2.Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta. I could put the whole of The Lumatere Chronicles, but Finnikin is the one with the most travel. They're all wonderful.
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Trip to the Peak District, anyone? Namely Derbyshire.
6. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. What better way to travel than through time? Though it doesn't exactly work out well for Henry. This book gives me All The Feels.
7. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares.Four friends use a magical pair of jeans to stay in touch when they're separated over the summer. It's nowhere near as lame as I thought it would be before I read it.
8. Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. Second star to the right and straight on till morning!
9. The Princess Bride by William Goldman. One of my favourite books of all time, I wouldn't mind a trip with Fezzik and Inigo - and Westley, of course. Buttercup can stay at home.
10. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. While it's mostly set in Paris, the kids do travel there to start with (and to America and back again over the holidays). Anna may whinge about it at first, but I wouldn't have minded going to school in such a gorgeous city!
This week's Top Ten Tuesday is a toughie for me because I'm not a big genre reader, but I have been gravitating towards contemporary YA a lot lately so I thought I'd list some of the awesome authors I've come across...
Sure, it may look completely random and irrelevant, but contemporary YA makes me happy and so does this gif. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
1. Stephanie Perkins. Anna and the French Kisscompletely blew me away, and although I didn't enjoy Lola and the Boy Next Doorquite as much, it was still great. I can't wait for Perkins' next novel, Isla and the Happily Ever After, to come out.
2. Melina Marchetta. One of my favourite authors of all time. I love the way Marchetta captures authentic emotions and experiences and creates such wonderful, well-rounded and realistic characters. All of her contemporary fiction is fantastic, but On the Jellicoe Roadis probably my favourite.
3. Ann Brashares. I've mentioned before that it was The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series that introduced me to YA and made me rethink my previous (judgmental) stance on it. It was such a fun and touching read. I've been meaning to reread the series for awhile, especially with the last installment that's come out, but I've heard some spoilers so I'm kinda scared.
4. Gayle Forman. If I Stayis kinda supernatural, but its sequel, Where She Went is more contemporary. I adored both books and their characters, but I especially appreciated Adam's point of view in Where She Went.
5. Libba Bray. I have a ridiculous amount of love for Beauty Queens. I thought it was clever, hilarious and so much fun. I've wanted to read more of Bray's books every since I read it, but sadly for me I haven't gotten around to it yet.
6. Morgan Matson. I loved Amy and Roger's Epic Detour; the characters were likable and the story was so much fun, while still maintaining some serious aspects. It made me totally want to take a road trip around the US and eat lots of hamburgers. Second Chance Summerwas also a great read, and utterly heartbreaking.
7. Simone Elkeles. I wasn't sure whether I should put Simone on the list given the recent hullabaloo around the way she responded to one of her reviews, but the truth is I absolutely loved her Perfect Chemistry series so she deserves a spot here. Sure, it's totally cheesy and predictable, but it's also completely addictive and fun.
8. Judy Blume. 'Nuff said.
OK, I'm out. Unfortunately I haven't read enough contemporary YA to have a complete top ten (though it's probably the genre I've read the most!). Because I'm kinda OCD and can't have an incomplete list, here are two contemporary YA authors I want to read.
1. John Green. I know. I haven't read any John Green. Yes, I'm hanging my head in shame.
2. Sarah Dessen. Now my whole body is hanging in shame.
My Book Boyfriend is hosted by the lovely Missie at The Unread Reader. Daniel Grey, from Ann Brashares' My Name Is Memory, is kind of intense, but you can't really blame the guy when he has more than a thousand years worth of memories rattling around in his head. The strongest of those memories are those that involve the girl he loves. The boy is devoted all right, seeking her out time and again and doing all he can to be with her. It's hard not to fall for all that love.
Swoon-Worthy Quotes
"I have fallen in love, and she is the one who endures. I killed her once and died for her many times and I still have nothing to show for it. I always search for her; I always remember her. I carry the hope that someday she will remember me."
"She is my doing and my undoing."
"Every life I start with her, my original sin. I know myself through her."
"I did the searching and remembering, she the disappearing and forgetting. I hated to be the one to leave her... All I could think to do was love her. That's all a person can do."
This week for TGIF, Ginger asks "Gateway books: Which particular books opened you up to a new genre?" Here are my top five...
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. My gran gave me a copy of this book when I was little, because I was so obsessed with the musical Oliver! Obviously it went way over my head, but it was the first classic I remember attempting to read. Later, my grandad bought me a whole heap of abridged classics that gave me an even greater taste, and as I got older I returned to them and Oliver Twist and quickly fell in love. By the time I was 17, I was a fully-fledged classic lover, going on to study English Literature at uni. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I've read dystopian novels before - such as George Orwell's 1984, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and P. D. James' Children of Men - and while I did appreciate them, I still wasn't a massive fan of the genre as a whole. Which is why I was resistant to The Hunger Games for a very long time, until finally the hype became too much and I caved. Thank goodness I did, because I freaking loved the series - so much that I decided to give dystopian books more of a chance.
Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants by Ann Brashares. When I was at uni, I had a friend who was really into YA. Not gonna lie, I judged her on it. I thought she was too old to be reading silly teen trash, and saw it as, well, really dorky (clearly I was going through a pretentious stage or something). Then, for my birthday, she gave me Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, one of her favourites. I'd seen the movie and enjoyed it (for some reason, I didn't turn my nose up at trashy teen movies as much as books), so one summer day I decided to give the book a go. I LOVED it, and devoured the whole series within a week. Needless to say, it caused me to do a complete 180 in my views of YA , not to mention made me feel pretty damn guilty - and silly - for being so judgey.
Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding. This was the first adult chick lit I read, and what a book to start the genre with! It made me laugh out loud more than any other book I could remember reading, and it still makes me giggle every time I read it. It's such a fun read, and Bridget's inner monologue is so easy to identify with. The experience of reading BJD has made me pick up many a chick lit book, with mixed results.
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Ah, Twilight. I have a feeling I'll see this on many lists in answer to this question. It seems that Twilight introduced a lot of people to a lot of things, whether it be reading in general or a particular genre. For me, it was the first paranormal romance I really read. I picked it up not long after I started working at Girlfriend, curious to see what was sending so many teen girls (and, for that matter, adult women) ker-razy. Like so many others, I got completely sucked in, and went on a binge of vampire/paranormal romances for the next few months. Too much of a good thing meant I went off the genre completely for a while after that, but now I like to mix the odd PNR with contemporary, literary and other types of fiction.
P.S. This weeks Follow Friday question from Alison Can Read and Parajunkee's View is: "We want to see what you look like! Take a pic with you and your current read! Too shy? Boo! Just post a fun pic you want to share." Because it's 11.15pm here and I'm not exactly ready for my close-up, here are some pics of me with my favourite author, Charles Dickens, instead. Or the closest I'll ever come to him, anyway.
"I have fallen in love, and she is the one who endures. I killed her once and died for her many times and I still have nothing to show for it. I always search for her; I always remember her. I carry the hope that someday she will remember me."
OK, how is that for powerful?! Seeing that quote on the cover, together with the fact that it was written by Ann Brashares, author of the Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series which I love, was enough to make me want to read My Name is Memory without even knowing what it was about. Then when I did learn what it was about - a boy whose soul remembers every life he's lived, and the one girl he's loved through them all - I got even more excited.
Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to my expectations. It was a super-fast, easy read - I got through it in one sitting - and enjoyable enough, but both character and plot development were on the thin side. Daniel and Lucy, our star-crossed lovers, are defined by their love for each other, to the point where there's not much else to them. Daniel has thousands of years worth of memories, but the only important ones to him - and so the only ones we're really told about - are those that involve Lucy (or Sophia, as he knows her best). Still, due to their history - and especially the way they first met (it's a doozy) - his feelings for her are quite complex, meaning that his character, as defined by those feelings, is not wholly one-dimensional. But Lucy? From the first sentence she's all about her love for Daniel; we meet her character obsessing over him, and she stays obsessing over him for the next 300-odd pages. She wasn't totally annoying, but I like my characters with a bit more meat on their bones, if you know what I'm sayin'.
Similarly, the plot is quite sparse for the majority of the book. I enjoyed the flashbacks to Daniel's past lives, but they slowed the present-day action down considerably. When things finally got going in the last third of the book, it was a lot more fun. But before that I found the way Daniel and Lucy spent so long mooning over each other from afar rather than, oh, I don't know, trying a simple "hey, how's it going?" quite frustrating. I would have also liked to see more development of the villain and his motivations - although maybe that will be explored in the inevitable sequel. Which I'll inevitably read. Coz while there were a few things missing in this book that, had they been there, would have taken it from fun to OMGADDICTIVE, I'm still keen to read on - even if I don't need it, like, now.
Rating: 3/5
Eye Candy
In my head, Daniel looked like Paul Wesley, coz he's got the whole tall/handsome/brooding thing down, while Lucy looked like Lily Collins. Coz I just love her.
Fine Print Genre: Apparently this is classified as Adult Fiction, though it definitely felt more Young Adult to me. There's a sex scene in it, but it's not explicit, and nothing you wouldn't find in any other YA romance, in my opinion. Published: 2010 Publisher: Penguin Get It:Book Depository
Related
I'm not really one to watch book trailers, but this one is kinda dreamy, and captures the mood of the book pretty well.
