Written in Red

Fanfiction of fairy tales is the “it” thing right now, and I am loving it! For some reason Red Riding Hood especially seems to be popular. She was never my favorite character growing up, but I do love the modern day remixes.

Book Club Fiction is reading Written in Red this month, and while it’s been awhile since I’ve participated in one of their readalongs–I was able to get this one from my library in time. I am so glad I did!

I will say that at first, I wasn’t too sure about it. The prologue really doesn’t explain what the Others are very well, and so the whole time I was thinking “Oooook….so you’re saying if Native Americans just would have been evil cannibals, the white men wouldn’t have come in and taken over?” It just seemed a little…off. Once I got into the story and realized the author wasn’t talking about people at all, it made perfect sense, but at first, I was more than a little concerned.

Don’t let the prologue scare you like it did me. The Others are actually ancient earth natives. Terra Indigene. Their basic form is a pumped up form of animal (Wolf, Crow, Coyote, Bear, even Vampire), but they have adapted to be able to shift into human shape as necessary. However, they hate humans, and see them as just another form of meat that they somehow have to live with.

Meg, however, doesn’t smell like prey for some reason. She’s different, and they don’t know why. But she is scared and needs shelter, so they hire her on. Suddenly things get super complicated.

I loved this story. It was both scary and also gentle. There was friendship, but not exactly romance. I kept expecting it to break off into romance, because, you know, that’s what always happens in books like this. But it never came, and it was a nice change.

I do want to give you a trigger warning. There is quite a bit of discussion and a couple of scenes with cutting. Meg was in a cult type culture before she came to The Others where the girls were cut to induce prophecies. If that will trigger you, please don’t read this book, or proceed with caution, as it is a big part of the story. Please take care of yourself!

Two books in a row that I couldn’t put down? Maybe my slump is finally over! *fingers crossed*

 

Fulfills Popsugar #37:  A book with a color in the title

 

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Lock In

When most of you hear the name “John Scalzi,” you probably think Redshirts. I haven’t read that one yet, but I have heard alllll about it from fellow nerds. His new book, Lock In, while still very much sci-fi, is a very big change from the spoofy Star Trek fanfiction genre. Instead, Scalzi has written a cyborg cop drama, and I absolutely loved it.

Lock In is set in an America that has been ravished by a mega flu that infects the person’s nervous system. The Haden, as the victims (although they hate to be called victims) are called, is locked in to their body. Their brain is alive, but their body is essentially useless. So robots have been built to which their brains can be linked, and the Hadens can function in the world essentially as normal human beings would. It’s pretty sweet technology, really.

Scalzi’s book is set during a major civil rights march for these Hadens, as there is a big healthcare law being launched. That’s where the criminal part of the book comes in. I have to stop myself now before I give anything else away. The book is just so good I could talk and talk about it. Seriously, go read this one as soon as possible!

WWW Wednesday 12/24/2014

 

 

What are you currently reading?

The Iliad by Homer

Lock In by John Scalzi

 

What did you just finish reading?

Mission:  Impossible by Peter Borsocchini

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

The Group by Mary McCarthy

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Gave Me Chills

BookClubFiction is reading Joe Hill’s NOS4A2 this month, which I was super excited about because of how much I loved Horns. And this book is JUST as freaky, if not more so.

I’m not going to give too much away, because I’m going to be doing the review in the next day or so, but holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.

This book is totally creepified.

Bird Box

I received an invite to a new Goodreads Bookclub called BookClubFiction the other day. Because I can’t refuse a request like that of course I had to pick up September’s book…even if I only had a few days before the end of the time period! After finishing The Name of the Rose…that left, well, today. No big deal, right?

Hubby has spent the afternoon flipping through college football, and we’ve been completely lazy all day long. Perfect for a little speed reading.

And Bird Box was a great book to do in a day. This is a very M. Night Shyamalan kind of book. Think The Village or The Happening. Something is out there, causing people to kill themselves….but no one knows what it is. The book refers to them as “creatures,” but pretty much people are going insane after they see…things.

I devoured this book by Josh Malerman. It’s very post-apocalyptic, and so so creepy. I love these dystopian-type books that are almost zombie-like, except the monster is an unnamed enemy. They are chilling, because we don’t really know what is going to end our society, we just know that eventually, something is going to end it. It’s the same feeling I had after reading Not a Drop to Drink, and watching The Last Ship.

This is an adult dystopian. There’s no weird love triangle, and it’s very very bloody. They also describe childbirth in all it’s gory wonderfulness, so just be prepared for that. Also, as I stated before, people kill themselves, and there are descriptions on how they do so.

Towards the end, I thought this was ramping up for a sequel, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one was written, but there’s not a huge cliffhanger at the end. Malerman did wrap it up pretty cleanly. I would like to see what happens next and would definitely read a second book if there was one. I’m not sure I would want to see a movie on this–I think it would end up being too much of a slasher instead of the psychological thriller that the book is.

Check this out if you are a Stephen King fan, or if you liked Mindy McGinnis. You’ll appreciate this one too!