Feature & Follow (6): K-Dramas are Like Books

Feature & Follow Friday is a meme hosted by Parajunkiee's View & Alison Can Read. Check out their blogs and the Featured Bloggers of the week! This is great for finding amazing new blogs to follow and for gaining followers yourself. 

Plus, they ask sweet questions. 

Q: Is there a song that reminds you of a book? Or vice versa? What is the song & the book?

Okay, so, there isn't a specific song that reminds me of a book, although there are a lot of songs from soundtracks OF books made into films that remind me of a book (For example, Taylor Swift's Safe & Sound -> The Hunger Games; Christina Perri's A Thousand Years --> Twilight). 

However, I believe K-Dramas are like YA books, especially the ones that deal with teen issues. Hence, my pick of the week! 

Sung Joon's Wake Up from the TvN series Shut Up Flower Boy Band

This drama is a coming-of-age story about a high school rock band. It has romance, friendship (bromance!), great music, and a keep-you-on-your-toes plotline. The actors do all their own singing; in fact, many of the actors in the drama are actual singers in real life. I really like Wake Up b/c it's catchy and Ji Hyuk (our hero in the drama) writes it himself! Choice Lyrics: Run for you, I wake up/ Love for you, I wake up/ A song for you, I wake up/ Right now, wake up.

Ah...high school. In Korea. w/ Uniforms.

You can watch the drama w/ English subs at Dramafever. 

April 2013 New Releases (Week of April 23)

Release Date: April 23

(past April releases: April 2, April 9, April 16)

Quintana of Charyn by Melina Marchetta [Amazon] [Goodreads]

Why I'm excited: The third novel in the fantastic Lumatere Chronicles!

The Elite by Kiera Cass [Amazon] [Goodreads]

This is the second novel in the Dystopian series that began w/ The Selection

Unbreakable by Elizabeth Norris [Amazon] [Goodreads]

This is the second novel in the alternate-universe series, beginning with Unraveling.

Honestly, the cover does this novel a disservice. 

The Rules by Stacey Kade [Amazon] [Goodreads]

This is the first novel in a new Science Fiction novel from the author of The Ghost and the Goth

April 2013 YA New Releases (Week of April 15)

Release Date: April 16

(past April releases: April 2, April 9)

Taken by Erin Bowman [Amazon]

“An action-packed thrill ride from beginning to end. I devoured this in one sitting and might have gnawed a nail or two off from all the excitement. More, please!” (Marie Lu, author of Legend)

Dead Silence by Kimberly Derting [Amazon]

The Body Finder #4 

April 2013 YA New Releases (Week of April 9)

Release Date: April 9
(past April releases: April 2)

Apollyon: The Fourth Covenant Novel [Amazon] [Goodreads]

The Flame in the Mist by Kit Grindstaff [Amazon] [Goodreads]

Set in an imagined past, this dark fantasy-adventure is for fans of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass. Features  Jemma, a fiery-headed heroine held captive in Agromond Castle, yet destined to save mist-shrouded Anglavia.

Why I'm Interested: "For fans of Phillip Pullman"??? Count me in! 

Novel Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor: A Fantastical Novel Starring Angels and Monsters in Prague

Guest Review by the glamorous KATHERINE @katjc (hey, Katherine, I forgot what we said was going to be your alias. Not Mr. Poopy-pants, right?

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

by Laini Taylor

Kat: So, if you guys are

like me, you obsessively read YA literature (even though you're a twenty-something girl and you should be focusing on your career). And, if you're like me, you've noticed that the trend has shifted from Vampires (thank God) to Angels (okay, I guess). I mean, Angels are EVERYWHERE, fallen Angels, Archangels, Nephilim (the children of a mortal and an angel, or for all you Mortal Instruments fans, a mortal infused with Angel blood). So, when I read the description of Daughter of Smoke and Bone and it said "winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky", I thought, okay, here we go, more angels. But, if you thought that, then this is me giving you a smack in the face! Didn't your mother tell you not to judge a book by its back cover summary?! This book is AWESOME. It has fantasy. It has a complicated and intriguing mystery. It has LOVE. AND Laini Taylor writes in a way that makes me imagine old time Europe mixed with a Miyazaki film (which are obviously the best movies ever).

Kat's version of Prague (a Miyazaki film)

The main character, Karou, is a teenage art student living in Prague.

Whenever I read a book that opens in a foreign country I’m always (naively) shocked by how different teenagers in other parts of the world spend their days. I always love how free they seem when they go off to cafes together down cobblestone streets. This is what Karou does. She and her best friend Zuzana (who is an art student working with puppets, how strange and cool is that?) go to their favorite cafe, Poison Kitchen, and talk about their art and make sarcastic observations about other patrons/life in general. Karou seems like a normal teenager (with azure hair and hamsa tattoos on her palms) who is going to school, hanging out with friends, and avoiding her ex-boyfriend, Kazimir (who runs a tour through the streets of the city where his friends jump out as zombies/vampires and scare the tourists). 

Anyway, as the book goes on you realize that there’s something different about Karou (I mean other than her bright blue hair that grows out of her head that way). She goes on mysterious “errands” that she won’t even tell Zuzana about and you find out that she’s not only running them in Prague but AROUND THE WORLD. How can she afford that you ask? Well, it turns out that she uses portals. That’s right, she is transported there through supernatural means. And that is because she works for Brimstone (or “Wishmonger” as some call him), her Chimera adopted guardian who has raised her since she was a baby. He has the eyes of a crocodile, torso of a human, haunches of a lion, lizard feet, and a ram’s head. 

Issa is Brimstone’s assistant, and the only mother that Karou has ever known. She is a serpent from the waist down, and a (very sexy) woman from the waist up. There's also Twiga who has a giraffe neck, Yasri is part parrot-part human, and Kishmish with the size and face of a crow, but the wings of a bat, and the tongue of a snake.

Lamia by Abigail Larson

Anyway, as Karou runs her errands for Brimstone, she starts to realize handprints are being burnt into the portal doors she uses around the world (all of the portal doors lead back to Brimstone’s workshop, like the door from Howl’s Moving Castle!). Finally, while on an errand in Morocco, Karou runs into a mysterious stranger named Akiva. You know how guys hate to be called beautiful, because they prefer terms like rugged or handsome? Well, Akiva is beautiful. He has golden eyes (like fire) and black hair. He’s also an Angel. Karou is freaked out by him because he is the one who has been burning the handprints into the doors, so she fights him off (she also finds out that her hamsa tattoos totally weaken him through some sort of magic). Eventually something catastrophic happens to Brimstone’s workshop because of the handprints and Karou can no longer access it. This starts her journey of trying to figure out what happened to Brimstone and who Akiva is.

Karou's profile pic on Twitter: Art by Jim Bartolo (Laini Taylor's husband)

I give the book a 9 out of 10 (but that’s mostly because I’ve already read the second book which I loved and is a definite 10!) The book is a wonderful fantasy that is both complicated, but easy to read. It has a lot of twists and turns, but they are worth waiting for and often very unexpected. The book does a good job of making you believe the fantastical. 

Some of the standout secondary characters are Razgut, the beastly creature that knows more about angels and Karou’s past than you might think, and Hazael and Liraz, Akiva’s blonde haired half-siblings who fight alongside him in an unknown war.

I will say that as you start to read the book it seems like a story with no plot because you aren’t sure where it’s going. However, Laini Taylor does a wonderful job of slowly revealing important details and twists to the reader that show a bigger purpose as to why the characters are doing what they’re doing (so if you find yourself not relating to the story at first, I urge you to hang in there because the second half of the book is really worth it).

Karou is a good heroine. She’s strong, but not bitchy. She does kind of do some bratty things (a la Bella or Clary) but I didn’t find myself getting too mad at her for it because she was kept in the dark the her whole life and needed to find out what was happening on her own. She also pretty much takes control once the shit hits the fan and doesn’t just mope around like a damsel in distress. 

Akiva is the ideal love interest. He’s very stoic and mysterious, but as you learn more of his back story, he becomes such a sweet, romantic character. He’s the type of character girls swoon about even while they know that he’s a fictional character. I found myself counting down the days until the sequel, Days of Blood and Starlight, came out. And now I am obsessively waiting for the third (projected release April 2014, nooo! Why??!! So Far Away!)

Also, it has one of the better produced book trailers I’ve seen:

Axie: Also it's been optioned for a FILM! By Universal Pictures! Joe Roth (Alice in Wonderland, Snow White and the Huntsman, Oz the Great and Powerful) is producing the film and Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean) is the screenwriter!!! AKA THIS MOVIE IS GOING TO BE BEAUTIFUL. (You have to admit, although Snow White wasn't the most...well-written movie, it was very beautiful cinematically. Now, with the combination of a great producer and great screenwriter, Daughter of Smoke and Bone looks to be in good hands). I mean, how could they go wrong? Their source material is BRILLIANT! 

Waiting on Wednesday (10): The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Waiting on on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that features upcoming novel releases.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

by: Holly Black 

Release Date: September 17, 2013

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

432 pages

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

I don't think the market has moved on from vampire novels b/c I'VE READ THEM ALL AND I NEED MORE!
ALSO, Holly Black does faeries and mobsters like none other, so I can't see why she wouldn't do vampires with pazazz!

Top Ten Tuesday: Fictional Crushes or Boys in Books!

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week they have a different theme for bloggers to post their top tens about, and this week we’re listing our…

Top Ten Characters I Would Crush On If I Were Also a Fictional Character

I don't know why they need the disclaimer "if I were a fictional character" because I HAVE A CRUSH ON THESE BOYS REGARDLESS.

1. HOWL from Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

Howl is a self-absorbed, dishonest, bombastic wizard with a HUGE heart. He's known to be an evil wizard who lives in a moving castle. (in the Miyazaki film, it walks on legs) He's so evil, he eats women's hearts!...whether literally or figuratively is to be determined.

Howl Quotes: 
"I'm going up to my room now, where I may die."
"I assure you, my friends, I am cone sold stober." He got up and stalked upstairs, feeling for the wall as if he thought it might escape him unless he kept in touch with it. His bedroom door did escape him.

I could go on and on about Miyazaki heroes (and heroines), but since Howl is from a book (and I love him mostly from the book, which I read years before the movie came out in 2004), he will be my representative Miyazaki crush! 

2. EUGENIDES from the Queen's Thief series

 Eugenides is the Thief of Eddis, that is, he's a devout worshipper of the deity of thieves, who he's named after and who blesses Gen with stealth, nimble fingers, and bushels of cleverness. Also, Megan Whalen Turner was hugely influenced by Diana Wynne Jones while writing this series, and credits Howl as an inspiration for Gen.  

Gen quote:

"He could tell her he loved her. He ached to shout it out loud for the gods and everyone to hear. Little good it would do. Better to trust in the moon's promises than in the word of the Thief of Eddis. He was famous in three countries for his lies."

3. WILL PARRY from His Dark Materials trilogy

"She wondered whether there would come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him - didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever." 

4. ELDRIC from Chime by Franny Billingsley

Eldric loves Briony and I love Briony so... I like a man who can love a weird-o girl. 

Anemone by yukio inazuka

"Eldric wore his lazy lion's smile. He didn't mind what he was called. He was a sticks-and-stones sort of person." 

5. ROIBEN from Holly Black's modern faerie tale series

Roiben is a noble Seelie knight sent to appease the Unseelie queen. He's darkly mysterious and full of self-loathing and despair. (YES, those are GREAT attributes in a guy!) [He gets better towards the end of the series]

Roiben quote: 

"You are the only thing I have that is neither duty nor obligation, the only thing I chose for myself. The only thing I want."

6. FOUR from Divergent

Theo James as Four (Tobias Eaton)

Four Quote: 

He turns towards me. I want to touch him, but i'm afraid of his bareness; afraid that he will make me bare too.

"Is this scaring you, Tris?"

"No," I croak. I clear my throat. "Not really. I'm only...afraid of what I want."

"What do you want?" Then his face tightens. "Me?"

Slowly I nod.

7. WILL TROMBAL from Saving Francesca

I had to put a hero from a contemporary novel on here. He's totally the kind of boy I would have a crush on in real life. 

"I'm sorry," he says, "for that time I kissed you at the party and for that time at the wedding and more than anything for the thousand times that I wanted to and didn't have the guts to." 

8. (Bread Boy)PEETA from The Hunger Games

I love Peeta! And I adore Josh Hutcherson as Peeta in the movie. 

Peeta puts all bad boys to shame. 

Peeta Quotes:

"You here to finish me off, Sweetheart?"

"Katniss. I remember about the bread." (OMG PEETA LOVES BREAD)

9. SIMON BASSET from The Duke and I

Alert: Simon is from a Historical Romance novel!!! He's such an endearing character. He doesn't speak much, and everyone in the TON thinks he's cold-hearted, but it's because he has a lisp and becomes nervous in crowds. 

"He was proud and stubborn, and all the ton looked up to him. Men curried his favor, women flirted like mad. And all the while he'd been terrified every time he'd opened his mouth."

10. CHIHAYA from Dragon Sword and Wind Child 

Chihaya is a child-like god who grows up (emotionally) through the course of the story. He has very simple thoughts: Wherever Saya is, is where he wants to be.

Chihaya Quotes:

"Before, I thought that I was always alone. For as long as I can rememer there was never anyone else. Why didn't I realize that she had come to me? And not once, but many times, again and again, even after she died. Now I know. Without Saya, i'm incomplete."

"And why can't I follow her? Whether to the Land of the Dead or not, is it really impossible for me to follow where Saya has gone?"

So yeah, after completing this list, I realized I have like a bajillion other fictional crushes, but I will SAVE THEM for another time. Who are your book CRUSHES?