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jcschick posted:Has anyone tried The Uglies Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. I have a teenage cousin in Maine who loved these and I want to see if they are really worth it. I'm going to disagree with Violet_Sky here. I really loved the Uglies series and thought it was really interesting that Scott Westerfeld could change up his writing style in each book. With each one the personality of Tally is slightly different because she changes rather drastically in each book. It's still her, but altered. I also admire his extremely solid world building that includes a pop-culture angle down to vernacular. The basic premise of all three books is similar: in this advanced world it's easy to change a person's outside... and in some ways easier to change what's inside. This basic idea and battle against it is the core of all three books. There is a romance tied up in there, but it didn't bother me (who at that age didn't do stupid or crazy poo poo for a crush?). In many ways Tally is so painfully approachable that it hurts. She fucks up, and I mean big time, but in ways that can be understood, if not entirely empathized with and there are very real consequences to her actions. There's never any glossing over or "It's going to be all right" moments. She, at first, gets dragged into a situation that she never wanted to be in and has to find her way from there. I hear a lot of complaints that Tally's whiny or selfish or whatever. Show me a normal 16 year-old that isn't a bit self-absorbed, and I don't want high-horse bullshit here. Besides I found Shay as insufferably selfish and whiny if not more so, and no one seems to complain about her. Violet_Sky is correct in that the fourth book of the Uglies series isn't about Tally, but it never claims to be. I actually like Aya Fuse from Extras more than tally in some ways. That said I am unashamed to acknowledge that I have loved pretty much everything Scott Westerfeld has produced. I've read the entire Uglies series. If you like Steampunk then the Leviathan series is for you. Oh god, is that one good! For me it blows Uglies out of the water! It's such an amazing world, a reimagined WWI that's so brilliantly detailed and carefully constructed around actual historical events! In the world of Leviathan powers can be broken up into two basic ways: the Darwinists and the Clankers. (England and allies are Darwinists and Germans and allies are Clankers) In this world Darwin not only discovered evolution, but also DNA and how to manipulate it. With this knowledge great creatures known as fabricants (fabs for short) have taken the place of most major machinery. The famed British Navy is actually an Airship fleet comprised of hydrogen producing fabs and the Leviathan is one of them. The Clankers are exactly as you'd expect, they went in the complete opposite direction of the Darwinists and use complex machines, engines, and electricity. They are as steampunk as it gets. You have two extremely fascinating characters: Dylan (Deryn) Sharp, a girl who wanted to serve in the Royal Navy so sneaked in disguised as a boy; and Aleksander Hapsburg (sp?) the son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose death was one of the key reasons for the war to start. There are a ton of other fascinating characters and the plot is great. They're actually tragically quick reads because the spacing is close to double. The illustrations for the book are nothing short of magical though. I've read the first two and though I haven't had time to finish the third. I can't wait! There is a love story and I don't know how it ends up, but it's completely different from the usual type found in YA fiction. Also by Scott Westerfeld is the Midnighters series. I liked the first book all right, the premise is interesting. In this small town of Bixby there is an extra hour of the day, the blue hour, in which most humans can't move. Only a small group of teens (those born at exactly midnight) are active during this time. They possess special abilities, though some only have access to them during the blue hour. But there are creatures in the blue hour that are dangerous. It's a crap summary, I know, but I can't think of a better way to explain it. The main character, Jessica Day, was a bit meh for me. The other characters, especially the math genius, were far more interesting. I haven't yet read the other two (I'm in the middle of moving so a lot of my books are currently in storage), but I've been assured that they get way, way better. Finally to round off this Westerfeld love-fest is Peeps. It's a teen vampire novel, yes, but it holds serious promise. For one thing vampirism is an infection in this world and can be transmitted through sex like an STD. The main character is immune to the virus himself, but he's passed it on to other girls he's dated. There is also a stand alone novel he did called So Yesterday that I really want to get my hands on. Ahaha, now I sound like a hopeless devotee. LevelC fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Jun 21, 2012 |
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Jun 21, 2012 03:18
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Saith posted:Oh hey I didn't know he wrote Midnighters. Yeah, I've heard that. There was some arguing about him stealing the idea or something, but I think it's just a case of people having a similar concept. As the saying goes: There's nothing new under the sun.
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Jun 21, 2012 03:38
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Panda So Panda posted:An atypical (for me) recommendation would be Sarah Dessen's Along For the Ride. I say "atypical" because while I find I enjoy the concept of "slice of life" fiction, I am not usually prone to reading them and sticking with it all the way through. I prefer things with supernatural themes, but I felt this deviation was well worth it. I don't know if Dessen is quite so insightful in her other various books, but the protagonist's dilemma in this particular novel really spoke to me and struck me as genuine for the age. I love a good slice of life work so I'll have to put this in my queue. Thanks for the rec.
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Jul 15, 2012 04:22
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Paragon8 posted:I think that's a huge problem with reading in general. It seems like when a lot of people ask for recommendations they want virtual photocopies. Yeah, I know what you mean. I work in a bookstore and like to think I'm fairly well-read but I've noticed that when people are asking me about recommendations they want the same book with different characters. I don't honestly think these authors are actually attempting to copy the previous big hit, I think the authors had similar ideas and publishing houses picked up on the hype of THG or whatever and so punch out as many copy-cats as they can so they can make money on the phenomenon. The whole trilogy book set of a dystopian future with a (usually tough) girl protagonist has been done to loving death at this point. There are some good stories out there, but the market has gotten pretty obnoxiously flooded. For a slight change of pace I have actually finished So Yesterday at this point and have to say that I love the novel. It's appropriately shallow seeming considering it's about fashion, but I think that Westerfeld does at least touch on some deeper themes concerning the tribal nature of fashion and consumerism. You could argue that he should have gone deeper, but that would have gotten a bit too serious for the over all tone of the story. All in all, I found it a delightful and fun read, though not his most serious work by far. My sister recently recommended The Maze Runner to me and called it Lord of the Flies meets Sleeping Beauty. Honestly that made me curious enough that I really want to check it out. Also I read through Howl's Moving Castle and I realize that it's technically children's fiction, but I found the story incredibly engaging and fairly adult in some places. The characters are nicely flawed and the author doesn't bother to try and pretty it up. It's got a generally fairy-tale set-up that actually pokes fun at many of the typical fairy-tale tropes. It belongs on the shelf of fantasy lovers who liked the Enchanted Forest series.
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Jul 28, 2012 04:12
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Tartarus Sauce posted:(I couldn't really get invested in the characters in Leviathan and Behemoth for some reason.) Really? I found Deryn and Alek to be incredibly sympathetic and intriguing characters, but to each their own I suppose. I've already admitted that I'm something of a hopeless devotee at this point, though I like to think I'm not so far gone as a fan that I wouldn't just accept something he's written. Don't get me started on the people that like 50 Shades anything. I don't hate books on the basic principle that it's a freaking book. You can not care for the writing, but it's a book and it's a waste of time to hate it. I don't even hate Twilight, I just find it repetitive, generally poorly written, and stupidly predictable. I reserve the right to honestly hate the 50 Shades Trilogy. Outside of the fact that it continues to perpetuate the idea that people in the BDSM community must have been abused, I find the writing to be so bad it's genuinely offensive. It offends me that a publishing house has standards so poor that they let such horribly penned material leave their doors. I don't care that it sells, it's like an editor didn't even bother. I have even more hate for the people who try to claim that it's good or revolutionary writing. You like poorly written porn, admit it and move on and stop trying to elevate it. /rant Sorry for the derail, I just get the reality of how horrible people's taste is shoved in my face every time I go to work.
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Jul 29, 2012 04:20
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Recently I've been trying to read Red Riding Hood, the book that movie was based on. There are several reasons I don't think I'm going to bother finishing it. 1) the book is technically printed unfinished as this really obnoxious marketing scheme to try and get people in to see the movie. You have to download the last chapter off a website to read it. 2) The premise is really interesting and cool, but it's not really being done justice and that's bothering me. It had potential and was squandered for the sake of a love story. 3) The "misfit" girl is starting to really get on my nerves. She doesn't fit in (perfectly valid), but doesn't want to give this really nice guy in town the time of day for no good reason. She's just decided she doesn't want to give him the time of day and at no point has she ever even bothered to talk to him really. She's all obsessed about a guy who she used to be friends with when they were both kids who went away and came back. He's all dark and mysterious, but they still "get" each other or something. In positive news: D.M. Cornish's Foundling is AWESOME. I read it some time before finding this thread so I hadn't mentioned it yet. From the beginning you get a really interesting world build. The exposition is fairly well blended so you feel like you're picking it up as you go for the most part. It's got kind of vaguely Victorian feel. Definitely British flavored fiction, but I like that in my writing. It's honestly a hard to describe book so I'm just going to pull the Amazon description which works really well: Meet Rossamünd—a foundling, a boy with a girl’s name who is about to begin a dangerous life in the service of the Emperor of the Half-Continent. What starts as a simple journey becomes a dangerous and complicated set of battles and decisions. Humans, monsters, unearthly creatures . . . who among these can Rossamünd trust? D. M. Cornish has created an entirely original world, grounded in his own deft, classically influenced illustrations. Foundling is a magic-laced, Dickensian adventure that will transport the reader. That last bit about a magic-laced, Dickensian adventure is totally spot-on. ^^ Thought there is some magic after a fashion is sciencey magic. They don't do spells exactly, but there are people with abilities and powers that are very magical, but they undergo a pretty gruesome surgery for it. Foundling is the first in the trilogy and I intend to read them all, but they aren't really easy to find so I'm having to kind of look around a bit for the other two. But even alone it's a really cool story, you just kind of feel like Rossamund is destined for something pretty big.
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Sep 5, 2012 05:19
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