldn’t put down.  It reads quite a bit like a horror movie, which I loved.  The scenes in the game are truly creepy, all the more so because they’re one small step away from a realistic gaming addiction.  The main character Nick is a popular, good-looking (…with a ponytail…), entitled jock guy, of the sort that’s common in horror movies.  He’s that everyguy who’s realistic and sympathetic, but just arrogant and closed-minded enough that you will really enjoy anticipating his downfall.  Plus, he has a thing for the broody artist/poet girl (always a good choice) so that earns him a few more points.  

Most of the characters in this book feel realistically young; however, there are a few really incongruous elements and I think that’s where the translation may have gone awry. This book takes place in London supposedly, but just check out some of this dialogue:

“’Get lost!’ Nick bellowed after him.  He wanted to run after him, grab him by the collar, and punch his lights out.”

“Just wait – one of these days someone will thump you so hard you won’t know which way is up.”

“Shut your trap, kid.”

“Beat it, sister.”

“And how!”

“Please don’t start with the whys and what-fors.”

It’s as if this version of 2012 London were somehow cast with actors from a 1950’s gangster film. There are also a ton of really abrupt, almost jarring transitions between scenes.  One moment Nick is in class, and the next he’s at home with no transition at all.  And, there’s an interesting quirk with the narration: when Nick is in Erebos, the book is written in present tense, but when he’s in the real world everything shifts to past tense.  I think that was meant to give the world of Erebos more immediacy, but it didn’t really work for me.  It just felt odd, like his virtual life was happening in the moment but his real life was a memory.  I can’t count how many times I got through a passage in Erebos, only to have my brain stumble over the sudden change to past tense.  It was irritating.

This book was sitting at three or four stars until I got to about 80% of the way through. Once the mystery started to become clear…once the man behind the er…monitor… was revealed…I lost interest pretty quickly.  There were also several major plot holes (Nicks parents are annoyingly present one moment and conveniently absent the next; Nick goes from broadcasting his search for other Erebos members to a sudden and convenient concern of discovery) that probably wouldn’t have bothered me as much if I had been more engaged.

But what really killed this book for me was the unadulterated cheesiness of the ending.  That was a complete "Scooby Doo" ending if ever I've seen one.  The only thing missing was the villain shaking his fist and saying, “And I would have gotten away with it too! If it weren’t for you meddling kids!”   One of the main characters actually buys a swiss-cheese shaped mug in the final pages, which I can only assume she will use to give a toast to that ending.

Perfect Musical Pairing
Slow Runner – Strange Days

Last week we reviewed J. Anderson Coats's upcoming debut novel The Wicked and the Just, a historical fiction YA novel taking place in 13th century Wales that follows two teenage girls who witness the conflict between occupied Wales and reigning English from the opposing sides, but eventually learn that they have much more in common than they ever thought.

Ms. Coats graciously agreed to answer some of our questions about her work and her writing career.

       ____________________________________________

We can not start this interview without finally asking: how do you pronounce Gwinny’s name? Gwenhwyfar? Welsh words have the craziest spelling.

There is no single way to pronounce things in Welsh. The language has developed along regional lines over hundreds of years, so I make no claim that my pronunciation is “correct” but rather reflects how I learned it.

Depending on where you are, it’s Gwen-hwih-VAR or Gwen-hwee-VAR. Sometimes it’s more like Gwen-HOOey-VAR.

Here’s a native Welsh speaker pronouncing it.

BBC Wales has a great little clickable sound board that overviews each letter of the Welsh alphabet. The nice thing about Welsh is that you generally pronounce every letter, so once you learn the sounds, you’re off to the races.

It is probably fair to say that the influence and power of women in politics was pretty limited during the period in which your novel is set. What made you want to write about this conflict from the point of view of two teenage girls?

Much of the conflict in late thirteenth-century Wales was experienced in ordinary ways by ordinary people, and that’s what interested me. Witnessing the mayor of Caernarvon enact a toll policy wouldn’t be as interesting as seeing Cecily and Mistress Tipley cutting through the toll line while all the Welsh had to wait in it. This conflict wasn’t as interesting viewed from the top. I wanted to get inside it.

I chose to write from the point of view of teenage girls primarily because Cecily and Gwenhwyfar were the characters that spoke to me, but also because I’m interested in the lived experiences of girls and women in the past. The influence of women in politics was definitely limited, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their influence was limited everywhere. I was interested in how women and girls did exercise power, and what form that might take.

And speaking of the two heroines, Cecily and Gwinny, we thought their voices were very distinct. Was it difficult for you to “find” these voices, or did they come to you fully realized from the very beginning?

Cecily spoke to me from the beginning clear as new glass. She has always been clever, single-minded and more than a little entitled. In fact, in earlier drafts she was even worse and I had to tone her down!

Gwenhwyfar was a little more elusive. All I had of her initially was her pure undiluted rage. She came into focus more gradually, and in response to her interactions with her brother and would-be sweetheart. They did a lot to soften her rough edges and define her inner life.

The spoken word has changed significantly over the last 7-8 centuries. How much of a challenge was it for you to have your narrators speak in a way that is relatable to contemporary readers, while being true to the novel’s setting?

The language in The Wicked and the Just was definitely a balancing act. I didn’t want the story to feel artificially archaic, that I was sprinkling in random words from the Oxford English Dictionary just for “flavor.” So I steered away from vocabulary in favor of rhythm; the internal meter of the narrative is meant to echo medieval prose literature and early modern ballad poetry.

Word choice was still fairly front and center, though, and I tried to use context as much as possible to keep the readers in the loop. During copyedits, I had to defend individual words that were considered “too modern.” I wrote little mini-dissertations in the margins and cited the OED. My geek senses were tingling for two whole weeks!

Your novel is set in Middle Ages. What attracted you to this particular period in history? Was there a specific historical event or maybe a book that sparked your interest in the subject when you were younger?

When I was in the sixth grade, my gifted enrichment program did a unit on medieval culture. One of the books available for our perusal was Castle by David Macaulay. (If you’ve never read it, Castle is a slice-of-life tour through a fictional castle in Wales with the most lovely and detailed illustrations.) This book pulled me so firmly into the medieval world that I don’t think I’ve ever really left. Castle made the middle ages feel familiar, approachable and real.

I went straight to my public library and systematically checked out every book on medieval Wales, then the middle ages in general. When I’d read them all, I started harvesting titles from bibliographies and bugging my mother to get books for me on interlibrary loan. This was how I learned how crass Macaulay’s anglicizations were, but by then I was onto other things, most notably When was Wales? by Gwyn Williams.

Williams’ dissection of traditional scholarship introduced me to the idea that history isn’t facts, but a collection of narratives written by human beings for a given purpose. The Wales that Williams presented was a complicated, fascinating place where history wasn’t encapsulated in the past, but had real and immediate bearing on the present.

Knowing as much about this period as you do, what would you say are the best and worst things about living in 13th century Wales?

It very much depended on who you were. Cecily’s Wales was a pretty attractive place. English burgesses who were citizens of the town of Caernarvon didn’t have to pay any taxes, and the rents for the houses and lands were very low. There were all kinds of special privileges attached to being a burgess, too. Gwenhwyfar’s Wales, on the other hand, wasn’t so nice. The Welsh had to make up for the taxes that the burgesses didn’t pay, and they had a lot of restrictions placed on what they could do and say and where they could go. Life in north Wales in 1293 was pretty good. If you were English.

Besides the setting/history of The Wicked and the Just, what are some of your favorite historical periods or events to learn about?

The middle ages will always be my favorite historical era hands down, but I’m also fascinated by the great age of sail - the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There’s also something eerily captivating about the Great War (WWI) and the world that died in the trenches. And early colonial Australia, with the Rum Corps and Norfolk Island. I could go on for paragraphs. Our shared human experience on this rock is way stranger than fiction and all the more engaging for being true.

The Wicked and the Just is your debut novel. Can you tell us a little bit about your road to being published? Was it a bumpy road? Or did this novel find its publisher very quickly?

I wrote my first novel at age thirteen. It was about a hundred pages long, typed, single-spaced, and it was really bad. By age eighteen, I’d written five more, each slightly less bad than the last. I started querying at age twenty, and I queried four novels over ten years before I wrote and sold The Wicked and the Just. Ray Bradbury famously said that your first million words don’t count. I think it was more like two million for me. But then within a month in 2010, I went from unagented to having a book contract – it was a whirlwind.

You hold master’s degrees in library science and history. What do you feel you are first - a historian? a librarian? a writer?

I don’t know that I can separate them out. Being a writer is something I live and breathe. It’s how I approach the world. It’s how I work through problems. It’s how I pick apart ideas and identify the constituent elements. It’s something I’ve always been.

The other two I’ve discovered, but that doesn’t mean they’re any a less a part of the way I approach the world. Librarians impose order and historians appreciate context. When I was younger, I didn’t have the vocabulary to express these ideas in quite the same way; I needed the training for that. But they were always there.

As a person well versed in both history and literature, can you recommend us some good historical fiction novels, both young adult and adult?

I love THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE by Jacqueline Kelly and MAY B. by Caroline Starr Rose - both are for middle-grade readers. In the YA arena, I’d can’t read PAGAN’S CRUSADE by Catherine Jinks, BLOODY JACK by L.A. Meyer, and SAMURAI SHORTSTOP by Alan Gratz enough times. For adults, definitely THE NAME OF THE ROSE by Umberto Eco, and even though it’s not straight historical fiction, DOMESDAY BOOK by Connie Willis is one of the best novels about the Black Death I’ve ever read.

Do you plan to continue writing young adult stories? Historical fiction? What is next for you?

I write things I’d like to read and let the experts decide where they should be shelved.

Right now I’m working on several projects. One is a companion novel to The Wicked and the Just which follows Maredydd ap Madog, whose father is the ringleader of the rebellion of 1294, as he negotiates the future his father wants for him and the future he wants for himself. Then there’s a standalone book that’s set in twelfth-century Wales about a warband, an abduction, a badly-timed war, a charismatic but mercurial king’s son and a girl who would do about anything for a chance at a normal life.

        ________________________________________________________________________

Thank you very much to for taking time to talk to us, Ms. Coats! We hope we see you here again next year.
The Wicked and the Just is not going to be released until April 17, 2012, but we are lucky to have one ARC of this novel to give away. US only. Open until midnight EST on 3/20. Good luck!

Boy21
Author: Matthew Quick
Publication Date: 3/5/12
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Blurb (GR): Basketball has always been an escape for Finley. He lives in broken-down Bellmont, a town ruled by the Irish mob, drugs, violence, and racially charged rivalries. At home, his dad works nights and Finley is left alone to take care of his disabled grandfather. He's always dreamed of somehow getting out, but until he can, putting on that number 21 jersey makes everything seem okay.

Russ has just moved to the neighborhood. The life of this teen basketball phenom has been turned upside down by tragedy. Cut off from everyone he knows, he won't pick up a basketball, and yet answers only to the name Boy21—taken from his former jersey number.

As their final year of high school brings these two boys together, "Boy21" may turn out to be the answer they both need. Matthew Quick, the acclaimed author of Sorta Like a Rock Star, brings readers a moving novel about hope, recovery, and redemption.

Review:

There is not nearly enough YA books about friendships. For some strange reason, romantic relationships are promoted as more important. While I agree that at some point in life you do meet that special person who becomes your partner in everything, up until that point it is friends that help you out, support you, accompany you through life.

Friendship, the healing, supporting, non-judgmental type of friendship, is what Boy21 is about. Or is supposed to be about.

I love the idea of this novel. Imagine Finley, a reserved high school senior with some serious darkness in his past, whose only friend is his girlfriend/soulmate Erin. Finley's most favorite occupation, his therapy of sorts, is basketball. His goal for his last school year is just to be on the team and play well. Enter Boy21, another damaged young boy, a rising basketball star,  who suffers from a mental breakdown after the death of his parents. Finley is entrusted to guard and partner with Boy21 in school. And also guide him back  into playing basketball, because, among other things, what Boy21 had lost is his passion for the game.

There is a very interesting conflict here: Should Finley encourage Boy21 to play, knowing that he will for sure take his place on the team? Should he sacrifice his own dreams in order to save his new friend, because maybe basketball indeed has a power to heal Boy21, bring him back from the imaginary escape world he exists in now? What is more important - your friend's well-being or your own ?

To my disappointment, this conflict never really comes to the front of this novel, never develops to its full potential, never impacts the characters as strongly as it could and should have . The book that was supposed to be about Boy21 (you would assume, judging by the title) and about the friendship bonds between the two boys is diluted and often overshadowed by the side plots - Irish mob, Finley's girlfriend and family problems. In the end, only maybe 25% of the book is about friendship, and the rest - just everything else. I feel like Boy21 is a case of the writer having his fingers in too many (idea) pots. The main point of the story is just lost.

I do not want to take away from the merits of this novel. I admire Quick and some passages in Boy21 made my eyes tingle. But I do think this books lacks clearer focus and a better overreaching story arc.

As often is with these things, I am a little baffled by the overwhelmingly positive critical reception of Boy21. It has already received some serious starred reviews from several major professional publication. His previous YA novel - Sorta Like a Rock Star is a much more accomplished work, in my opinion, and yet it went almost unnoticed.

Do I recommend Boy21? Yes, but with some reservations. However, I  do wholeheartedly recommend Matthew Quick's Sorta Like a Rock Star.

3/5 stars

Froi of the Exiles is being released in the US today.

We are not going to review this novel today, however. As you would expect from true Marchetta fanatics, we have already read and reviewed it months ago, when the book first came out in October in Australia. You can read our musings in their variety here - Catie's (accompanied by some great music), Flannery's (with illustrations), and Tatiana's (with old-fashioned gushing).

Whatever our reactions to Froi of the Exiles were (and not all of them were uniformly positive), all three of us are still strong admirers of Melina Marchetta's talent.

What we want to dedicate today's Three Heads Are Better Than One (or Two) post to is talking about how we got to know Melina's works, how they affected our relationships with YA literature and what is that special something that brings us back to her books over and over again.

The first Marchetta book I read was Jellicoe Road. It was 2010 and this novel had just won Printz and I was entering a stage in my YA reading where I was not just reading any popular YA (it sounds so darn typical but I was brought to the YA community and Goodreads by, you guessed it, Twilight!, so you can imagine what I read immediately after that), but actively seeking out good YA fiction. I knew of Jellicoe Road, but I was not inspired to actually pick it up and read it until I saw a couple of reading progress updates from one of my Goodreads friends. They went something like this:

p. 200 of 420. This is so confusing. I don't understand what the hype is all about

p. 300 of 420. NOW I know what the hype is all about

Of course, I HAD to read this mysterious book ASAP.

It was indeed confusing in the beginning, but I loved it. It was so heartfelt and tender and heartbreaking. I cried a lot too. But there was a specific scene that made me forever a Marchetta fan and that is almost imprinted in my mind. It is a sex scene between Taylor and Jonah.

"I sit up in the dark and after a moment I take off my singlet and I hear him taking off his T-shirt and we sit there, holding each other, kissing until our mouths are aching, and then we're pulling off the rest of our clothes and I'm under him and I feel as if I'm imprinted onto his body. Everything hurts, every single thing including the weight of him and I'm crying because it hurts and he's telling me he's sorry over and over again, and I figure that somewhere down the track we'll work out the right way doing this but I don't want to let go, because tonight I'm not looking for anything being part of him. Because being part of him isn't just anything. It's kind of everything."

It gave me goose bumps. It struck me as so honest and so raw and unembellished. Just like all Marchetta's book are.

Like so many other wonderful authors, I learned about Melina Marchetta from a friend on Goodreads. Heidi and the lovely people at Young Adult for Adults were one of the very first groups of like-minded book fiends that I ever hung out with on the internet.  (They’re a very welcoming group so stop by and say hello!)  The first book of hers that caught my attention was Finnikin of the Rock.  I’ve always loved young adult fantasy, so that was an easy draw for me. The U.S. cover, combined with an excellent blurb added up to what was essentially Catie Candy.

However, for as much as I've always loved young adult fantasies, I've avoided young adult contemporaries.  For some reason, I had this idea in my head that young adult contemporaries could never be as deep or as dark or as complex as their adult counterparts. But everyone and her sister on Young Adult for Adults was raving about this other book called Jellicoe Road. So, when I went to my library with the express purpose of picking up Finnikin of the Rock and saw Jellicoe Road – a small, shiny volume covered in a huge red poppy – sitting innocently right next to it I thought, “hey why not?”  And I had absolutely no idea what it was about.

I finished Finnikin of the Rock that day and thought…"that’s one of the best fantasies I’ve read in a long time.”  It was great, but it didn't blow my mind.  I gave it four stars.  (spoiler alert: Froi of the Exiles DID in fact blow my mind.)  Jellicoe Road continued to sit on my night stand, untouched, until I had finally renewed it for the last time, hogging it from the library like a jerk. I finally gave in one night right after I put the girls to bed, and unlike just about everyone else who seemed to find the beginning confusing and dense, I was hooked from page one.

“My father took one hundred and thirty two minutes to die.  I counted.”

I still get chills when I read that opening page!  I stayed up well into that night, reading with stunned amazement, as just about every preconceived notion that I had about young adult contemporary novels was shattered.  I read with a sense of doomed sadness as the identities of the characters in the flashbacks started to become clear.  When Jonah revealed his reasons for taking the train that day, I cried.  And when that ending dared to go further into Taylor’s abandonment and grief than I ever expected a young adult book to go, I knew that this book was going to get five stars.  

“I stand up and walk towards her because my days of waiting for more are over. If I want more, I need to go and get it, demand it, take hold of it with all my might, and do the best I can with it.”

It’s the first young adult contemporary novel that I ever gave five stars to, but not the last.  Thanks to Jellicoe Road, I expanded my horizons and found other contemporary young adult authors that I can’t believe I spent years without:  Sara Zarr, Courtney Summers, Kirsty Eagar, Cath Crowley,  and Steve Brezenoff.  Melina Marchetta opened the doors into a world of literary greatness that I'd been missing, and I'll always be thankful for that.

Saving Francesca was the first of Melina Marchetta's books that I read, and I read it in November of 2010. At that point, I was just starting to actually fully engage with readers on Goodreads as opposed to just cataloging my books and conversing with my real-life reading buddies. I'd seen the book in my feed once or twice but I can't say what actually made me pick it up. I do remember putting it on hold and taking it home. It had that contact paper on the outside and looked right grubby, actually, which is always a sign of awesomeness for me--it means that  many people had read and enjoyed it before me. I read Saving Francesca from start to finish while I was holed up in my room, and it really started a love affair for me. I'm a huge fan of Marchetta's contemporary young adult novels for so many reasons but the number one reason is probably their emotional depth. In the land of young adult novels, so many books just skim the surface. We learn about what so and so is doing in school, how he or she is having relationship troubles, how they try to deal with what is going on in their present life. Don't misunderstand me, I think there is a large amount of this type of writing that is done well. However, this isn't what Marchetta writes and that is what makes her stand out for me. She writes about why things are happening now. While everyone else is scooping out a handful of dirt to plant a seedling, she is jumping in a 6-foot-deep trench and then filling it in as she goes.  I think that is why my favorite books of hers are The Piper's Son (you must read Saving Francesca beforehand) and Jellicoe Road. (I won't beat a dead horse on that one. See my lovely cobloggers comments.) Each member of the Mackee/Finch family in The Piper's Son  is struggling with something or somethings, and in every case there is more than one reason why they're having trouble with varying aspects of their present lives. It is an interesting avenue to explore--when nearly everyone is emotionally raw, how can they all get it back together?

While I am usually an upbeat, friendly person, I think I have a huge capacity for sadness. Many of my favorite books are ones that paint an accurate portrait of someone in despair or someone wondering what the purpose of life is. I listened to the audiobook of Looking for Alibrandi (which I absolutely recommend) and while I have so many favorite scenes from each of her books, I think the scene that affected me most was the moment Josie remembered the note John Barton had written during their meeting--and just the idea of her having his thoughts when he was in such a horrible emotional state. I don't even remember what he said, and it doesn't even matter. Just thinking about him makes my throat choke up a bit. I cannot say any more without spoiling something so I better just stop writing. Now I've gone and made myself want to reread all these books again.  

                     _____________________________________________________________

Have YOU discovered Melina Marchetta yet?

Happy US Release Day, Melina Marchetta!

From three of your biggest fans.

Jennifer at Literate Housewife is running a feature called The Armchair Audies. Every year, the Audio Publishers Association (APA)  nominates 5 audiobook productions for each of their 28 categories. The number of hours it would take to listen to all of the nominees and predict winners would be absolutely daunting so The Armchair Audies provides a vehicle through which bloggers can be involved and try to predict the winners in each category by the time the Audie winners are announced in June. Each blogger signs up to listen to all the nominees in one specific category and then predicts the winner. Since all three of us listen to a huge number of audiobooks, I thought this would be a fabulous opportunity to get involved and since our favored genres on audio (fantasy, sci-fi, fiction, literary fiction, paranormal and teen) were already taken, we've decided to listen to all the books in the mystery category. I've listened to quite a few crime novels on audio so I'm excited at the prospect and I hope all three of us will discover a new author, series, or narrator from this endeavor. Here are the nominees:

Our taste in books really runs the gamut so I don't think any of these books are outside our comfort zone. I've accidentally listened to a later installment in a series before (Michael Robotham's Shatter) so I'm not too worried about some of these being part of larger series. (One is #9!) However, I suppose we'll see how that affects our interest. Overall, I'm confident that we'll have a lot to say about each of them and hopefully provide enough information for each of us and each of our readers to predict the likely winner in the mystery category. Now on to acquiring them all!

Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1)
Author: Robin LaFevers
Publication Date: 4/3/12
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Blurb(GR): Why be the sheep, when you can be the
wolf?

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

Ismae's most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared - not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?

Review:

I may have a few mixed feelings about this book, but I know exactly who to recommend this to.  Do you love historical mysteries?  Court intrigue?  Romance?  Very light fantasy?  Do you love Juliet Marillier?  Sherwood Smith?  Do you wish that The Queen’s Thief series read a lot more like a romance novel?  Then this book is absolutely for you.

Ismae is a young teenager when she’s sold in marriage to a much older man.  Her father is happy to be rid of her, but her new husband doesn’t know that she bears a large red scar on her back - a scar that marks her as one of Death’s daughters.  He is less than pleased (read: murderous with rage) when he discovers the mark, but Ismae is rescued by a hedge priest and bundled off to the convent of St. Mortain, the god of death.  Soon she is in training to be a handmaiden of death, skilled in espionage and murder.

This book reads a lot like a romance novel, but I really enjoyed that about it.  The romance between Ismae and Duval is slow-building, believable, and pretty smoldering.  I was a bit surprised when the book finally seemed to be getting to “the good stuff” and then it pulled one of these:

“Sometime later…

Boo.  Apparently this is a young adult novel!  Which is unfortunate because it reads so much like an adult romance, and I think that it would be better if it embraced that a bit more.

My only huge disappointment is that Ismae suffers from what I am now going to refer to as “Driven Snow Syndrome” (because I see this so frequently that it deserves a label):  she’s the kind of character who says, “I’m not a normal human being with a sexuality; I’m a woman.”  That is, until one special man comes along and then suddenly it’s, “What are these FEELINGS that I keep having?  Why is my heart pounding?  Why are my loins quivering?”  She startles like a little bird every time he touches her, and she’s conveniently skipped out on the “womanly wiles” classes at the convent so she has absolutely no knowledge of what sex is even about.  Ladies, isn’t it enough that men have spent centuries pretending that our sexuality doesn’t exist and over-valuing our “purity?”  Do we have to do it too?  Come on.

It’s also a bit unbelievable that Ismae would be a competent spy/assassin/seductress, and yet have no knowledge of court etiquette, social nuance, or male-female interaction.  Not to mention…she has a giant SCAR.  How is she supposed to insinuate herself at court as someone’s mistress if she can’t undress in front of anyone?

Still, Ismae completely charmed me.  I love her snap decision making and wild leaps of tangled logic.  I love her awakening and growth as a person.  I love that she’ll dangle out of a window to eavesdrop on someone.

I also really love the mythology: the god of death and all his forms…the convent of assassins, for god’s sake!  I love that I had some serious doubts about Ismae’s “calling” and she addressed every single one.  I’ll definitely be reading the companion novels as they come out!

Perfect Musical Pairing
Marvin Gaye – Sexual Healing

OMG, yes!!  I was *this close* to being able to assign this song only a few months ago, but then…the book that I was reading didn’t go the way that I expected and…I had to choose something else.  Sad.

Finally, a book that actually warrants this song (or at least, that's what I inferred was happening behind the closed curtains).  This almost makes up for the complete lack of visible sexytime.  Almost.

3.5/5 Stars