Books In Your Pants

Hey Blogger Buds,
I've been watching some old Brotherhood 2.0 vlogs lately, and there were a couple on the infamous phrase "In Your Pants." Both Hank and John pulled out some books that would sound great in your pants (see what I did there? eh?) so I figured, as part of my eternal fangirling, I would give it a shot. I didn't go hunting on Goodreads, I just pulled some titles off my bookshelf and narrowed the list down to 16.
(I probably don't need to say this, but the post might be a little NSFW for those of you who have superbly talented four-year-olds who know how to read my blog.)

Behold:

YA in Your Pants.

(Wow, that sounds bad...)

A Need So Beautiful

Delirium

Forgotten

Beautiful Creatures

Clarity

Forever

Trance

Virals

Too Far

Happy Families

Shatter Me

Lola and the Boy Next Door

Possession

The Scorch Trials

Crescendo

I'm going to leave it up to you to fill in the "In Your Pants" in your mind.
I just chose Trance because it rhymes. :)

I hope I was able to brighten your day a bit!

What do you think is the perfect book in your pants?

DFTBA,
Riv

The Fault in Our Stars Review

Hey Blogger Buds,
After an extended [extended] hiatus, I'm back! I just finished The Fault in Our Stars by John Green this weekend, so I have a review (if, you know, you couldn't tell from the title of this blog post). I haven't posted a review in...2 months. Wow. For a book blogger, that's pretty sad. I'm also working on my reviewing layout, because I have a tendency to ramble, and I like to keep things clear. I try to get down everything I feel ,but I can talk a lot.
Let's get on with it, shall we?


(Just a disclaimer: My blog is usually completely clean, language-wise, but there is an instance or two of me not being my entirely angelic self.)

Blurby: (Goodreads)

Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumors in her lungs... for now. 

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumors tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault. 

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

Review:

Right off the bat, I did not cry. Everyone cried, and I'm probably cold and heartless, but I did not. Maybe it's because I was stupid enough to read some Youtube comments, and one of the three comments I read just said the ending. Straight out. I hate those people.

But anyway.

If I were to describe this book in one word, discounting the completely true words like "emotional" and "beautiful," I would call tFiOS "existential." Because it is. And its existentialism is both its strongest and its weakest points. Hazel and Augustus are all about how everything will fade into oblivion and humans will not last forever.

CHARACTERS

Hazel Lancaster: Hazel was an amazing character. She's brilliant, and a bit existential without going overboard. She's thoughtful. She's strong and she's weak. She refuses to accept and she accepts. Hazel is real.

Augustus Waters: He was definitely swoon-worthy, even with "1.4" legs. He calls Hazel her full name--Hazel Grace. He owns a pack of cigarettes so he can put the killing thing between his lips and not give it the power to kill. But. His existentialism was too much. Sure, all of his quotes about needing to be remembered and the universe just wanting to be noticed made me think, but in the end, it all turned meta. (My thought process: "Oh, the pain! Wait. Why am I being existential? Darn it, I'm so meta...) And the way Augustus went looking for metaphors were there weren't any just bothered me. A lot. Yet still, he's just such a spirited character, so full of life.

Peter Van Houten: I want to avoid spoilers, so I'll say that I reacted to him exactly how I was expected to. And I was satisfied with his character, for the most part.

Side Characters: There was Isaac, who I absolutely adored from page one. (Or two. Or where ever he showed up.) And Kaitlyn managed to be fabulous, even with her tiny part. My issue was with Hazel's parents. Sure, her dad was the emo crier, but they were still a major cliche. Hazel's mother was a helicopter mom, always there. She surprised me in the end, but I didn't like either of them throughout.

OTHER

An Imperial Affliction: AIA is the imaginary book that Hazel is obsessed with. And John Green presented it as existential, which could have been a major flop. If I had said, "this 'book' is garbage, what is Hazel's deal?" at all the quotes, tFiOS would have been terrible. But An Imperial Affliction was a well-written "book." John Green gambled, and he won.

Source

Prose: The Fault in Our Stars was absolutely beautiful. I could probably pluck at least one quotable quote from each page. I just opened up to a random page. Here's one from page 116: "Most of the time I could forget about it, but the inexorable truth is this: They might be glad to have me around, but I was the alpha and the omega of my parents' suffering."

Cancer: I can't very well talk about tFiOS without discussing cancer. I don't have such a connection to cancer, or even know much about it. But John Green helped me feel all the things anyway. I understood what was going on. And, although I didn't like how the grief was written, Mr. Green cut away all of the crap of having cancer, of how "strong" the survivors are. This book is many things. It's existential, yes, but it's also emotional, it's also beautiful, and, when you put those all together, you get what it truly is: real.

RATING: 8 stars (out of 5)

RELATED SONG: There are a million fan songs I just listened to, my favorite being the eponymous (always wanted to use that word) song by SuperCoolFunnyVideos. (Seriously. The only real instrument is a guitar that two of them play at once. Other than that, they use copies of tFiOS!)

DFTBA,

Riv

Mini Reviews: Wings of the Wicked; Hold Me Closer, Necromancer; Looking for Alaska

Hey Blogger Buds,
I have these books piling up that I really want to review....I just never get around to it. And time passes, my memory gets foggy with old age, and I lose interest in writing reviews.
So here we go, quickfire.
I've listed a few things here: A goodreads link, a short blurb of my own creation, and a song that connects to the book.

Wings of the Wicked by Courtney Allison Moulton

Linkage: Angelfire Review ~ Will Doll ~ Cadan Doll

Blurby: In the sequel to Angelfire, Ellie has to deal with growing into her powers, her feelings for her guardian, Will, and deceit, while she's struck with tragedy after tragedy and is presented with life-changing secrets.

(Why can't I be this good at blurbing my OWN books?)

Review: WotW was absolutely phenomenal. I was blown away. You've gotten so much more familiar with the characters at this point, and they're all just adorable and amazing. Really strong, and kick-butt. I'm a total "Wellie" shipper. They're there for each other through thick and thin, balancing the other out perfectly. When tragedy strikes, they present a united front, Will holding Ellie while she screams and cries, even when she's so mad she tries to hurt him. No pun intended, their love is undying.

Of course, this book also featured my favorite character a great deal--Cadan. He's just...awesome. In so many ways. (In my dream world, I'm Team Rivdan.)

The only critique I can make is that when Ellie suffered, I didn't feel her pain. Some really bad...stuff...hits the fan, and it destroys (not literally, don't worry) destroys Ellie, but I didn't really feel it as much as I wish I had.

I NEED book 3.

(Plus, the fight scenes were epic.)
Song: Guardian Angel by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Rating: 8 stars AMAZING

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Blurby: Miles Halter, unpopular dork obsessed with last words, goes to Culver Creekboarding school, where he finds new friends in the Colonel, Takumi, and the hurricane which is Alaska Young, who turns his life upside-down, shakes it up, and opens up, leaving it to explode like a soda bottle.

(Bad metaphor simile, I know)

Review: I was a little bit underwhelmed by Looking for Alaska, but it felt very real. All the characters were well-rounded and charming. The numerous pranks sprinkled throughout make me question John Green's schoolboy days, though...

I just felt like there was something missing, some sort of draw, throughout the first part of the book. I didn't feel the tension.

"After" was amazing, though. I didn't see it coming until about a page before, I just couldn't imagine it...and then BAM. I felt the agony.

Emotional rollercoasters FTW. A billion percent.

There isn't a real answer, in the end, but I think it's fitting that way. There's hope for everyone, all the strange and quirky characters.

Song: Looking for Alaska by Hank Green
Rating: 3 stars Okay

Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride

Blurby: Sam LaCroix was a pretty average joe (or Sam, as the case may be)...until someone tells him he's a necromancer. Yup, "necromancer" as in "you can raise the dead, and that makes you a threat to that power-hungry necromancer down yonder, but to make up for it, here's a werewolf girlfriend." Wait. What? Necromancers and werewolves?

Review: I think what makes this book so fantastic, the key part of it, is the characters. Sam is just so...real. I don't think I will ever find a character as mundane as Sam. He works in fast-food. He plays potato-hockey (you read that right). He has a snarky little sister, and a cool mom. His friends are also super loyal...and really, really quirky. His name is short for Samhain (apparently pronounced Sowin.)

I didn't like the multiple POVs at first, they were distracting and boring enough to make me give up on the book for a while, but once I got into it, I got into it.

I have three complaints. (1) Sam took everything in stride, which irks me in paranormal books. "I'm a necromancer? Weird. But, ya know, I can live with that." DUDE. FREAK OUT. *grabs Sam and shakes him by the shoulders* (2) The writing was a little bit repetitious. (3) The book was mad funny, but most of the brilliantly mad funny was in the beginning, so my high hopes weren't met after those opening pages.

I just found out that there's a sequel. YES.

Song: Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer by Elton John (of course)
Rating: 5* Original and well thought out.

Peace and swords,
Riv