Going Bovine by Libba Bray

I'm going to break the format, guys.
I'm gonna do it.
Don't even try to stop me.
I'm too excited.

See, Going Bovine is incredible. Incredible.
It's better than the also-amazing Gemma Doyle Trilogy.
I swear upon all that is good and true that I am not kidding.

See, there's this kid, Cameron. He has mad cow disease. He's going to die. Up until now, Cameron's life has been a painstaking study in apathy. He's a C+ student with a fondness for pot, who rather likes the idea of wandering into another person's life, and staying there. Neither joy nor wonder has entered the equation since that one time at Disney World. He was five. Eleven years later, as his mind begins to spongify and die on him, he starts to learn what it means to live.

It starts with Dulcie, an atypical angel (hallucination?) who tells him that there's a cure held by a mysterious doctor, but he must quest for it. Also, he has to save the world while he's at it.

Now, Cameron's pissed about the whole dying thing, so he asks himself a question, and that question is "Why the hell not?"

That one question sets him off on a cross-country journey with feathers and personal ads as his maps and a video-gaming dwarf with a wicked 'fro and a Norse lawn gnome as his stalwart companions. They meet physicists and monsters, drag queens and jazz legends. They get lost. They get drunk. They find necessary parts. They fall in love.

But the beeps of hospital monitors are never far off. So is it real? Does it matter?

And dudes, it is so frickin' good. I don't even know if I can convey how much I loved this book.
First off, it's about so much, but not in a convoluted, I-am-trying-too-hard-to-say-everything-ever sort of way. It's about important things. Little things. Things that we think are little but turn out important.

It's about love. Life. Dying. Mythology¹. Happiness. True Things. Popcorn.

Plus it's funny. Really, laugh-out-(very)-loud funny. Libba Bray manages to do this thing with her writing where she makes you want to pee your pants laughing (or, you know, just annoy the crap out of your roommate) one paragraph, then makes you cry with the aforementioned "True Things" the next. More than a few times, it's the same paragraph².

Finally--and this is something I'm officially uberimpressed with--Libba Bray can write from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old male better than any other female author I can think of. Never once did I lose the sense of Cameron's guy-ness. It was awesome. So yeah. Many, many compliments to the chef.

So basically, I loved it. Hands down my favorite book of 2009.

Do I even need to say it?


Going bovine, and yours...


1.There's a reference to Iphigenia. It practically made me die of delight.
2. I even dog-eared a bunch of pages due to the beauty/hilarity of passages. I never dog-ear my pages. It usually makes me angry. But this time, I kind of had to.

Lisa Mantchev...

... rocks! First of all, she wrote a fabulous book (which we reviewed recently). And then she granted us an interview. See? Rockin'.

To recap our format: The first part = nine normal questions, the second = seven fill-in-the-blank questions and the third = a list of eight favorite YA books, for your reading pleasure.

So, without further ado, we present our interview with the lovely Lisa Mantchev.

Yours,

Part the First
1. If you could play any role in any production during any period in history what would it be, when would it be, and why?
I'd love to be in the original production of the Peter Pan musical. Or My Fair Lady. Or...

2. Of Bertie's hair-coloring adventures, which is your favorite?
That's a tie between the Cobalt Flame of the original book and the ones that haven't happened yet. I'm considering colors for the third book right now!

3. Have you any advice for aspiring authors/actors?
Treat the writing like a job... put your backside in the chair, log the hours, behave professionally both online and off.

4. Who's your favorite Disney Princess?
Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She always had her nose stuck in a book.

5. So one morning you're taking a stroll in your neighborhood, right? It's pretty cool. The sun is shining, the birds are singing... it seems that nothing could go wrong. Until you trip on a crack in the sidewalk and land in a bush. When you get up and brush yourself off, you realize you're not on the street anymore. In fact, it looks as though you've stepped into a different time. You've stumbled upon a secret garden and it is now, inexplicably, dusk. Straight ahead, there is a crumbling wishing well. A wren alights on your shoulder and tells you that the well will deliver a letter--written by you--to your teenage self. What will you write in the letter?
"Dear Lisa,

When you get to college, there's a chance you'll start writing a lot of thesis papers and drop the creative writing for several years.

DON'T.

Love,

You In The Future"

6. What was your favorite book when you were a teenager?
I read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander until the cover fell off. And no, I didn't drop it in the bathtub. Repeatedly. Stop looking at me like that! *flees*

7. Ask yourself the question you wish we'd ask you. Then answer it.
What's your favorite holiday? Oh, I'm so glad I asked me that. Halloween, definitely. It's all about the costuming, the candy, walking in the dark with flashlights, pumpkin cake, hot apple cider... I love Christmas, too, but that holiday comes wrapped up with more stress. Halloween is just about the joy, the glee, the CHOCOLATE.

8. The works of William Shakespeare obviously play a huge part in Eyes Like Stars. What is your favorite of his plays? Bertie's favorite?
I personally love Much Ado About Nothing (hence Bertie's full name of Beatrice) and Taming of the Shrew. Bertie's favorite... probably A Midsummer Night's Dream, considering who she spends her time with...

9. Have Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth and Mustardseed got anything to say to us?

Peaseblossom: The answer is forty-two!

Moth: No! The answer is always "chocolate cupcakes!"

Mustardseed: (shoving him) That was my line!
Cobweb: I, for one, am outraged by the total lack of manners being displayed here today...

(The others sit upon him and stuff tiny, dirty socks in his little piehole.)

Part the Second
1. If I were a faerie, I would... sparkle all the time instead of just in the sunlight.
2. If I could be anything other than a writer, I would be... Queen of Quite A Lot.
3. If I ruled the world... dessert would be mandatory.
4. Unicorns are awesome because... they are transportation and impaling device all in one.
6. High school was... better in retrospect than I thought it was at the time.
7. Yesterday, I... painted my garden fence. And part of my arm. Also, my knee. And the sidewalk.

Part the Third
List your eight favorite YA books.

1. The Shoes series by Noel Streatfeild

2. The Looking Glass Wars series by Frank Beddor

3. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

4. A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

5. Anything by Terry Pratchett

6. Flora Segunda by Ysabeau Wilce

7. Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink

8. A Most Improper Magick (forthcoming in 2010) by Stephanie Burgis

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

BEWARE! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THE FIRST BOOK IN THE SERIES, THE HUNGER GAMES, WHICH EVERYONE SHOULD GO READ RIGHT NOW. OR ELSE. THAT IS THE EXTENT TO WHICH I WILL THREATEN YOU. BUT SERIOUSLY. READ IT.

Katniss Everdeen is back, and in more danger than ever. On the surface, everything is as it should be--better, even. By winning the Hunger Games, she and her co-victor, Peeta Mellark, have guaranteed themselves the comfortable lives of celebrities, as well as security for their families. But Kat’s move with the poisonous berries undermined the rules of the Games and struck a blow to the very foundations of Panem. This shift, despite the Capitol’s efforts to cover it up, has incited a stirring throughout the districts. Something that could shape up to be rebellion.

Suddenly, the story has become much larger than personal survival: Katniss and her Mockingjay pin are national symbols. To some, she is face of coming revolution. To the rich and clueless who live in the Capitol, she is a romantic heroine, her Mockingjay a fashion statement. To President Snow, she is wild card he never counted on, a threat that must be tamed. Kat must convince all of Panem that her last act in the Arena was motivated purely by deep love for Peeta, or everyone she cares about will suffer.

But after all the horrors she has witnessed--in the Arena, in the Capitol, and in the mines back home--how can she possibly be a puppet for the President? As she and Peeta take the traditional Victory Tour and wisps of rebellion begin to rise, Kat must choose between protecting those she loves and taking part in the fight for freedom.

Once again, Suzanne Collins has crafted a thrilling work that I was helpless to put down. Having not read The Hunger Games in a while, I was shocked anew by the sheer brutality of the Capitol, the Games, and the underlying system. All the adventure, action, romance, and excitement of the first book have carried over here, with plenty surprising turns along the way. I wouldn’t say that Catching Fire is quite as amazing as its predecessor but, for the most part, it measures up. It isn’t as if the quality of story and writing aren’t as good. On the contrary, Collins continues to be well-grounded in the world of Panem and quite well-acquainted with her characters. It’s just that everything that transpires feels a bit like a bridge between the first and the third books, the setup to lead us to the grand finale. I felt the same about Pullman’s The Subtle Knife: the book is worthwhile in its own right, but is more of a tool for the author to lead us where we’re to be taken than anything else. But then, you can’t have a magic trick without the setup.

All in all, Catching Fire is a well-crafted and thoroughly enjoyable continuation of Kat’s story and I definitely can’t wait to read what comes next.

Catching Fire comes out on the First of September. That's only one week, guys.

Put it at the top of your pile.

Catching fire and, as always, yours...

PS: Ta very much to CTU's finest for allowing me to borrow the ARC.

Eyes Like Stars: Théâtre Illuminata, Act I by Lisa Mantchev

All her life--as far as she can remember--Beatrice Shakespeare Smith has lived with the players of Théâtre Illuminata, where every play ever written resides. The actors not only play their roles, they are their roles. Hamlet's Ophelia drowns herself each night, and all it takes is a word into headset to travel from Castle Elsinore to the streets of London to Neverland and back again. Each player is bound to the Théâtre by the Book, a magical tome that holds the scripts. Yes, all the scripts.

But Bertie (whom we have previously referred to as Beatrice) has no role to play and no family to speak of. Countless times she has written and re-written the tale of how she came be there, but has not yet found the truth. For all intents and purposes, the Théâtre is her home, and home to everyone she holds dear. Everyone she just might lose.

You see, Bertie (along with the rambunctious Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed, and Peaseblossom, who are her constant companions) has caused more trouble than the Theater Manager is willing to tolerate. If she doesn't find a way to make herself indispensable, she will be cast out. So she sets out to find her calling, but soon encounters problems much bigger than being kicked out. Problems that jeopardize the entire Théâtre and all of its inhabitants.

When I picked up this book, I was anxious. It had such potential to be great. Really great. Then again, it had equal potential to be absolutely terrible. To write a world that exists in a theater and do justice to all the iconic characters within... To create something so complex and keep it from being overdone or from falling apart... It takes strong literary talent and a whole hell of a lot of creativity. Lisa Mantchev, thankfully, has both. Because Eyes Like Stars: Théâtre Illuminata, Act I is really great. I mean, really. I would kill to live in this book. It's this insane collision of everything that I adore: theater, Shakespeare, magic, fairies, and more, all wrapped up in a shiny, well-written package and topped with exciting cover art. Not to mention seamlessly interwoven romance¹, wit, humor, and danger.

I approve.


Enthusiastic, sated, and most fondly yours...



1. I mean, who can resist a love triangle involving a dashing pirate and a sexy air spirit? Not I, my friends.

It was inevitable.

Justine Larbalestier's Liar has a new cover:



And it isn't offensive at all, guys!
Unless you dislike green lettering, or something.
A triumph over evil, or at least over silly and insensitive blundering.

(We're assuming you know of the controversy, because, honestly, who doesn't? But if you've been hiding under a rock for a while, you can go to Every YA Blog Ever to get a summary, and probably an opinion.)

How to Buy a Love of Reading by Tanya Egan Gibson

This book was described in an email from the publicist as "Juno meets Gossip Girl". After reading it, I can tell you that that statement is possibly the most egregious misrepresentation of a book that I have ever heard, in line with those who call The Catcher in the Rye "whiny".
How to Buy a Love of Reading is so far from the self-conscious hipsterizing of Juno¹ or the self-absorbed materialism of Gossip Girl that I can't even begin to imagine where the comparison came from, other than the mind of someone who is desperately trying to appeal to teenagers but who does not, for the most part, understand said teenagers.
How to Buy a Love of Reading is brilliant, if occasionally confusing—an odd sort of meta-novel told from shifting points of view, about the stories we tell, both about other people and about ourselves. It's beautiful, it's unique, it's all kinds of fantastic in ways I can't completely describe.
What it isn't, however, is YA. Though it's about teenagers (if only partly), everything about the way that it's written places it firmly and completely in the Land of Adult Fiction.
But, you know what? Read it anyway. You won't regret it.

Top of the pile.


Knowing that this review is short, but hoping that you'll understand that that's because there are some books that have to be read instead of described, and yours,


1. Don't get your pages in a bunch, guys—I liked Juno.

Bandwagon-jumping is our favorite sport.

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