Waiting on Wednesday (20)

The Sky Always Hears Me, and the Hills Don't Mind by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

Morgan wants out of her life in Central Nowhere. Period. Nobody's listening, nobody cares. Even though life sucks (of course), her sane-and-urbane grandmother helps her cope with her crazy family, and her crush on co-worker Rob helps her cope with high school. Then sometimes-friend Tessa kisses her, and the world shifts. As she solves the Tessa riddle, her grandma's health collapses, and family secrets emerge before Morgan's ready for them. But, as her life transforms, Morgan discovers people *are* listening to her. She'd better start listening, too.

I forget how I stumbled upon this book with probably one of the most memorable titles out there, but read the first few pages on Kirstin's website, and you'll see why I am so looking forward to reading this. It reads like a cross between Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Julie Ann Peters, and Courtney Summers, which is a formidable combination, if you ask me. I can't wait!

The Sky Always Hears Me, and the Hills Don't Mind will be published in paperback by Flux on September 1, 2009.

What are YOU waiting on this Wednesday?

Series Summer Giveaway Results + WINNER!

Wow, who's idea was it to give ten extra entries for recommendations? You guys would've done the same had I given you less entries for doing so, right? Right? :) Seriously, though, thank you SO much for the nudges. I had an amazing time looking through them, seeing the trends, and figuring out what to read next!

Here are the results of the voting:

36.5 Vampire Academy / Richelle Mead You guys have GOOD taste! I just finished this. Rating: 4.5, review here.

31.25 Wings / Aprilynne Pike Scratch the "good taste" compliment. xP - Rating: 1.5, review here

29.75 Evernight / Claudia Gray Rating: 2, review here

27.25 Marked (House of Night, Book 1) / P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast Rating: 2.5, review to come

25.5 Fire / Kristin Cashore AMAZING. I can't wait to put my review up. Rating : 5

23 The Vampire Diaries / L. J. Smith

20.25 Poison Study (Study, Book 1) / Maria Snyder Rating: 5. One of my favorite books now. Review to come

20 Dead Until Dark (Sookie Sackhouse, Book 1) / Charlaine Harris

20 You Are So Undead to Me / Stacey Jay

20.5 -1 Flowers in the Attic (Dollangangers, Book 1) / V. C. Andrews

18.75 Maximum Ride / James Patterson

17.75 Lament / Maggie Stiefvater SO good.

17 Kiss Me Kill Me / Lauren Henderson

16.5 Ironside / Holly Black

15 Strange Angels / Lili St. Crow

14.25 Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty / Jody Gehrman

14 The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3) / Philip Pullman

13.75 Nobody’s Princess / Esther Friesner

12.25 Dead is the New Black / Marlene Perez

12 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows / Ann Brashares
11 The Blue Sword / Robin McKinley

11 Night World No. 1 / L. J. Smith

10.75 Eon: Dragoneye Reborn / Alison Goodman Rating: 4.5, review to come

10.5 The Devouring / Simon Holt

8.25 Skin Hunger / Kathleen Duey

8 The Thief / Megan Whalen Turner

7.25 The Faerie Path / Frewin Jones

7.25 Hatter M: The Looking Glass Wars / Frank Beddor

7 Into the Wild / Sarah Beth Durst

6.75 The Treasure Map of Boys (Ruby Oliver, Book 3) / E. Lockhart I'm still in love with the Ruby Oliver series, thank god. Rating: 4.5, review here

6.25 Kitty Kitty / Michele Jaffe
6 The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Eighth Grade Bites / Heather Brewer

6 Dealing with Dragons / Patricia Wrede

6 Kissed by an Angel / Elizabeth Chandler

6 The President’s Daughter / Ellen Emerson White

5.25 The Grand Tour / Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

5 Cycler / Lauren McLaughlin

5 Dreamhunter / Elizabeth Knox

5 The Perilous Gard / Elizabeth Pope

4.75 Homecoming / Cynthia Voigt

4.75 Under the Rose (Secret Society Girl, Book 2) / Diana Peterfreund Rating: 4.5, review to come

4.5 River Secrets / Shannon Hale

4 Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane (Underland Chronicles, Book 2) / Suzanne Collins

4 The Hunter’s Moon (Chronicles of Faerie, Book 1) / O. R. Melling

4 Succubus Blues / Richelle Mead

3.25 Dragonsong / Anne McCaffrey

3 Flora Segunda / Ysabeau Wilce

3 Friend Me: Books 1-3 of the Mates, Dates… Series / Cathy Hopkins
2.25 Ruler of the Realm (Faerie Wars, Book 3) / Herbie Brennan

2 -1 The Society of S / Susan Hubbard

1 Skulduggery Pleasant / Derek Landry

1 Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time / Lisa Yee
1 The 13th Reality: The Journal of Curious Letters / James Dashner

1 -1 Foundling (Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 1) / D. M. Cornish

In the Serpent’s Coils / Tiffany Trent

It seems like everyone loves vampires, as they rank pretty high up on the list. Thanks again, everyone! I know I've already read some on the list, but otherwise I can read in the approximate order in which you suggested them to me--give or take "breaks" for ARCs or other things that catch my eye (I'm A.D.D. like that). I will be marking Series Summer reviews with SS# to make them stand out, and so you can check up on my progress if you want. I'll be reading at least one book a week--probably more because with all my commuting time between work, I have been finishing a book a day!

And for the moment you're all waiting. After calculating all the entries, the winner, out of over 3000 entries (yes, 3000. Told you I'm not doing the +10 thing next time) is:

#465 stargirlreads!

Congratulations! I've emailed you, so get back to me with your mailing address and I'll send your prize out to you.

Thanks to everyone else who voted and helped me out with my TBR pile! I had so much fun doing this that I'll definitely be doing this once a season. Look out! :)

Wish List - July 2009

It's that time of the month again! My wish list exploded because of the amazing number of Tenners' book covers that have been released recently. A lot of them sound really good, and I can't wait until they come out. :)

The Wish List feature is a monthly post where I list the upcoming books that I am most looking forward to reading. I actually don't get very many books from publishers, but I figured this would be a nice way to keep track of the books that have caught my attention, and who knows? Maybe I'll get lucky and a nice author, publisher, or blogger will contact me! :)

For the sake of (slightly more) brevity I am not going to relist my picks from last month. Please visit June's post to take a look at the books I want. Enjoy this new one!

July 2009

14 - The Lost Summer by Kathryn Williams (Hyperion)

August 2009

4 - Immortal by Gillian Shields (HarperTeen)

6 - Lipstick Apology by Jennifer Jabaley (Razorbill)

11 - Donut Days by Lara Zielin (Penguin)

11 - Psych Major Syndrome by Alicia Thompson (Hyperion) I loved this book! - review here

25 - As You Wish by Jackson Pearce (HarperTeen) Thanks, Khy! (for a T2T tour) - review here

25 - Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan (Random House)

September 2009

1 - Dreaming Anastasia by Joy Preble (Sourcebooks Jabberwocky)

1 - The Sky Always Hears Me, and the Hills Don't Mind by Kirsten Cronn-Mills (Flux) Thanks, Courtney! - review here

1 - The Tear Collector by Patrick Jones (Walker Books) - review here

13 - Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher (Delacorte)

15 - Give Up the Ghost by Megan Crewe (Henry Holt & Co.)

22 - Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma (Aladdin, Simon & Schuster) bought!

29 - Secret Society by Tom Dolby (Katherine Tegan Books) Thanks, Lizzie!

October 2009

1 - Ballad by Maggie Stiefvater (Flux)

1 - Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr (Little, Brown) Thanks, Korianne! - review here

6 - Beautiful by Amy Reed (Simon Pulse)

15 - Gateway by Sharon Shinn (Viking)

15 - The Looking Glass Wars, Book 3: ArchEnemy by Frank Beddor (Dial)

20 - Hold Still by Nina Lacour (Dial) - review here

November 2009

Struts and Frets by Jon Skovron (Amulet Books)

December 2009

22 - The Dark Divine by Bree Despain (Egmont) Thanks, RH!

29 - Tangled by Carolyn Mackler (HarperTeen) NCTE

January 2010

7 - The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard (Viking)

12 - All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab (Delacorte) NCTE

12 - Very LeFreak by Rachel Cohn (Knopf)

February 2010

4 - A Match Made in High School by Kristin Walker (Razorbill)

9 - Dream Catchers, Book 3: Gone by Lisa McMann (Simon Pulse)

March 2010

2 - Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (HarperTeen) NCTE

4 - The Line by Teri Hall (Dial)

16 - The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting (HarperTeen)

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Man, all those pretty covers. It's absolutely obvious that young adult covers > adult covers. *grins*

Review: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami

Tags: dystopian lit, violence, killing

Rating: 4 out of 5

Summary

In the Republic of Greater East Asia, a frightening event called the “Program” takes place once a year in order to keep the citizens compliant and distrustful of one another. Third-year junior high classes are randomly selected throughout the nation, relocated to an isolated area, and forced to kill one another until just one survivor—the victor—remains.

This year, it’s 15-year-old Shuya Nanahara’s class that gets chosen and relocated to a small island. Shuya is forced to watch his friends die and his classmates go crazy. But what if there were some way to beat the fascist government’s supposedly infallible system?

Review

BATTLE ROYALE is brutal, both physically and mentally. It tosses you into the middle of a corrupt world and forces you to be witness to an event that’s deadly and well established. Innocent and not-so-innocent teenagers die every few pages in unapologetic prose. No sooner do we come to know a student’s personality and past when he or she is killed, the abruptness of losing someone interesting you’ve just begun to know a definite stomach-turner, a definite shake-up.

If this kind of dystopian literature is your kind of thing, there’s plenty of it to be had. Even if you’ve got a weak stomach for violence, however, BATTLE ROYALE still gives you a lot to think about. Koushun Takami’s writing is nothing striking, and yet there’s something about the plainness of it, the bluntness of the translated version that I read, that gets inside your veins and messes up your organs. It’s the way he gives us a brief character sketch of each of the 42 students—and then takes them away from us in horrifying manners. It’s the way that this book’s world takes the existence of the “Program” as expected, unchangeable. And it’s the way that this book makes you doubt yourself and the characters, not sure whom you should trust, just as the government intends for you to react.

This book has inevitably been compared to THE HUNGER GAMES, so why not say what I think about the two? THE HUNGER GAMES is clearly YA: readers are spared the too-gruesome details and, through the eyes of Katniss, are spared the intensity of the horror that arises when a character whose history you know dies. BATTLE ROYALE is a stand-alone novel, which makes its shocker of an ending all the more satisfying; while I have yet to read the next two books in Suzanne Collins’ series, I can only hope that she will deliver an equally believable and satisfying answer for Katniss and her world.

If I had to make a choice between the two, I’d go with THE HUNGER GAMES, for its less stomach-churning material and the successful development of memorable characters. However, BATTLE ROYALE provides more questions to think over, more disturbing ideas and images that will keep you up later in the night. If you do not have a weak stomach and have the time to read an intense 600-page work, I suggest picking up BATTLE ROYALE in order to completely annihilate everything you’ve previously thought about the dark side of human nature and our curiosity in violence and death.

Similar Authors

Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)

Writing: 3/5

Characters: 4/5

Plot: 5/5

Want more? Yes, this makes me want to see the movie and read more similar books

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5