Fandom Friday – Divergent Trilogy

September 13, 2013Leave a comment

The Fandom Friday is a weekly feature, with each blog post written by a new contributor.

This is the weekly post where either myself, or a guest blogger, talks about a new fandom. See, I’ve had the experience in my life where I’ve been made fun or put down about my particular fandoms. And that has made me feel pretty crappy. But I’ve also put down other fandoms as well.

So I’ve decided to change that. I’m opening my world up to new fandoms, and the best way to do that is to bring people in to write about various fandoms. I’m very excited about this segment.

If you guys are interested in becoming a guest blogger for the Fandom Friday, feel free to email me at whatanerdgirlsays at gmail.com or contact me HERE.

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Meet Author Frank Beddor and Discuss His Book, The Looking Glass Wars!

September 13, 2013September 13, 20131 Comment

Hello all!

I’ve a VERY exciting event to share with those of you who may be in the Los Angeles/Southern California area.

As some of you may know, more about I am part of the 21+ Harry Potter group, abortion the Los Angeles Dumbledore’s Army. I’ve been a member for nearly two years now and I absolutely love it. Amongst our many events like bowling nights, roller skating nights, Wizard Chef events, Harry Potter Mystery Nights, and so much more, we have a monthly book club, where we take turns choosing a book and reading it, of course, and discussing it.

For the month of September, we have chosen the book, The Looking Glass Wars, the first of a trilogy by Frank Beddor, a YA reimagining of the well known classic tale, Alice in Wonderland.

Here is the official synopsis taken from GoodReads:

When Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne, must flee through the Pool of Tears to escape the murderous aunt Redd, she finds herself lost and alone in Victorian London. Befriended by an aspiring author named Lewis Carrol, Alyss tells the violent, heartbreaking story of her young life. Alyss trusts this author to tell the truth so that someone, somewhere will find her and bring her home. But he gets the story all wrong. He even spells her name incorrectly!
Fortunately, Royal Bodyguard Hatter Madigan knows all too well the awful truth of Alyss’ story and he is searching every corner of our world to find the lost princess and return her to Wonderland so she may eventually battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts.
The Looking Glass Wars unabashedly challenges our Wonderland assumptions surrounding mad tea parties, grinning Cheshire cats, and a curious little blond girl to reveal an epic battle in the endless war for Imagination.

This book is absolutely wonderful, and I sped through the sequel as well. I haven’t managed to grab hold of the third and final book yet, but maybe I will be able to soon!

Now, on September 22nd, the LADA will be meeting for Book Club and we are extending our invite to you as well! This is open to anyone who has read, or will read, this book by that date and would like to come and hang out in a cool bookstore and discuss this book.

Even better, the author himself, Frank Beddor, will be in attendance that evening to discuss his book with the book club!

Which is SO insanely cool, I can barely handle it. I am SO glad I will be able to make this particular book club event!

So I am hoping that my Los Angeles followers can hopefully make it to this event! This is a super cool thing to happen. I always have such a blast going to book club, and discussing the books, but to have the author in attendance as well is just…its so AWESOME.

So now I bet you’re all wriggling in excitement, and want the details now, right?

Well here they are:

What:

Book Club Discussion on The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, with special guest appearance by Frank himself

Where:

Alias Books
1650 Sawtelle Blvd
Los Angeles, CA

When:

September 22nd, at 4 pm

I hope to see you all there, and it would be wonderful (if you are 21 and over, of course), if you all popped by the official Los Angeles Dumbledore’s Army page and joined up! We are the second largest Harry Potter fan group in the world, and we have such a blast together. We were also featured on CBS as one of the top Book Clubs in Los Angeles, which you can check out here!

Next month, in October, we will be meeting for lunch and discussing The House of Hades, which I know a lot of you are big fans of Rick Riordan so definitely check out group!

If you have ANY questions at all, feel free to leave comments below, contact me through email or through Twitter, or through Facebook, and I’ll be happy to answer them!

Happy Reading everyone and I hope to see you there!

Book of the Week – Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

September 12, 2013April 3, 20201 Comment

I was browsing along GoodReads one day when I spotted a giveaway for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of a book called Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I was immediately intrigued, and read the synopsis for it, page and immediately entered. I was not picked as a winner, but I still held that book in my mind as one that I needed to read once it came out.

Once, I had heard of Eleanor and Park, and how good it was, I had to read that, and I loved it, and enjoyed, which only made me want to read this book even more.

I read this book the day I bought it, and it…well, you’ll have to read further to really know what I thought of it.

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Book of the Week – Fangirl

September 12, 20133 Comments

I was browsing along GoodReads one day when I spotted a giveaway for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of a book called Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. I was immediately intrigued, and read the synopsis for it, and immediately entered. I was not picked as a winner, but I still held that book in my mind as one that I needed to read once it came out.

Once, I had heard of Eleanor and Park, and how good it was, I had to read that, and I loved it, and enjoyed, which only made me want to read this book even more.

I read this book the day I bought it, and it…well, you’ll have to read further to really know what I thought of it.

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Starcrossed Book Review

September 12, 2013September 11, 20134 Comments

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads Summary:

How do you defy destiny?

Helen Hamilton has spent her entire sixteen years trying to hide how different she is—no easy task on an island as small and sheltered as Nantucket. And it’s getting harder. Nightmares of a desperate desert journey have Helen waking parched, information pills only to find her sheets damaged by dirt and dust. At school she’s haunted by hallucinations of three women weeping tears of blood . . . and when Helen first crosses paths with Lucas Delos, visit she has no way of knowing they’re destined to play the leading roles in a tragedy the Fates insist on repeating throughout history.

As Helen unlocks the secrets of her ancestry, she realizes that some myths are more than just legend. But even demigod powers might not be enough to defy the forces that are both drawing her and Lucas together—and trying to tear them apart.

My Review:

I have very mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I really really enjoyed it and sped through it pretty quickly. On the other hand, I was like, meh, its okay. But I’m not sure if that sort of opinion is coming from the fact that I read this absolutely fantastic book yesterday so its really hard to compare.

I really did like Starcrossed though. I liked the twist on the Greek mythology and the idea of a demigod. The only history I’d had with such things were the actual Greek myths (I’ve been obsessed for as long as I can remember) and then, of course, Percy Jackson. What I thought was really interesting about Starcrossed is that it presented a really different view of the demigod. In Percy Jackson, we get gods and goddesses that just seem to be absent, like their children were the product of one-night stands and that was that. In Starcrossed, they are absent as well but its more of a darker reason, and there is a lot in hanging in their return. The kids in PJ wish their parents would pay attention to them, and the demigods of Starcrossed struggle to keep the treaty that keeps the gods’ involvement OUT Of their life. I thought that was really interesting. Its not a happy thing to be, and to interact with those in different god families is not good.

What I really liked about the main character is that she knew something was wrong with her, and she’s known forever, but she just hasn’t been able to figure out. And when you are with her as she is going through this crazy dreams, and weird feelings, you start thinking that maybe she really is crazy. That’s the sort of good story. You don’t just automatically assume that she has special powers or that she is part of a special race, etc. You honestly, for a time, start to believe that there is something wrong with her. But once she figures out what is going on, and Lucas and his family bring her in, and show her who she is, I really started to love the story. The Greek mythology, combined with the contemporary world was just beautiful, and I loved the various powers that she was capable of. I love that they have different powers, and they discover new ones and can hone them. I liked that once she was able to accept who she was, and where she came from (for the most part), she really starts to step into her own, and she is less afraid than she was before. I feel that she becomes braver, even though the danger increases.

I do have a small complaint that the relationship between Lucas and Helen. I don’t like the idea, all the time, of a tragic romance. When Helen meets Lucas, she wants to kill him, immediately, without even really knowing him, but we learn why later, and eventually, without ruining anything, she…gets past that. And of course, she is immediately attracted to him. Then, in an even more obvious turn of events, he turns her away, but still kind of flirts with her and shows her interest, which only makes the attraction just that much worse. Lucas says that they can never be together, even though he wants to be, and refuses to tell her why. So that was a small determent from the story, for me, at least.

I will say this though, the way the book ends with their relationship is not at all what I expected and it made me immediately addicted and immediately want to go and read Dreamless, the sequel. It was unexpected because its not something that you see in a lot of books. I know that I’m being incredibly vague but I don’t want to ruin that book for you. Let’s just its a plot device that we don’t see often in recent, contemporary books, though we do see it similarly in one of my favorite series, and so I thought it was pretty juicy to add into this story.

All in all, it was an enjoyable book, one that I sped through fairly quickly, and one that I definitely will read again, and it encouraged me enough to make me want to read the second one, which I’ll hopefully be buying soon.