Passionate Tales of a Blue Kitten

I'm not sure if I'll make more or not. Last year, I didn't get a chance to read stories besides my own until months later and the year before that, I bookmarked way too many and didn't get to them until months later. So, this year, I was pretty selective with which fandoms and stories within fandoms I read and now I'm looking at everyone else's recs to see what I'm missing!

Anyway, onward!

( 12 recs all together )

I just finished Kelley Armstrong's The Gathering and felt compelled to come on here and tell you all how you should read her books! She writes supernatural YA (this is what I plan on selling to you tonight!) and urban fantasy. And I know a lot of people are probably sick of those genres, so I get if you don't want to read them, but if you still like the genre or want to give it one last chance, check them out!

Anyway, The Gathering is the start of a companion to trilogy to The Darkest Rising trilogy (which consists of, in order, The Summoning, The Awakening and The Reckoning), but you don't need to read the first trilogy to understand what's going on. You'll just know more if you do. (You'll also know more if you've read her adult books, since they're set in the same world.)

I've already been stealing from my GoodReads review, but now I'm going to flat out copy:

And this book was just a great reminder of what draws me to Armstrong's work. She's very good at tapping into the tropes of the genre, while avoiding the pitfalls. With both the romance in the first trilogy and the one in this book, she uses what makes the cliche supernatural YA couple appealing, while avoiding the more negative aspects. The girls might be attracted to the guys, but that doesn't get in the way of their standing up for themselves and demanding to be treated as they should.

I'm also impressed with how Armstrong handles the (for lack of a better word) bitchy characters. They start off seeming like unrealistic stereotypes, but end up getting such fascinating depth.

It's like . . . I've said to a couple of people that I want to like dystopia and this isn't dystopia (none of Armstrong is), but this illustrates why. There's something appealing about some of these crazy-popular genres. Not always the stories written in them, but the genres themselves do have value. And when I can find a book that makes the story good and not just the genre? That's awesome.

My method of reading Yuletide fic doesn't even make sense to myself, but I finally feel like I have a handle on it and that's all that matters, right?

Anyway, there will (hopefully!) be more later and I haven't really touched Madness yet, but here's my first set of recs.

(  Recs for Baby-sitters' Club, Burn Notice, Covert Affairs, Darkest Powers, Dark is Rising, Daddy Long Legs, Howl no Ugoku Shiro | Howl's Moving Castle, Hunger Games, Lie to Me, Love Actually, Princess Diaries, Vampire Diaries, You Belong With Me - University of Rochester Yellowjackets (Music Video) )

ETA: I got so excited about making my first recs that I forgot to include my gifts! But they were awesome! Will include them in the next post.

So nosing around Diana Peterfreund's website, I found a description for her next book:

RAMPANT, a tale of killer unicorns, will be released in summer of 2009 by Harper Collins.

Forget everything you ever knew about unicorns…

The sparkly, innocent creatures of lore are a myth. Real unicorns are venomous, man-eating monsters with huge fangs and razor-sharp horns. And they can only be killed by virgin descendants of Alexander the Great.

Fortunately, unicorns have been extinct for a hundred and fifty years.

Or not.

And now I love her even more.

And since I'm in reading mode, here are some random book recs for you:

1. Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons From a Writing Life by Terry Brooks. I know everyone talks about Stephen King's On Writing, but I vastly prefer this book. Terry Brooks and I seem to share a lot of them same ideas about writing. It's a lot of hard work, of course it is, but it is magic. Some of his phrases sum up exactly what goes on in my brain when I write. (And yet I haven't read any of his other books. Very bad of me.)

2. A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle. I don't know how many people have read L'Engle's nonfiction, but it's amazing. This book isn't just about writing, but also about life, and, like Terry Brooks, L'Engle says so many things that I feel.

3. The Benni Harper Mysteries by Earlene Fowler (the first one is Fool's Puzzle). My mom got me into these books and I think her mom got her into them. Does that make them sound old? They're not. The first one was published in 1994 and they've been coming out pretty regularly ever since. The 14th is due out next year. These books are beautifully written and the mysteries are always well-crafted. And they're about so much more than mysteries. They're about Benni figuring out life. And there's a healthy dose of romance, but not the back-and-forth, will they/won't they thing. There's natural progression, dealing with problems, and it stays interesting with the characters as a well established couple (TV writers take note!).

4. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. This one is very mainstream, but I think people sometimes get turned off by books like that. And I love this book. I've read it many times (well, that goes for all the books on the list). Books like this, where we get to see the characters learn and grow (or not grow, as the case may be) over the course of their lives, are incredible when done right (as this one is!). (I've only read one of Kingsolver's other books and didn't really like it. But this one is an all-time favorite.)

So everyone go out and read these books!!! And give me books to read! (Look at all the parentheses in this entry. I love parentheses. Even if I can't spell parentheses without the help of Firefox spell-checking.)