Project Animorphs: Book #23 The Predator

Book 23: The Pretender

Publishing Date: November1998

Narrator: Tobias

My rating:

Tobias has been contacted by a long-lost cousin who wants to take him in after the reading of his father’s will. One of the free Hork-Bajir babies has gone missing. Tobias is having an identity crisis. Just your average day for your average Bird-Boy.

Like I said, this novel is pretty much about Tobias’ identity crisis. Mostly it flitters between his inability to defend his territory from another hawk, and his indecision on whether he can permanently become human again and bow out of the war. He fights between being too human and being too hawk and in his moments of weakness ends up sinking to his lowest ever – eating roadkill. But hey, whatever it takes to survive, right? He can’t depend on the other Animorphs to bring him food when his only problem is the other hawk he won’t fight – oh year, and did I mention every time he tries to hunt he gets these weird flashes of head-hopping that is never really resolved?

I love Tobias. I love his angst and his indecision – which in itself is another decision. I think he’s brave and valiant and he has a strong sense of what’s right and wrong tempered with his predator’s view of the world. So it pains me to see him hang out with Rachel and have her not really understand why he won’t permanently become human again. Not even for her.

And who exactly is the pretender? If you don’t know the spoiler, the fact that Tobias’ mysterious cousin Aria is really Visser Three in morphs suspecting the homeless kid who disappeared around the same time the Andaliate bandits appeared, then the pretender might actually be Tobias. He’s pretending to be a bird. Or maybe he’s pretending to be human. Either way it fits him perfectly.

This book is important to the overall storyline, especially if you haven’t read the Andalite Chronicles. This book reveals that Elfangor was Tobias’ real dad. It’s a pity we never see Ax’s reaction to this revelation. I think sometimes the guys refer to each other as uncle/nephew, but they’re more focused on the best friends forever aspect. Anyway, because Tobias is awesome and you should love him, you’ll enjoy this as one of the better Animorphs books. Don’t miss it.

Join me for a review of #24: The unbelievably stupid aliens Suspicion soon!

Stacking The Shelves (37)

Stacking The Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews.
It’s all about sharing the books we’ve picked up for the week, whether they are bought, borrowed, gifted, galleys, physical or virtual.
Share your shelves and remember to visit Tynga’s Reviews where it all started to find more great books!

ARC

At the School for Good and Evil, failing your fairy tale is not an option.

Welcome to the School for Good and Evil, where best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

With her glass slippers and devotion to good deeds, Sophie knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and join the ranks of past students like Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Snow White. Meanwhile, Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks and wicked black cat, seems a natural fit for the villains in the School for Evil.

The two girls soon find their fortunes reversed—Sophie’s dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School for Good, thrust among handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication.

But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are . . . ?

How gorgeous is this cover? The plot feels similar to Wicked, which I absolutely loved.

For Review

Caledonia has been kept a secret her entire life, raised in isolation by two very troubled people. Despite her parent’s disturbing fits, Cal is perfectly content, living at one with the nature that surrounds her, and finding adventure inside the pages of her beloved books. When an awful tragedy tears her away from her remote cabin in the woods, nothing she’s ever read has prepared her for a world that she knows very little about.

Girls and motorcycles are what bad-boy Calvin’s life is all about. Brought up in a raucous party house by his biker brother, he’s free to do as he pleases, going through the motions on his final days of high school. Aimless, Cal stopped thinking about his future a long time ago.

Attacked by a gang of thugs while running an errand for his brother, Cal is in serious trouble until a fierce girl appears out of nowhere to intervene. She chases off three grown men, sparing Cal a brutal beating before disappearing into the night like a spirit. He can’t stop thinking about his mysterious rescuer, and when she turns out to be the weird new girl at school who goes out of her way to avoid him, he can’t contain his curiosity.

He’s never met anyone like her before, and the more he learns about the unusual girl who shares his nickname, the more he wants to know. Cal can’t help falling for Cal, but can he keep her from falling victim to a dangerous enemy from her parent’s tragic past?

I know this cover looks totally 80s but the story seems like something kind of creepy I hope I love!

Let’s Talk: How To Write a Book Review (22)

Let’s Talk is a meme originally hosted by I Swim For Oceans and now hosted by the team at Smash Attack Reads and A Book Obsession.
It’s guided discussion on anything and everything to do with books and more!
Please drop by Smash Attack Reads or A Book Obsession to find other participants in Let’s Talk!

This week’s topic:

What do you consider the most necessary things to include when writing a review? Should there be something emphasized more in the review such as reading experience, the characters, or the writing style? Are spoilers or minor explanations of the plot to be omitted from a review?

I personally believe that reviewers can write whatever the hell they want on a review. They can say ‘This book sucked so much and tastes like assssssss’ if they want. Because reviewing shoudn’t be about numbers, or followers, or free books or even helping authors out by critiquing politely. It’s about sharing an opinion. I feel that reviewers can say whatever they want, because my tastes are personal and my own opinion varies as well. If I don’t like the way you write your reviews, I won’t read them.

Personally I prefer to read spoiler-free reviews, but sometimes I’m not looking for the next book to read, I’m just reading for entertainment, so I’m happy to read spoiled reviews. The same with plot explanations: if the blurb is vague and I’m doing research, a plot overview is awesome, but if I’m reading reviews to be entertained or of books I’ve already read, then I don’t need an overview. It depends what I feel like at the time.

So this is why there’s no one way to write a review, and why many unique voices and personalities is so awesome.

Even if I’m looking specifically for beautifully written books with almost flawless prose, well, my opinion of a technically brilliant book will be different to another’s.

Project Animorphs: The Hork-Bajir Chronicles

The Hork-Bajir Chronicles

Publishing Date: November 1998

Narrator: Aldrea, Dak, and Esplin

My rating:

This is the story of what happened before the Andalite Chronicles. Before Elfangor became the great hero he was, there was another Andalite whose name was famous among his own people. Seerow, who gave the Yeerks space flight, and unleashed them on an unsuspecting galaxy. This is the story of his daughter, Aldrea, the young Hork-Bajir ‘seer’ Dak Hamee, and the Yeerk Esplin 9466, known to the Animorphs as Visser Three. This is the story of the beginning of the war, and the fall of the gentle, sweet Hork-Bajir. This is the story of the Andalites failing to stop the Yeerks.

We know right away this book is not going to have a happy ending. For a start, it’s about characters who are dead in our normal Animorphs timeline. It’s about the invasion of the Hork-Bajir, whom we know to be an completely enslaved race. This took place in the late 60s, on a nearly-destroyed planet far away from Earth, where the dominant species looks fierce but are really gentle herbivores.

It’s also a love story between Aldrea, the feisty wannabe-warrior Andalite girl and Dak Hamee, the genetic anomaly of the Hork-Bajir, as intelligent as an Andalite. Their bittersweet romance is tempered by Dak’s growing anger at his helplessness to save his simple people, and Aldrea’s drive to eliminate the Yeerks at any cost, including her friendship with Dak. Not only did the Yeerks destroy Seerow as a prince, but they murdered him and Aldrea’s family.

Aldrea is rightfully very lonely as the only Andalite on the planet (hmmmm where have we seen that before?) and even confesses that if there had been an interesting male Andalite her own age around, she wouldn’t have looked twice at Dak. He is, after all, a seven foot tall bladed walking nightmare, with intelligence to boot. Dak’s feelings for Aldrea are softer – I think he loves her for being the only relatable one around as well. The other Hork-Bajir as simply too simple for him. It’d be like entering a romance with a four year old child. But at the same time I think he’s more earnest and more honest than Aldrea, who doesn’t hesitate to manipulate and lie to him, but falls in love all the same.

This is probably the best non-romance romance I’ve ever read. Even though Aldrea has nothing left and nothing to lose, she still chooses to become a Hork-Bajir nothlit, to spend the rest of her shorter life with Dak and have his child. It’s terribly romantic, the development of their relationship through the ordeal of the open Yeerk invasion, the Andalite retaliation, and their eventual retreat.

At the beginning of some chapters we have a year given, one that corresponds with the humans, Andalites, Yeerks and Hork-Bajir. It’s cool to see that the Yeerks were unleashed in 1968, and at that time the Andalites were in the 8000s. So that’s how long they’ve been recording time, that’s how long they’ve been civilised enough to record their time passing. The Yeerks literally only became a big deal in 1968 when they discovered hosts better than the barely sentient, physically undesirable Gedds. The Hork bajir do not record time, but we learn during the book they were created 12,000 years ago by another race to harvest the giant trees of the world. Humans have been using the Greco-Roman calendar for 2000 years and we have many thousands of years of history before that. What I find interesting is that these species are all so recent. What happened to the cultures millions of years old? When you think about it, humans are quite recent because the dinosaurs had the planet for so long. Where would humans be now if mammals had evolved first instead of reptiles, if we’d never had dinosaurs? Where would be we be if we’d had hundreds of millions of years of evolution instead of a mere handful? And where are the aliens with older cultures as well?

Anyway, that’s what I think of when I read this book. It may make you question other things as well. As for how relevant is this book to the overall series – I would say a fuck ton. It goes into Esplin’s obsession with Andalites, and introduces a character that is important to the rest of the series – Dak and Aldrea’s great-grand daughter, Toby. Aldrea also shows up in the main series later, so if you want to make sense of her tragedy, you really should read this. Besides the fact that it is just a totally awesome book. Did I mention that?

Join me for a review of #23: the Pretender soon!

Waiting on Weather Witch by Shannon Delany (38)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking The Spine.
It’s all about spotlighting upcoming releases we’re eagerly anticipating.
Share your books and remember to visit Breaking The Spine for more great books!

This week I’m eagerly waiting on:

Weather Witch by Shannon Delany

Expected publication: June 25 2013

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

From Goodreads:

In a vastly different and darker Philadelphia of 1844, steam power has been repressed, war threatens from deep, dark waters, and one young lady of high social standing is expecting a surprise at her seventeenth birthday party–but certainly not the one she gets!

Jordan Astraea, who has lived out all of her life in Philadelphia’s most exclusive neighborhood, is preparing to celebrate her birthday with friends, family and all the extravagance they might muster. The young man who is most often her dashing companion, Rowen Burchette, has told her a surprise awaits her and her best friend, Catrina Hollindale, wouldn’t miss this night for all the world!

But storm clouds are gathering and threatening to do far more than dampen her party plans because someone in the Astraea household has committed the greatest of social sins by Harboring a Weather Witch.

Top Ten Favourite Book Covers Of Books I’ve Read (37)

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
It’s all about bookish lists!
Share your lists and remember to stop by The Broke and the Bookish to see where it all began.

This week’s list:

Top Ten Favourite Book Covers Of Books I’ve Read

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Honourary mentions – other books I have read in the series

Healer – Maria V Snyder:

Unearthly – Cynthia Hand:

The Chemical Gardens – Lauren DeStefano

Fallen series – Lauren Kate

The Old Kingdom trilogy – Garth Nix

Graceling Realms – Kristen Cashore

Book Blogger Confessions: Co-Blogging #15

Book Blogger Confessions is a meme every 1st and 2nd Monday hosted by Karen from For What It’s Worth and the Midnyte Reader.
It’s where book bloggers “confess” and vent about topics that are unique to us.
Feel free to share, vent and offer solutions, and remember to visit For What It’s Worth or the Midnyte Reader for other confessions!

This week’s confession:

Have you added or considered adding additional reviewers to your blog? Why or why not? If you have, please share how you found the right match when bringing new people to your established blog. Did you encounter any problems?

I have an occasional contributer that is willing to review books I don’t want to read from authors who directly approach me. See the thing is, in the past couple of weeks I’ve been getting contacted more and more regularly from authors who want me to read and review their book. Sometimes the book doesn’t appeal to me, but it will excite my husband, whom I tell practically everything.

“Another author wants me to review their book! Oh, but I’m not sure about this one…”

“Oh? What’s it about?”

“Vikings/horror/crime!”

“Sign me up!”

He has taken the non de plume Masterpassiongreed to review books on the Moonlight Library. It’s a good arrangement because he doesn’t have a book review blog of his own but he is a voracious book reader. It also means I can take books I wouldn’t normally read, and now my husband and I can share another interest. He won’t be doing it regularly – in fact, we’ve only got one book for him to do so far and possibly another in the future. But it’s nice to have that option there. At this rate there’s bound to be more coming in.

Basically we won’t have any issues because it’s still my blog. I’m till doing 99% of the content. This is just an option for him to have some input in stuff I wouldn’t read anyway.

Other than this, I’m handling the content. I’m handling posting 5-7 posts a week. I normally post at least a week in advance, because I’m very organised.

On the other side I do see how much fun co-blogging could be, and it would certainly take a lot of the responsibility from me having to come up with 5-7 posts a week, but I would not want to have to rely on someone else to get things done without knowing if I can fully trust them to deliver. I have seen co-bloggings fail miserably when one takes up the slack of the other. I could probably only co-blog with someone I consider one of my best friends, and someone who I see in real life, but hardly any of my real life friends read let alone write reviews or even know book review blogs exist. This is why having my husband as an occassional contributor will work so well, because he IS my best friend, and I DO see him in real life, and he DOES read and knows what a book review blog is.

I think if I start to fail miserably with keeping up with my content, then I might have to look into co-blogging. But considering I’ve basically got the plan for this blog down for all of 2013 I don’t see that happening any time soon!