Kanlar içindeki hayaletler de aşık olur

Anna Dressed in Blood (Kandan Elbiseli Anna - nasıl çevireceğimi bilemedim, idare edin), 17 yaşındaki hayalet avcısı Theseus Cassius Lowood'un hikayesi. ('En büyük Shakespeare delisi bile çocuğuna bu ismi vermemeli' demeden geçemeyeceğim.)

Book review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

I get super-excited when a book I expect nothing from makes it right into my favorites! Suggested by a friend, Daughter of Smoke and Bone was one of those books, and it was a great surprise. When I saw that it belonged in the YA genre, I hesitated for a minute, but I'm glad I didn't let my prejudgement get in the way.

Is Louisa Cosgrove really crazy?

I'm sure by now most of you are aware of my love-hate relationship with the YA genre. My biggest problem with YA is that most of the stories are disturbingly alike, and the writing is way too simple for my taste. In addition, after the Twilight blowout, YA books about vampires and werewolves and angels are rapidly increasing. Even though I'm a huge fan of the supernatural, it does get boring after a while.

Louisa Cosgrove deli mi, değil mi?

Gençlik kitaplarıyla olan aşk-nefret ilişkimi hepiniz biliyorsunuzdur artık; bu konuda yeterinde kafanızı şişirdiğimi düşünüyorum. Ama ne olur, ne olmaz bir kez daha hatırlatayım: Young Adult (YA) türüyle ilgili en büyük problemim hikayelerin birbirine çok benzemesi ve anlatımın aşırı basit olması. Özellikle Alacakaranlık'ın patlamasının ardından da vampirler, kurtadamlarla ilgili gençlik kitaplarının sayısı giderek artıyor. Bu tip konuları çok sevmeme rağmen bir yerden sonra bayıyor insan.

Wildthorn özellikle değişik konusuyla ilgimi çekmişti. Kitap, Viktoria zamanında geçiyor. 17 yaşındaki Louisa Cosgrove bir ailenin yanında çalışmaya gittiğini zannederek yola çıkıyor ve kendisini Wildthorn isimli akıl hastanesinde buluyor. Kitabın ilk kısmında yazarın geçmişe döndüğü bölümler sayesinde Louisa'nın ailesini tanıyor, aslen deli olup olmadığını, neden akıl hastanesine yollandığını görüyoruz.

Kitabın en sevdiğim yanı çoğu YA kitabı gibi yalnızca gençlik problemlerine ve aşk-meşk olaylarına odaklanmamasıydı. Toplumun kadınlara bakış açısıyla ilgili çok çarpıcı bir hikaye aslında. Aslında deli olmayan, sırf toplumun kendilerine sormadan, onlar için belirlediği davranışların dışına çıktılar diye akıl hastanesine kapatılan pek çok kadın var. Wildthorn da kendini bu halde bulan genç bir kızın, onu buraya getiren olayların, onu oraya koyanların cahiliyetinin, hastanede çektiği işkencenin ve sonunda kaçmayı başarmasının öyküsü. Yazar Jane Eaglandi Against Therapy isimli kitapta okuduğu, gerçek bir olaydan ilham almış zaten.  

Wildthorn'un hikayesi ve anlatımı gayet güzel; akıp gidiyor kitap. Ben biraz sıkıldım okurken çünkü önceden yukarıda kapağını gördüğünüz, Women of the Asylum: Voices from Behind the Walls, 1840-1945 isimli kitabı okumuştum. Non-fiction sevenler ve bu konulara meraklı olanlara şiddetle tavsiye ederim. İçinde deli olmadıkları halde zorla akıl hastanesine kapatılmış 25 kadının kendi ağızlarından anlattıkları gerçek hikayeleri var. Ben istemem, fiction olsun derseniz de Wilthorn tam size göre.

Charlize Theron 'Genç Yetişkin' ise...

Geçtiğimiz günlerde Charlize Theron hakkında bir haberde bu filmin ismi geçiyordu. 'Aaaa neymiş bu acaba?' diye merak edip Google'a danışınca rol arkadaşının Patton Oswalt olduğunu gördüm ve izlemem gerektiğine karar verdim. Yazarın Diablo Cody olduğunu görünce huylanmdım değil ama 'ne kadar kötü olabilir ki?' dedim kendi kendime...

Theron'un karakteri Mavis 37 yaşında, kocasından boşanmış,'Young Adult' kitapları yazıyor. Bilgisayarının başında, yazmakta zorlandığı bir gün lisedeki sevgilisinin çocuğu olduğuna dair bir e-mail alınca büyüdüğü kasabaya dönüp adamı geri almaya karar veriyor. Filmin ismi olan 'Young Adult' hem yazdığı kitaplardan, hem de karakterin büyüyememiş olmasından geliyor anlayacağınız gibi. Ancak bence fazla kasmışlar. 

Mavis, arabasında lisede sevdiği şarkıları dinliyor, giyim tarzı liselilerinki gibi ve alkoliklik derecesinde içki içiyor. Depresyonda olduğunu filmin daha en başından anlayabiliyorsunuz. Biraz da bu yüzden gereksiz geldi bana 'Young Adult' bağlantısı. Yetişkin gibi davranıyor olsa da, olmasa da, Mavis'in durumundaki, kafası karışık ve depresyonda bir insan da kolaylıkla saçmalayabilir. Diğer yandan sadece bu bağlantının kurulmasından bile bu işte Diablo Cody'nin parmağının olduğu anlaşılıyor. 

Kendisinin 'genç yetişkin' takıntısını anlayamadım hiçbir zaman. Bence ne modaysa onu kovalıyor. O nedenle 'Young Adult' kitaplarının paylamaya devam ettiği zamanlarda böyle bir film yapması normal cidden. Bu ilk 2007'de, Juno'yla başlamıştı. Filmini beğenmiştim ancak bir yandan da çok abartı olduğu için sinir olmuştum.  Jennifer's Body tam bir zaman kaybıydı. United States of Tara'yı bayağı beğenmiştim ancak onun da çoğunluğu kadrodaki yazarlar tarafından yazıldığı için Cody'nin varlığı ne çok belli olmuştu, ne de çok umurumda. Şimdiyse bu film yine 'ben Cody'nin eseriyim' diye bağırıyor. Ana karakter çok abartılmış ama Theron'un oyunculuğu sayesinde çekilmez olmamış en azından.

Filmin en güzel yanı Theron ve Oswalt'ın karakterleri arasındaki garip ilişki. İzlenmeye değer tek yanının da bu olduğunu düşünüyorum çünkü film bir şey katmıyor izleyiciye. Charlize Theron ve Patton Oswalt'u seviyorsanız izleyin gitsin boş bir zamanınızda. Sevmeseniz bile en fazla 1,5 saat kaybedeceksiniz.

New Girl by Paige Harbison

Title: New Girl
Author: Paige Harbison
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: January 31, 2012
Number of Pages: 320

Welcome to Manderley Academy
I hadn't wanted to go, but my parents were so excited.... So here I am, the new girl at Manderley, a true fish out of water. But mine's not the name on everyone's lips. Oh, no.
It's Becca Normandy they can't stop talking about. Perfect, beautiful Becca. She went missing at the end of last year, leaving a spot open at Manderley—the spot that I got. And everyone acts like it's my fault that infallible, beloved Becca is gone and has been replaced by not perfect, completely fallible, unknown Me.
Then, there's the name on my lips—Max Holloway. Becca's ex. The one boy I should avoid, but can't. Thing is, it seems like he wants me, too. But the memory of Becca is always between us. And as much as I'm starting to like it at Manderley, I can't help but think she's out there, somewhere, watching me take her place.
Waiting to take it back.

I received an ARC copy of this book through NetGalley.

In the beginning, what sold me on this book is seeing "Manderley." Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca is one of my favorite books, and when I hear Manderley, I instantly think, Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again... What I didn't realize was that New Girl IS actually a retelling of Rebecca, which is very exciting...

Lately I've been very careful about choosing Young Adult titles because I feel most of them are a repetition of one another. This, however, did not disappoint me; it was different, and it did a very good job of paying tribute to one of the much-loved classics of all time. The main character is a pretty regular teenage girl from Florida who ends up at Manderley Academy, a boarding school far, far from her home. This isn't a troubling situation as you think because apparently she dreamed of going to boarding school when she was younger, and her parents made it happen when there was an opening at the school.

For those of you who haven't read Maurier's Rebecca, I don't know how you might picture Manderley, but the image I head in my head the entire time was what Du Maurier had created. And, I must say, it worked very well with the story. The main character's name isn't mentioned toward the end of the story, so I'm not going to tell you what it is. She (the main character) finds out when she arrives at the school that she's a replacement for a girl who had disappeared. Her name was Becca, she dated the most popular, unattainable boy at school, and she was loved by everybody. Becca's friends, some cruel, some alright, very much treat her as a replacement, which doesn't help her "new girl" status at all.

We get the present story from the New Girl's point of view, and Becca tells us what's happening when she was around. This I enjoyed a great deal because it gives great insight to the story itself. It's interesting to see how very different yet the same the two girls are. Apart from being attracted to the same boys, sharing the same room, bed and roommate, they're both insecure in their own skin. New Girl, however, stands up for herself and tries to find reasoning behind people's behavior against her. She doesn't lash out right away, until she's very much fed up, and that I quite appreciated. Let's face it, who likes a "Me! Me! Me!" type, whiny and self absorbed teen, right? 

Right, but that's exactly the type of teenager Becca is. She wants to be adored, wants to be the most popular, date the hottest guy in school because he's unattainable while she sleeps around with his best friend... I must admit I also appreciated the author not trying to hide the fact that teenagers DO have sex whether is right or not. I'm not going to name names, but some YA authors go out of their way to keep the sex out of the picture. This is very unrealistic when we know and THEY know what's actually going on.

Other than that, New Girl is a story about the relationship between these kids, and what certain kinds of situations will do to people's lives. I think Harbison did a great job with the flow of the story, and I very much enjoyed the suspense and the complications. You're gonna want to read this till the end even if just to find out what New Girl's name is.

On a different note, the one thing that really bugged me about the story was how and why New Girl ended up at Manderley Acamedy. I've mentioned before that she had wanted to go to boarding school at one point. But her reasoning for it was that she watched Harry Potter, and boarding school looked cool. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't think Harry Potter makes anyone yearn for boarding school unless one's absolutely sure it's a school of witchcraft and wizardry. 

New Girl by Paige Harbison will hit the shelves on January 31st.

Book Review: Owl in Love by Patrice Kindl

Owl, 14, is charmingly offbeat; she hangs out at night in a tree near the home of her one love--science teacher Mr. Lindstrom. What makes her nocturnal vigils relatively easy is that she's a ``wereowl'' whose nightly transformation ruffles her feathers no more than does her diet of rodents. Wereowls run in the family, so Owl is comfortable with her identity, though the efforts demanded by her one-sided love are wearing her a bit ragged. When she observes a boy lurking near Mr. Lindstrom's home, the stage is set for shedding the schoolgirl crush for a more transcendent romance. Owl's perspective is no birdbrained view; readers are soon solidly immersed in her wild, wise, and witty ways. Lofty phrasing, wry self-awareness, and passionate musings frame and fill a delightful first-person narration. Owl's quaint parents play several scenes for humor and have foibles enough to complete Owl's typical teenage alienation. The tidying up at the end is a little overneat and abbreviated; otherwise, an unusually strong and original first novel.

I've been thinking about how to review this book, but I was mostly drawing blanks, so I'll just type it as it comes... I haven't read too much YA fiction, but I must say this was very, very different from those that I did read. That's something to be appreciated, but it just didn't work for me. Maybe it's because I'm way too old for this book, I don't know, but I didn't feel any connection with Owl. Honestly, mostly she just creeped me out...

Owl's a 14-year-old girl, who's also a shape shifter. And as you can guess from her name, she shifts into an owl. Her blood is black, unlike humans', which gives her skin a weird color, but people at school don't seem to care much about it. Before I get to her being in love with her science teacher, I'd like to say a couple of more things about her... She turns into an owl at night and hunts. She doesn't eat human food at all. She's seen microwaves in magazines, but jumps when it beeps. And her parents are just way off-beat for my taste, having nothing to do with the human world yet living in it. 

I felt like Owl was more of an owl than human. But then she always finishes her homework and is a good student. I just didn't understand why she even bothered going to school and studying when she has no intention of blending in and is condescending toward humans. Is it just because she gets to be in love with her science teacher? I don't know. But that creeped me out too.

Obviously, her science teacher, Mr. Lindstorm is way, way older than her. Being an "owl" though, as she puts it, she's pretty sure he's her destined mate. And when she tells her parents about this, they get all excited and tell her they should get married, which was one of my biggest WTF moments, honestly. Another one is her watching Mr. Lindstorm's room through his window at night, when she's in owl form. It was okay in the beginning because I thought, "you're 14 and in love, of course you're gonna wanna watch at every chance you get," but I draw the line at her giving us the brand and size of his underwear. That was just way more than I wanted to know.

Through Mr. Lindstorm, however, Owl gets to find a boy who's a shape shifter just like her. At this point, I honestly couldn't take anything seriously because, like I've said, the entire thing just felt way too weird and at times kinda ridiculous to me. Like when she puts a rat in between two slices of bread and eats it. I have a soft spot for owls, but I couldn't even watch Ratatouille without getting grossed out, so you my point.

If you're looking for a quick, different teen read, then you should check this out. Judging by the reviews I've read, there are people who list it among their favorites and read it over and over again, so it's worth giving it a try.

Book Review: Vampire Academy (VA #1) by Richelle Mead

Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy #1)
by Richelle Mead

St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school—it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s—the very place where they’re most in danger. . . . Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi—the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires—make Lissa one of them forever.

I was very excited when I finally got my hands on this book. I've been hearing a lot of positive reviews about the series, and I wanted badly to start reading them. The one downside to that has been the fact that I apparently had very high expectations-- I was pretty much waiting to be blown away. Well, that didn't happen. I liked the book, and it's a quick, fun read, but it didn't live up to the hype.

Richelle Mead's vampire world is easy to get into and relate to. We have the Moroi, who are the good, "living" vampires, and then we have the Strigoi, who are the evil, "dead" vampires. Then, there are the dharmirs, who are the children of Moroi fathers and human mothers, and they become guardians to the Moroi. Our narrator, Rose, is a dharmir. And she's the guardian-to-be and best friend of Lissa, who's a Moroi princess.

For me, what kept me reading was the relationship between these two girls. Theirs is a very strong one, made even stronger by the bond that they share. Rose will risk her life to save Lissa's, and Lissa cares as much about her as well. Protecting Lissa is the reason why Rose ran away from The Academy and took her with her. But, of course, they find themselves back there and deal with the rumors and everything together, as well as other, rather intense, situations. Lissa is calmer and somewhat nicer. Rose tends to lash out on people when she's pissed, and she's a well-known trouble maker.

Both their back stories and current stories seemed to drag for me. And they seemed a bit too repetitive. There were many examples of Lissa using compulsion (which is considered "magic" in Mead's world) as if saying, "you got it?" And you pretty much get it the first time. The mysteries about her magical powers are quiet easily guessed, and the only "whoa!" moments came within the last 50-or-so pages. The fact that the Moroi deal with magic and specialize on elements was a rather interesting event, but I didn't get to find out about it as much as I'd like to. We find out Christian specializes in fire, and toward the end we find out Victor and his daughter Natalie specialize in earth, but I think that's pretty much it.

For me, the most interesting characters were Christian and Dimitri. Christian is a Moroi invisible to others because his parents turned Strigoi by choice. And Dimitri is a guardian at The Academy who's in charge of training Rose. I'm not going to talk about what happens with them because I don't want to give any big spoilers, but I would definitely like to read more about them.

There were also some things that flat out bugged me about Mead's vampire world. The school environment felt a bit Gossip-Girl-goes-vampire, but then there were times when I nearly forgot I was reading a vampire story. I also never thought there would be a church at a vampire school, let alone most of the students' being Eastern Orthodox Christians. Church-going, god-fearing vampires just feels wrong. And I didn't like that fact that when someone lets a vampire bite them during sex, it's considered "dirty," and they're accused of being blood whores. Oh, and, there were way too many typos in the book.

I think my Vampire Academy adventure pretty much ends here. I'll probably check out the rest of the books if I can, but I'm in no rush. I do want to check out her adult series though. I feel like they'd be more up my alley.