Only the Good Spy Young

No, it's not a catchy little saying that I came up with myself. It is a catchy little saying, but I only wish I could say I came up with something that clever. No, ONLY THE GOOD SPY YOUNG is the title of the fourth and latest Gallagher Girls book. The official release date is actually next Tuesday, but as author Ally Carter explains here, some stores have copies available before that date. And I was lucky enough to get one of those early copies.

The Gallagher Girls series is a fabulous set of books about Cammie Morgan and her best friends. They go to an exclusive private school for "exceptional young women." And in their case, "exceptional young women" really means "spies." The first book, I'D TELL YOU I LOVE YOU, BUT THEN I'D HAVE TO KILL YOU, details Cammie's experiences with the first normal person and only boy she's ever really experienced. It also introduces the mystery of Cammie's father's death.

The story in ONLY THE GOOD SPY YOUNG is more action-packed than ever. Cammie's in the real world now. Things with Zach have gotten even weirder, and now Cammie is facing more danger than she knew she could be in. And since she's a spy, that's saying something. There's betrayal. There are near-death-experiences. There are mysteries. There is laugh-out-loud comedy and there are moments that brutally real. Oh, and there are terrorists. Don't want to say too much more that's plot-specific because if you haven't read the first three I don't wanna throw out any spoilers, but it was excellent. Probably my favorite so far in the series, actually. Readthemreadthemreadthem!

The Gallagher Girls series is written by Ally Carter, who also wrote HEIST SOCIETY (which you can read my review of here). It's probably aimed at a slightly younger audience than HS, but hey - I've just turned 17, starting my senior year of high school, and I still love them. Cammie's voice is funny, sweet, and at times painfully honest. And the stories are fun and action-packed, and they keep you wanting more. I absolutely recommend these books. Absolutely. You can find out more at Ally Carter's website and the Gallagher Girls series website.

That's all I've got for today, folks! And now I need to go work on my thesis. *sigh* Laters!

Love,
Bex

A (Late) Two-Book Post

I know I know I know, I'm terrible at remembering to blog after taking a week off. It's after 12:30 in the morning and I'm just now getting to my blog for Tuesday. It's just taking some time to get back into things. Things meaning blogging and thesis. Oh, thesis. *melodramatic sigh* I love screenwriting. I love IF I STAY, which is the novel I'm adapting for my thesis screenplay. But I have so many ideas for other things right now...i.e. totally revamped vampire stories (yes, that bad pun was mostly intentional) and screenplays that I haven't figured out that involve nightmares and nerdy best friends and death threats and scary knives.

But anyway. I have two books to tell you about.

First of all, I finished SKINNED by Robin Wasserman. It was excellent. Very science-fiction; almost a cross between Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD and Mary Pearson's THE ADORATION OF JENNA FOX (both of which are excellent books, by the way, though very different from each other). It's set at some unspecified time in the future when technology basically rules everything.

The fact that technology rules everything means that Lia's car should never have crashed. It should have taken her safely to her destination without Lia having to do anything but curl up in the backseat and take a nap. But something goes wrong, and the car does crash, and suddenly, Lia's life as the beautiful, popular girl that everyone loves is over. Actually, her life is over, period.

Except for the advanced technology that allows the doctors to download her brain into an artificial body. Now she supposedly has the best thing anyone could ask for: she cannot age, she cannot die, she will never get sick, she's basically indestructible. The one thing she isn't is human. And the friends (and boyfriend) she had before cannot accept that the personality inside is still her. Lia is lost, looking for someone to show her how to live again. And she just might find it - but first, she's going to have to come to terms with who she is.

I realize the ending of that summary sounds incredibly corny and lame, but I promise, the book is anything but. You should definitely read it. It's the first in a trilogy, and I'm definitely going to have to get the second one soon. (I believe it's called CRASHED. Fortunately, my library has it. Yay library!) You can find out more about these at Robin Wasserman's website.

The other book that I absolutely have to tell you about because it was ohmygoodness-wonderful-and-fantastic is GLIMPSE by Carol Lynch Williams. I'm assuming it just came out, because I found it on the New Teen Books shelf at Barnes & Noble today. It's 484 pages long, but it's written in verse so in terms of word count it's probably pretty short. I read it over about an hour and a half while I was in B&N with CJ and AF. It's a quick read and an amazing book so please don't let the length scare you off.

Hope is 13. Her older sister Lizzie is 14. They have other friends, but ever since they were 3 and 4, they've been best friends and they've protected each other. So when Hope walks into their shared bedroom to find Lizzie pointing a gun at her own head and Lizzie gets shipped off to a mental hospital, Hope's world turns upside down. She doesn't understand why her sister would want to die. She doesn't understand what she's supposed to do now that she can't protect Lizzie anymore.

Hope's mother is not exactly a source of comfort; it seems like Lizzie has always been her favorite, but neither one of them was planned, and Momma hasn't really been there for the girls since their father died eight years ago. What Momma does have is a secret, and that secret may explain why Lizzie wanted so desperately "to leave/for good."

GLIMPSE was beautifully written and once you start reading it you just can't stop. Absolutely a must-read. So, so good. It was excellent.

And on that note, I really need to go to bed, 'cause it's now after 1am. Oops. Goodnight!

~Bex

Playing Catch-Up

There are lots of good things about Salkehatchie, and even about having a week unplugged in general, but one downside is that I've fallen out of the habit of blogging, and I'm behind on some things I ought to tell you about.

First off, GRACELING. I read this back before I left for Salkehatchie and I meant to tell you about it then, but I didn't get there. GRACELING is a novel by Kristin Cashore, and while it took me a little while to get into it and I solved the "mystery" way before Katsa and Po did, I still really really enjoyed it.

In the fictional realm where GRACELING is set, some children are born with eyes that are two different colors. These children are "Graced" with some sort of gift, from painting to fighting, even to killing. This is the Grace with which Katsa has been gifted, and she hates it. Her uncle, a king, uses her as his personal thug. Katsa hates the crimes she is forced to commit. To make matters worse, Gracelings are considered unnatural, and as such, Katsa has never really had any friends.

In a sort of retaliation effort, she has formed the Council, a group that has spread through all seven kingdoms in an effort to protect the people from the acts of the kings. One of Katsa's missions with the Council is to rescue the grandfather of the Lienid princes. Along the way, she meets Prince Po, who has set out to find his grandfather and determine why he has been captured. Po is also Graced - with fighting. He and Katsa, two outcasts, two incredible fighters, set out to determine who captured Po's grandfather and for what reason. And the stakes may be a lot higher than either of them realized.

Reminiscent of Tamora Pierce's Lioness quartet, GRACELING was an excellent story with a well-thought out plot (even though I predicted some of it, there were definitely twists that I didn't see coming) and characters that you can't help but love. Definitely read it if you get the chance.

Also, during the week while I was at Salkehatchie, I read GLASS HOUSES by Rachel Caine, the first book in the Morganville Vampires series. The premise of the story was interesting - college town secretly ruled by vampires; actually, it was way more complicated than that, but I'm being pressured by my little brother to leave my computer and go watch Firefly - but I felt like the execution wasn't spectacular. Don't get me wrong, it was an amusing (although possibly unintentionally so) and quick read and I will probably end up reading the second one, but it felt like the drama was way over the top. Yes, it helped that Shane understood being on Monica's bad side, but the fact that she burned down his house and killed his sister was pushing it a little. Or a lot.

Finally, I've just started SKINNED by Robin Wasserman, which I will tell you all about when I finish it.

And now I need to go watch Firefly, because 1) it's awesome and 2) I think Little Brother 2 might kill me if I'm not out there in the next thirty seconds or so. Catch you later,
Bex

Salkehatchie

Helloooo everybody! I'm home! Salkehatchie was a wonderful experience, as usual. I gotta say, things at the JET (Johnston-Edgefield-Trenton) camp were very different from the Columbia camp. I also gotta say, I don't think I could survive living in the middle of nowhere for very long. I need civilization.

But that's not to say that this week was bad. It definitely wasn't. I made friends with several people who I probably would not have talked to much, if at all, had I met them somewhere other than Salkehatchie, which is always nice. And I think I learned a lot about appreciating people who are not the same as you.

There were some truly hilarious moments. Somnambulatory cows, flaming o's, unicorns in space, Monty Python and string theory, vampire babies, coming up with nicknames such as "Cat-Woman" and "the Rev Lupster" (I guess that's how we'd spell it), teaching HB and EN to play hearts, defining "lightsaber," unintentional dirty jokes, very intentional fake-secret jokes, and Spiderman Jason, just to name a few. (For the sake of saving time and not boring you, I'm not gonna explain all those stories here, but I definitely can if you want to know.)

There were some "wow" moments too. Looking at the finished kitchen, marveling over the air conditioner that EN and I had so painstakingly straightened out, being able to pick up one of the kittens, seeing how happy Mrs. Ora May and Mr. Bean (because calling him Mr. Joe is just odd) were when they saw the work we had done and the smiles on their faces when they greeted all of us from their new porch. God really can do amazing things.

What did I do this week, you ask? Well, I helped tear down a porch, and I fixed an air conditioner, and I cleaned everything out of a bunch of kitchen cabinets, and I painted, and painted, and painted, and painted, and painted, and washed dishes, and painted, and washed some more dishes, and painted, and washed more dishes, and painted, and put knobs on cabinets and cleaned out a bedroom and tore out a carpet and put down Peel-and-Press linoleum, and I even got to be a kitchen wizard and put the kitchen back together. It was a busy week, and I got really sick of painting, but in the words of my dear friend HB, "None of us are too good for painting." My frustration with the work was so worth it to make Mr. and Mrs. Bean so happy.

I feel like there should be some moral here about what God can do through all kinds of different people, but I'm too tired and too desperately in need of a real shower and a good night's sleep in a real bed to phrase it coherently right now, so for now just know that God is great and people are crazy and everyone should have a Salkehatchie experience at some point.

Love,
Bex

P.S. Yes, "God is great and people are crazy" does sort of reference a country song. Yes, I left out the line about "beer is good" on purpose. No, I have never tried beer. Yes, I do think it's disgusting. No, I am not a fan of country music. Yes, I do like Taylor Swift anyway.

Oh Look a Post!

I am terribly sorry that I keep forgetting to post things. I finished Kristin Cashore's GRACELING around 3 this afternoon and I would love to tell you all about it but I really need to be packing, so when I get back I shall be sure to post about it. Don't let me forget. Please. (SH, here's looking at you, I know you loved the book too so remind me to post!)

This evening has been rather hectic, what with packing and making CDs for the road and finishing GRACELING and going on a Mad Search For Sunglasses So I Do Not Kill My Eyes On A Tin Roof and trying to find my camera and so on and so forth. So even though I've been meaning to post all day, it didn't happen. Until right now.

What am I packing for, you might ask?

Salkehatchie.

Salkehatchie is basically a mission trip/summer camp combination run through the Methodist church. Four of us from my church (three members of my youth group plus one of our adult leaders (who reads this sometimes, hello! *waves*)) are heading off to the Edgefield, SC area tomorrow morning. For the next week, we'll be doing home repair work for people in that area who need it, and worshiping God, and having fun, and doing all sorts of exciting things. I'll make sure to tell you all about it when I get back.

In the meantime, you get a week's break from reading about my life. (I know, you're hugely disappointed.) I'll see (er, write to) you all next Saturday! Have a lovely week!

Love,
Bex

Two to None...

So of course I now have the Jack's Mannequin song "Rescued" stuck in my head (very good song, by the way, if  you need something to listen to). "Two to none, roads that lead away from this, I'm following myself just this once..."

Anyway. I have not read any books today. I read the first thirty pages of GRACELING, which I'll tell you about when I finish it, and I skimmed through the sixth and seventh Harry Potter books. To be fair, I've done a reasonable amount of reading beyond just skimming, but mostly I'm skimming, so I'm not sure how to count that. But anyway.

Haven't done much today, folks. Harry Potter is awesome. Jack's Mannequin's pretty fantastic as well. Beyond that...I hope you're all having wonderful relaxing summer vacations (and CH, if you're reading this, I hope you're having a wonderful time in Germany, say hey to LD for me).

Gonna go read/skim some more and then get back to GRACELING. Catch you later, guys.

Love,
Bex

I Love These Two-Book Days

Yes, dearest readers, another one. I am sorry that I am so easily distracted and forget all about blogging and suchlike until it is 11:40 at night, but I am reading good books and I am sharing them with you, so you can't be too upset. Right?

The first book, which I read over twoish hours this morning, was HEX HALL by Rachel Hawkins. It was an absolutely wonderful book. I will confess that I figured out the plot twists about halfway through the book, but that's something I do a lot, and the great thing about this book: it doesn't matter, because it's still fun to read.

Sophie Mercer is a witch. She's always tried to use her powers to help people, but after a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, she gets sentenced to Hecate Hall, nicknamed "Hex Hall." It's basically a reform school for witches, shapeshifters, and faeries. Sophie has a hard time fitting in. The most popular, most beautiful, and most powerful witches on campus become her enemies almost immediately; the guy she likes is dating one of those witches; the only person who will be friends with her is Jenna Talbot. Jenna's also the only vampire on campus. And to top it off, Sophie knows next to nothing about being a witch. So, she doesn't really fit in.

When students start turning up drained of blood, Sophie's one friend is the only suspect. But Sophie doesn't think the attacks are Jenna's doing. She's convinced that there's a far more powerful enemy out there. And whoever the enemy is, Sophie is one of their biggest targets.

I was expecting something fun but girly, full of giggling and girliness and love spells and so on. What HEX HALL delivered was much more than that. The dangers Sophie faces and the situations presented are much deeper and darker than shallow, surface-level popularity crises. There are demons, there is torture, there are all manner of dark, lurking secrets. It's a fantastically woven plot. But the narrative style is light, fresh, sarcastic, witty - Sophie sounds just like a regular teenager. A very fun book. Definitely go read it. Also check out Rachel Hawkins' website. 

The other novel I read today was Holly Black's absolutely positively fantastic novel WHITE CAT. The first book in a proposed trilogy, WHITE CAT was full of amazing characters and intricate plots, and oh my goodness it was wonderful. Everyone should go read it, right now.

The novel is set in the United States, basically as we know it but with one major difference: everyone wears gloves. Always. That's because of the curse workers. About one in a thousand people can work magic with just a single touch. Each one has a different gift: changing emotions, messing with memories, changing dreams, giving luck, causing death, even transforming things (although that one's really rare).

Cassel Sharpe has always been the only member of his family not to be a worker. And since the age of fourteen, he has carried the burden of knowing that he killed the girl he loved. Now, Cassel is trying to blend in and forge a new life for himself at a boarding school. He can't quite stay away from the life of a con artist, but he's more normal than he's ever been before.

When he wakes up on the roof of the dorm building and starts seeing a mysterious white cat everywhere, even in his dreams, everything starts to change. Cassel is wrapped up in a mystery only he can solve, and the stakes are high: the lives of almost everyone he cares about.

Go read this book. Right now. And if you have any questions, visit Holly Black's website. You guys, the Curse Workers series (or at least, the first installment of it) is FANTASTIC. Readreadread.

Love,

Bex

P.S. It has just switched to midnight. I missed officially posting this on June 8 by one stinkin' minute. I'm counting it as the June 8 post. Probably.