Snowflakes and Spider Silk

This is a meme hosted by  Rinn Reads  where anyone can join in and talk about anything Fantasy! I usually read high fantasy, but I've started reading some urban fantasy lately and I'm enjoying it. I've discovered that I love books that make me laugh, and a lot of urban fantasy features snarky main characters or just funny situations. There's just something about making me laugh that makes me that much more willing to let go of my annoyances with a book and just enjoy it. I kind of wish there was more high fantasy that didn't take itself so seriously. All those epic battles and revenge-fueled villains and dramatic showdowns are all well and good, but a little wisecrack here and there wouldn't go amiss . In that regard, I really enjoyed Half A King by Joe Abercrombie , since it featured quite a few instances of witty (albeit dark) dialogue. Also, that one conversation  between Adolin and Shallan in Words of Radiance . Yeah, you know the one. I laughed ...

This is a meme hosted by  Rinn Reads  where anyone can join in and talk about anything Fantasy! As I continue my quest of reading every Sanderson book ever, it's hitting me that a lot of fantasy novels (and series) are ridiculously long. I've weathered the Harry Potter series (7 books), five A Song of Ice and Fire books (7-8 books), the Mistborn trilogy and a bit of the Stormlight Archive (10 books), The Name of the Wind (3 books), three Gentleman Bastards books (8 books), and quite a few others. The common theme? If the books themselves aren't huge, the series are. This infographic gives you the word counts of the books in ASoIaF: For reference, a novel  is classified as a book that has approximately 50,000-110,000 words , while an epic novel  is anything more than 110,000 words. By that classification, all of the ASoIaF books are epic novels. Epic   novels . So each novel is in itself an epic, and there are an as-yet undetermined numb...

This is a meme hosted by  Rinn Reads  where anyone can join in and talk about anything Fantasy! I was talking to a friend about how fantasy was very white-male-dominated, and it got me thinking about some of my favorite stories either written by or featuring diverse people. This includes women, minorities/people from multiracial backgrounds, and LGBTQ. Diversity is especially important to me as a reader, because I'm a woman, and I'm a woman of color (Yes, people from Asia/India are also women of color - an excellent article on that topic here ). It's important to me that my fiction has diversity not just for the sake of being politically correct - the world is  diverse, and our stories need to start reflecting that. In almost any high fantasy world, you'll be able to group different groups of people into a loose representation of ethnicities from our world. Take Westeros, for example: the Dothraki are tan, horse-riding nomads (Arab); the mystical dragon-ridi...

Let's face it - ever since you discovered the world of Harry Potter, you've wanted to go to Hogwarts. You kept waiting for that letter by owl post, but maybe you just didn't make the cut. But fear not, there are other magical schools out there! Even if we probably won't get in, it doesn't stop us from dreaming! without further ado, here's a guide to some awesome magical boarding schools! Hogwarts (Harry Potter) Who gets in? Witches and Wizards (aka people who are born with magic) Ages: 11-17 Why it's awesome: IT'S HOGWARTS. When you can learn everything from Potions to Transfiguration to Quidditch in one place, meet such creatures as centaurs, dragons, and nearly-headless ghosts, and make friends with fabulous people, what's not to like? There's adventure around every corner, and the school has such a big history of mischief-makers. Not to mention the butterbeer. Hecate Hall (Hex Hall) Who gets in: Juvenile...

This is a meme hosted by Rinn Reads where anyone can join in and talk about anything Fantasy! This week, I'm talking about book covers. I love how fantasy book covers usually have painted/illustrated covers instead of photographs. I'm usually put-off by book covers that feature people's faces, because I like to imagine my characters. That's another reason I love fantasy book covers - they usually feature silhouettes or landscapes, which helps me imagine the world even better without being too imposing. One of my favorite book covers are the ones from the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. I love the US Daughter of Smoke and Bone book covers, but I like the elegance of the UK editions. They both fit the story in different ways - the US covers capture the raw emotion and intensity, while the UK covers hint at the elegant beauty of the prose. I really love the cover of The Way of Kings. It's so beautifully drawn, and I love the suggestion of possibilit...

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! The Feature & Follow is hosted by  Alison Can Read  and  Parajunkee's View . This week's Question: Share something you’ve learned about book blogging or just blogging in general in the last month. This week I learned about the kind of publicizing Indie authors need to do in order to get the word out about their books, and how much bloggers can help them! I didn't realize how hard it was to get the word out about your books if you aren't published by a major publishing house. I knew blog tours and interviews etc. helped publicize, but I didn't realize how big the impact is for people who don't have giant marketing campaigns.

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! The Feature & Follow is hosted by  Alison Can Read  and  Parajunkee's View . This week's question: Back to school. Create a reading list for the imaginary English Lit class you’ll be teaching this semester. I'm guessing this is a thinly veiled "what are your favorite classic books" question, so that's how I'm going to answer it. Crime and Punishment The Things They Carried  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest  Lord of the Flies Scarlet Letter A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Frankenstein Animal Farm 1984 The Little Prince

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! The Feature & Follow is hosted by  Alison Can Read  and  Parajunkee's View . This week's question: What do you do with books you don't like? Do you power through or DNF? Even if I don't like a book, I will usually finish it (if only to write a rant about it haha). I'm quite proud of the fact that out of my 800 ratings on goodreads, only 21 of them are books I didn't finish. Here's my list of things that will make me abandon a book: hate the main character - If I can't stand you, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to want to read about your life story. This happened really recently as you can see in my review of Meg Cabot's Abandon. The story takes way too long to go anywhere - If I'm reading a book about hunting for a white whale on an accursed ship, and I've gotten to page 200 before we even set sail, I'm sorry but I don't h...

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! The Feature & Follow is hosted by  Alison Can Read  and  Parajunkee's View . This week's question: What do you do with your books after you are done reading them? Well, most of the time I read right before I go to sleep, so I put it reverently back on my giant pile of bedside books. If a book is particularly good, sometimes I'll just close it and stare at it while I try and gather my thoughts and overwhelming "ohmygoodness that was amazing" feelings :) And if I don't like the book I've just finished, I just let it thunk to the ground (terrible, I know!). I have rarely felt the urge to hurl my books at a wall - the most recent time this happened was after I finished  Storm of Swords , but I was reading an ebook and I definitely did not want my precious laptop to shatter into a thousand pieces.

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! The Feature & Follow is hosted by  Alison Can Read  and  Parajunkee's View .  This week's question: Book Vacay: Where is the best destination reading spot for you? (Where do you like to go to read other then your home) I almost always read curled up on my bed or on the sofa, so this question is kind of hard! This is kind of weird but I kind of like reading in the receptions of doctor's/dentist's offices - it's always quiet and they usually have comfy chairs :) I've had a couple of interesting conversations with people who asked what I was reading while we were all waiting for our appointments, so it's kind of fun. I know my "destination" reading spot isn't much of a destination...what about yours? Please follow via Bloglovin or GFC. I will follow back for sure - just remember to leave me a link!

Gain new followers and make new friends with the Book Blogger Feature & Follow! The Feature & Follow is hosted by  Alison Can Read  and  Parajunkee's View .  T his week's question:  PHOTOBOMB!!!! Photobomb a picture with your favorite book. Share it of course. So...as you can tell by the little "favorite books" tab right under the header, I have more than one favorite book! Unfortunately I don't own all my favorites (working on changing that - it's hard to find books by international authors though!).  My books from top to bottom are:  1) The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents  by Terry Pratchett 2) The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak 3)  Crime and Punishment  by Dostoevsky 4) Ender's Game  by Orson Scott Card 5) UnWholly  by Neal Shusterman (standing in for Unwind , the first book in the series) 6)   Days of Blood and Starlight  by Laini Taylor Disclaimers: I d...