Video Interview with Daisy Whitney + GIVEAWAY!

Hi blog readers! Daisy Whitney is back again on Steph Su Reads, this time promoting her latest novel, The Rivals, the sequel to The Mockingbirds. Thanks to Little, Brown, I was able to send Daisy a few interview questions, which she kindly answered in the exclusive video below. Enjoy!

The Rivals summary:

When Alex Patrick was assaulted by another student last year, her elite boarding school wouldn't do anything about it. This year Alex is head of the Mockingbirds, a secret society of students who police and protect the student body. While she desperately wants to live up to the legacy that's been given to her, she's now dealing with a case unlike any the Mockingbirds have seen before.

It isn't rape. It isn't bullying. It isn't hate speech. A far-reaching prescription drug ring has sprung up, and students are using the drugs to cheat. But how do you try a case with no obvious victim? Especially when the facts don't add up, and each new clue drives a wedge between Alex and the people she loves most: her friends, her boyfriend, and her fellow Mockingbirds.

As Alex unravels the layers of deceit within the school, the administration, and even the student body the Mockingbirds protect, her struggle to navigate the murky waters of vigilante justice may reveal more about herself than she ever expected.

The Rivals is now out in hardcover from Little, Brown!

The previous stops on this blog tour were at Books Complete Me and Eve's Fan Garden.

Also, thanks to Little, Brown's generosity, THREE winners can get a set of a paperback of The Mockingbirds and a hardcover of The Rivals! To enter, please fill out the form below. This giveaway is open to US mailing addresses only and will end Wednesday, February 22, 2012. Good luck!

Review: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

Tags: YA, contemporary, Australian lit, art, graffiti, he-said/she-said, romance

Summary

Lucy is a girl on a mission: her friends corral her into finding romance the night after their Year Twelve graduation, and in a sense, she’s doing that. For Lucy is determined to find the elusive graffiti artist known as Shadow, whose paintings all over town make her feel like this is the guy for her.

Unfortunately, looking for Shadow means hanging out with Ed, the high-school dropout with whom Lucy shares a not-so-great history. Tagging along with Ed may be what Lucy has to endure in order to find Shadow, but Ed has a secret that just might make—or break—their night together…

Review

Australian authoress Cath Crowley burst into my life last year with her US debut, A Little Wanting Song, which was beautiful and sad and gratifying and made my heart ache in ways that, in some ways, felt like a reaffirmation of how much words could make me feel. She’s done it again with her second book to be published in the US, GRAFFITI MOON, becoming another example of why more Americans should take note of the astounding YA that Australia has to offer.

GRAFFITI MOON is a Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist without the hipster music references and excessive foul-mouthiness. For me this is a really good thing, as I can enjoy the cuteness of a he-said/she-said story in which we readers know more than the characters about what’s going on, without crashing into the f-word every other sentence. (Gosh, Nick, for serious, to what effect is your display of your highly creative vocabulary?) Lucy and Ed had my heart from the start: I love a good story where boy and girl hate one another even though there’s some obvious attraction going on.

It would be pointless to write a review on any of Cath Crowley’s books without mentioning her way with language. The woman obviously has poetry flowing through her veins, bred into her genes. Reading GRAFFITI MOON is an experience for your poetic taste. Some authors can draw scenes that paint themselves vividly in your mind; Cath Crowley does that, and she crafts phrases that just make you sigh, so extraordinary do they look on the paper, feel in your mouth. She can write descriptions like “The heat rising from the takeaway place nearby makes the air look like satin” and make you wonder why anyone ever bothered to describe that visual phenomenon in any other way.

GRAFFITI MOON is a study in words, not quite characters or plot. Supporting characters are marvelously quirky or ridiculous, and brighten up any scene. You don’t quite read Lucy and Ed’s alternating POVs to better understand their persons, for, as is expected, their voices sound fairly similar. At times the plot can feel a little draggy, because Lucy and Ed do quite a fair share of talking. And the one “bad guy” in the story feels pretty flat, that side plot appearing and dissipating somewhat clunkily.

Nevertheless, reading GRAFFITI MOON was a delightful experience, as, I hope, rereading it will be, too, one day in the future. For I have no doubt that I will come back to this story, to savor again and again the skill that Cath Crowley can wield in writing.

Cover discussion: Mmm, there's a reason why I featured this in a Cover Lust post. It's a super-cool combination of artsy and quirky, youthful and whimsical.

Knopf / Feb. 14, 2012 / Hardcover / 272pp. / $16.99


(The best gift to give your bookish loved one for Valentine's Day!)

Physical copy gifted by the incredibly generous Trish; e-galley provided by Random House and NetGalley. Thank you all for contributing to my Cath Crowley fangirldom!

Review: Beauty and the Werewolf by Mercedes Lackey

Five Hundred Kingdoms, Book 6 (Book 1 review)

Tags: fantasy, magic, retelling

Summary

Practical Isabella Beauchamps manages her household while her stepmother and stepsisters engage in their beloved social outings and shopping excursions. However, on a visit to Granny in the forest, Bella is bitten by a werewolf—who turns out to be Lord Sebastian, whom no one has seen in years. Well, being a werewolf is more or less a good reason for someone to be a recluse. In order to determine whether or not Bella will turn into a werewolf from the bite, she must live at Sebastian’s place for three full months. While there, she discovers the existence of magic and The Tradition, and the fact that Sebastian’s under a curse. Can this young lady, new to magical understanding, be the one to discover who wishes Sebastian harm?

Review

I know that Mercedes Lackey is a long-established fantasy writer, and I’ve enjoyed her unique take on fairy tales and magic in other Five Hundred Kingdom books, but unfortunately, BEAUTY AND THE WEREWOLF didn’t quite do it for me. I was expecting more, but mostly what I got was a lot of people sitting in a castle, talking and reading about magic.

It’s not that there are things wrong or bothersome about the elements of the story. I like Bella well enough: she is the type of strong and capable protagonist I can relate to. Bella’s interactions with the invisible spirits of Sebastian’s castle are pretty neat as well, good for a few chuckles. And Sebastian is a total sweetheart, the kind of slightly socially awkward love interest that is endearing in the midst of so many testosterone-fueled, my-bicep-is-bigger-than-your-bicep fictional romantic interests.

Unfortunately, I’m not really sure if there are many more unique aspects of this book to recommend it besides for the aforementioned details. When I said earlier that the book consisted of people sitting in a castle, talking and reading about magic, I was not really exaggerating. Confined to the castle, most of what Bella does is learn more about magic, and The Tradition, Godmothers, the curse… The majority of the book is one very long and drawn-out information dump on magic.

What could have been a more original story instead turned out to be an info dump disguised as the main character beginning to understand her new perspective on the world—which is weird because, as this is the sixth book in the series, there should be no info-dumping necessary for readers. Not, sadly, Mercedes Lackey’s most impressive story. In fact, I wonder if, without her established name on it, this book would’ve gotten by agents and editors at all.

Luna / Oct. 18, 2011 / Hardcover / 336pp. / $24.95

e-galley provided by NetGalley and publisher.

Review: Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally

Tags: YA, contemporary, football, sports, love triangle

Summary

Jordan Woods is the best high school quarterback in the state of Tennessee, but the people who really matter—her father, and the coach of her dream college football team—don’t take her seriously, just because she is a girl. All Jordan wants is to sign with Alabama, but her life gets turned upside down when a hot new quarterback, Ty, joins the team. Ty is making her want things she’s never really thought about before. Can she still remain herself and yet end up with the guy of her dreams?

Review

Honestly, is every book that claims it is the next Dairy Queen going to end up being a huge disappointment? D.J. Schwenk’s title as Best “Rural” Tomboy has still not been usurped—has hardly been challenged, I think. CHASING JORDAN takes place in a setting where football is big, yes, but for me, that’s where the similarities end.

CHASING JORDAN was a typical YA “dramatic luv” story hiding under a sporty exterior. Sure, there was talk of Jordan being Tennessee’s best quarterback, but all real aspects of state-level varsity sport life soon fell by the wayside, overpowered by the drama of a typical teenage love triangle. Ty never fully developed into a believable character for me. Maybe that had something to do with the outcome of the book, but I don’t think that that is a valid reason for having one-dimensional characters: one can write believable, three-dimensional, and sympathetic characters without forcing them to pair up into happily-ever-afters (see: Donna Freitas). I wanted more sport, less “typical teen love drama”—but “teen luv” was exactly what I got.

But I think what bothered me the most—and perhaps this is just a “me” thing, but I’ve become incredibly sensitive to these things, and, come on, it’s 2012—was CATCHING JORDAN’s complete and utter dismissal of possible “alternative” lifestyles. I hesitate to even use that term “alternative,” since, like I said, it’s 2012, and gosh darnit, people can live whatever lifestyles they want! I understand, marginally, that CATCHING JORDAN is set in the American South, but I was so, so disappointed during that stupid Home Ec scene with the fake babies and the students needing to pair up to be “husbands and wives,” and everyone automatically turning to the only guy in the class, as if being paired up with a female classmate is the end of your social life. What is this, the 1960s? Add to that a story setting in which lots of guys are constantly together, and all they can think about are ditzy cheerleaders. Seriously. Ditzy cheerleaders. In a YA world where cheerleaders can be popular yet real people (again, see: Donna Freitas), this kind of cardboardism is so passé, it’s not even fun anymore. It’s just sad.

CHASING JORDAN’s main premise—of Jordan learning how to embrace her female desires and fall for a guy—was so bland that it allowed me to focus on all the little things about the setup of the story that bothered me and have now made their way into my review. If you’re picking this up because you want a simple love triangle story, that works; however, if you’re looking for a smart and fun book featuring the sports-related travails of a female athlete, you might do better to look elsewhere.

Cover discussion: It's cute in that generic way that covers get when they want to illustrate the sports aspect of a book that is supposedly about sports but really only has sports as a premise for the more inane story of teenage drama...OH WAIT.

Sourcebooks Fire / Dec. 1, 2011 / Paperback / 288pp. / $8.99

e-review copy received from NetGalley and publisher.

In YOUR Mailbox Giveaway!

allmarksweets.co.uk

As some of you may know, I am currently back in the States for a brief week of vacation. Sorting through all the books that came for me while I was gone is no joke! I've been busy reading through as many of them as I can... but I also want to share some of them with you. And so, I'm doing a quick impromptu giveaway. Next Monday (my last full day in the States), I will mail out several boxes full of books for several winners (final number to be determined). The boxes will contain a combination of ARCs and finished copies, soon-to-be-published books and recently released books... it's hard to say what, exactly, I will put in your box if you win. If you're willing to take the risk, fill out the form below! US only, ends Sunday, January 29, 2012, and winners will be notified through email. Good luck!