My Favorite Nine.

My favorite albums of 2011 -

9. Mutemath, Odd Soul

8. Son Lux,We Are Rising

7. Seryn, This is Where We Are

6. Gungor, Ghosts Upon the Earth

5. St. Vincent, Strange Mercy

4. John Mark McMillan, Economy

3. The Civil Wars, Barton Hollow

2. Josh Garrels, Love & War & The Sea In Between

1. James Vincent McMorrow, Early in the Morning 

I Recently Finished a Short Story...

...And it was "published" on Teen Ink. You should read it (and rate it five stars, of course... of course).

http://teenink.com/fiction/all/article/397526/The-Case-of-the-Helpless-Guineafowls-A-Boo-Boo-and-Slither-Mystery/

Inheritance

I just finished Inheritance. Here are some thoughts. There are spoilers. Don't read this if you are going to read the book. Seriously. The book will be ruined. Alright.

 Writing wise, it is CP's best. You can certainly sense the maturity he has gained with age. The dialogue is better than any of the other books, and his descriptions are amazing.

Despite these positives, I believe there are two major flaws -

A cruel, thoughtless, and unnecessarily sad ending, both to Eragon and Arya's relationship, and to the series in general. Eragon's reasons for leaving were weak, but Arya's reasons for staying were...weaker, to put it lightly. Even so, I thought the ending was touching, in a weird sort of way.

Secondly, too many interesting and crucial plot points were left unexplained. The Menoa Tree, Tenga...the list goes on and on.

However, if CP writes a future installment (book 5) wrapping up all the plot lines and allowing a more satisfactory conclusion to Eragon and Arya's relationship, my opinion would drastically change. If we find out that  Eragon is somehow able to eventually return to Alagaesia, I think Inheritance would shine as the best book out of the Cycle.

The Great Gatsby

I just finished Mr. Fitzgerald's novel, and loved it. Of course. 


At first, when I finished it, I thought I had had an epiphany; the beautiful yet murky, mysterious yet strikingly clear metaphors and symbols; the endearing yet foreign characters...all lay before me, unveiled and mine for the taking. 


Except, oh wait. Everyone (or, at least, nearly everyone) who has read Gatsby since it was published in the 1920's has had those exact same startling realizations. And the craziest thing is, they did it without SparkNotes there to comfort and guide them along the path of enlightenment concerning Jay, Daisy, and the American Dream. I kid. But seriously, people before SparkNotes were smart. Really smart. Reaaaaaaallllly smart. 


Anyway, the whole point of this post was really just to let you know that basically none of my thoughts (or yours, for that matter) are original. It is kind of a terrifying (and sometimes incredibly comforting) idea. 


In conclusion, here's a quote about Tom Buchanan -

(Her husband was) one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. 

On Trends.

So I think everyone can agree that J.D. Salinger created a monster in 1951 when he wrote A Catcher in the Rye. Granted, YA is an incredibly undefined, straight up weird monster, but it is a monster none the less.

(There is something amiss with that last sentence. Please disregard it.)

YA is changing. It's always changing - genres are changing, settings are changing...even the writing styles are changing. Now here's the crazy thing - it only takes one novel to set an entirely new tone; a tone mood that soon runs rampant throughout every YA novel published. Some books that did just that:

Harry Potter - Not only did J.K. Rowling raise the bar infinitely high for every YA author when she penned The Philosopher's Stone, but she also inspired a movement of magic. Soon, The Boy Who Lived became "The Boy Who Did Pretty Much Everything,With Magic."

Twilight - My personal favorite, Twilight has had more impact on a genre than any other book in my lifetime, and perhaps, well, ever. Literally every single YA book written in the five years after Twilight was released was either about vampires, or was a "paranormal romance novel." Way to be Stephanie Meyer, way to be.

The Hunger Games - Dystopian novel are "the" genre right now, at least among YA novelists. I can't remember the exact quote, but I remember reading that Suzanne Collin's publisher has started throwing away any submissions that are labeled as Dystopian. The Hunger Games not only rejuvenated a lost genre (try and name a Dystopian written before 2005 that is not called "1984" or "A Brave New World").

Finally, we come to our current state of affairs:

Every graphic novel, ever - Let's just get it out of the way. I absolutely despise graphic novels. Yes, some people love them and everything, but I am certainly not one of people. Haha. In all honestly, I think they take away the best part about books - the ability to create everything (the characters, the settings, etc.) yourself.

However, some authors (Ransom Riggs and Patrick Ness(!)) have started to use heavy illustrations and pictures in brilliant ways. Perhaps the best example is Ness' latest book, A Monster Calls. The illustrations are beautiful, inspiring, terrifying, and above all else, vague. Every single picture lends itself to your imagination, aiding it in incredible ways.

A Monster Calls

So that's what I think is coming next. Pseudo-graphic novels. Who's pumped?

Questions

So here are some questions. You can answer them in the comments below. Get on that.

Do you prefer fluffy kittens, or acid.

Do you prefer dogs, or $1 million in cool cash.

Chimpanzees.

Do you prefer beautifully written Greek mythology or MURDER.

Manchee the Dog is my Effing Hero

So last month I picked up The Knife of Never Letting Go at Borders, pretty much on a whim. It sat on my bookshelf for like three days before I finished The Hunger Games (fourth time) and decided to give The Knife a shot. Five hours and 500 pages later, I went to bed.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I didn't get any sleep at all that night. Holy gosh, Patrick Ness is an unbelievable author. Other than perhaps The Hunger Games, no other book I have read has captivated me that much. Even though Ness didn't appear to be pulling any tricks (such as ending each chapter with a cliff-hanger), I cared so much about Todd and Viola (and Manchee... especially Manchee) that I was forced to keep reading. Seriously though, Manchee might be the greatest talking dog in the history of Literature.

(Quick note - In the world of The Knife, every man has something called Noise, which basically entails hearing ever single thought anyone nearby is thinking. Got it? Alright, let's move along.)

There was a certain aspect of Ness' writing that impressed me above all else. Even though Todd (the main protagonist) had a very distinct (otherwise know as illiterate) voice, Ness wrote the story in such a way that you were allowed (not forced) to look past his lack of "educashun." I'll be honest - I really didn't like Todd at all through the first few chapters. However, as the story moved on I began to empathize with him. What would people think of me if they were attacked by my every thought? I don't even want to consider it.  Eventually Todd's choices revealed that he was a whole effing (a Todd word) lot smarter than me, and probably a better person as well. I won't give away anything else about the plot, because it is really effing good.

Seriously, just read it.

Chaos Walking/Patrick Ness is the Man

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to focus on writing about each of the Chaos Walking books, starting with The Knife of Never Letting Go (obviously). 

Spoiler alert: 

They are awesome. 

In fact, everything Patrick Ness writes is straight up sterling. That is just a fact. 

Top

Since this blog is going to be focused primarily on literature, I suppose I should throw out a few of my favorite novels. That way, you can decide if you would like to read on, or - more likely - run away as quickly as your little legs can carry you.

In no particular order -

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
All Creatures Great and Small
1984
Bridge to Terabithia
Lillith: A Romance
Harry Potter
Surprised by Joy
The Knife of Never Letting Go
Frankenstein

Eclectic, yo.

Oh yes - my favorite authors are Patrick Ness and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Not that it really matters.