So, this evening I will stop by my library and pick up four reserves. (There was a fifth but it’s on order and not here yet.) Over this weekend I’ll see how far I can get with my little pile of books and hopefully beat this slump into a bloody pulp. My reading pile will include:

Summerkin by Sarah Prineas

Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis

Demon Eyes by Scott Tracey

Allison Hewitt is Trapped by Madeleine Roux

I wanted to also get The Nightmare Affair by Mindee Arnett but my library has it on order and it’s not available yet. But I think the pile I have will be enough to keep me busy over the weekend and hopefully out of my slump. Happy reading everybody!

I know everyone has slumps. Just a while ago I was reading three or four books a week and now I can’t seem to focus on just one. Orleans is a perfectly good book (despite the main character’s annoying speech pattern) and I could finish it in an evening if only I could kick my butt in gear. What do I do? People always suggest rereading a favorite book to reignite the fire but the very idea bores me to tears. I find rereading books boring. I’ve already read it once; why would I read it again? It’s not like it’s changed. (I might rewatch a movie I like a couple of times, just because there are new things to notice in visual media.)

Another suggestion is to read something different but, well, if I don’t have any interest in reading in the first place I can’t see that helping. Orleans is already something different since I don’t usually go for dystopias. Maybe I should pick up a good, old middle grade book? Those are usually my favorites. My Kindle is full of freebies that are just begging to be read and my to be read pile is not getting any smaller with me just sitting here. Ugh! I don’t have any interest in writing either and I have two stories that I haven’t updated in over a week. My life is an empty desert and there is no oasis in sight. (I like that. I need to remember that. Very teenage angst-ish.) Oh the inhumanity of it all!

Needless to say, there will be no book review this week. Maybe I should go out and do something this weekend? Something non-book related. If only my tax refunds would come in, then I’d have the cash to really have some fun. (Hello? Government? Are you there? I’d like my money, please.) The farmer’s markets are just opening and that’s like two birds with one stone; food shopping and getting out of the apartment. Blah. Help me, my will to live is being sapped.

Thank you for listening to me whine.

Welcome to the Friday Ramble, where I share what has been going on in my life and on the blog the past week.

Bookish Blog News

 I talk about my current reads and have a little gush about the Iron Man 3 movie in this week’s Musing Mondays post.

 One book review this week:
1) Game by Barry Lyga

Personal News

 I’ve been under the impression that Memorial Day weekend was this weekend. I’m very disappointed now.

 In news that surprises no one; I am NOT a morning person and I need to dismantle my snooze button.

 I seem to have fallen in love with the Monster High cartoons… Help?

What am I reading?

Finished: Game by Barry Lyga
Reading Now: A Sticky End by James Lear, Orleans by Sherri L. Smith
What Next: Any number of freebie ebooks I have saved on my Kindle that I’ve been meaning to read.

Etc.

 At the time of this posting, there are 165 to be read books on my shelf and 117 read books on my shelf.

Game by Barry Lyga
Published April 16th 2013 by Little, Brown Young Readers
Format: Paper Book
Length: 517 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Crime, Murder Mystery, Horror
Goodreads | Amazon

I Hunt Killers introduced the world to Jasper (Jazz) Dent, the son of the world’s most infamous serial killer.

When a desperate New York City detective comes knocking on Jazz’s door asking for help with a new case, Jazz can’t say no. The Hat-Dog Killer has the Big Apple–and its police force running scared with no leads. So Jazz and his girlfriend Connie hop on a plane to the big city and get swept up in a killer’s murderous game.

Meanwhile, Jazz’s dad Billy is watching…and waiting.

Have you ever read a book where it feels like the book attacked you, mauled you, and left you sitting stunned at the end wondering what the hell just happened? Game by Barry Lyga is that book. It chewed me up and spat me out. Its predecessor, I Hunt Killers, was one of my favorite books of 2012 and I was so excited when the sequel came out in mid-April. I was a bit daunted when I got my copy of Game and saw the book was huge at over 500 pages. I thought for sure Game couldn’t merit such length and that I would get bored or annoyed with it eventually. That was not to be. I couldn’t put it down.

I’m trying to make my reviews more interesting, so bear with me while I try a few things. (Lists!)

Things I Liked

 Jazz Dent – Jazz makes the whole series. He’s crazy and disturbing and probably the most interesting teen character I’ve ever read. His powers of observation rival Sherlock Holmes, both in behavioral analysis and crime scene investigation. Jazz is the bomb, as they say. (Or time bomb, as the case may be.)

 Connie and Howie – Game has awesome secondary characters and it was awesome to see Jazz’s girlfriend and best friend bust a move and really drive the plot along with their own actions rather than just being swept up along in Jazz’s wake.

 Creepy to the max! – I’ve read a few murder mysteries in my time but Game has managed to make my skin crawl in a way that hasn’t happened in a while. I think this is mostly due to Jazz’s unique insight into serial killers and his often deadpan way of delivering those details as if it’s nothing special. It shows that Jazz himself is cracked in a very special way. We’re getting to see into the motives and minds of the killers in a way I haven’t read before. There is also a new sexual aspect to Game that wasn’t focused on in I Hunt Killers. As a female, this focus is both frightening and fascinating.

 Never slowed down! – When I saw Game was over 500 pages long, I was sure it would lag and bog down. But the novel maintained a swift pace that hurries a reader along to the next big event and those 500 pages just flew by. I couldn’t turn pages fast enough!

Things I Didn’t Like

 Repetitive – After a certain point, Jazz can get repetitive. Look, I get that Jazz’s big thing is trying to keep himself from turning into his Dad, king of the killers. Jazz struggles with two parts of himself, the part that was created by Billy Dent and the part that society tells him he is supposed to act and think like. He’s worried that having sex with Connie will trigger him into violence and he’s constantly analyzing his every action against the sliding scale of crazy. But after a while, you just kind of want to slap him.

 Jazz is a genius/Everyone else is dumb as a rock – I said before that Jazz’s powers of observation are impressive. Unfortunately, Jazz’s powers are shown by making everyone else, the NYPD and the FBI, look like idiots. This is a common flaw with teen characters in adult situations. But the men and women of the NYPD and the FBI are trained professionals and having Jazz constantly one up them is ridiculous. Jazz may have an unique insight into serial killers growing up under Billy Dent’s tutelage but he has not been trained and it’s really quite annoying when he does that continually, like the whole of the police force are idiots and couldn’t catch fish in a bucket.

 Believability – The NYPD and the FBI seek a teenage kid for help with a murder investigation. Yep. Uh huh. I believe that. Not. While I could believe Jazz getting mixed up with G. William and everything in small town Lobo’s Nob because it honestly fell into his lap, I can’t accept that people from New York would seek Jazz out for help in the same situation, no matter who his father was.

 Stupid Girl Syndrome – Connie, what the hell do you think you are doing? Are you nuts? You seem like a smart cookie, so I can’t understand why you are suddenly acting like the dumb blond in the classic horror movie. What the hell?

Game by Barry Lyga is my first 5 star rating of this year. It has problems but the amount of awesome in this book makes up for any flaws. My biggest beef is the ending, in which we are left completely hanging with no resolution at all and all the characters in dire situations. I think I may die of frustration before the next book becomes available. I rarely enjoy a sequel as much as I liked Game. There is no second book slump for this series. I Hunt Killers was great but Game bumped it up to a whole new level of intense. I have to advise readers to read cautiously if you have triggers for violence or gore. It’s a little gross in some places. Game is also more sexualized than I Hunt Killers was and that might put some readers off. Mature readers only, people.

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I feel like I should get a prize or something. Maybe a gold star next to my name? I have finished the biggest, nastiest book I can remember ever reading (that wasn’t a school text book).Last week I was lamenting the size of Game by Barry Lyga, sequel to I Hunt Killers. At over 500 pages, I despaired of finishing it. I thought Game would lag and fail to hold my attention. I was wrong. Wow, was I wrong. I couldn’t put it down. I finished in three days and that’s just because I had to stop and do actual work while at work. (shakes fist) I’m pretty sure Game is the largest fiction book I’ve ever read. It still had some problems but, overall, it was really good. I’ll have a full review up on…oh… let’s say Wednesday.

I just started reading Orleans by Sherri L. Smith. I was tootling around the library and recognized the cover from a few other reviews. (Pretty cover. Sparkly.) I took a chance. I like the beginning, where the timeline and news articles give us a brief idea of what’s going on. I thought that was clever. Then we got into the meat of the story and I ran into the wall of the protagonist’s speech pattern. (whimper) It’s first person POV, which isn’t my favorite, and then Fen has the stereotypical (and in my opinion, cartoonish) deep bayou speech pattern that threw me so far that I landed on a different world.

I can understand the reasoning behind using it but I can’t understand why the author thought it would be a good idea. It’s like Smith wrote Orleans correctly the first time and then went back and just threw around a bunch of ‘be’ and ‘they’ and whatever it took to kill proper grammar. It does not help that I can’t get the picture of Fen as a little old black lady, smacking her toothless gums, out of my head because of it. Nothing drives me crazier than improper grammar. Smith must have driven her editor nuts. It makes reading the book jerky because my mind stumbles over it, thinking “that’s not right”. Very hard to read a book like that. It would have been just fine if just the dialogue was like that but the whole book it just too much.

I have to gush for a moment. I saw Iron Man 3 on Saturday! (Lights the candles on her Robert Downey Jr. shrine.) [Not really. I’m not that nuts.] {Well, not quite.} (Yet.) I’m obsessed with the Marvel movies and with Iron Man in particular, so I loved it. At the same time, (sobs) what the HELL did you people do!? The Mandarin!? (cries) Extremis!? (moans) That bloody ending! (dying whale sound) [SPOILER] If Tony could just have the shrapnel and arc reactor surgically removed, then why didn’t he do that back in Iron Man 2 when he was freaking dying!? Or are we supposed to take that to mean Tony injected himself with Extremis and would now survive the surgery when he wouldn’t have before? Why would you leave us so confused!? I mean, I know Mr. Downey isn’t signed up for Iron Man 4 (if there is one at all) and you have to work around that and that Marvel is having problems locking him down for Avengers 2 (You go, Robert!) but did you have to leave it so open ended? I think I’m having a nervous breakdown…

I need a bloody drink. I cannot deal with this.

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
Published February 5th 2013 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Format: Paper Book
Length: 307 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Steampunk, Spy, Paranormal, Science Fiction, Mystery
Goodreads |Amazon

It’s one thing to learn to curtsy properly. It’s quite another to learn to curtsy and throw a knife at the same time. Welcome to Finishing School.

Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is a great trial to her poor mother. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper manners—and the family can only hope that company never sees her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. So she enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But Sophronia soon realizes the school is not quite what her mother might have hoped. At Mademoiselle Geraldine’s, young ladies learn to finish…everything. Certainly, they learn the fine arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but they also learn to deal out death, diversion, and espionage—in the politest possible ways, of course. Sophronia and her friends are in for a rousing first year’s education.

Set in the same world as the Parasol Protectorate, this YA series debut is filled with all the saucy adventure and droll humor Gail Carriger’s legions of fans have come to adore.

It took me a little bit of time to wander my way through Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger. I heard great things about her Parasol Protectorate series and this was my first steampunk novel, so I was excited to read it. My excitement waned after a while and I finished Etiquette & Espionage in fits and spurts. It pained me that I didn’t love this book more. It had all the makings of an awesome novel with an original world (I haven’t read the Parasol Protectorate yet. So this was my first experience in this world.), a healthy dose of paranormal (Vampires! Werewolves! Oh my!), and some really interesting characters. But while it had all the pieces of a great book, is lacked any actual plot to focus on.

There are two things that keep Etiquette & Espionage from being a complete flop; great characters and the humor. All the girls at the finishing school are quirky and interesting. Sophronia, the main character, is spunky but could have had a bit more depth to her. Frankly, I was more interested in the characters she interacted with, like the other girls, teachers, and the sooties, than I was in Sophronia herself. There are great one-liners and fantastic humor. But all the cheeky jokes and turn of phrase wit in the world won’t hide the thin plot and slow moving action in Etiquette & Espionage. The setting gets the most attention, giving us a rich world with the finishing school, but leaving other aspects of the book languishing.

I feel as if I’ve read someone’s first draft and that I’m missing half of the book; the half where something actually happens. At the end there is some action involving the mysterious prototype and what could be some suitable villains but then the book ends before anything really exciting can evolve from it. We’re left with some funny characters and a fantastic world in which nothing much happens. I’m pleased with my first real foray into steampunk. That aspect of Etiquette & Espionage was fantastic but just didn’t have the support of a good plot to make the book really great.

I am intrigued enough that I’ll check out Parasol Protectorate. I loved Carriger’s world building and want to see more. Etiquette & Espionage read more like a middle grade book than a young adult book. The age of the characters and innocent and almost not there nature of the romance lends itself better to younger readers. (Not that that stops any 30 year old women from reading it.) But humor and quirky characters cannot disguise the slow and boring pace or the underdeveloped plot in this book. Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger was great for a steampunk novel but ultimately fell a little flat.

We all judge a book by its cover. A nicely designed or interesting book cover will grab the attention of a casual browser and get that person to pick up the book to read the blurb. We simply have to know what that book with the great cover is about! The only problem is, we rarely see the book cover while in the bookstore or library. Space constraints on shelves mean we are presented with the book’s spine more often than not. This means instead of a whole book cover, that book now has just an inch or two of space on its spine to intrigue a person into picking that book up for a look see.

For the most part, the spine of a book is too small for a picture of any meaning to be visible. So, it’s up to the book’s title to get as much mileage as it can. This means font and presentation and the words themselves. I don’t know about you but nothing annoys me faster than some loopy, squirrely font that is completely unreadable. It may be very pretty, in theory, but if I can’t read it sideways and probably from a couple of feet away, then it’s useless. If you are one of the lucky authors that have their books displayed at eye level then it might not be a problem but if you’re on the bottom shelf then you need to take that distance into account. Nobody is going to crawl around on the floor trying to read your title. If it can’t be read by someone standing with their head cocked to the side (in standard book browsing position), then it’s no good. So, make your title as colorful and glittery as you want but make sure it’s readable from a distance.

Then there is the title itself. Book titles constantly surprise me. It needs to have at least some connection with the subject of your book and most titles seem so out in left field as to be ridiculous. The book title might sound snazzy but it reveals nothing about what the book might be about. I read mostly fantasy, so when I’m browsing books there are certain words I look for. If a book’s title has one of the keywords I’m looking for, I’ll be more likely to pick it up for a look see. (Your mind = the original Google.)

 Creature names: Having the word ‘witch’ in your title is almost guaranteed to attract me. ‘Wizard’ works as well. ‘Elf’, ‘Troll’, ‘Fairy’, ‘Dragon’ and other creature names earn a second peek.

 Royal titles: ‘Queen’, ‘King’, ‘Prince’, and ‘Princess’ catch my eye in fantasy books. Lesser noble titles work as well. ‘Lady’ or ‘Lord’, for example.

 The word ‘Kingdom’ is a word I search for in book titles.

 Anything, and I mean anything, to do with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will catch my attention. My obsession with Alice and Wonderland is deep and all consuming. (It got me to read Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter and I probably never would have touched the book without that connection.)

 Location names in the real world will catch my eye. ‘New York’, ‘London’, ‘England’, ‘Spain’, ‘Paris’, and other famous city and country names.

It’s a lot to pack into a couple of inches on the side of a book. Very few, very lucky books are displayed on the shelf with their covers visible. So, that couple of inches needs to pack a punch if it’s going to get noticed. Be clear with your font and make sure it’s readable whether your book is at eye level or on the very bottom shelf. Make sure your title has at least something to do with the content of your book and gives a browser some idea of what to expect. Draw a potential reader to your book by including some popular keywords in your genre so that an interested browser can zero in on your book quickly. Above all else, treasure that two inches of space because it may be the first thing a reader sees of your book.

What words do you look for when browsing for books? Do you have problems with some author’s choice of font? What are some books that caught your eye just with its spine?

Welcome to the Friday Ramble, where I share what has been going on in my life and on the blog the past week.

Welcome to May!

Book Reviews for April

I reviewed 7 books in the month of April.

 Merry Lee and the Cursed Grandfather Clock by Amanda L. Kidd

 The Secret Tunnel by James Lear (Erotica)

 The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back by Sariah Wilson

 The Witches’ Kitchen by Allen Williams

 Scorch by Gina Damico

 Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter

 The Runaway King by Jennifer A. Nielson

Bookish Blog News

 I rant a little bit about the ballooning size of books in a series in this week’s Musing Mondays post.

 One book review for this week:
1) The False Princess by Eilis O’Neal

Personal News

 On Wednesday, I went to the dentist to get my first cavity dealt with. It was a small one, back bottom left and between the teeth. I also have a horrible gag reflex. When he stuck the cotton swab back there to numb the needle site, I gagged three times. But then I couldn’t feel anything and was fine. They shot me up and the left side of my face went numb. I couldn’t feel a thing! It was awesome. Then they started drilling, which was less awesome but I didn’t gag. In fact, my biggest problem was keeping my mouth open for so long because of my TMJ. (It means my jaw is messed up.) I survived my first cavity just fine but ended up with a sore jaw, stiff neck, and massive headache because of it.

 I finally have all my plants planted in pots out on the balcony. Now, to wait for my morning glories to sprout!

 I gained a pound. (scowl)

 I’m manning the phones today. So, I have a sore jaw and I get to talk all day. Fan-tast-ic!

What am I reading?

Finished: Small Medium at Large Joanne Levy
Reading: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
What Next: Game by Barry Lyga

Books Added This Week

Picked up a copy of Game by Barry Lyga this week from the library. It’s a brick at over 500 pages long. It’s going to take me forever to read!

And in the same trip stumbled across Orleans by Sherri L. Smith. I’m looking forward to reading it, as other reviews state its lack of romance and that suits me just fine.

Etc.

 Did a bit of cleaning up. As of this post, there are 162 books in my Goodreads to be read shelf and 115 books on my Goodreads read shelf.

The False Princess by Eilis O’Neal
Published January 25th 2011 by EgmontUSA
Format: Paper Book
Length: 319 pages
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Magic, Mystery, Royalty
Goodreads | Amazon

Princess and heir to the throne of Thorvaldor, Nalia’s led a privileged life at court. But everything changes when it’s revealed, just after her sixteenth birthday, that she is a false princess, a stand-in for the real Nalia, who has been hidden away for her protection. Cast out with little more than the clothes on her back, the girl now called Sinda must leave behind the city of Vivaskari, her best friend, Keirnan, and the only life she’s ever known.

Sinda is sent to live with her only surviving relative, an aunt who is a dyer in a distant village. She is a cold, scornful woman with little patience for her newfound niece, and Sinda proves inept at even the simplest tasks. But when Sinda discovers that magic runs through her veins – long-suppressed, dangerous magic that she must learn to control – she realizes that she can never learn to be a simple village girl.

Returning to Vivaskari for answers, Sinda finds her purpose as a wizard scribe, rediscovers the boy who saw her all along, and uncovers a secret that could change the course of Thorvaldor’s history, forever.

I picked up The False Princess by Eilis O’Neal while browsing through the library. It had been on my to be read list for a little while but hadn’t generated a lot of excitement that I could see on the other blogs. I read the blurb and thought the story would be a pretty straight forward ‘finding your place in the world’ novel. There was a nice twist that made the novel a bit more exciting than I expected but otherwise the characters and situation in this book were pretty bland. The main character, Sinda, is too accepting of her fate and simply allows the people she thought were her parents to basically kick her out of her life and send her off to a relative she didn’t even know existed. While I can understand Sinda being in shock at that moment, she’s a bit too much like a doormat to inspire much reaction from the reader.

When Sinda arrives in her aunt’s small village, her situation is more amusing than pitying and the reveal of her magic is predictable. It’s only as she returns to the city that things start looking up, novel-wise. At first, I thought the rest of the plot would be Sinda’s ‘journey to self-acceptance’ that ends with her being best friends with the new princess and generally becoming the most awesome royal advisor ever to the new Nalia. But there is a twist, things start to happen, and Sinda grows a backbone and a personality. The romance is not overwhelming but not very interesting. Best friends since they were little, Sinda and Kiernan of course fall in love with each other. It’s clichéd. Thankfully, it’s not focused on until the point of nausea.

The False Princess is your pretty standard fantasy/ fairy tale novel. It’s got ties to Cinderella and The Prince and Pauper. Everything and everyone is a little bland. I greatly wanted to learn more about Sinda’s birthmother and also more about the queen, who apparently felt something for Sinda even if we’re shown that with only third party information. O’Neal missed a great chance for some angst that would have spiced things up. As it is, Sinda’s numb reaction to everything is a little boring after a while. The False Princess does get a little more interesting near the end, where there is actually action happening, but it’s a little too late to save the book. I liked The False Princess by Eilis O’Neal, the second twist was good, but the majority of the novel was just okay.

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• What book are you currently desperate to get your hands on? Tell us about it!
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga was one of my favorite books last year. So I was super excited when Barry announced the sequel, Game, was to be released April 16th,2013. I had my reserve in at my library since the beginning of April. I went to pick my copy up at my library on Friday night. At first I thought the book I was given was not the right one. It was the Game cover wrapped around, oh I don’t know, some brick. This thing is 528 pages long. It is both book and murder weapon. Just hurl at your opponent’s head and their skulls will be crushed!

Barry, Barry, Barry! My man, what are you thinking? This is young adult, not the Odyssey.  Books should be 300 to 400 pages long. Even just 400 pages seem to drag in most books. The quality of books that long is rarely equal to the effort needed to read it. But I’ll try, Barry. I really will. I Hunt Killers was just that great that I’ll make the effort to read Game. But, Barry, it better be the best book I’ve read this year or I’ll be very disappointed.

Has anyone else seen this? Where the second book in a series is so much bigger than the first? I know the Harry Potter series ballooned once it started getting so popular and Rowling went pretty nuts by the end, length wise. Any other series that just keep getting longer and longer? Let’s see how long it takes me to read a 500 page book!